Continued from Taiwan Day 2.

Slept better last night. Went to bed at around 10:30 and got up at 6:00. Not too bad.

Plan today is to go to Sun Moon Lake with my aunt and my sister. It’s one of the few ok tourist places in Taiwan. I probably haven’t been there in 20 years.

Wax apple for breakfast. Delicious.

Well, this is the real breakfast of champions here. Not Wheaties, but egg pudding and Mr. Brown Coffee.

Taken from my sister’s apartment’s balcony. It’s looking to be a nice sunny day.

While on the way to pick up my aunt, my sister pointed out to me that cars in Taiwan with license plates that ends with two repeating letters are leased and not bought. Interesting.

Look at all those mopeds!

Some bubble tea. Did you know that bubble tea started in Taiwan?

Driving out into the country with mountains.

Lots of tunnels here. Where’s my air cooled flat 6 when I need it?

Betel nut trees grown all over the mountains. Apparently, betel nut trees have a very shallow root system and their cultivation on the mountain causes a lot of mud slides.

Getting close.

We are here!

Wild boar sausage. Saw this at a row of stands that sells souvenirs and food.

Hard boiled egg marinated in tea leaf, star anise, and other spices.

This lady is semi famous. She’s worked at this very spot selling these eggs for 50 years! Assuming she sells 200 eggs a day on average. 200x50x365=3,650,000. Holy shit! She’s made over three million eggs!

This is the temple across from the food stands. Things like this are a dime a dozen in Taiwan, so I didn’t even walk in to look.

Time to try the sausage.

Doesn’t it look like I am crying? The sausage was good. They have a sweet tooth in this region so the sausage was very much on the sweet side.

My sister is a vegetarian and she had a sticky rice sausage. Can you even call it a sausage if it’s vegetarian?

After our quick food stop, we drove along the road outlining the lake to our next destination.

Time for our cable car ride.

Random quote from my sister. We were talking about something around this time and she said “it’s scarier to find a half eaten cockroach in your food than none at all. Ignorance is bliss.”

Let’s go!

Up and up we go.

Ugh, I hate heights.

Beautiful view from up here. Sun Moon Lake is located high up above sea level in the middle of mountains.

Ahhh, very nice view.

The end of the cable car station dropped us off at the entrance of this Aboriginal Taiwanese culture themed park. None of us really wanted to pay the extra money to go in, so we broke out our snacks and ate inside the station instead.

The tea leaf marinated egg. You first boil it, then you crack open the shell in many different spots so that when you cook it in the marinade, the flavor will soak in the egg through the cracks.

The cracked shell leaves a marbled exterior and the marinade soaks all the way into the egg. Yum.

Milk tea with egg pudding. Love egg pudding.

This winged insect decided to land on my sister’s purse, then thought that it was the perfect time to shed its wings. It was very odd.

We took our time eating our snack/lunch. The weather was much cooler up here by the lake in the mountains which added to the enjoyment of our meal. After eating, we decided to go back to the cable car and then drive around the lake just to look around.

The sign in the cable car. I don’t have food. I don’t have cigarettes. I don’t have trash.

This is the best that I can do.

Bee, please don’t sting me. I think you are the bee’s knee.

Saw this when we drove to the other side of Sun Moon Lake. I heard this is one of only two Starbucks in Nantou county.

Look at all the awesome desserts that they offer at this Starbucks. I love taking photos of the food offerings from Starbucks around the world. I think the US Starbucks have the most uninspiring food.

They do have a nice view from this Starbucks though.

Don’t sugar me. OK.

Hey Fructose! I took this photo the first day I got to Taiwan when this came with my coffee. It’s interesting that they don’t usually offer you sugar with your coffee, but will literally ask if you would like fructose as your sweetener.

Don’t call PETA. Actually, please call PETA. I love naked girls, even if they are attention whore protesters.

A lot of the mountain roads here in Taiwan have open drains on the mountain side. Stay in the line, or you are screwed.

Apparently, there are these really small mosquitoes that are ferocious blood suckers. This is a sign from the government showing how many bites we can expect in a 20 minute period.

My aunt said that this is a type of eggplant. Interesting.

Hard the see the welts because these small black mosquitoes are really small. They are more like the size of gnats than mosquitoes. Anyhow, within 5 minutes, I had 7 bites all over my arms. That government sign lied.

The road is for dogs, not cars.

Time to head back to Taichung to my sister’s apartment. Jet lag just kicked in, yo.

After getting back to the apartment, I did some laundry(actually, my sister did it) and then it was time to go eat with my aunt and uncle.

Oh, wait….it’s not that kind of box.

The place we are eating at is the restaurant inside this hotel.

We are one of the first ones here. The restaurant would eventually fill up during our dinner.

We ate ridiculous amounts of different dishes between the four of us. There are even some photos of food that I left out.

Halfway through our dinner, this lady came out and started playing a Guzheng(Chinese string instrument).

Frog legs.

There! Finally done with dinner.

After dinner, I tried to go to the local night market with my sister, but they were closed on Thursday nights. Oh well. Tomorrow, I will probably head to Taipei to, you guessed it, eat more food!

To be continued at Taiwan Day 4.