Thursday, February 24, 2011

A Little Late She Said

Well I apologize for the absence of blog postings. The first week in Taiwan definitely got the best of me as I was pretty sick. The moment I thought I was over it and getting better, I had gotten hit by some food poisoning. It was not a fun nor awesome experience. The thought of, "What is my mom going to say, when she finds out that I died in a foreign country... Man she would not be happy." But then again, last time I had gotten food poisoning (late summer '10) I thought I was going to die then too. It's kind of weird thinking back now, I was laying on my futon... and I just was like.. If I died.. How long would it take Ty to find out that I'm just laying on my futon being non-existent. Anyways, enough of the death talk... I got a long and picture filled blog for you to read. So sit back and hit that extra light, because this will be a worthwhile post.

So the craziest part of living in this country is the fact that no one can starve to death. This area offers a variety of small shops that offer unique types of food. I honestly could go for about of month and not eat at the same place and it's all in walking distance.
My Favorite Menu
The only reason that I have ate at a few of the same places would be the fact that the people working there know I'm American and they love that I come there so they give me a little extra. It's awesome. This is the menu that I order off at least once a day. The type of food is on the left and then you have 3 choices of how you want it made. (top row) The first way: They put your choice on top of rice then it's all rolled up into a skinny seaweed burrito type thing. (It's actually really good and filling, and yes, seaweed has a different taste but you get used to it.) The second choice: They hand make like a breaded wrap. It's cool to watch them make it, because they will make the batter by hand, and then just pour it on the grill without measuring and it comes out perfect. (I've been watching a lot of the cooks around here and they are all skilled, it's so fun to watch them prepare your food.) So basically the 2nd option is a giant wrap, which is hands down my favorite. The 3rd and final choice, is just a simple sandwich. The best part about this little shop is that, if you can see the picture, the most expensive item is 49 元 (New Taiwan Dollar, which equals to about... $1.50 USD) This is why I love this place. Then I go and grab some fruit from another vendor, where I can get a cup of fresh strawberries, a bag of pineapple, and some water melon or apples for less than $3. (The fruit lasts me all day, so I eat some with my lunch and then it's a great late night snack too) These small vendors aren't the only place that offers really cheap and awesome food.

Some friends and I went to a random Vietnamese restuarant because Timo and I had never ate at one. (Timo is from Finland, broadening my international status.) So we head into the restaurant, and for
Vietnamese Salad
everyone that doesn't know, all these restaurants are very tiny. (I think the biggest restaurant I've seen seats maybe 40 people. Then again, I've only been here for about 2 weeks so I could still stumble upon bigger and better ones.) Luckily, we grab a table and to start off we order an appetizer. This little Vietnamese salad is a tad bit spicy but very delicious. From talking about Vietnamese food, I end up finding out that all their food is quite spicy. Hmmm, this could definitely cause a problem as I'm not the biggest fan of really spicy food. Anyways, ordering. I am absolutely terrible at ordering in English. Let alone in another language. But luckily. All you have to do in this country is grab a tiny paper menu and jot down what everyone wants. It's easy as cake. So I basically just get what they tell me is good, since I have no ability to read the menu yet. The best thing that I have found out is the fact that, a lot of the restaurants make the food the same but they have different sauces that everyone then can customize how spicy, sweet or sour, or anything they can concoct from the ingredients. The moment the waitress brought out our food.. I'm just like, wow that's
Vietnamese Main Course
one big bowl of noodles. As you can see.. there are no forks or spoons. Only chopsticks. Which after about a week of struggling to eat with them, I'm actually not bad with them. (Well just enough skill to be able to eat, but I'm usually the last person done eating... I am the Peter Swanson of Taiwan.) Actually, I lied. The red handle on the left side of the bowl is a different type of spoon. It's more of a spoon where you pour gravy over your thanksgiving meal. It still doesn't help you to eat the noodles and everything else in this giant bowl of food. Oh yeah, this meal only cost me about 75元. Yet again, another great meal.




Xiao Long Bao

This restaurant has turned into one of the more popular places to eat and my favorite place to eat. Ah man, I wish they had a place like this in America. This restaurant specializes in steamed dumplings and this is where I tried steamed Stinky Tofu. (We'll get into the tofu part later) The cooks in this place are just unreal. I honestly watched them for like 15 minutes because they work as a well-tuned machinery line. One guy breaks up the dough in little balls for the guy that rolls them flat. The guy that rolls them flat is so good that he uses one hand to turn the dough as he rolls it. (He does it so fast and that's what fascinates me. Just straight up skills from doing it so often) Then he rolls about 3 or 4 and then checks on the food that is getting cooked or "steamed". Then the last guy takes it and starts filling the dough to the order and decorates the outside of the dumpling. Oh and there's the lady that just yells orders out and
The Cooking Team
pretty much just directs the flow of the restaurant. The baskets that are in the front of the picture, where all the steam is. That is how they cook them. There are about 6 different little nozzles that just spray steam, and the containers are all made up of wood and have a basket weave to them so that the food can be cooked evenly. Whatever it does, the food is absolutely worth traveling to Taiwan for.




