Doh' !#@& and I MIss White People . . . well, sort of.

This will be my last post on this particular trip. I head back home today. Sorry it's been over a week since the last post but when traveling overseas, it's hard to count on consistent web access. 7 days ago I took a trip with my my brother and his in-laws into inland Taiwan. We went to a spa like resort in the mountains for the first day and then went on a sightseeing expedition the next two. We had this crazy tour guide who drove the 6 of us around in a van and he literally made all of us car sick while going up the mountainous winding roads. I guess it's easy to get sick when you're in a van going 55 mph when everyone else only goes 25.
Regardless, I saw some pretty cool sights. Inland Taiwan is much calmer and has a much more rural atmosphere than Taipei. We were able to go to the highest mountain peak in all of Taiwan, a whole 2 miles above sea level. For comparison, Denver, Colorado, known for being high up in the Rocky Mountains, is only a mile up. The air was very, very thin of course and just taking a few steps of stairs made me dizzy and gasp for oxygen. But the view was spectacular.
We also got to see an amazing Marble Stone Gorge while coming down the mountains. The mountainous caverns resembled a mini Grand Canyon but just imagine all the rocks, hills, peaks, and plateaus being Marble stone. Quite an impressive sight. Now if you're wondering where are the pictures, well, here's where the "Doh" part comes in.
Two days later, we went to Hong Kong, and in my excitement of taking pictures on my first Bullet Train, going from the HK airport to our hotel, I left my camera on the train. Yup, I lost my camera on my first day in Hong Kong. I'm awesome!!!

This was my first time in Hong Kong and I was really looking forward to it of course and wanted to document much of the trip with pictures. Well, what was that they said about, "the best laid plans of mice and men. . ."
Anyhow, HK was great and I was very glad I went. It has a bustling nightlife for the young and the skyline at night on the pier is just amazing. The subway system works just as well as the one in Taiwan so it's easy to get around. Shopping is just as popular, albeit a bit more expensive. The prices there are just as high as it is in the U.S. And, most importantly, it's diverse in population. Here's the part where I sort of miss white people.

The diversity in HK is mostly tourist generated. But the fact that it was under British rule for 99 years helped with the ethnic mix. In Taiwan, you'll be hard pressed to find anybody other than Taiwanese or Chinese people walking around. But in HK, I encountered lots of Middle Eastern, African, European, and Mainland Chinese people. And it didn't really dawn on me that I took living in America for granted until I was in HK because the melting pot phenomenon really is a phenomenon. There are pockets of places in the world that may be ethnically diverse, but not like it is in the U.S. where I can teach at schools where the population break down can be even amongst White, Hispanic, Black, and Asian people. If you go to Japan, you'll see Japanese people. The same goes for probably 90% if not more of the rest of the world. Don't quote me on that though. I mean, think about it. Living in Southern California is kind of unique in that sense right?
I have a good friend who bemoans the fact that Americans just aren't very cultured because we know so little about other countries' existence, cultures, traditions, customs. We think America is everything and are so Western focused that we think everything else is second class. I guess my question to him would be, if you were living say, in Argentina, and surrounded by 99% Argentinians, how much of the German culture would you really know or care to find out about?
At least in Southern California, for better or for worse, we have the opportunity to mix with other ethnicities right in our own backyard. That's better than most I would say. And I guess that's why I miss White people . . . but not really.

Food, Part II

As I've mentioned, some of the things Taiwanese people eat can border on the bizarre to say the least. Last night, I had the opportunity to taste snake soup with chunks of snake meat in the soup. They say snake offers a plethora of health benefits but who cares about that. However, I found the soup and snake meat to be very bland. The red liquid you see is snake blood and the other shot glasses are the different venom produced by the snakes. Yes, I did drink them and once again, kind of bland.



One of my favorite foods is a delicacy called steamed pork's blood rice cake. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. It is usually served in a soup or my favorite, on a stick, dipped in a special sauce then rolled in peanut powder and cilantro. It's very, very yummy!



Other street foods I've enjoyed include, BBQ corn, Stinky Tofu, Chinese Pork Sausage, Onion Pancake, Fried Chicken, and Steam Fried Meat Buns.
The corn here is very different from the corn in the States. The kernels are not as soft and not as sweet. When BBQ'd, the corn is not hard but chewy and really good when basted in the Taiwanese BBQ sauce.





