XXXIII: Going off the beaten track

This place isn't exactly that remote but it was quite a long train ride. We made the error of not following the crowd after exiting the train station and ended up at a busy part of town. Almost gave up on finding anything remotely exciting until we ventured further and found where the action was.

Actually, not much action at all, just more stuff to look and see beyond the usual mom-and-pop shop which reminded me of home except every goddamn thing was in Chinese. The town is actually beside a river and if you're there in time, you may just catch the sunset or head to the lover's bridge. We were just killing time on our last day there so did neither. Still, it was a nice town to enjoy a slower pace of life.

I know, I know. At the rate that I am posting about this trip, it'll probably conclude just in time for my coming birthday trip.

 This is the former residence of their head honcho. The Japanese house was quite well taken care off right from the outside. As there aren't many tourist things to do in this part of Taipei, this specific spot was quite popular, brimming with tourist.

You can go into the house. I can't recall if you have to pay but you do have to take off your shoes and wait for your turn as there are only a number of people allowed inside at anytime. Good because it means you get to really check the place out. Bad because you have to wait.

Houses in Japan generally have paper sliding doors which begs the question: what about privacy? how do you make out without waking up the person next door? how do you enjoy porn?

So yea, this is as close to Japan as I'll ever get.

Compared to the main town of Taipei, Tamsui certainly is a very laid back village. Honestly, I wonder what drives their economy apart from tourism. Maybe fishing. Education.

A famous person there.

There are two main streets (as far as I could tell). One is where the boring, commercial stuff are. The other is the tourist streets, as evident by the number of souvenir shops  and people just spilling onto the road.

Yes, a full fledged Hello Kitty shop. My heart almost stopped.

They carry all things bearing the mouth-less cat's image. Not that they are cheap but damn, they are cute.

However, some of the items are baffling. Like this. Once you've finished the rice, would you have the heart to throw the bag away?

For those not in the now, this is Gudetama. It's a funny depressing egg yolk. Yes, that's a possible combination.

A number of people asked why there isn't any picture of me in this trip. Here's one. A very accurate one too.

We ended our visit with this snack: fried quail's egg on a skewer. Unfortunately, it wasn't hot as it was pre-cooked.