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My mother has been complaining that I didn't take any photos of food for ages. Woah. So here's a pile of snow. Not something you see often in Taiwan I tell you!
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But it is food. Actually there's some fruit jelly and other weird stuff similar to that kind of stuff inside. The dish (icecream) here is called 刨冰 (bào bīng): water-ice or shaved-ice could be the English name. Doesn't really make much sense, does it? In Taiwanese they call it 剉冰 (Choah-peng). It's related to the Japanese かき氷 (kakigōri).
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Well, it's basically just different stuffs of jellyish quality with a pile of snow ontop (but not that many people knows how snow really looks close up here, so it's not like people think it's strange). And then, it's not really snow. It's ground ice.
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You can choose from this big table of stuff by yourself. They have small bowls that you can fill up and then they'll put it in a paper cup and start their ice-grinder that fills the place with ice crystals so they have to wear an apron. 40NT$ in this particular store found at the nightmarket in 中和 (zhōnghé / Chungho) city. I just happen to be a big fan of fruit jelly, but you can also eat all sorts of other stuff like 'frog eggs' (same as the pearls in pearl milk tea) and a lot of things I have no idea how to say. Oh, and they'll pour some sugar into the ice too. There's many different kinds all going by the same name so I guess it'll depend on the night market what you get if you ask for it. I heard about (and tasted) other kinds that should be really good as well.
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Today I packed most of my books. Sputnik Sweetheart is almost finished already and Kafka on the shore is waiting in anticipation of my return trip on the 21th of June. (yup, got it changed.) Another eleven days. One reserved for rotary, one for host family, one for dinner with teachers (hopefully turning into two), two days reserved for saying goodbye to students. When will I buy the gifts? I have no idea. I'll need to pack more than books too. And mail some of it. Woah. It's a good thing I didn't realise this later. I'm going to miss night markets.