The stinky tofu is a traditional dish that is served fried with a side of pickled cabbage. Tangy, savory, and yes, smelly, but delicious. Chinese sausage is sweet and savory, but not salty at all compared to western style sausages. This particular one is served wrapped inside a Chinese Rice sausage.



You can get onion pancake pretty regularly in the States now, but not on a cart in the streets. It just tastes better made in a cart, especially with a fried egg wrapped inside it.



Remember that episode of Seinfeld with the Soup Nazi where Elaine finally tastes the Crab Bisque and is so amazed by it she tells Jerry, "I gotta sit down." Well, that's exactly how I felt when I bit into one of these Steam Fried Meat Buns.



Besides from being extremely tasty, street food is usually pretty cheap. The buns I just mentioned are only 35 cents a piece, yes 35 cents and they're the size of a McDonald's hamburger. A giant corndog costs $1.35. The onion pancake a dollar. Basically, everything I've mentioned costs around a dollar or less. This giant soft serve cone, 33 cents.



Other than street food, I mentioned the food courts in the shopping malls. The selection there isn't as vast as street vendors but it's definitely cleaner and a little pricier. But by no means expensive considering it's in a mall food court. Typical fare is something like this teppen style plate, usually around $4.



And Beef Noodle Soup, which you can also get on the streets. This one was $2.



It's amazing that with these prices, people here are so thin.

With as much as I've been eating, this is usually how I feel by the end of the day.

The Sites

I've now been to most if not all of Taipei's main tourist destinations. The subway system here makes it super convenient to go anyplace you want. The trains are always packed and amazingly, the average wait time for each train is only 3 minutes or so.
Probably the most visited Taipei landmark is the current tallest building in the world, Taipei 101; world record set in 2004 at 508 meters. It also boasts the world's fastest elevator topping speed at 1,101 meters per minute. Sorry, I do not know what that is in miles per minute. My inferior American education didn't teach me the metric system. What I do know is that it took exactly 37 seconds to reach the 89th floor of the observation deck. As we were going up, I can feel the g-force closing the airway to my ears.
Luckily, I had a full view of the building from my hotel window.
Taipei 101 is located in the heart of Taipei's financial district. In fact, the building is connected to the World Trade Center, Convention Center, and the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Inside 101 is a high end shopping mall filled with the most expensive brand name stores. As with most malls in Taipei, 101 is a high rise mall with many floors. Space is limited here so it's easier to build up rather than across.
101 is also connected by a sky-walkway to other major buildings such as Viewshow Cinemas, a 24 hour multiplex movie theater; Shin-kong Mitsukosi Department Store, a Japanese based mall; and New York New York Shopping Center, yup, an American based shopping mall. As one would expect, the crowd here is very hip and young. Inside New York New York were stores like Toys R Us and the coolest name for a donut shop ever. Ironically, I heard this is a Japanese based donut chain.

Another popular tourist attraction is the National Palace Museum. It is the biggest and most popular museum in Taiwan and is renowned for its architecture and historical significance.
Most of the items on display are treasured artifacts saved and passed down from the ancient Chinese Dynasties of old. There are many paintings and priceless Chinese Calligraphy art on display, but you won't find any art from any Western European influenced artists. It's not what I'm used to in a museum as I'm more fond of art from the Renaissance period. But it was pretty incredible seeing how intricate some of the artifacts were considering some were made over 3 to 4 thousand years ago. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in most of the display rooms.

Next to the National Theater and Concert Hall of Taiwan is the Chaing Kai-Shek National Memorial Hall. He was one of China's great military leaders and president of the Republic of China (ROC). I knew about him when I was young mainly because his face was on all the money in Taiwan. But I never really learn about his significance and great accomplishments in school. Or maybe I did but just don't remember because I was so young. Regardless, here is the Wikipedia link to him if you are interested in learning a little bit of Chinese history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_kai_shek

The Memorial is gigantic and there are some cool artifacts inside on display. But what impressed me more was the design of the three main monuments placed in the same rectangular square. It's quite a sight to see. Here is the Memorial.
And here is the view from the Memorial looking out into the square. As you can see, the whole square is quite massive. I don't think a picture can really do it justice.

