day 33! shilin night market

My first REAL free day! Unhindered, alone, with no plans. :D Alone. :| All alone. :( Uhuu.... :'(

Hehe jp. So I have about a week of "free play" time, where I'm by myself with nothing scheduled. I guess that can be a good or bad thing. On the upside, it's liberating to have complete freedom. On the downside, it's dangerous to have such lack of accountability...

But it's day 1 of free play, so of course I'm determined to make the most of it. :) Didn't really know what to do during the day so I just rested, hung around. At night I planned to go to Shilin night market and do some more shopping, cuz it's such a big night market, and I dunno. Easiest to shop when you're by yourself I guess. :) And what else am I gonna do here???

Haha so when I stepped out of the apartment, at about 6pm, I saw the garbage truck outside!! For those of you that don't know (I certainly didn't know til I came here, this trip), the garbage system in Taiwan is pretty different from home. Instead of you dumping garbage in cans, and a garbage truck coming by to pick it up, the garbage truck comes and sits outside, and YOU go to IT. Actually as I'm typing this I'm pretty sure I've typed it before. Oh yah! I did. :p Derp. When we went with my cousin to go dump garbage.

Anyway at our apartment, we don't really know what time the garbage trucks come. It's usually once a day, with maybe one or two days a week where they don't come. But we didn't know what time, or what to do.....so we've been sneakily (and guiltily) bringing our trash to the public trash cans in the MRT station and dumping it in there (even though it SPECIFICALLY says "not for household garbage"). We kinda covertly saunter over to them, glance to make sure the station attendant isn't watching, and then shove it all in. It is the worst part of my day. :(

But today, I cracked the code!! Solved the puzzle!! I left the apartment with my little bag of guilt, and there was the garbage truck, parked right outside!! I kind of hesitantly meandered over, unsure of what to do. One of the garbage people noticed my trepidation though, and gestured me over. "What is that?" "umm....(not sure what to say" "What kind of trash?" "eh?? O_O" He grabs the bag and looks inside. "Ok." And took it and turned away.

Yessss!! Successful trash day! :) So now I know that trash is at 6pm. Usually you can hear it coming, too, it sounds like an ice cream truck song. But when you run outside all excited, you find out it's........trash.

Anyway. The excitement over with, I head off to Shilin night market. :)

So I've been to Shilin what, 2, 3 times already this trip? But it is a very sprawling night market. I thought that I'd covered all the ground already (Michael and I explored pretty extensively) but this time I wandered into a small alley way (that had a bunch of shops in it) that I hadn't encountered before.

There was one stand that had a bunch of people in front, squatting near some open water tanks. Now that's not too unusual of a sight here -- when we were young we would often play the fish scooping carnival game, where you get a net/hoop with a thin sheet of paper over it that you can use to try and ladle up tiny fish. If you scoop too slowly, the fish dart away, but if you scoop too quickly, the force of water against the thin paper mesh will rip a hole in it, ending your game. You can keep scooping until your net becomes useless, at which point you have to buy a new net. :)

So seeing people crowded over water tanks isn't too odd. But what caught my eye was that....a lot of the people playing were older (usually it's kids), and instead of little fish, it was prawns! Curious, I hung in the back and watched.

They weren't using nets to catch the prawns (shrimp?), they had little ghetto fishing hooks, that were just a thin bamboo skewer, and a 3 pronged claw dangling off of it from a string. You use the claw to hook onto a part of the prawn (the kinks in the shell, some legs, whatever you can get to catch on) and then lift the prawn and drop it into a bucket. Same thing, you can keep using the claw until it breaks. Usually the claw won't catch on strong enough and the prawn will fall as you're lifting it into the bucket.

So I'm like ohh, pretty cool variation! The people doing the fishing sure thought so. Turns out they were Japanese tourists and kept "sugeeeee"ing everything (sugeee = sugoi, slangified). Then one of the guys caught one, and I was like oh nice now he gets to take it home. :D

CHIGAU. T_T They called the stand owner over, he picked up the shrimp, and as I watched, horror stricken, he impales it on a skewer, throws some seasoning on it, and starts grilling it. WHILE IT'S WRIGGLING AND SQUIRMING. omg. omgomgomg. I know they are just crustaceans and who knows if they even feel anything but.... D:

The executioner's block.

