Duo shao qian? (pronounced Dwoh shou chee-an) means How much is that?

This morning we woke up laughing :) Since I am the only one out of my roommates who can wake up to an alarm, I am the one who gets up first and starts getting ready first and then I kind of wake everyone else up as I go. This morning I woke up and started getting ready and I told Rainy that it was time to get up. She of course continued to sleep and 15 minuted later I woke her up again. She turned over and said "Hayley, you are so good to me" hahaha She realized what she had said and we both busted up laughing.

Our planned events for the day were to go to Kaoshiung with the Community nurses and hang around and shop. We thought that just the nurses were going to come, but they each brought their little families. They are all so cute! Most of the nurses have 2-3 kids. Katelyn and I rode in Ray Gene's car with her family.

Ray Gene and her family + me and Katelyn

Our humongous, yet totally awesome group

We went to a little village/market first. They were all kinds of little things to buy. One of the main attractions were the oil painted umbrellas. They were quite beautiful. We then went to a couple of other shops that made and sold these oil umbrellas and we saw a woman make part of an umbrella. It was pretty neat.

There was also this elderly man that was sitting in his shop playing music from a saw, a toothpaste tube, and a newspaper!

The village

man playing the saw

man playing the toothpaste tube

and last but not least... man playing the newspaper

He was also selling some pretty interesting instruments

I thought this was funny... this is what the Taiwanese call a rolling pin

look at all of the fish!

We then ate lunch at a traditional Hakka restaurant. (I guess that the Hakka community is very unique in Taiwan and has its own language) We ate noodles that looked like tapeworms to me... yuck! but luckily they tasted alright. They also served pork that we hardly touched because it was pretty much just fat. we later learned that it was pig feet. I also tried pig intestines for the second time of this trip. They were a little better this time... they didn't taste like feces as much. :)

Tapeworm soup :P

Eating mien mien ice with the nurses (this one had fruit, red beans, jelly, and peanuts in it)

We also went to a place where you can make your own ceramic bowls or cups. Sadly we couldn't make them because we wouldn't be able to come back and pick it up once it cooked in the kiln. But it was fun to watch the expert ceramic maker make some vases and bowls.

this is what he started with...

The end result about 2 seconds later. He was so fast!

Bobbing for lily pads outside of the ceramic shop 

We then went to a little museum and walked around there and took pictures. Our group also paid to paint our own little paper umbrellas! Mine looks like a kindergartner made it... but its cute.

Before...

After

So pretty!

We then went and met a cute little man who is 101 years old who makes these Hakka clothes. His shop is the only Hakka clothes shop throughout Taiwan.

After our day in Kaoshiung, one of the nurses (Sho Way) took Christina Hunter and I to a knife shop in Tainan. (my brother likes knives so I wanted to see if there was one he likes best. I will not say whether or not I actually bought one) So the cool thing about this knife shop is that the man who makes these knives uses human bones for the fire that the knives are made in. He's been making these famous knives since 1952. Pretty cool huh?

Sho Wei and her family then wanted to take Christina and I to get dinner. Sho Way made fun of me and told her husband how I can't eat sushi very well :) ...and then they ended up taking us to Japanese restaurant. We had an eight course meal and I was just praying that I could swallow everything that came to the table. Show Wei is the type of person who tells you that you will like something which means you WILL eat it :)
Here is what we ate. It turned out to be quite delicious and I actually liked the majority of it. First we started out with some lettuce and shrimp and vegetables wrapped in seaweed with some dressing. I don't have a picture of that, but it was pretty good once I got past the seaweed taste

egg pudding... made of egg and water baked in the oven. You can also add mushrooms or other vegetables. kind of weird to me

Octopus, seaweed, and oysters

soup/broth in a teapot

Chicken

Jumbo shrimp, eggplant, fried sweet potato, and green beans (my favorite one!)

Rice Sushi - Sho Wei told me that it wasn't sushi and then after I took a bite she giggled and said that it was sushi... I can not believe she straight up lied to me like that! :)

green bean soup

so delicious!

When Christina and I got back, we met up with the girls and our friend Davit in the lobby of our dorms. Davit wanted to come and visit us. I think its so he can tell all his friends he hung out with a bunch of American girls ;) Some of the girls wanted to go to a club, but Kris ex-nayed on that one (which I was glad for) so we just ended up going to Cafe 85 Degrees Celsius (I know, its a pretty sweet name) and played card games outside for a while. A few of the girls went off to the Night Market with Davit and a few of us then came back home.

That was my day!