Picture spam: Taiwan, Dec. 2008
More from my Taiwan trip! This batch has a lot more food pictures, yay, and also, a very random zebra ass.
The tree! I am amazed that my mom could still find it, given that we haven't put it up for at least 4 years. Also, half the decorations I remember are gone, as are the colored lights, but there are still some old childhood favorites among the ornaments to make me feel more secure. (Change + me = not happy)
And finally, food photos! Deep-fried shrimp heads, yum.
Some sort of creamy broth thing in foil. My sister and I both were reminded of my mom's Napa cabbage and Campbell's cream of mushroom casserole.
It looks like tonkatsu, but it is not! I think it is some tofu thing with melted cheese and ham inside, like an odd tofu Cordon Bleu.
Tasty green tea and red bean panacotta.
Tasty black sesame and cornflake panna cotta.
A very sad dog! I fed him all my bread because I felt so bad for him and wished I could take him home.
Trees and sky
The house the author 三毛 (San Mau) used to live in. Apparently she was a fairly famous author during the seventies who ended up committing suicide.
I love bouncing on these bridges and scaring the daylights out of myself. Although I haven't really seen them with laundry drying...
The view of the mountainside. I can't remember where this was, but it was particularly odd because the school there was playing Christmas carols very, very loudly.
More bridge, this time sans laundry.
I am not quite sure where they got "police beat," since that's definitely not a literal translation. Possibly overzealous with a thesaurus? I also like "God Church," which is a literal translation.
Mossy trees
And a very interesting church...
On the one hand, I am glad the people there have made it their own. On the other, am disturbed by how pervasive Christianity is.
More paintings on the church walls
And even more...
The place also had a memorial for someone whose name I completely forgot. But he was basically placed under house arrest by Chiang Kai-Shek for aiding the Communist Party. I think. Damnit, this is why I should upload pictures as soon as I take them! Anyway, this isn't his actual house, but a rebuilt model.
The inside. I thought it was interesting to see how a Taiwanese house built around the time of the Japanese occupation would look like.
The outside. Lots of shoji! I am not sure if an actual house would have shoji doors on the outside? That doesn't seem to work so well with rain and such.
Horribly out-of-proportion statues of the guy and his wife.
1940s or 1950s furniture.
We were going to sit down and eat, but there were all these roadside vendors outside! The things to the left of the sausages are chicken butts. And on the far left, you can see them warming the 竹筒飯 (sticky rice in bamboo), which I love.
And they were selling these massive cabbages!
Massive!
And flattened and roasted pigeon, I think.
Randomly, there was a little miniature rose garden that someone must have tended to carefully.
The 竹筒飯 (sticky rice in bamboo)
Our feast after we devoured it (two pigeons and two bamboo things). The pigeons were especially good!
I can't remember if I took a picture of this during the summer, but it totally cracks me up that there's a recess area. It is so practical too!
The Taipei MRT. I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but the subways were going by too fast. It's grown so much! I still remember when the very first line opened back when I was in high school, and now it's all high-tech and fancy.
They use tokens! Only the tokens have some sort of RFID or something in them, because you can just scan them across a sensor to get in, then drop them in a coin dispenser on the way out. I suspect it is to conserve paper?
I feel there should be more of these in the world! It's basically an underground passage connecting several MRT stations, some which do clothes and accessories, and one stretch that does books! It would have been much more awesome if I could read all the books though...
Bwahahaha! 大同 (Tatung, big Taiwan brand for household appliances) rice cooker stuffies!
And fake-bread thingies in the claw machine!
Green beans in sesame sauce, yum.
Sashimi, I will never grow tired of you! The yellow ones are fish + roe, and the middle are marinated sashimi pieces.
And they included the fish the sashimi was cut from.
Grilled fish and bacon-wrapped asparagus.
Yamaimo (山藥) slices in a vinegary cold broth and seaweed. I found I actually like yamaimo better in slices, as opposed to a slimy pile of diced pieces.
Grilled pork belly and grilled fish. None of us could figure out if we were supposed to eat the fish bones or not (turns out not).
Stewed stuff.
Big rolls of sushi.
Squid on stick! Sadly, I wasn't able to buy one.
Taro and yam fries! They sprinkled them with dried plum powder, which is what you usually eat with cherry tomatoes or guava slices. It's a little odd on the yam fries, sweet and salty at once, but tasted pretty good once I got used to it.
Egg cakes! Sadly, they were a little too dry in the middle to be awesome, but apparently some celebrity bought some and walked off right as we got to the stand (I don't know who; my sister had to tell me).
