Last weekend I went to a Taiwanese baseball game– the Brothers versus the Rhinos.  Even though their team names sound kind of corny, Taiwan is actually very good at baseball.  Between the two teams, there were players from the Blue Jays, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, and the Mariners.  And to think my ticket was only $13 USD!  Unlike American stadiums, vendors weren’t offering overpriced popcorn and beer in the aisles every two minutes.  In Taiwan, you can bring your own food and drinks into the stadium.  And the atmosphere was similar to a soccer stadium.  Fans chanted the entire time, a marching band played in between the innings, synchronized cheerleaders pumped their fists, and people waved giant flags.  There are only four teams in the whole country, and from what I understand they play a full season, so there a lot of repeat match ups.  The Brothers are supposedly the best team in Taiwan, and their fans were a lot more into the game than the Rhinos fans were.  I was on the Rhinos side.  But it was fun to hear the other side chant “I love you” to different players and watch them go crazy after a home run.  The Brothers probably had four or five home runs throughout the game.  Not a good day to be a Rhinos fan.  Generally, people consider Japan to be the best at baseball in Asia, then South Korea, then Taiwan, which is pretty impressive if you consider how small Taiwan is compared to its competition.

The next day was Susan’s birthday dinner!  Susan is my Canadian friend from training who knows Mandarin and is just all-around cool.  She’s a good friend to have, not only because of these reasons, but also because she got everyone together to celebrate her birthday.  It was so fun to see everyone and hear about their first week of teaching.  I think the best story from the first week is that Matt, from Britain, had to climb out of a school window to escape the police.  That one is hard to top.  Technically, a foreigner teaching English to preschoolers is illegal in Taiwan because “it will diminish their understanding of their own language,” or something like that.  However, everyone does it anyway, and there’s a huge demand for this kind of education in Taiwan, so the police “look the other way” and it’s almost never enforced, much like jaywalking.  I was asked not to wear my HESS t-shirt at my kindie class for this reason.  Julia, my American roommate from the hotel, took a photo of an INSANE spider that was in her classroom. She made her class move into a different room.  I don’t blame her.

Exhibit A

But anyway, back to Susan’s birthday.  We had a family-style dinner, sharing a variety of steamed dumplings and other dishes.

Happy Birthday, Susan!

Then we split two giant mango shaved ices, hands down the best shaved ice flavor out there.  There were also strawberries and kiwis, but everything and everyone is secondary to mangoes when they’re involved.

This speaks for itself.

Earlier that day, I met up with my friend from the TUSA scholarship, Sean.  He traveled pretty far to come hangout, so I’m very thankful he came!  He picked a restaurant across the street from my apartment, and it was so delicious.  I absolutely need to go back.  I can’t believe I’ve never been there!  Well, I guess I can believe I haven’t been there since the whole menu was in Mandarin.  I’ve been avoiding those places because I don’t know how or what to order, leaving a very limited and unhealthy list of options.  But, the good news is that I was able to hover my phone over a menu at a different restaurant today using Google Translate and successfully order what I thought I ordered.  I plan to use this a lot more.  I’m tired of eating pizza when I KNOW there’s way better options, I just don’t know what anything says, so sometimes they’re hard to find.  But I’m slowly uncovering them.  More on some of my “exciting food finds” in a little bit.

Lunch was amazing, and then Sean and I went to Bitan, an area on the outskirts of Taipei, and looked for pokemon near the river.  Pokemon Go came out the day beforehand and literally EVERYONE, young and old, is playing it.  People pull over in their cars and scooters to catch pokemon.  Huge crowds of people meander around the park catching pokemon at night because it’s cool outside.  I’m talking more than 100 people.  Glance at anyone’s phone, and yep, you’ve confirmed your suspicion: they’re playing Pokemon Go.  People don’t even try to hide it here, there’s no shame in playing.  They go out in groups and stop in the middle of the sidewalk.  I’ve seen couples playing together, parents playing with their kids.  People had the app installed on their phones before it even came out, just awaiting its arrival in Taiwan.  Pokemon aside, the river was gorgeous and there were all kinds of animal boats you could rent– whales, cats, geese, you name it.

There were a lot of cute dogs by the river too.  Obviously I had to snap a few shots.  Disclaimer: bottom right photo is taken post-birthday dinner; this dog is Alexandra’s, an American girl in our training group.  She bought him in Taiwan!

As promised, back to the “exciting food finds.”  Taiwan has a lot of American fast food restaurants, so of course I’m familiar with those, and they always have English on their menus.  So, it’s an easy out if I’m starving and I don’t want to take the time and energy to be adventurous and find a new place.  I know that all of the best places have Mandarin menus, and I even know how to say a lot of foods in Mandarin.  I just don’t know the Mandarin characters very well, and at many of these restaurants you have to mark down  what you want on a sheet of paper.  Taiwan has Subway, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Texas Roadhouse, and probably even more American chains that I haven’t come across yet.  I admit, I did get a pizza on one of those “I’m-exhausted-and-starving” nights.  But, I learned something!  Pizzas come in a bow here, I guess!  It felt like Christmas morning opening my Hawaiian pizza and biting into the familiar greasy cheese.

Then I was like, “I seriously need to stop eating pizza” and “I’m going to try harder next time to search for something local.”  So, I was thrilled to find a couple of awesome places near my work.  On Saturdays, there’s a bustling market on the street next to my branch.  Walking down the street, I passed fruit, vegetables, baskets of fish, noodles, bread, clothing, shoes, everything you could imagine.  People on scooters dodged people on foot down the crowded road.  I was so excited to see a vegetable that I impulse-bought a ton of them– two heads of broccoli, asparagus, a yellow bell pepper, and an onion.  And then I got a mango and some fresh bread because I couldn’t resist.  The street was packed with people considering their purchases, vendors calling out their deals.  So many scents filled the air– fish, sweat, the exhaust from passing scooters.  Everything and everyone, smells included, baked in the hot sun of Saturday morning.

Look, Mom!  I’m cooking vegetables!

One of the Taiwanese teachers at my school recommended I go to a different market street nearby for lunch.  Alas, I found so many delicious food stalls.  I was able to point to things and order using some shoddy Mandarin.  I found a chicken sandwich stand where they pull the meat off a rotating pole and stuff it into a bun with lettuce and couple different sauces.  Heaven only costs $1.50 USD.  Then across the street, there was another stand.  I was surprised they had an English menu, but pleased.  I ordered the garlic chicken, spicy.  The garlic cloves saturated the heap of veggies, and the red chillies gave the chicken a strong kick.  Even though the man I ordered from couldn’t say much in English, he was able to tell me that the rice was free.  I dug some out of a large communal pot, and it balanced out the fiery chicken.

I look forward to continuing my “treasure hunt” for both pokemon and exciting food finds.  I hatched my first ever pokemon egg here, and it was a Rhyhorn (aka a rhinoceros).  Maybe it was because I went to the baseball game and sat on the Rhinos side.  Maybe it wasn’t.  I’ll never know.