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Photos by MJ Klein (with some food photos!)

My Chinese class is over.  We had our final exam on Thursday.  After class some of the students decided to go out for the evening and have a little fun.

After our final exam, the teacher has us cutting out some Chinese words for fun.

Our teacher giving a little help and guidance with the scissors.

Our teacher showing us another word that we could cut out (if we had time).

Our class just before being dismissed.  I’m not in any of these photos because I was behind the camera.

After class, we met in downtown Hsinchu, to the “East Door” area, off the famous traffic circle.  From there, we walked.

Here we are, all walking to the night market area.

We’ve blogged on this area before, and we like it a lot.

We went into the food court by the temple.  It really is bright inside, as the photo suggests.

Eventually, it was settled upon to eat at a noodle shop where some of the students had gone before.  The menu is very conveniently on the wall, with large photos.  If you don’t know enough Chinese you can just point to what you want.

Waiting for the food to arrive.  There were 7 of us.

Here is a shot of some of the food we got.  That’s gan mein (dry noodles) on the bottom.  One of my favorites, it’s a classic dish in Taiwan.

During dinner, we were talking about some other dishes that we enjoy and someone asked me what I normally like to eat in Taiwan.  I mentioned fried oysters and also some of the “san bei” dishes (3 cups of ingredients).  We talked about frog and certain vegetables that you can get in Taiwan.

So, after paying the bill at this place we went to the other side of the food court and tried out the dishes we were discussing.

This is our famous “hollow vegetable.”

San Bei Frog.  The meat was delicate and tender.

Not the best rendition of this dish (but nevertheless pretty good), this is of course, fried oysters.

A Taiwan classic: grilled fish chins.  Surprisingly rich in fat, these were really good.

After sampling the food and several bottles of Taiwan Beer, we set out to another favorite destination, The Red Bar.  This shot is of one of the most often photographed features of the traffic circle.

The Red Bar was pretty packed.  Our good friend Saumen dropped in.  It was then that I found out Saumen had met many of the students on other occasions.  Small world, indeed.

The company was good and the conversation lively.  I was drinking my favorite amaretto so I was happy!

A few of the guys started up a rousing game of darts, which lasted for several hours.

This blurred shot shows Turi after his winning throw.

More celebration

Please understand that I was more interested in drinking, talking and stuffing my face with snacks, than I was in taking photographs.  But I managed to snap a few as the night wore on.  Hui-chen and I had a great time hanging out with the students and their friends.

The good news is that all the students will be together for the next level,  Practical Chinese II. It’s going to be a fun class!

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