Just what it says! I did not try it, since that much butter grosses me out.
And the line outside of 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung), one of my favorite restaurants ever, purveyor of the most delicious 小龍包 (soup dumplings) in the world. My dad: "Thank goodness there's still a line! If there isn't, you know the Taiwan economy is really in trouble."
And our takeout from 鼎泰豐/Din Tai Fung, along with some other dishes from another restaurant. The shrimp and garlic sprout things (not quite garlic sprouts, but similar) and the soup are from the other restaurant.
Soup dumplings!
Random glass of wine. My wine education is now progressing, and I can actually tell the difference between a Bordeaux and other red wines. Sometimes. This is rather sad, given that my dad has been plying me with wine for how many years now?
Potstickers from a department store food court.
And little mouse bread! (The lady yelled at me for taking the picture. But it was worth it for the mice!)
I think this is a cold chicken dish...
Stir-fried 豆腐乾 (dried tofu? preserved tofu?)
Mmmmmm, braised fatty pork. It's a Shanghainese thing, usually braised in 糖醬油, a soy sauce that's had rock sugar melted into it and then been reduced a little. It's very rich and oh so tasty.
Braised tofu.
Bread!
Meatballs, Napa cabbage and 粉絲 (mung bean noodle?)
年糕 (year cake, rice cake). laurashapiro, this is what we had at the Chinese place! I love this stuff to pieces.
Silk melon with 竹笙, this... fungus thing? It's the clear, kind of spongy stuff.
More stir-fry!
Fish that I didn't snap a picture of fast enough ;).
Lemon chicken
Shrimp
Stir-fried cabbage, yum. I did not realize cabbage was one of those things people usually do not like until I watched Good Eats and Alton Brown explained how people usually thought it was all gray and gym-sock like. Which, ew! But stir-fried cabbage is sweet and crunchy, and I really like it.
Um. I have completely forgotten what this was. Beef?
Pumpkin soup. Actually, probably kabocha squash.
Oh! 鍋餅, which are these flat bread things with red bean paste layered on the inside, and then fried in a pan. I love these! Once I almost ate an entire plateful because everyone else was talking, and no one noticed until there were only three pieces left.
The most random streetlight ever. I thought there might be a disembodied zebra front-end across the street, but no. Just a random zebra rear-end.
The tree! I am amazed that my mom could still find it, given that we haven't put it up for at least 4 years. Also, half the decorations I remember are gone, as are the colored lights, but there are still some old childhood favorites among the ornaments to make me feel more secure. (Change + me = not happy)
And finally, food photos! Deep-fried shrimp heads, yum.
Some sort of creamy broth thing in foil. My sister and I both were reminded of my mom's Napa cabbage and Campbell's cream of mushroom casserole.
It looks like tonkatsu, but it is not! I think it is some tofu thing with melted cheese and ham inside, like an odd tofu Cordon Bleu.
Tasty green tea and red bean panacotta.
Tasty black sesame and cornflake panna cotta.
A very sad dog! I fed him all my bread because I felt so bad for him and wished I could take him home.
Trees and sky
The house the author 三毛 (San Mau) used to live in. Apparently she was a fairly famous author during the seventies who ended up committing suicide.
I love bouncing on these bridges and scaring the daylights out of myself. Although I haven't really seen them with laundry drying...
The view of the mountainside. I can't remember where this was, but it was particularly odd because the school there was playing Christmas carols very, very loudly.
More bridge, this time sans laundry.
I am not quite sure where they got "police beat," since that's definitely not a literal translation. Possibly overzealous with a thesaurus? I also like "God Church," which is a literal translation.
Mossy trees
And a very interesting church...
On the one hand, I am glad the people there have made it their own. On the other, am disturbed by how pervasive Christianity is.
More paintings on the church walls
And even more...
The place also had a memorial for someone whose name I completely forgot. But he was basically placed under house arrest by Chiang Kai-Shek for aiding the Communist Party. I think. Damnit, this is why I should upload pictures as soon as I take them! Anyway, this isn't his actual house, but a rebuilt model.
The inside. I thought it was interesting to see how a Taiwanese house built around the time of the Japanese occupation would look like.
The outside. Lots of shoji! I am not sure if an actual house would have shoji doors on the outside? That doesn't seem to work so well with rain and such.
Horribly out-of-proportion statues of the guy and his wife.
1940s or 1950s furniture.
