Day 13: Relatives Visiting

Today, my mom's brother came again, this time with much more time on his hands. He took us to the port city Lanfangau to eat fresh seafood. @@ 2 hour drive. Oh BTW, I forgot to mention that he drives a taxi. And apparently, it is an unspoken rule that all taxi drivers are allowed to drive recklessly--we must have passed like... 20 people on the way and 6 other taxis must have passed us.

Anyways, when we got there, he ordered a big red snapper to be prepared in three ways:

First way? What other than sashimi! YAY. Anyway, that used up one side of the fish.

Second way? Freshly seared snapper. How do I know it's fresh? It was being cooked in front of my eyes. That took up the other side of the fish.

Third way? Nothing of course! How would you have something left after taking the flesh from both sides of the fish? It's soup using the left over of the bones from the fish (and fish head). (For those who don't get the bad humor above, here's a hint: in my eyes, soups don't count as a course.)

Afterwards, we went to Yilan to a public hot spring, since my mom says hot springs have to power to reduce the itching caused by bug bites. Why public hot springs? Because people have to strip in public to get in--and that we mostly gotten bitten on the legs, which can be soaked easily without much nudity (and that we're asian. it's free.).

Anyway, the first part of the springs we went to was the back end, where the water was relatively cold for people who wanted to just dip their feet in the water. The second part we went to was too hot because it was right where the hot water was being pumped out. Finally, we followed the hot water down to the end, where the water temperature was perfect because the hot water had time to cool off. Walking in as random people and going in trying things out until you find something just right.... remind you of anything?

When we were done there, we started our way back to Linkou... @@ another 2 hour drive. When we got back (at like 9 or 10pm), we went to the film studio to visit my mom's aunt. Seeing how I'm not an old person, I couldn't participate in conversation, so I wandered back to the pool table to suck some more. XD.