A Broad Reference

Today took the MRT out to Danshui, which is one of the oldest regions in Taipei
to play mahjong 麻將 with Angelica's friends- Jenny, Maggie & Bri'de (Maggie's boyfriend) and Eli (an american scholar working on ethnic minority groups in Thailand, south western China and Taiwan). Bri'de played Maggie the nite before and beat her so he was designated as floating advisor. Mahjong is like bridge, you only need 4 people (for the different directions), the tiles have different suits- bamboo, coins, numbers (characters), winds (directions), cardinals (dragons) and flowers.

(This Old Fashioned Mahjong Tiles picture lifted shamelessly from www.majongtiles.com)
Tiles are stacked into 4 walls of 18 pairs of tiles. The object of the game is to build five sets- 3 of a kind or straight and 1 pair from 17 tiles. We didn't do any of the complicated scoring since we were just starting (and also not playing for money). I won a few games of mahjong with Bri'de's help but i think that Jenny and Maggie were being nice to the newbies so that we'd play again. There were six of us so after a while I sat out so Eli could play. Maggie was so good that she doesn't even sort her tiles. Good thing we weren't playing for cash.

We stopped at the Danshui street market afterwards and I took some pics of food stalls and interesting things. the brown thing with the cream sauce on top is a tofu skin pocket deep fried, stuffed with fish then steamed and topped with cream sauce. It's considered a local specialty, & soy sauce quail eggs.

Another interesting one was a whole roast pig! yeah they just carve slices off. mmmm the stall next to the whole pig has special regional sausages
that are amazing, kind of like fresh lap cheung and bbq'd so smoky.

I tried eggs on a stick-yeah so yummy, they were fun coated with a salty sauce thicker than soy but not sweet like teriyaki and then hot pepper to shake on top, little soft in the middle but in a good way.

I also had a burrito and pizza today they were both not quite right but it was fun to see the Taiwanese interpretation. I'm not missing American food per se, but the other folk were really
excited to eat it. next time I'll just eat the Taiwanese st food next to the burrito stand.

guava & sugar cane

all their foods are really healthy or interesting, i think i like them
All incredibly yummy, well I guess it's that way until you get
homesick and then you want to have familiar things I haven't got to
that stage yet, altho it t feels like I've been gone for ages but I
haven't even been here a month?- just a little over 2 weeks

I even took a picture of a manhole cover for gwynie-
interesting and show s that it drains to the ocean too
i shall try to do one touristy thing every day this week
like going to the national museum.

I went to the cookies and pastry museum today it was pretty neat
They have all these molds for making pressed cookies and moon cakes etc
it was all asian dessert stuff which dates back ages.

I think everyone is kind of tired of hanging out with their family
so they all go out and wander the streets together
eating and buying souvenirs -positively social and fun
garbage still running but limited schedule
ambulances and emergency type vehicles and transit all still running
but also limited schedule
I'm guessing they get compensated big time for working

brr the house is so cold tonite
it's like an igloo. speaking of the weather, i'll be in the Taipei
Times newspaper tomorrow - I got interviewed for a comment on the weather. so I said i thought
Taiwan was supposed to be warm tropical kind of island. I'll see if it's in the paper.
Guess what? Here it is!