Sunday, June 10, 2012

Cute Restaurants and Day of Tourism

Side note: When we first arrived, some of us joked that our definition of a "nice bathroom" had changed from something with fancy decorations to one that had both hand soap and paper towels.  Since then, I think it has changed to one that has a toilet and toilet paper.  If that sounds like a joke, it's not - here you're expected to carry around your own toilet paper so many public restrooms don't provide any, and some of them only have squatters for use.  Never thought just a simple toilet with toilet paper would feel like luxury.  But anyway, I have actually really grown to appreciate the fact that so many restrooms don't provide paper towels (or hand dryers).  At first it was a great annoyance.  But then it occurred to me how eco-friendly it must be!  I think the real reason is for cost savings, but still.  In America all these places offering high-speed hand dryers tout them for being so eco-friendly, when in reality, isn't it much "greener" not to use any paper or electricity?  And you know what?  Having wet hands for two minutes really isn't that bad.  So, America, if you want to brag about being environmentally friendly, lose the dryers.

My most unfortunate update is with regard to my piercing.  I got it the Thursday before last, and for the first few days it seemed to be doing just fine.  However, unfortunately (probably my fault) early last week it started feeling sore and swollen and red, and hurting more and more.  For a while I thought it was okay and normal (because your body is naturally going to be a little pissed when you punch holes and shove foreign objects in it), but as time went by, a few things started to make me nervous.  For one, the area seemed so swollen that the jewelry might be pinching it, which isn't good.  My entire ear - not just that spot - was incredibly swollen, such that the previously defined lines and squiggles were now marshmallow versions of their past selves.  Also, one thing that started freaking me out was that (I assume from swelling) my pierced ear was clearly sticking out considerably more than my other ear, which made me look pretty wacky.  Lastly, at some point I realized I was not only feeling pain in my ear but in my jaw and neck surrounding it.  So I figured it was time to take action.

This past Thursday I went back to the piercer to have him take it out.  When I went the first time, I was with Becca and Emily who served as my translators, and this guy was very talkative and argumentative.  Going back the second time, alone, I was nervous that he would be asking me lots of questions and giving me lots of instructions and I wouldn't be able to communicate with him at all.  That's not how it went at all!  I walked in, and he patted the stool for me to sit down.  Without a word, he looked at my ear and started taking various actions to clean it up and eventually take the jewelry out.  We were silent pretty much the whole time.  One of the only times he spoke, he said in a very soft voice, "很痛" (hěn tòng), which means, "very painful."  I nodded at him through tear-filled eyes.  "痛."

Anyway, since then it has still been giving me a hard time so I may be going to the doctor on Monday, if it doesn't seem better.

On to cheerier subjects!

On Friday I had a day full of eating good food in cute places.  Becca and I have been discussing for a while returning to the adorable bagel shop that we went to on our scavenger hunt ages ago.  So we set the date for Friday at lunch and, after magically both being correct about our vague instincts on how to get there, we made it happen.  And oh man.  It really is just the cutest little place.  To me it really feels like somewhere you could go in Seattle, or Ithaca, or Austin - selling little artisan soaps and organic flavored olive oils and charming books of photos alongside fancy bagels of so many enticing flavors - plain, of course, but also double cheese, tomato basil, rice, banana chocolate, black sesame and brown sugar, sweet potato cream cheese, mango, sweet potato red bean and brown sugar, and more... and instead of the kind of bagels where "sesame" means sesame sprinkled on top, all of these are like hollow tubes stuffed with whichever ingredients.  Yummy.  And that's just for take-out!

We got there at the peak of brunch and had to wait almost an hour for our seats - it was nice to get to look around at the shop, but I was getting seriously hungry so I did end up buying a double cheese and a sweet potato cream cheese to-go and took teeny nibbles to hold me over.  Finally we were seated and we both decided to splurge and get a set (added coffee, salad, and dessert) in addition to our meal bagels, all of which are far more elaborate than the take-out bagels.  Becca got a bagel with seared duck and grapefruit - it looked amazing and from the taste I had, it was!  I got one that had tofu with button mushrooms and a distinct orange flavor- also a hit!  And very unusual.  We deliberately took our time with each course and lingered to make up for the long wait time.  And I mean... that place is so freaking cute.

Me with tofu mushroom bagel.  Unfortunately their ceiling isn't cute so this photo doesn't capture the cuteness
I'm also coming to terms with the fact that I have to get out of the mindset that if I like some place, I will come back.  I only have two weeks until my parents arrive!  My seemingly infinite time here is dwindling and so instead of making my usual promise to return, when we left, I said goodbye to the bagel place... forever.

