Old Street

Any old town with a mind for drawing tourists has retained their "Old Street" or in pinyin "Lao Jie". There are some really stunning examples throughout Taiwan of exquisitely preserved city centers from a bygone era. It's a time that doesn't exist any longer and will never be extant again. Whole streets whose buildings are composed of stone or marble. Each entry way marked with a name or number or both in Chinese. Dragons, eagles, lions and other ornamental carvings adorn the roofs' edges while the street separating the buildings seem to march in between even though they are really paving stones set with such care that not one is misaligned.

Old Street in Da Xi

The interesting things about these old streets in Taiwan is not really the preservation of the buildings (the above example is a rather unusual occurrence from my limited experience) as much as the preservation of the food and the activities, which revolve mostly around food. There's the selling of wares that goes hand in hand with the whole historical experience as well to be sure. Clothes, souvenirs, shoes, bags, traditional Taiwanese wares such as tea and teapots, special dresses just for the sub tropical climate are some of the things that are not for eating.

When it comes to food there are almost twice as many stores or stalls as wares. The list can go from ice cream to squid, dumplings to shaved ice with mango on the top, and rice triangles--called cong zi--to sausage and green tea cookies. There are endless varieties and each region and town has their own take on the local dish. The best of which can be found on a town's Old Street.

Me eating shaved ice with mango ice cream and mango pieces!