We were going to sit down and eat, but there were all these roadside vendors outside! The things to the left of the sausages are chicken butts. And on the far left, you can see them warming the 竹筒飯 (sticky rice in bamboo), which I love.
And they were selling these massive cabbages!
Massive!
And flattened and roasted pigeon, I think.
Randomly, there was a little miniature rose garden that someone must have tended to carefully.
The 竹筒飯 (sticky rice in bamboo)
Our feast after we devoured it (two pigeons and two bamboo things). The pigeons were especially good!
I can't remember if I took a picture of this during the summer, but it totally cracks me up that there's a recess area. It is so practical too!
The Taipei MRT. I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but the subways were going by too fast. It's grown so much! I still remember when the very first line opened back when I was in high school, and now it's all high-tech and fancy.
They use tokens! Only the tokens have some sort of RFID or something in them, because you can just scan them across a sensor to get in, then drop them in a coin dispenser on the way out. I suspect it is to conserve paper?
I feel there should be more of these in the world! It's basically an underground passage connecting several MRT stations, some which do clothes and accessories, and one stretch that does books! It would have been much more awesome if I could read all the books though...
Bwahahaha! 大同 (Tatung, big Taiwan brand for household appliances) rice cooker stuffies!
And fake-bread thingies in the claw machine!
Green beans in sesame sauce, yum.
Sashimi, I will never grow tired of you! The yellow ones are fish + roe, and the middle are marinated sashimi pieces.
And they included the fish the sashimi was cut from.
Grilled fish and bacon-wrapped asparagus.
Yamaimo (山藥) slices in a vinegary cold broth and seaweed. I found I actually like yamaimo better in slices, as opposed to a slimy pile of diced pieces.
Grilled pork belly and grilled fish. None of us could figure out if we were supposed to eat the fish bones or not (turns out not).
Stewed stuff.
Big rolls of sushi.
Squid on stick! Sadly, I wasn't able to buy one.
Taro and yam fries! They sprinkled them with dried plum powder, which is what you usually eat with cherry tomatoes or guava slices. It's a little odd on the yam fries, sweet and salty at once, but tasted pretty good once I got used to it.
Egg cakes! Sadly, they were a little too dry in the middle to be awesome, but apparently some celebrity bought some and walked off right as we got to the stand (I don't know who; my sister had to tell me).
Just what it says! I did not try it, since that much butter grosses me out.
And the line outside of 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung), one of my favorite restaurants ever, purveyor of the most delicious 小龍包 (soup dumplings) in the world. My dad: "Thank goodness there's still a line! If there isn't, you know the Taiwan economy is really in trouble."
And our takeout from 鼎泰豐/Din Tai Fung, along with some other dishes from another restaurant. The shrimp and garlic sprout things (not quite garlic sprouts, but similar) and the soup are from the other restaurant.
Soup dumplings!
Random glass of wine. My wine education is now progressing, and I can actually tell the difference between a Bordeaux and other red wines. Sometimes. This is rather sad, given that my dad has been plying me with wine for how many years now?
Potstickers from a department store food court.
And little mouse bread! (The lady yelled at me for taking the picture. But it was worth it for the mice!)
I think this is a cold chicken dish...
Stir-fried 豆腐乾 (dried tofu? preserved tofu?)
Mmmmmm, braised fatty pork. It's a Shanghainese thing, usually braised in 糖醬油, a soy sauce that's had rock sugar melted into it and then been reduced a little. It's very rich and oh so tasty.
Braised tofu.
Bread!
Meatballs, Napa cabbage and 粉絲 (mung bean noodle?)
年糕 (year cake, rice cake). laurashapiro, this is what we had at the Chinese place! I love this stuff to pieces.
Silk melon with 竹笙, this... fungus thing? It's the clear, kind of spongy stuff.
More stir-fry!
Fish that I didn't snap a picture of fast enough ;).
Lemon chicken
Shrimp
Stir-fried cabbage, yum. I did not realize cabbage was one of those things people usually do not like until I watched Good Eats and Alton Brown explained how people usually thought it was all gray and gym-sock like. Which, ew! But stir-fried cabbage is sweet and crunchy, and I really like it.
Um. I have completely forgotten what this was. Beef?
Pumpkin soup. Actually, probably kabocha squash.
Oh! 鍋餅, which are these flat bread things with red bean paste layered on the inside, and then fried in a pan. I love these! Once I almost ate an entire plateful because everyone else was talking, and no one noticed until there were only three pieces left.
The most random streetlight ever. I thought there might be a disembodied zebra front-end across the street, but no. Just a random zebra rear-end.