Another shot of the setup.

Like a true journalist, I swallowed my revulsion long enough to capture the gory scene in a video to show you guys. Unfortunately the stupid sugeee clowns kept prancing gleefully in front of my camera so it was really hard to get a good shot. If you watch real close though, you can see the little guy's feelers and legs waving around. :( :(

Yes, I am all about sensationalist journalism.

Shortly after, as Gob so aptly puts it, "I('ve) made a terrible mistake". D: (Arrested Development). Hahaha I love Gob. Anyway! Probably not interesting to anyone but I do want to document it so I will remember it in the future and never make the same mistake again! T_T

So a while back at Shida, I got this really simple dress. Like, block colors, no crazy sequin/lace bling...kind of like a plain white tee but instead it's a dress. Most boutiques, small shops, and stands here don't have any way for you to try on clothing. I think it's the way all across Asia. At first it was a bit of a shock, coming from a culture where you always try everything on (even underwear?!?!) but you get used to it. Most people just kind of hold it up to themselves and look in the mirror and you get a general idea of how it would look on you. And for the most part I know what cut is flattering for me so it's not too too hard to shop. But it is always a gamble. :p lol.

So I got this plain dress and I got home and tried it on and miracle of miracle, it fit like a glove! I really liked it. So I was like oh, I saw a bunch of colors, I want to get all the colors!!! (cuz it was like $5/dress and with all the colors I will never have to shop ever again :D) I had meant to go back to Shida but while walking through Shilin I saw the same dress....with all the colors >) So I'm like suhweeeet and got 6 different colors. Fast forward 3 hours later, I get home and try them on.......................omg. It is sort of the same dress? Same general cut? But SLIGHTLY different. And different brand (didn't notice since it looked so similar). And this one is not nearly as nice. T_T It's a little big and is not flattering. BOOOOOOOOOOOO I was so mad at myself. Cuz now I fucking have 6 of them!!! This is what I get for trying to be economical and smart. FUUUUUUUUUUUU.

Lesson learned. (or so I thought. /foreshadowing)

Other than that though, the rest of the night went alright.

Got an almond drink here (almond tea?). The smell coming from this stand is amaaaaazing, it smells like a wellspring of almond tofu. :D

Michael's favorite shenjianbao stand.

Watermelon juice from this place, even though I really wanted bing. :( But no one to share it with.

Trying to capture some more street fashion for Janet. :) Mmm Shilin has a mix of young and older people. Like I said, it's a really big night market so it's got something for everyone.

Another! This one shows some of the "illegal" stands in the middle of the street.

I wandered far enough to make it over to the "commercialized" section of Shilin. Usually we only make it to the old area, and sometimes the food court (which is right next to the commercialized section). For some reason there are a ton of carnival games in this section, like darts and whatnot. There is also this....angry birds game. Direct translation. You take the angry bird plushies in the front, and try to knock out the piggies in the grid.

There are also sometimes stands for acupressure/massage, but this one was kind of special. They take these fan-like things, and rap you repeatedly with them. It...is...pretty dumb looking and I don't see how it would do anything to help at all. :3 lol

And here is a stand for penis cake! Their motto is "a piece of gayke". Classic.........

Tradition meets commercialism? Food stands right in front of a temple entrance.

An open-air stand where all the clothes are hung up on hangers. This is as opposed to say, a boutique or something, which tend to have clothes racks and all. These seem like a pain cuz I think you have to take all the clothes down and hang them all up every day.

One more "crowd" shot in a pretty crowded area. :)

Mmm but yah, nothing else worth mentioning. :) Bought some more stuff, a couple of snacks for dinner, and then home. OH! Except for the llama hat that I bought!!!!!!!!! Probably one of my favorite things that I've bought so far. ^^ ^^ ^^

Gyaaaaaa!!!!!!