Taiwan is also known for its numerous hot springs. Here in Taipei, the Beitou Hot Springs Museum offers tourists a quick overview of how hot springs work, how they're formed, and how they're used. Right next to the museum is a public hot springs area and I was able to experience one for the first time. I put my foot in the stream but could only last about a second before I had to pull it out (that's what she said). I literally felt like my foot was being scorched. And as you can see from the next picture, the steam coming from the spring is no joke.

See Blanco #1 and #2, I don't just eat and sleep while on vacation.

The Good, the Bad, and the Traumatic - The Tour Bus Ride From Hell

About 4 days ago, I took a one day Tour of Taiwan with my sister-in-law, her mother, and my nephew. We saw some very interesting sites and overall I was glad I went. But in order to do the trip justice, I have to divide it into three parts.

The Good:

•The tour bus we went on was very comfortable and air-conditioned. Each seat was leathered and individually separated with arm rest.
•The trip included stops at four different sites, some way up in the mountains and some by the seaside. It began at 8:00m and ended roughly at around 4:00pm and coffee, tea, water, and lunch were provided. Total cost - $11.50.
•Some of the cool sites we saw included a Buddhist Education Temple way up in the mountains.


A tunnel that was dug through a towering mountain. We were able to walk through the 2 and ½ mile stretch and marvel at how much work was put into digging this massive mountain.


A bustling fisherman’s wharf with fresh catches of the day on sale.



And finally, we were taken to a place to shop for, of all things, possessions that were seized or didn’t make it through customs at the airport. How weird is that? I don’t know why Colonel Sanders was guarding the front entrance though. Maybe someone tried to smuggle him through customs.



The Bad:

•Besides from my sister-in-law, my nephew, and me, everyone else on the trip was probably over 60 years old. This wasn’t exactly the hippest crowd. They were probably mostly retirees and that would explain why they were free on a Monday to take an all day tour.
•Our host for the trip wasn’t all that helpful. Besides from spilling coffee all over me, she really didn’t do a good job explaining where we were going, what we were seeing, and why these particular places were chosen for the tour. At each stop, people kind of just fended for themselves and walked around. Unfortunately, not everyone adhere to the timeframe she gave us so at times, we had to wait for stragglers to make it back to the bus. But hey, can’t really complain that much when the trip cost less than $12 right?

The Traumatic:

One would suspect that on an 8 hour bus ride, the tour organizers would provide some type of entertainment to pass the time during the long durations between each stop. Since the bus was equipped with TV screens dispersed throughout, I had anticipated that at worse, I would be forced to watch some Chinese movie that I wouldn’t understand and can tune out while I stared out the window. But little did I know that a Chinese movie would have been heaven compared to what was awaiting me.
To my horror, our host about 30 minutes into the trip, began passing around little slips of paper and a thick book, and then pulled out 4 microphones. Microphones? Slips of paper? A book? What in the world? Wait a minute, she can’t be, there’s no way, nooooooooooooooooooo! She’s putting in a Karaoke DVD!
I will now light myself on fire!#@$

Okay, okay, maybe no one will participate and after a few tries, she’ll turn it off and put on a movie or something. But no such luck. I mean people on the bus were fighting for the song book. They were filling out those slips of paper lightning fast and shoving them at the host to play certain songs. And those songs. . .
We’re not talking about popular American sing-a-longs like Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey or even something horrible by Celine Dion. Nooooo! We’re talking about old-school Chinese songs that were popular probably back in the 50’s and 60’s. They were awful, slow, twangy, cheesy, and sung with gusto by these people. What’s worse, I freaking forgot to bring my IPod so I couldn’t drown them out. I was seriously getting an ulcer from the nausea.
I will now shove an ice pick through my ears!#@$

What’s also amazing was that after each song, the people on the bus would applaud. Applaud, are you kidding me? We’re going to encourage this sort of thing? Even more, these people were clamoring for the spotlight. I mean they couldn’t wait to get their eager little hands on those microphones and belt out their favorites. Some couples even did duets. Duets! On a bus! This is not a freaking night club here. In addition, of the 30 people on the bus, about 22 of them sang at least one song. 22 out of 30! and that 30 includes the 4 of us from my family. So really, 22 out of 26 people sang, a whopping 85%. Are you freaking kidding me, 85% of the people wanted to karaoke? (I know I’m using ‘freaking’ a lot but that’s only because I really can’t use that other “F” word I’m really thinking of). I mean who does this? What kind of a world am I living in? How did I end up on an episode of the Twilight Zone?
I will now gauge my eyes out with a spoon!#$%

