Night Market

Every weekend Tainan has a big night market in the middle of the city. It's the biggest one in all of Taiwan, so people come from all over to see it. People set up booths with food, drinks, clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc. On Thursday, some nurses that we've worked with came to pick us up and take us to it. Once we got there we ran into a group of people who were members of the English club at a local university. We teamed up with them and decided to break into groups and went on a scavenger hunt. The English club people were great. They explained everything to us and made us try everything. As part of an attempt to win "weirdest food" for our scavenger hunt we tried chicken feet. (We didn't even win, by the way--another group tried duck brain!!!) The chicken feet were nasty--very scaly and bony.Another part of the scavenger hunt was to win a prize at a game... ...and we did!

After the scavenger hunt we just spent a few hours walking around and shopping. The night market is a great place to get souvenirs and gifts, everything is pretty cheap. Our English club friend, Jui, taught us how to say, "how much does it cost?" (Doe sow chien?--not sure how to spell it, but that is how it sounds to me), and "that is too much! (Which I can't remember how to say). After that the vendor would reply "For you, I have a special price," and take it down a few NT. I think I got pretty good at asking how much things cost because they would reply to me in Mandarin and I would have no idea what they were saying. I still have to learn my numbers. I've got 1-10 down, but that's it. I tried to by a pair of shoes there. The ones I tried on were too small so I asked them for a bigger pair. They didn't have any! Never in my life with my size 6 1/2 have I felt like I have big feet!