July Randomness

I often see something while out on the street and say, "That would make great blog material!" But it never works its way into any meaningful storyline so it ends up just a photo on my phone's memory card. So I think I will publish a monthly-ish photo album of the stuff that gets lost, but is still significant to defininig Taiwan. So here it goes:

This was at the aboriginal village amusement park near Sun Moon Lake and has to be the largest crane game I have ever seen. If they only filled the holding tank with misbehaved children, it would be a fun game to play.

This is a hot dog stand in Shi-Da. Of significance is that they consider the Chicago dog to be the staple of hot dogs which is a bit outside the mainstream even in the States. Much respect.

Shirley visiting Tucker in quarrantine. She goes 3 times per week. Fortunately, he only has another week left.

On the way to quarrantine you can pass through NTU campus and they have a small wetland sanctuary with this strange looking bird that hangs out quite close to the balcony. This old Taiwanese lady thought it would be entertaining to try and hit him with her umbrella. I wanted to throw her in but there were no crocodiles so it would be pointless. 

Here is the Taipei Truth Church. I only had to travel 10k miles to find THE church that is about truth. Phew!

This is a bratwurst and sausage shop that uses a Dachshund silhouette in their logo. Art imitating life?

An entire bakery dedicated to Hello Kitty.

Banana flavored beer. Sounds gross, actually tasted pretty good, if you like bananas. They have some other wacky fruit flavors. Will report back...

This is the end of our block. This guy keeps chickens and lets them roam free during the day. Luckily we are on the 8th floor so we don't hear the rooster in the morning.

This is the next street over. Another chicken farmer.

"Rabbit Rabbit" in Da-An is a popular western style brunch place. Some people take things too far as they were passing around a rabbit mask and taking photos of each other.

In a crowded shopping district there lies a pig pen. Not sure if this was a pet or tonight's dinner.

This was in front of an otherwise normal clothing store. The mascot's shirt says "Looking 4 Poonanie". There is an overabundance of inappropriate slogans on T-shirts and such here. One young girl working behind the counter at a breakfast shop with her father had on a shirt that said "Barely Legal". I wonder if they have any clue what half this stuff means?

There were these large sculptures in front of a corporate building. You can barely make out Shirley in the left armpit.

I have been asked to post more street food related stuff. This place has two offerings. On the left, you grab a basket and some tongs and choose from meats, vegetables and dry noodles. They weigh your basket and then cook it all up into a custom soup for you. On the right, they make a flavored pancake and then wrap it up with egg, bacon, cjheese, ham, kimchi, etc. Quite tasty!

Last but not least, "Essential Beer" from Korea. Couldn't have said it better myself.