Hot Pot and Old Street

Our destination last night was Old Street Sanxia, which is a famous tourist destination.  We rode the bus together with P/A, then walked around the area to see the large ornamented gates into Old Town, then across a wide, decorated footbridge over the river with views of the mountains in the distance.  There are little pagodas along the edge of the bridge, and stone lions all along the railings.  Then we saw one of the oldest and most famous Buddhist temples in Taiwan - very detailed ornamentation throughout.  It was a little like European Cathedrals in one sense, that there were many side alcoves in honor of different "gods" (like to the saints in cathedrals).  Obviously this was very Asian looking however!!  Someone had brought an offering of a watermelon in front of the main altar. 



Then we continued to the famous Old Street area, just around the corner from the temple.  It is a narrow street with brick arches on both sides and many, many shops along the sides.  Our hotel manager told us it was remodeled about 5 years ago, but it still looks just like it did in 1916 during the Japanese occupation.  It was originally built by the Japanese, so it's typical of their architecture.  We had some bullhorn croissants -- from 2 different stores.  Again going with the "dessert first" theory, we started with ice cream cones in bullhorn croissants at P/A's favorite little shop.  Then we went to the original bullhorn shop and got 4 different varieties, and all shared all the flavors to taste them all!  We must have looked crazy reaching across all directions between ourselves to offer bites.  LOL!!  We had strawberry (A), cranberry/almond (P), brown sugar (T). and cream cheese (M) --- I think we each enjoyed all the others, but liked our own choice best!!  Tim and I want to to back to Old Street another day to do some souvenir shopping, since we haven't purchased anything yet. 

On the bridge to Old Town Sanxia just before dusk.

Many of the old bridges have these lions on the railings.

Gateway into Old Sanxia

Looking through the gateway onto the pedestrian bridge.

There are these little covered look-out areas on the pedestrian bridge

Overlooking Sanxia from the bridge

Eating at the Hot Pot restaurant - we each have our individual pots of soup to cook all our food!

One of the oldest and most famous temples in Taiwan is in Sanxia

The main altar in the temple

Ice cream in a bullhorn croissant cone - you can tell Paul loves these!!  :-)

The girl in the bullhorn croissant shop serving the ice cream - wearing a bullhorn cap

One of the narrow side-streets in Old Town Sanxia

The original bullhorn shop - it's traditional to take a picture with the "bullhorns" on your head. 

Next, we went to a Hot Pot restaurant - which is a typical Asian concept.  At the table, there are four holes with hot plates and individual temperature controls.  You order your type of soup, then they bring a metal pot of soup for each person and place it in the hole to heat up.  Paul had spicey (the waitress suggested just a little spicey, and it was plenty hot for him!!), Tim and Alana had tomato, and I had miso.  The soup is just the broth.  All were delicious!!  Then it was a HUGE buffet area where you go around and pick up the uncooked items to cook yourself in your soup pot.  (Kind of like Hu-Hot but much more selection of foods!!)  There was a guy slicing off the fresh meats - beef, lamb, pork and chicken - many vegetables (known and unknown) - noodles of all sorts - rice of course - and lots of things I have NO idea what they are.  Everything we tried was so good!!  There was also a huge fresh fruit bar, salad bar, dessert bar, ice cream, many beverages, and a chocolate fountain for dipping.  T/P dipped marshmallows, and A/M dipped cute little sticks a little bigger than our small pretzel sticks, but they tasted like a cookie/graham cracker - yum!!  All this for less than $10 each.  No going away hungry there!!  We are also getting pretty good at eating with chopsticks, since some of the places we've eaten don't even offer silverware!!   :-)  

During our meal, there was a huge storm!!  It would rival the worst thunderstorms in Iowa except there was no hail here.  Lightning, very loud thunder (little kids in the restaurant screamed a few times!), driving rain, and a lot of wind.  We were so thankful the storm hit after we were settled inside the hot-pot restaurant!!  We were afraid the typhoon was hitting, since P/A said it was the worst storm they'd seen here in Taiwan.  But after a while the weather calmed down a little, and there was just some rain by the time we were ready to head back.  We popped out our trusty umbrellas that are in our backpacks at all times, and went out to catch the bus.  The rain had lightened to just a light sprinkle by the time we got off the bus near our hotel.  Paul's scooter had stayed dry with the new cover, though all around the bus stop there was evidence of the ferocious wind - advertising flagpoles on the ground, and banners askew, etc.  We headed back to the hotel to read the daily paper in bed - we have an English newspaper under our door each morning - lights out by 10:00!! 

Today we'll head into Taipei again to see the Palace Museum and explore more.  Still hoping the typhoon swings to the north and misses Taiwan!!  

Love,
-M and T-