Fire, Water and Interesting Foods...

Before leaving the mountain, we stopped at a few places on our way down to Tainan. The first spot was a place where fire and water were coming out of the mountain side at the same place... pretty cool. It must have been some type of flammable gas escaping, since it was making the water bubble at the source and seemed to come out of the cracks in the rock.

Jeff decided to try to 'photo bomb' my pictures that day, stepping in the way of my subject and interrupted quite a few cool shots... but this one of Nai-nai and Ami actually turned out pretty cute, so in one out of 20 shots, it actually worked... not that I am endorsing it, though
Chase hitching a ride on his favorite method of transport, his Baba's shoulders :)
At the place where the water and fire came out at the same area, there was a whole row of vendors selling TONS of food and trinkets.... a shot of the spread of one vendor.
Some were even selling birds they caught in the wild... another (which I couldn't get a discrete photo of) was selling a squirrel who had a necklace with a bell on it! .... "you should have bought a squirrel!" (anyone know that movie quote?)
Also at some of the vendors they were selling stinky tofu. Mr. Tsai bought a portion, and shared it with my parents.... my mom didn't mind it so much (but then again, she is a person that can eat things that have been in the fridge for weeks and just cuts the mold off of fruit and cheese and eats it... ICK), my dad on the other hand gagged when he put it in his mouth, tried to chew and swallow....
but couldn't get past the stinkiness of the tofu....
what a taste!
I didn't get a photo of him spitting in out into a garbage, but I got one of mom laughing at the spectacle... Although my mom did say a short while later that it wasn't so much the initial taste that got you, it was the aftertaste of rotten tofu that lingered that was kind of hard to take. Needless to say, I did NOT try stinky tofu. Just the smell from the vendors was itching my gag reflex. :)
At the end of the line of stalls, there was a honey stand! YAY HONEY! I just absolutely LOVE honey... I try to get some in each country I visit. :) So I got a 'small' bottle, which was not small at ALL! It is huge! Here is the bee keeper taking a section out of the 'hive.'

Looking at the Comb that the guy pulled out of the hive... we got to see the Queen, who was about twice as large and had a dot on her head so it was easy to find her... very cool.

Ordering some cooked pumpkin... Delicious! There was also sweet potato and taro here, which we didn't try... after eating some taro at Jeff's Aunt's house, I wish I had... I really like it!
Chase got it in his head that he wanted Mama to take 'Pi-ture Mama, pi-ture!' and started posing all around the large honey bee statue! I have never asked him to pose before, so this was HILARIOUS to say the least. I counted a total of 27 photos in this photo shoot, and that is not including a whole length of time that I was pretending to take photos to appease him :) Silly boy... here he goes!



(I think this one is my favorite... silly little man, doing a one handed push-up pose)
All done! :) After a while he actually drew a crowd of people, then he got shy and wouldn't pose anymore... everyone really got a kick out of him though :).

We have had quite a bit of un-American food here, which has all been great! ...but for Chase and eventually the rest of us, familiar foods are welcome.... Skippy peanut butter! And we actually got Skippy strawberry jelly also, which is not very sugary, and super fun packaging, but I haven't photographed it yet.

One of the new foods we have tried is a fruit called 'Buddah's Head' ...It looks like a weird artichoke from the outside, but is squishy and has super hard seeds in little 'pods' inside. My dad really likes it :)
Close up of Buddah Head fruit
"Only share with you" cookies....
with interesting English translation: Formula Cookies - in Chinese it is actually supposed to be Milk Powder. 'Swelling agent' - YUM! I LOVE swelling agent! :) HA! I think it is probably supposed to be leavening, or yeast or something... 'Avoid heat many tides' - I have no idea what that is supposed to mean :)