The Night Market

Everyone told us that we just had to experience the night market in Taipei. We were told that it doesn't really get started until around 10:00 pm, but since that seems to be way past our bedtime these days, we headed off on the metro about 6:00 pm to see what we could. Well, I think it was just as well we weren't there for the later crowd. Even at 6:30 there were hundreds of people and stalls. We wandered around the food market and sampled various dishes, most of which we still don't know what they were. The sounds and smells were overwhelming.

Kelly decided to round out the evening with a pineapple frostie. Campbell was a little more daring and had a I-can't-remember-what frostie. It was something that none of us had ever heard of, but are assuming it is some kind of fruit.

From the food stalls, we moved on to the merchant street. Along a very long road there are the store fronts, then about a foot of sidewalk, then a stall on the sidewalk, then about 2 feet of road, a stall in the middle of the road and then the pattern continues on the other side. Combine that with hundreds of shoppers and you have pandemonium. After working our way down the street for about an hour, we had only made it about half way. That was enough for us for one evening and we took the metro back to our quiet hostel. I just can't even imagine what it must be like when it really gets going later at night!