The Shilin Night Market is the largest in Taipei and covers a large area. It's the best place to go for a wide assortment of cheap stuff. My shopping list was: two pairs of sandals for Michael (he needs an indoor pair for school, and an outdoor pair for everywhere else), sunglasses for both of us, and the elusive shovel and pail. It's also the best place to go for night market food. There are tonnes of tiny stands set up that sell all kinds of snack foods that they make right there.
Well, the first stand that we see upon coming out of the MRT is the candy covered strawberries and tomatoes stand. You will not see candy covered apples here, but strawberries and tomatoes, definitely. It's the same candy coating as back home, and it still makes a big sticky mess. Luckily, mothers are always prepared with a stack of baby wipes, even when they don't have babies anymore. Michael picked out a strawberry stick, ate one, made a huge mess, then gave the rest to me. Sometimes there are advantages to having eat leftovers. Yummy.
I had seen a whole bunch of tents set up on the square across the street from the main night market entrance, so we decided to see what was going on first. Note to all mothers. If you see a large collection of tents and are with a three year old, run AWAY. It was a fair with lots of shooting games (like in the above picture) and a little ride. Michael tried to drag me to play all the games but I refused. I relented to his request for a ride. Michael is at the very back in his Pikachu car going around and around. I put Michael on at the same time as a man put three of his daughters on. He then went to pay, so I went too. It was $60NT!
I mean, yes, it's less than $2 Cdn, but I can get into the zoo for that! She also pointed to a collection of toys in front of her, so I assumed that a toy was included in the fare. I couldn't exactly pull Michael off now, so I paid up and waited for the ride to end. I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I wondered if the fare was so high because you could ride as long as you wanted. She stopped the ride briefly a couple of times to let other kids on, but the original three girls were still on there and Michael didn't say he wanted to get off yet so... About a hundred rounds around the track later, I finally just asked the lady to let him off. He got off and picked out a toy. A blow up hammer. I knew that would interest him for, oh, twenty seconds, so I encourage the small beach ball instead. Hello Kitty of course. She blew it up for him and I let him hold it, hoping that it would keep him occupied while as we walked back through the fair as quickly as possible back to the night market.
Well, he still tried to beg for the chance to play the games, but mean ogre that I am, refused. We left the tents and walked into an election parade. The presidential election is in a week, and although everyone already knows who is going to win, they still must save face and keep campaigning. One of them accidentally bumped into Michael, so he gave Michael his flag and a package of tissues (one of the favourite marketing tools here - at least it was four years ago. Robert and I never needed to buy tissues as we were constantly being given packages with advertising on it for something or other.). Then this lady bends down and says, "Tell your Mommy and Daddy to vote for Number Two!" which I found kind of offensive. First of all, his mother was right beside him (did she think I was his nanny? - probably) and she could tell me herself. Second of all, he's three years old. Like anyone is going to base their vote on what their three year old says.
Needless to say, I was not feeling very friendly towards candidate number two's followers (I didn't even know which party it was for), but Michael loved them. He was waving around his flag like crazy and trying to hit people left right and centre as we entered the night market. Now, this wasn't just a little paper flag, but a good sized cloth one on a plastic flagpole. As there are only two political parties in Taiwan, everyone is aligned on one side or the other, some people have very strong views. I was getting pretty nervous that Michael was going to be "accidentally" knocked over or shouted at, so after a few minutes, I convinced him to let me roll it up and hide most of it in my purse.
We found a pair of fake crocs for about $13 that Michael liked so much, he refused to wear his Thomas the Tank Engine light up shoes again. Michael has gone through a growth spurt here and I think they were getting a little tight. I wanted to find a good pair of sports sandals as his second pair, and had just found the perfect Thomas sandals when I see Michael dancing around. I glanced at my watch. He had just gone an hour and fifteen minutes ago!
Off on another memorable night market potty search. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Had to ask two people, wandered through a few very narrow dark alleys, and ended up in a men's washroom (maybe it was unisex?) but went in with Michael anyways as he cannot use squat toilets alone.
Then I forgot where those perfect pair of sandals were and wandered around trying to find them. Michael saw a few people eating small round light brown things on a stick and kept on asking me for one. I promised him that as soon as I saw who was selling them, I would get him one. Well, it turns out they were six fried quail eggs on a stick. I love eggs, and I'm always trying to get Michael to eat more eggs, so I was happy to buy them. And only $20NT! He ate two and I ate the rest. Another yummy snack.
Got to a side alley full of food stalls and a Chinese Temple. We were accosted by a woman selling cranberry lemonade. Well, not too unwillingly as she had free samples, and Michael loves free samples. Ended up buying some (Michael had about a tenth and handed me the rest) and then found a BBQ stall. Michael asked for the chicken skewer and then was really mad once it was done because it was too hot to eat. Later on, he ate only a third, and I had to sacrifice again by eating all his leftovers. Delicious.
By this time, it's getting a little later in the afternoon and much more crowded, so I decided to head out. We found the sandals on the way out. They were $17 Cdn, but so much nicer than most of the sports sandals that I had seen, so I got them. We stopped at a small steamed dumpling place for supper, which finished me up perfectly. Michael figured he still had a little room left in his tummy, because he asked for a cup of cut up, washed strawberries. I never refuse his requests for fresh fruit, and he actually ate the entire thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment