June 15

We started off the morning with a bang. There is a beef soup place about half a mile from our place that is only open Friday through Monday. They open at 5am and sell out of their soup by about 8am. So I went at about 6:30 am to pick some up for me and Rebecca. It was really delicious. They had raw slices of beef from a cow that supposedly was slaughtered just an hour or so earlier in the morning. Then they just poured the steaming hot broth around the meat and that was supposed to cook it. And that is all there is to the soup – no noodles or anything like that added. We didn’t eat it until I got back to the apartment 10 minutes later. It was all super flavorful and I imagine it would have been ever better if we had eaten it right when we had ordered it. It was still really good though and I am really glad we tried it. However, I think I like the beef noodle soup a little better since it has the vegetables and noodles and stuff in it. It was a little different having a dinner food for breakfast, but I guess that is normal for the Tainan area. In fact, we have had a hard time finding breakfast stores here, because all of the ones that are open are selling the same soups and other dishes that they sell at dinner.

Later in the morning we started on our walk to visit a few more temples in the city. On our way to the first one we found the courthouse museum. They had a lot of cool displays and activities inside, and the children loved going in the jail cells and getting dressed up like judges.

For lunch we found a fried rice place. This was a small, really traditional one just like all of the ones I remember going to so often as a missionary. I watched the cook closely to see if I could pick up on his technique. First he dropped some oil into a hot wok. Then he cracked an egg into it and mixed it up. Then the meat (beef is my favorite kind, but other popular ones are ham, lamb, and shrimp) and vegetables (he had cabbage and shredded carrots). He mixed that a bit, then added the rice and mixed it in. He added a drop more oil at that point and then the seasonings. All he put on it was salt (about ½ a spoonful), pepper (just a shake from his pepper container), and ½ a spoonful of a secret ingredient. I wondered if maybe it was sugar and asked him if it was that. He said no and told me what it was, but I couldn’t understand. So he showed me the bag and I took a picture. (I used that picture at the grocery store and purchased several bags of it to bring home. I am excited for all of the fried rice that I will be able to make with this secret ingredient.) It was so good. By far the best fried rice we have had so far in Taiwan, and we have had other really good ones.

The temples were pretty cool. We just saw two of them that were dedicated to different gods. It always impresses me how intricate these temples are with their carvings all over the walls and pillars. One of the ones we went to was the temple for the god of the underworld. It had etchings on the walls of all of the different ways people are tortured in hell. It has had a giant abacus that is used to calculate your good and bad deeds through your life to determine your state in the underworld.

That evening we went back to our apartment. The children got bakery items on the way home and had ramen noodles. We then set them up with a movie and Rebecca and I (with Asher) went out to get some beef noodle soup. I know I said we wouldn’t go back to that place that we went to earlier, but it was just so good so that is where we went. Since it was just us though we did get to go in and eat inside. They remembered us from the time before and asked where all of our kids went to. They were all very nice this time.

The famed beef soup.


Pretty scary - I wouldn't want to mess with this bunch.










Rebecca looks pretty scary as a criminal. To bad her sign says cute criminal.


In the back of these cells there was a toilet and Christian really wanted to use it. We told him no of course.




I closed the doors on them and even flipped the lock, but Julia was able to reach and get out with her long skinny arms.






All of the kids wanted a turn sitting in what they perceived was the main judge's chair.












The fried rice master!








This sign is another very famous one for Taiwan temples. It says "you are here at last." It is supposed to evoke fear and dread in those who have done wicked deeds and joy and happiness for those who have done good.


The abacus for calculating good vs. bad deeds.



A furnace for burning their worship money.




This was another one of those really small temples from the front, but it was really huge once you got inside.




This was a really huge and hot furnace where they burned the money to send to the gods. It reminded us of some of the furnaces that they talk about in the scriptures where they tried to burn Nephi and Lehi or S, M, & A (I am not even going to attempt to spell their names).




I just took this picture to show a standard street. This one was a bit wider than most that we walk on. We walk right on the road since the sidewalks are always blocked with other things.