Hsinchu City and Stinky Tofu

The Huang family live in a first floor house located very near to Science Park. Most of the people in this area work for various companies located in Science park.

Lake Placid is a man-made lake in the middle of Science Park surrounded by beautiful footpaths and outdoor buildings used for community yoga and tai chi. I woke early one morning and headed down to Lake Placid for some early morning exercise. There were surprisingly many people out with the same idea as me.

As I beat a path around the lake which takes about ten minutes to complete, I passed a yoga class with many participants and a tai chi class set to music with a fat bassett hound in attendance.

Hsinchu is a tidily packed city with residential and commercial fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Streets seem to have no rhyme or reason to me as they twist and turn with seemingly no real direction.

There does seem to be a lot of pollution - it can be seen on the buildings and felt in the throat.

Because of limited space, it seems the Taiwanese have developed quite a knack for expanding vertically. Cars are stacked three high by mechanical means in parking garages. Homes are apartment buildings four to 30 stories high.

Dinner one night was at a restaurant found down dark and twisting alleys - Anna felt it reminded her of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter - filled with a variety of smells ranging from sweet almond that is ground into a powder to rotting pig poop which Jess has informed me is the smell of stinky tofu. Stinky tofu is considered quite a delicassy...I have yet to try it, but I did promise Jess that I would before the end of our trip. I promised her this BEFORE I actually smelled it. Maybe she will forget about it.