What Kate Ate: That was weird

So above is the kind of food you can get if you can figure out how to walk 2 blocks down the street and read a Chinese sign. For those of you who can't read Chinese, you'll have to walk 10 blocks, ask 3 people for more directions, turn around and walk back those ten blocks plus another 5 while Asian people gawk unrelentingly at the preposterous group of 15 white people you belong to. You'll then have to get in a cab and go back down the first ten blocks you walked to finally get out and remain lost for at least another 10 to 15 minutes before realizing its the restaurant you walked by 3 times in the last 40 minutes. This is Chop Shop and the spread above is a sampling of basically everything you can imagine. Apparently its so good its where the Taiwanese gangsters hang out on Saturday nights. Next Saturday, if I can find this magical place I will try to make some friends with connections.

Afer all was said and done our efforts to find this place were not left unrewarded. The TsingTao beer was a flowin' and the bathroom had a pretty sink that lit up with marbles in the bottom. It also had a bidet that I turned on by accident (they all told me it was broken, the big liars!) that had quite some pressure, let me tell you. Oh, yes and our meal was AMAZING!

Look at this amazing little carrot fishy!! It was so pretty and we definitely ate it.

These are a few of the dishes we had floating around our lazy susan: shrimp, tofu and vegetables with an unidentified gelatinous substance, steamed fish, spicy garlic shrimp, sauteed cabbage, some other spicy pork thing and the most heavenly slices of pork with a smoky honey hoisen sauce. Mmmmmmm

And of course, nothing goes better with a great meal like this than an educational conversation on key phrases learned from the Sex and Relationships chapter in Julie's Lonely Planet Mandarin guide book. Key phrases listed include:
"You're just using me for sex"
"Don't worry, I'll just do it myself"
"That was weird"
"I don't ever want to talk to you again"
"You bastard"
"I want to be with you forever"
In addition to these phrases we added a few of our own:
Tai dao le! -"that's huge!"
Tai xaio le! - "that's so small!"

As if that all weren't enough for one night, we headed out to a local Taiwanese brewery, aptly named Taiwan Beer (no need for creativity when you are dirt cheap!) After walking through a dark and desolate warehouse/production area, a kind warm light and the faint smell of beer guided us into a giant open area with picnic tables and drunken, obnoxious white people slowly but surely, propagating the western stereotype that we're all loud alcoholic a-holes. And for some lucky people a rare find awaits; amidst that crowd of drunken expats lies an even more mystifying stereotype, the creepy old, sexual predator man aka "I own an English school". I luckily avoided the old balls man (ew loose skin) and just played never have I ever with all my new friends for 2 hours while drinking tiny lil cups of beer from a massive keg that cost next to nothing. See below:

This is how much of the beer I could have bought, it was so cheap