Snake Alley

Here you'll see snakes milked of venom and blood, and you can order meals prepared with snake blood and meat, and turtle blood and meat. These "delicacies" are expensive, unlike the common snacks found at most night markets.

Many Taiwanese have a negative view of Snake Alley. The thought of eating snake meat or drinking snake blood disgusts them. Some still associate Snake Alley with prostitutes, although the area has been cleaned up from the years when prostitution was legal. Many food stalls sell regular snacks, and snake handler performances always draw crowds, but you may find your

Taiwanese friends not so eager to come here. Little shops line the sides of the arcade, jade and trinkets, touristy stuff, little statues, massage places and interspersed between these merchants are lots of restaurants with display cases out front.  You can see varieties of shellfish that you could not even imagine could possibly exist.

You can recognize certain things like tiger shrimp and little clams, but then there are big praying mantis looking creatures, proto-crab-lobster type things, clams that were bigger than a hand and had an enormous leg (over a 6 inches long) swishing about in the water.