A Broad Reference

Hey everybody!
Greetings from Taiwan.

I’ve been living vicariously through Astrid’s blog in Taiwan and now I’m here getting to see it first hand. Initial impressions:…. it rains all the time -even when the sun is shining. As a result the city is verdant yet concrete maze; its sunny, hot and humid- everyone carries an umbrella and people walk purposefully but at a slow pace on the crosswalks (in order to give the scooters a clear path to turn). I nearly got run down looking the other way and walking too quickly across the road until I figured out what was going on.

My first day- we took the dogs Percy and Dodo down to the river for a walk. I was turned around the instant we left the apartment building, lost as we went along a warren of streets. I picked up a smattering of Chinese: "Ni hao- hello", and everyone has figured out that we’re at least sisters- "jiejie and meimei" and then we say "shang bao tai"- twins and then they say "yes we can tell! "
I get the phrase for twins mixed up with shao long bao which are very yummy dumplings.

I didn’t check out a guide book (which I normally do for trips) but when sissy asked me what I wanted to do when I visited, I said “eat everything that’s on your blog” so we did.

We dashed around the city and stopped at Taipei 101 which is currently the tallest building world. Going up in the elevator seemed like a short journey but I felt my ears pop. We stopped at Eslite the biggest book store in Asia and wandered the 4th floor around marveling at all the books then headed downstairs for the most amazing passion fruit and mango frozen yogurt out of a neato machine which blends fresh fruit and frozen yogurt /ice cream on demand.

At the special mushroom restaurant Mushroom Garden, I got to try abalone mushroom which was served like sashimi on a bed of ice and a fragrant salty, gingery sauce and then we had shabu shabu (hot pot) with all kinds of mushrooms in a tasty mushroom broth. There was a sticky rice cooked in bamboo with meat and mushrooms. Yummerlicious.

We went to Jilong spelled Keelong by slow train and when the conductor stopped to talk to us, it was like a soft rain washing over me, I understood nothing. I was so jealous of my sister’s newly acquired chinese until she fessed up that she didn’t understand either. A really nice gentleman rushed over to help us out, explained that we had to change trains in Bu Dan and kindly made sure that we got on the next train. [Please note that this was the only instance where I had trouble with communicating, but clearly it made an impression on Gwynie- Astrid] We hiked up to the temple with the large Buddha and the elephant over looking the city.

We hiked to the fort that looks out over the harbor and the stone structures were immense. Fashed from all that walking we caught a taxi back to town to go to the night market near the temple to cross shao bing (tasty buns) and gao tie (fried savory doughnuts) off my list of food. So as to not OD on starch I had cherry tomatoes sprinkled with plum dust which was sweet, sour and salty at the same time. Ooh lucky me, I’ve got a bottle of plum fairy dust to take home with me. Now, I’ll be able to replicate candied tomatoes at home.

Another great day was our trip up to Muzha by taking the Mekong gondola which goes a really long way up the mountain to the top. We trekked back down to a teahouse which felt like a really long way but was really not far and a few minutes beyond the temple where we had a bout of indecision. We choose the local specialty tea cooked goose with fried sweet potato and sautéed sweet potato greens with garlic. We drank gallons of Mountain High Oolong. I was so caught up in the pouring, swirling, smelling and drinking of the tea I forgot about the caffeine, which kept me awake all night. The tea was amazing and so we went to the organic market the next day to buy some of the teas that we tried. It’s a very pleasant ritual that I’ll try to keep up when back home.

Samson, a friend of my sister's and a professional tour guide, came and took us around the northern part of the island along. We saw so much in one day, it gave us the flavor of the remote fishing villages and hiking areas that have only recently in the last couple of months got a finished highway. We went to see the natural sulphur springs with the bamboo maze high up in the mountains and took in great vistas of the plumes from the volcano and far off views of the coast. Then we drove to a really large cemetery which had road and roads and huge mausoleums. Then onto a special Buddhist temple covered in shells and coral dedicated to the gods of the fishermen and the sea- there we crawled through the shell lined maze and tunnel as a sort of prayerful activity. Followed by lunch which was a great respite - we had a huge steamed fish, squid so fresh that it will never compare with anything else, that 's my new benchmark. 2 different kinds of sautéed vegetables and a pork belly stew followed by a seafood broth with winter melon vegetables.
Onward to beautiful water carved coastline museum where a cacophony of safety warnings rang out over loud speaker in harsh contrast to the blue peaceful setting and pineapple like fruit in trees! We raced eastward to a fishing village where we tried passion fruit seaweed pudding, delicious!

A tired end to a whirlwind tour was a direct drive home on the newly opened freeway to meet up with friends for dinner. We saw a dizzying number of places but the thing most clearly set in my mind is that we need to come back to do some nature hikes.

I raced back to the states to beat a cyclone but I wish I’d never left. Taiwan, you’ll see me soon too!