The day started at around 8:00am. The shuttle dropped us off near the Citihall. Most shops were still closed. My sister and I decided to take a quick breakfast at Starbucks. Focaccia with olives and rosemary to share then I had my double shot vanilla latte - short while ma and pa went to Mcdonald's for their first meal.
We went to see the Damper baby at Taipei 101 its like a giant pendulum to counteract the building's movement due to strong winds, earthquakes and other such seismic and atmospheric assaults. 101 stories above ground and 5 stories below. It was indeed a sight to see, just like an emerald and silver jewel in the city of Taipei.
At the 88th floor 349 miles above ground, we had a commanding view of the city and Taipei Basin at all directions. The baby weighs 730 metric tons and is the largest in the world so far. The Observatory is equipped with high-power binoculars, drinks bar, image services, pre-recorded audio tour guides in seven languages, & souvenir shops. The outdoor observatory was unfortunately closed this morning so we went back down to shop for a while. As the clock started to tick. We felt our tummies rumbling a bit. Lunch time. :)
We simply went down to the Grand Market. Rows of food stalls were in the area. Me and my sister decided to share lunch as usual. Before we were even able to decide on the main, we came across a japanese pastry bar where rows of mochi, rice desserts, green tea and black sesame coated sweets arranged all in a row. Thoughts of warm soup and braised pork flew off my mind. But we had to have lunch before we had desserts so we got noodles none the less, it had braised onions and pork in it. and a dish of Taiwanese appetizer made of chile, tofu and salty fish. Looking at the bill, we spent twice the amount for our dessert as compared to our main course! Well, I think its well worth it and I wanted to grab some of those sweets at the instant I saw them. It was quite a struggle to do the shopping though.I wanted to know more about what it is made of or what the fillings were inside so I could choose, but all I got were just smiles, nods and shakes of the head. No English of course. It all looked delicious, we went to pick the ones that well... looked the yummiest! I picked a green tea flavored mochi We also had a japanese style sticky rice ball coated with black sesame seeds, sugar and I'm just guessing... rice flour, ground into a very fine powder. The texture, unlike the local suman is much lighter and not as heavy and gummy. It was wonderful! Other varieties were the mandarin orange flavored rice ball which my sister liked so much. There was also a surprising flavor, the light green colored mochi was flavored with mint and preserved sour plum or much commonly called red kiam-moy. It takes a bit of getting used too. I also liked the chocolate flavored mochi. The texture was indeed very fine, smooth and light. it was dusted with bitter cocoa powder. It tasted like it had a little bit of tea powder as well, quite interesting. After all of the sweets were were finished, I was still having those cocoa -tea powder off my fingers. After lunch was over, we were full, feeling a little sleepy and of course tummy happy. We decided to go back to the hotel to take a short nap. That is to get ready for the next food Trip. Shi-Lin Night Market. Authentic Taiwanese Street food! ;)