We then went to Taipei 101 and poked around a very cute bookstore for a while before I returned to school, the whole afternoon having passed.

I met up with Afore for our language meal, at a Chinese/Japanese style restaurant in the Gongguan area.  Because our language meal is subsidized by CIEE, we wanted to go somewhere a little classier than usual.  And this place was adorable!  We were sitting on pads on the ground, and our table was glass revealing an aquarium within.  The hanging lamps were shaped like lotus flowers, there were plants outside the window lit up artfully, there was traditional Chinese artwork on the walls... everything about it was totally charming and adorable.  And my food was amazing!  I got a mutton green curry (maybe more Indian than Chinese style), and it was fantastic.  Plus the meal set came with tea, french bread with bruschetta, three small dishes (a piece of sweet potato, about a tablespoon of pickled veggies, and some soy product that was QQ的), soup, salad, and passion fruit vinegar.  People drink vinegar here, and once I did by accident and was horrified, but Afore assured me this one was good... and what do you know, she was right!  And so healthy!  Afore got as her meal milk tea hotpot which actually did taste like milk tea and actually came with boba in it!  Kind of crazy.  Anyway, it was such a sweet place and a great meal.


See the aquarium underneath?

Afore with lotus crown!
Then, we strolled around the area just long enough to clear room for dessert.  We just happened to be in the same neighborhood as this hole-in-the-wall cookie and cupcake place with a really friendly guy from California who gives out free samples, speaks a bunch of languages, bakes everything by hand, plays guitar, and keeps random stuff lying around the shop.  I came here once before, way in February.  This time I got a strawberry lemonade cupcake, which, despite my full stomach, I devoured.  Then we met up with Becca to return to the very first cafe/bar that we went to in the first week and we felt very sophisticated when we asked for their cheapest wine.  And that place is so cute too.  Every place was so cute.  It was an adorable and highly caloric day.


Seeing my time here running so low, I have new determination to spend less time in my dorm room, on the computer, or otherwise wasting my few remaining opportunities to get out and see Taiwan.  Plus, my to-do-before-leaving list is still considerable and my work load is only getting heavier!  So, on Saturday, I decided to seize the day and cross a couple of items off my list.  I grabbed my list from the metro (with 10/16 items already checked off!) and set out for the Lin family garden and mansion.

The day turned out to be full of opportunities to practice my Chinese!  First, on my way to the mansion, I asked for directions that led me down a cute windy road featuring a traditional market.  Once I made my way around the huge property to the entrance, I expertly told them in Chinese that I would like to buy a ticket, but they still laughed at me because it's free and you don't need to buy a ticket.  So I started wandering around the garden, which is kind of like a maze except even more difficult to navigate because I had no idea how big an area it was supposed to be or what areas I'm not allowed to visit without a guided tour.  So, after spending about ten minutes in one small courtyard of a hundred, I was ready to declare victory and assume I had seen all there was to see.  Luckily, a few friendly women approached me and asked if I had ever seen a Taiwanese Opera, to which I replied, " :) ? " because I didn't know the word for Opera.  So one woman indicated that I should follow her and she led me out of the courtyard I had become trapped in and into a bigger section of the garden, through several big and beautiful areas before arriving at - surprise! - a performance of Taiwanese Opera.  She was very friendly and asked me a lot of questions, most of which I understood and answered appropriately!  She introduced me to her husband, who, upon finding out I was from Houston, kept making a hand motion I didn't understand that I eventually realized was indicating that NASA was there.  We parted ways and I explored the rest of the gardens (although I still very well may have missed significant portions), occasionally asking people to help me take a picture (new vocabulary!) and sometimes being the subject of other's pictures, too.  The garden was totally beautiful - lots of interesting plants, architecture, carvings, furniture, tree roots, cave tunnels, bonsai trees, etc etc - and I really enjoyed looking around it.






When I left, I practiced even more Chinese as I asked a woman about the mangoes she was selling and elected not to pay her outrageous price for them.  I bought a couple of other things to nibble on (practicing that Chinese!) and soaked up the atmosphere of this new part of town before getting back on the MRT.

I hadn't made up my mind at that point whether I was going to go to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Xingtian Temple (both on my MRT guide), or return back to school.  I impulsively decided on Xingtian Temple (since I've kind of already done CKS Hall) and so got out at the appropriate stop and headed to it.  It was far less interesting than I had hoped, since the pamphlet said it is the most frequently visited temple in northern Taiwan.  Honestly, it had a lot of people but other than that was unremarkable.  I took some pictures and crossed it off my list anyway.  And fortunately I got a chance to take all these photos - of the Lin garden, too - the way they should be photographed: set against the gloomy Taipei grey skies.  Any sun would have been so inauthentic.


