Lunch was actually incredible delicious and way more western than lunches I received on the mainland. It was a serve yourself style with rice, a pork and potato in a sauce dish, a corn dish, greens, tofu and tomato soup (I still avoid tofu when I can) and bananas. It was actually incredibly delicious. Interestingly, they eat slightly differently here in that they always use a spoon in addition to their chopsticks so we can kind of scoop the food instead of having to pick it up piece by piece.
After lunch we were free to go so we headed back into Taiwan (why not? We have to make hay while the sun shines – and with the rain we have forecasted, that’s now). Our first stop was Taipei’s famed Longshan Temple. Now, this is when the day got REALLY interesting. I have been to many temples in China and Taiwan and never did I experience this. First, the place was BUZZING with people and noise and smells and food and flowers and incense and prayers. There was a huge tent in front and there were giant bouquets of flowers lining the outer walls. There were people coming out of side doors with plates and buying every kind of packaged and fresh food you can think of and putting it up as offerings. Hundreds of people were walking around with lit incense sticks as well and Jen was nervous especially seeing one man with two burn marks on his shirt. The oddest observation was watching people say a prayer then drop two red half-moon shaped wooden pieces to the ground (making a loud noise) then picking them up and doing it again. We felt utterly out of place so didn’t stay too long.
I then prepared to bed and pulled aside my curtains to check for spiders. A big lizard (bigger than my hand) was sitting on my screen! Talk about getting lots of heebie jeebies in one night! Eeeek! Unlike Jen, I managed to sleep just fine, though and got ready for my first day of teaching!