Did I mention the trip was 8 hours long? The only respite I got from the dreadful singing was when we had to stop at our sight seeing sights. After each stop, I hope and prayed that the karaoke would end once we got back on the bus, but I’m not that lucky of a guy. Nope, the karaoke continued after each stop and tortured me to no end. It wasn’t until the last 30 minute of the bus ride that our host finally turned the darn DVD off. The silence felt like nirvana. But overall, I definitely died a little that day.

Food & Night Markets

Since it's been a few days, I am not going to give a day by day account of my meals, but rather a general overview of the foods I ate. As I've mentioned, I am partial to the Night Market Street Vendor type foods here so most of my meals were eaten there, on the go while shopping for bargains. It's the 6th day of my trip right now, and I have not eaten in a formal restaurant yet and I'm not sure if I will for this entire trip. Besides from the Street Vendors, Food Courts are also quite abundant here. Every shopping location has one and they're usually pretty huge.

This is a popular Fried Food Cart. One can get anything fried here, the most popular being popcorn chicken, squid, tofu, and vegetables.



Of course for the more adventurous, there's always pig's intestine, chicken hearts, livers, and other assortment of organs from various animals.


On most nights, the Night Markets are pretty packed with hungry shoppers and it can get be hard to move around. On weekends, it's ten times worse. Here is a typical weeknight. This is a popular spot called, Wufenpu Commercial District. I went on a Tuesday night and it was very crowded.


On my first night here, I went with my brother and his family to the busiest Night Market in Taiwan called, Ximending Pedestrian District. This is technically not a night market but I really can't explain to you the differences so for all intents and purposes, they're all night markets in my book.


Ximending is indeed huge. Just imagine these streets above stretched over about a half a mile and going down probably 8 to 10 different ways and you have only one section of the entire district. We went on a Sunday night so it was only semi crowded and moving around was already difficult. While there, I had the best bowl of Taiwanese Rice noodle soup. This particular one had chunks of boiled pig intestine in it, yummy!



I will post more pictures of some of my favorite Street Cuisines later. Bon Appetit!

A Short Primer on Taiwan

A couple of things the average American may not know about Taiwan:
• It’s really humid here in the summer. Plus, sudden thunder storms appear out of nowhere quite often. It could be sunny and 85 degrees one minute and pouring rain the next. So most people walk around with an umbrella all the time, even if it feels like 120 degrees with the humidity.
• Taiwan is a small island right off mainland China. Taipei, the capital, where I was born, is the only major metropolitan city here. Think New York and Las Vegas, in terms of crowdedness, atmosphere, and nightlife.
• The nightlife here is amazing. Taiwan is known for their Night Markets and Shopping districts. Street vending is a way of life here and you can find vendors selling anything you desire if you know where to go.
• Traffic here is crazy. Yes there are traffic lights and drivers will obey them, mostly. But other than that, anything else is fair game; multiple cars in a single lane, not stopping for pedestrians, not pulling over for sirens. Plus, everyone and their grandmas ride scooters here, it’s insane. On any given street, scooters can outnumber cars 2 to 1, and they don’t stop for pedestrians either so don’t be offended if you almost get run over 5 or 6 times a night. It’s part of the culture.
• The public transit system here is excellent. The buses, subways/metro, taxis are all very affordable and popular. In addition, the subways are way cleaner than any of the ones in the U.S. I’ve been on New York, Chicago, San Francisco subways and they can’t hold a candle to Taiwan subway’s cleanliness. They don’t allow food or drink or even gum on the subways. They don’t even enforce it but people just obey it. Trust me, I checked; there is no gum under the seats, on the floor, or anywhere else. I also never see any gum wrappers or trash in general on the ground. People might be “rude” drivers, but even that’s debatable because it’s more about survival, but they certainly are considerate when it comes to keeping public transit clean.
• The foods here sold by street vendors are some of my favorite foods in the world. Where as hot dogs, pretzels, peanuts and popcorn might be your only choices in the U.S., the variety in Taiwan is limitless and it’s far cheaper than what street food would cost in the U.S.
• And finally. . . here in Taiwan, I’m waaaaay fat.
I know, I know, tell you something you don’t already know. But I just wanted to point out that if you were already considered overweight in the U.S., you’ve got no prayer here. Like most Asian countries, people here are just more fit. But I don’t think they eat less because I’ve seen the way people eat here. Plus, *food seems way more abundant, cheap, and available here than overseas. It might be because people walk more here because cars are a bit less convenient. Or maybe they have more self restraint when eating later at night. But whatever the reason, it’s hard not be self conscious when walking around when I’m clearly the biggest tub of lard within a 10 mile radius. Sigh@#$%!