Here people are waiting on line to (I think) get blessed or cleansed or something by the women in blue



I wandered around that area for a while, keeping an eye out for a charming cafe to rest for a while.  I stumbled on a cute little park or two and, after a coffee, decided to walk to a neighboring MRT stop so I could soak in some more Taiwan street feeling in my last few weeks here.  Another charming park came in my path, so I walked through it (and took some photos, including one of a strange looking and unidentified bird and one of a group of old men crowded around an intense game of Chinese chess).  It was a pretty nice walk and so after reaching the MRT stop, I kept walking - walked into a nature store (very reminiscent of Austin) and into a bakery, and walked until sunset!



Saw this fancy shmancy car getting that ticket (tee hee)

As if there was any doubt in your mind...


Last night, there was an earthquake!!  It was so exciting!  For me, at least.  According to a few news articles I've seen, it was rated at a 6.5 off the coast of Taiwan.  I have never felt an earthquake before so it was a pretty cool experience for me.  Actually, since I've been here, we've had several minor earthquakes or tremors that I only hear about by word of mouth the next day, but I'm such a heavy sleeper that I never wake up or notice them.  This one, however, woke me up.  It was around 5 am, and my first thought was that my roommate was shaking her bed.  It increased and I realized what was going on - at some point definitely all the furniture was shaking noticeably and audibly.  It soon decreased to just a minor rumbling, but I could still feel it in my bed and my chest.  My first instinct was definitely, "Cool!  My first earthquake!" but then it occurred to me that I had no idea how big or severe it was going to be and maybe I should be evacuating the building or getting under the door jams or something.  Thankfully, that wasn't necessary, and from everything I've heard it seems to have been pretty benign.  So... cool.

This morning I had a project meeting scheduled for 10 o'clock for which both my classmate and I slept through - better two than one!  Instead we met up at 11 and worked for a few hours before I headed to a cafe called Woolloomooloo with Becca, in hopes we could sit, relax, eat lunch, drink coffee, use wifi, and get some school work done.  Well, I didn't get any work done (by no fault of my own!) but the french toast was delicious, the place was cute, and the area of town was new.



Becca left to meet up with some other friends, and I, inspired by my wandering adventures of the day before, decided to walk around to a neighboring MRT stop to get a feel for this part of town.  The good news is that it turned out to actually be a very cute and charming area, with lots of trees in the road median, tucked-away sweet restaurants, and a good balance between tranquility and civilization.  There were more cute parks, and an elementary school playground full of happy children.  The bad news is that my navigational skills let me down a little more than the day before, and so I ended up walking for something like an hour or two, asking at least five different people for directions, and ending up not only at a different subway stop than I anticipated but one on a completely different line than I anticipated.  But it was good exercise, I'm sure.

I have been planning the itinerary for when my parents come to visit in two weeks.  It's a stressful task because I want to show the essence of Taiwan, the essence of my life for the past four months, along with combining shopping, strolling, museums, tourist spots, temple stuff, historic stuff, nature stuff... it seems impossible but it's kind of fun trying to decide what activities combined would make a perfect day.

It's been 118 days in Taiwan - 18 to go!

6 comments:

  1. DId you eat at Din Tai Fung? It may be the best dumpling restaurant in Taipei. We went back a couple of times when we were in Taipei. It's in the basement food court of SOGO, the Japanese department store, a few blocks from Taipei101. If you haven't been there yet, make it an outing with your parents.

    Din Tai Fung
    Fuxing SOGO Department Store
    2B 300, Sec #3, Zhongxiao E. Road
    Zhongzhen District, Taipei City
    02-8772-0528
    Hours: Sun-Thu 10am-9:30pm, Fri-Sat 10am-10pm

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    1. Dennis, funny you should mention Din Tai Fung because I actually went there as part of the same scavenger hunt that brought me to this cute bagel shop! But yes, it's definitely on the to-do list for when my parents get here... only the best for them, of course.

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  2. http://www.epicurioustravels.com/2011/06/taipei-award-winning-dumplings-at-din.html

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  3. Google ate my first version of this reply, so I'm trying again! I think your folks will love the dumpling place, especially the ones filled with soup. If you didn't try them yet, be sure to. You have to put the whole thing in your mouth and then when you bite into it, hot soup gushes into your mouth. Divine!

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  4. I am amazed that 1. You are having actual conversations in Chinese! 2. With everything else you have going on, you are so thoughtfully planning for our visit! 3. You don't weigh 300 pounds! SO PUMPED about seeing Taiwan and you.

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  5. lin mansion! im so jealous of taiwanese food

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