Sunday, September 9, 2018

July 13


We started the day with a garden maze. This sounded pretty cool when we read about it, but when we looked at the pictures online, we couldn’t really tell if the bushes were tall at all. It turned out to be really awesome. It was a big circular maze with an outside section and an inside section. The inside section was made for kids and the bushes were only about 3 feet tall. The outside section was made to be challenging for even adults and the bushes were all close to 6 feet tall. We spent an hour at first just trying to make our way all the way through the outside section. Then we ate some lunch and went back in to play sardines. That was really hard. Agnes, Elliott, and Christian each had a turn being the ones to hide and they would find a spot and crouch down and it would take forever to figure out where they were. By that point we were pretty familiar with the maze so we played a Minotaur game. The kids all started at one end of the maze and their job was to make it to the other end without me, as the Minotaur, catching them. It was pretty challenging. We played it twice and even trying my hardest I could only catch about half of them in a single game. Once they got past me, it was hard to run zig zag through the maze fast enough to catch up with them. After playing there for a while we went to the Lin An Historic House. This was a large older property from a really wealthy family that included several homes, a school house, lakes and rivers and a waterfall, and a small man made mountain to hike on. The buildings were all pretty amazing and it felt like walking through a Chinese martial arts movie like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It was interesting to imagine what life would be like if we lived in this home 400 years ago. They had it set up so they probably never had to leave their property. That night we found a new night market that was probably the best one for food that we found in Taipei. They had all of the foods that we have loved in other places. There was also a guy who talked to us and convinced us to try coagulated pig’s blood. The initial bite wasn’t too bad, but the aftertaste was horrible. Later that night after all of the kids had gone to bed I went off to the airport to pick up Tianna and James. We were all very excited for their visit.



At the garden maze.
















At the Lin An Historic House.































A temple by the night market.





The night market. Even though it was kind of small, this was probably one of my favorite night markets in Taipei for its food.




Pig's blood on a stick - definitely not a favorite.



The kids expressing their displeasure with having to try it.



This was really good. It was a fried dough ball with an egg and oysters on the inside.





I loved the "nutritious" sandwich.



Someone bought the children candied strawberries and tomatoes.



Finishing the night with dessert crepes. Some genuinely happy faces.









No comments: