(no subject)
Since I arrived in Taiwan just over a weeek ago, I've used the time productively and covered a lot of ground. Firstly, there's the ground between the airport formerly known as Chiang Kai-Shek and the Taipei Railway Station (where I met my friend Wei-chih). The next day was the significant ground covered by the great square which is still (for the time being) known as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, but it took more than the first day for me to get used to the stiflingly humid 35 degrees which it is here for most of the time (night time minimum only goes down to 29 or 30), so I slept for most of the afternoon and ventured out again at night to the Le Hua night market (near to the Yongan Market MRT station) where I was able to try out some of my Favourite Foods in Taiwan (see note 1).
Other highlights include a trip to Hualien by train, including the little hamlet of Tienhsiang in Taroko Gorge, the road to which, having been worked on extensively, is now much safer, if less exciting, than it was the last time I went there in 1995. There are now also a number of well-maintained walking trails, include the "bai yang" or white poplar walking trail, a very pleasant walk. The train on the way back to Taipei included a planned stop at Fulong beach, as well as an unplanned stop at Shuangxi, the next station (because I discovered on getting off the train at Fulong that my mobile phone had dropped out of my pocket - fortunately it was discovered by an honest person who handed it to the guard at the Shuangxi, whence we could retrieve it). The "Hong Lou" area of Hsimenting is one of Taipei's newest night spots, with a number of bars and tea shops spread around the edge of a large open plaza, where people linger until the small hours. I also went to the Taipei City Art Museum, and walked down Chungshan North Rd (which, on a Sunday afternoon, is filled with Filipino and Indonesian maids and workers on their day off - just like Orchard Road in Singapore), to my old stamping ground, Hochiang St, the Rongxing garden, then with Martin, the "4 beasts" mountains in the east of Taipei City, behind 101 (including the "95 peak" - no-one seems to know why it's called that) - a 6-7 km walk which was punishing to my calves, as well as a trip yesterday by commuter tram (which runs along the regular train lines) to Chungli, where Jio met me and took me around the Shihmen reservoir.
Note 1: some of my favourite things to eat and drink in Taiwan include mangos (you can now buy deliciously sweet mangos from Tainan, all cut into ready-to-eat slices), white peaches (again, something that seems to have proliferated over the past few years), freshly squeezed lemon juice (with lime and/or kumquat, as the case may be), pink guava juice (from 7-11, a taste that always takes me back to Hawaii in 1975), "Cha Li Wang" Oolong tea, dou gan (a kind of dry tofu) and its numerous variants, including dou pi and "vegetarian chicken", soy milk (which is vastly different from the stuff you can buy in Australian supermarkets), baozi (the ones in Hualien were excellent - of all that I've tasted - second only to the Dong He baozi, last year), dumplings - boiled, steamed and cooked by a combination of steaming and frying with a little oil, in which case they are called guotie, or potstickers - but ideally they don't (stick to the pot), shallot cakes (as we tend to call them in English - although the Taiwanese ones are really more like a garlic chive or spring onion pancake), zhua bing (another kind of "bing" or round flat type of bread, which has been pulled about in various directions to give it texture - you have to try it to know what I'm talking about), beef noodle soup, sizzling squid, and fried chicken pieces(from one of the stands where you choose from various bits and pieces, such as dou gan, French beans, fish cake, and if you are so inclined, a cake made of pig's blood), and the whole lot is sliced up, deep fried with basil, and coated in a chili powder salt, then handed to you in a bag with large toothpicks for piercing and munching as you go.
Other highlights include a trip to Hualien by train, including the little hamlet of Tienhsiang in Taroko Gorge, the road to which, having been worked on extensively, is now much safer, if less exciting, than it was the last time I went there in 1995. There are now also a number of well-maintained walking trails, include the "bai yang" or white poplar walking trail, a very pleasant walk. The train on the way back to Taipei included a planned stop at Fulong beach, as well as an unplanned stop at Shuangxi, the next station (because I discovered on getting off the train at Fulong that my mobile phone had dropped out of my pocket - fortunately it was discovered by an honest person who handed it to the guard at the Shuangxi, whence we could retrieve it). The "Hong Lou" area of Hsimenting is one of Taipei's newest night spots, with a number of bars and tea shops spread around the edge of a large open plaza, where people linger until the small hours. I also went to the Taipei City Art Museum, and walked down Chungshan North Rd (which, on a Sunday afternoon, is filled with Filipino and Indonesian maids and workers on their day off - just like Orchard Road in Singapore), to my old stamping ground, Hochiang St, the Rongxing garden, then with Martin, the "4 beasts" mountains in the east of Taipei City, behind 101 (including the "95 peak" - no-one seems to know why it's called that) - a 6-7 km walk which was punishing to my calves, as well as a trip yesterday by commuter tram (which runs along the regular train lines) to Chungli, where Jio met me and took me around the Shihmen reservoir.
Note 1: some of my favourite things to eat and drink in Taiwan include mangos (you can now buy deliciously sweet mangos from Tainan, all cut into ready-to-eat slices), white peaches (again, something that seems to have proliferated over the past few years), freshly squeezed lemon juice (with lime and/or kumquat, as the case may be), pink guava juice (from 7-11, a taste that always takes me back to Hawaii in 1975), "Cha Li Wang" Oolong tea, dou gan (a kind of dry tofu) and its numerous variants, including dou pi and "vegetarian chicken", soy milk (which is vastly different from the stuff you can buy in Australian supermarkets), baozi (the ones in Hualien were excellent - of all that I've tasted - second only to the Dong He baozi, last year), dumplings - boiled, steamed and cooked by a combination of steaming and frying with a little oil, in which case they are called guotie, or potstickers - but ideally they don't (stick to the pot), shallot cakes (as we tend to call them in English - although the Taiwanese ones are really more like a garlic chive or spring onion pancake), zhua bing (another kind of "bing" or round flat type of bread, which has been pulled about in various directions to give it texture - you have to try it to know what I'm talking about), beef noodle soup, sizzling squid, and fried chicken pieces(from one of the stands where you choose from various bits and pieces, such as dou gan, French beans, fish cake, and if you are so inclined, a cake made of pig's blood), and the whole lot is sliced up, deep fried with basil, and coated in a chili powder salt, then handed to you in a bag with large toothpicks for piercing and munching as you go.