Mint tea

This is the view from the little house the B&B lady owned by the beach.

On the side of the house there are some mint plants, which, as evident here, can be plucked and placed in hot water to make fresh mint tea.

The color is very light and the flavor is very subtle and refreshing.

Breakfast

What's better than fish eye soup for dinner? FISH EYE SOUP FOR BREAKFAST!!! Clockwise from the fish eye soup: fried eggs with daikon, spicy eggplant, greenbeans. All the dining tables at our B&B had inlays of sand and shells, quite delightful.

My birthday dinner, I guess

There was a cake, and it was almost my birthday, so I guess it was my "birthday dinner"

From left, Faye with the beans, the owner of the B&B with the fish, and my aunt cooking stuff.
Check out the EYE! It's 3x the size of my thumb! This pile of fish was used to make the soup, and the owner of the B&B had the portion with the eye.
The table setting at our B&B. For a few days, we were like family to the owner lady.
The infamous fish soup, with bits of the eye visible in the lower right corner.

Bamboo shoots...one of the better dishes of the night.Green beans...a bit too tough and not salty enough.

Another rendition of bamboo shoots, I think. Decent in flavor.

Fried fish smells great but is not so tasty when it isn't fried dry enough so that the outer skin is crispy.
The same sea vegetable that we had at the noodle shop, with pumpkin looking leaves and curly Q's like cucumber vines.An entire fried fish. In theory, a very tasty idea. In my mother's hands, amazing. In other people's hands...slightly non-crispy and not salty enough.

A Teaser

Remember when we went to the market to get food for dinner? Yeah. This is only a teaser for the huge meal yet to come. In the meantime, more local fruit from Taitung.
A random neighbor came by on his scooter and dropped off some bananas from his yard. In Taitung, you hardly ever need to buy food, because it's understood that if you have more than you can eat, you pass it on to your neighbors. If everybody grows different things, what you get is a "free" cornucopia of fresh produce.
This, also from a neighbor. Tung Gua's English is either wax gourd or winter melon.
Betel nuts, in their natural form. More to come on the subculture of betel nuts in a separate entry. from the way they are arranged on the tree, I am led to believe that betel is related to coconuts, but smaller.
Lychee, and the tree that bore it. Found in the side yard of a consultant for running B&Bs.