*What I mean here is eating out food, not home cooked meals. But actually one theory why people are skinner here is that the Taiwanese and other Asian people don’t buy in bulk. I’ve been to a couple of supermarkets here and you’ll be hard pressed to find a 6-pack of soda much less a 12-pack anywhere. People here buy what they need and they use it for that day or maybe a couple of days. But buying Costco size bags of food and stocking up and then storing it away in the pantry is a foreign concept I think. And that would make sense don’t you think. The more people buy, the more people eat right? I think snacking late at night while watching TV just does not happen as often here. For a more detail analysis of this argument and concept, read Michael Pollan’s book, Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s a well researched look at food processing in America and why we as Americans over produce and in turn, overeat. There is a new movie/documentary out now called, Food Inc. which is based on this book. Go check it out if you can.

A Little Background

I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and lived here until I was 7 and ½ years old. My family immigrated to the U.S. back in 1982 and this is the only the second time I’ve been back to my birthplace since then. The last time I was here was in 1999 so it’s been awhile.
The thing I miss the most about Taiwan is of course, the food. Of the five senses, I’m most in tune with my olfactory and tasting abilities. So naturally, I gravitate toward having fond memories of my favorite food experiences. I will try to document my meals here through pictures and descriptions because, well, I eat a lot. But also because I thought it would be fun to freak some of my friends out with the bizarre things Taiwanese people call cuisine. Two of these friends, let’s called them Blanco #1 and Blanco #2, are not what you’d call adventurous eaters. They scoff at the idea of eating in any restaurants that doesn’t have an A grade hanging on the window. They like their food overcooked and devoid of any flavor so forget about trying anything raw like real sushi. Organs are for harvesting and selling on the black market, but not for eating. Basically, if they can’t pronounce it, they ain’t eating it. How boring is that? It’s a wonder I’m friends with them sometimes. So, the food posts are for them. Hopefully, they’ll be enticed or maybe even inspired to eat something out of their comfort zone because of me. One can only hope.

The Night Before

As with all my trips, the hour right before I take off is usually a frantic scramble of last minute packing and neurotic worrying of what might have I forgotten to do. Today was no exception, except the forgetfulness started the night before.

I had spent the night at my parents’ home in Irvine, which is an hour drive from my place in South Pasadena. In my haste in leaving Irvine and going back to South Pas in order to start packing for the trip, I stupidly forgot to bring back my laptop AC adaptor. Of course I discover this only after I had already driven back to South Pas at 11:00pm. Since I use a Think Pad, the adaptors are only available online so it’s not like I could just go to the local Radio Shack or Best Buy and pick up a spare. So left with no alternative, I had to make the agonizing long drive back to Irvine just so I could use my laptop on this trip. And of course, I literally got less than 2 hours of sleep the night before at my Parents’ because, well, I just couldn’t sleep. So the thought of having to waste 2 hours just to drive back to pick up a silly little adaptor just thrilled me to no end.

In addition, I had to do this in stealth because if you knew my parents, there was no way they were going to let me drive back to South Pas that late at night so I had to make sure I didn’t wake them when I entered the house to run upstairs to my room. This of course, is easier said than done because of my dog, Bosco.

Bosco is notorious for sensing anyone within 50 yards of the front door and will bark to no end, especially if he doesn’t recognize you. I’ve heard him bark at my dad, mom, brothers, and of course strangers. But with me, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes he’s excitedly waiting at the door when I enter, sometimes, he barks up a storm until he recognizes my scent or something. My only hope last night was that he still remembered that I had stayed there the night before and therefore, won’t bark and wake up my parents. Thank God he did.

I got back to South Pas at 2am or so and then started packing. Good thing I didn’t have an early morning flight