What do you do on a warm but overcast day, when the mist is hanging in the air and the skies are threatening to unleash a downpour? You go to the Kāoměi Wetland 高美濕地 and look for crabs, of course:
And afterward you visit the T'áichūng Harbor Fish Market 台中港魚市場 in Wúch'ī 梧棲, where you check out the many kinds of seafood on display, some of which (like the pair of cuttlefish, or wūtséi 烏賊 pictured below) are VERY fresh:
One thing you can't avoid at the fish market is having to run the gantlet of aggressive touts trying to herd customers into their seafood restaurants:
You can read an excellent account of what it's like trying to eat at tourist markets in this country by following this link.
On the way home, we found ourselves following one of the more hard-to-explain-but-not-uncommon scenes of like on this island: the "spicy girl" (làmèi) 辣妹 singing an enka 演歌 song from a stage that has been mounted at the rear of one of those ubiquitous blue pickup trucks. She belts her tune while the truck is moving, usually included in a Taoist 道教 festival (like this evening), but occasionally as part of a funeral procession. The presence of the "hot babe" (if your idea of sexiness was formed during the Eisenhower administration, that is) has been explained to me as a way of "pleasing the gods", but no doubt the local おじさん are also quite happy to see (and hear) these trucks go by:
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