Do you want your chicken with or without the spine?

On Saturday, I headed into Taipei with Josh to seek out Snake Alley. We found it. It was weird. I had read about it in one of my guide books as a recommended place to go. There were only 2 things that I saw that were snake related but they were gross and weird nonetheless. One of the places was a restaurant that I'm assuming you could eat snake at. In the lobby, they had at least 3 huge pythons that were each over 8 feet long. Two of them were in the same cage together that was WAY too small for them. There was a live chicken just hanging out inside, but unfortunately we didn't get to see a gruesome killing. The next stop was the snake charmer/killer a few storefronts down. He had a cobra hanging out in front of him, constantly hissing and striking at him. Then there were 3 dead snakes hanging on ropes that had their bellies slit and their blood was being drained. It was then made available to drink. No one I saw watching was brave enough to try it. He also had a lovely video playing in the background of him skinning a snake alive. Lovely. Earlier in the day, we went to Nut Street, which was basically a farmer's market, but with a lot of nut varieties. They also were selling shark fins everywhere. This was crazy to see, especially considering how much stuff I've seen related to how horrible the killing is. My roommate did make the point though that if we think that shark killing is terrible, then what do Buddhists think of us killing cows? And there's a lot of Buddhists. Oh well, there's a deep thought to ponder for the day.

Today, I hung out with little Brian's family. We started the day with the usual tutoring/playing games in a slippery room in which the kids fall in and cry a lot. Brian was whiny for a good half hour after he fell, which was the first time I'd seen him like this. Then we hopped in the car and headed to Ilan, which is east of Taipei on the coast. We went out to eat at a famous restaurant, known for its chickens, which are cooked in wood-burning cauldrons. After they're cooked, the whole chicken is brought to you on a platter, minus its heartbeat, organs, and feathers. Brian's grandma proceeded to grab its neck and body and then pull the two apart, removing the chicken's head, neck and entire spine in the process. It was gruesome but entertaining because she's pretty elderly. Anyway, the meal was actually pretty good because the chicken was hot, and usually chicken is served cold. During the meal, Brian's mom made the comment, "This is very Taiwanese" and I said in my head, "I know." Ha ha.

Then we drove to downtown Ilan where we put our feet in the public hot springs they have there. This was a lot of fun. Then we walked around an outdoor market where we sampled various fruits and teas. Then we drove to a large park along the main river in Ilan county. This was a nice peaceful place, but the fun was ended abruptly when I ran a race against little Brian and he proceeded to slip and fall on some wet concrete, so he was crying and threw another fit. He was way more mopey than usual today. Later that night, I did have this sort of strange conversation with him telling him I was leaving in two weeks and probably not ever coming back to Taiwan. It was actually kind of sad to have this conversation, and I also couldn't quite tell if he realized the meaning of what I was saying or not, potentially because he didn't actually understand the English. Oh well, he didn't cry then at least so that was a plus.

At night, we went to the Luo-Dong night market which was massive and crazy. I didn't see a single foreigner there, because this place is outside of Ilan and getting deeper into the heart of Taiwan. That's one thing though that's been so cool about hanging out with their family, is that I've been able to go to places like that many times. Lots of stares is all I can say. Ha ha. Anyway, this was probably my last big weekend with little Brian's family and I will definitely miss them when I leave. Hopefully, I'll be able to see them in the future though!