Menus: How you order



So the menus look like this and this is also where you jot down the number of the dishes you want. As you can see in the picture, we ordered 4 dishes of... Xiao (??) Long Bao... I only know 3 characters in that name.. so I'm not sure what the other one is but that's ok because the main point is that for this meal its 60元. A bunch of us International and Exchange students have started to go here after our Chinese Class. (中文課 zhong-wen-ke) (It's crazy to call myself an international/exchange student. I just don't feel like I fit the description when people say International student.) Some how we always beat the rush when we go straight from class. This place gets so crowded and it probably only seats 30-35 people I want to say and it's a very small space to eat in. Oh and another thing, a lot of restaurants
only have little stools to sit on. So a lot of the places you can't sit back and relax until your food gets there. Surprisingly, they still have really bad posture. (not saying that I have perfect posture, but I would think not having backs to a lot of chair would help out.) As you can see to the right, this is what (Xiao Long Bao- 小龍包) looks like. I forgot to take a picture before I started eating, but you actually get 8 of these little dumplings and they are simply amazing. Except I did find out you need to let them cool right away otherwise when you bite into them, you get steaming hot water that gushes out of them. Worth the wait though. Today we got a few different dishes at this restaurant and they are just like the picture except with different fillings and have a little different design to them. Also you can see the bottom of the plates which allows those steam nozzles to cook the food. Crazy design I think I should bring something like this back to the States. Wonder if it would sell... Maybe.

So that's just a couple of the many restaurants that I have ate at. This place offers so many different types of foods that I couldn't have even dreamed up of. It's crazy to see all the differences that aren't in the States. It's so hard to describe them all because some of them are almost unbelievable until you see it for yourself. The fashion trend over here is just insane. It makes no sense. The girls really love wearing short shorts and then wearing (usually) black tights. Almost every single girl will wear tights and rarely do you actually see one just wearing shorts or a skirt. Now I don't understand the reason guys want to wear skinny jeans in the US so it really doesn't make any sense why they wear them here. The two reasons I have thought up of would be that 1) they want to be like the Western Culture or 2) There are a lot of Asian celebrities that dress like that. This leads me to the question the sexuality of a lot of celebrities in these countries. Everyday I hear something about a Korean superstar or some other type of celebrity guy and I always see a picture and ask, is he straight? I just don't understand they just all look really feminine.   Like check out this picture of the Korean superstars that some of the girls are crazy for.

Korean Manliness
What is that? They thought I was crazy for asking them if they were straight. I guess I have to re-check what a real man is... But this brings me to a difference that caught me off guard. There are a lot of lesbians in Taiwan. You won't be able to realize it every time because a lot of the times one will look like a young boy. I asked one of my Taiwanese friends about it because I just had a strange feeling the first time I saw it and they were just like, "yeah, if we segregated the gay community here, it would definitely be 90% lesbians."

Another huge difference that I'm beginning to find out is that people here are very numb to their surroundings. I think it's because there are so many people that they get used to being in very crowded areas. A lot of my Taiwanese friends have almost gotten hit by a car because they just weren't aware. It's hard to explain but I get bumped into all the time. Imagine everyone just in their own world (ipod/cellphone) or in their own conversation and not paying attention to where they are walking. Multiply that by hundreds of people crowded into the little street where all the vendors are and it's just crazy.

The best part of studying in Taiwan is that I have yet again a slacker semester ahead of me. The only class I really have to study for would be Chinese but it's 10x easier to study here because I actually have to use it outside of class. I'm currently using Chin-glish, some people have started calling it Nate-glish because I just murder the Chinese words. I'm going to have to work on those tones... They get me every time. But my favorite sayings are definitely: 我不知道 (wo3-bu4-zhi1-dao4: I don't know), 對不起 (dui4-bu4-qi3: I'm Sorry), 為什麼 (wei4-she2-me: Why?), and 真的 (Zhen1-de-ma: Really?). They are my 4 most common phrases. The numbers represent the tone which you need to say so that the listener understands what you are trying to say. My American accent turn everything that I say into a neutral tone. Thus, spawning them to call it Nate-glish. Awesome.

Well this post is a tad bit too long. I'll remember to sit down and post a few more so that I don't have to type and you don't have to read so much. Until next time.

Enjoi,


Alastar Swift.

PS: Check out this picture! It's Basic Calligraphy and its my favorite class. 2 hours of writing Chinese Characters. Paint Brush, Ink, and Paper. Talk about being AWESOME!

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Adventure to Find Food

So every night so far we have gone out and ate as a giant group from our Reitaku Dorm. Which is pretty much the highlight of my day because that's when I know I'm going to have a solid meal. Last night, we took the bus (by campus) that took us to the Mass Rapid Transit [MRT] (railway system that can take people to Taipei or other places). Now this bus is crazy, it just hauls ass down these tiny roads and every time I walk on the side of the street (not all streets have sidewalks) I feel like one day one of them will just side swipe me. Inside there are only a row of seats by the windows and lining the back of the bus. The rest of the space is all standing room with handles that come from the ceiling. It gets pretty "close" when those things get really crowded. When we get to the MRT station, we exit and damn, there are a ton of people waiting in line for these buses. The great thing about Danshui (City I live in) are all the public transportation that can shuttle you around the city for a low price of 15 New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) which comes to about... 50 cents.

Is that a 3-story McDonalds? 
After getting off and walking around what's the first thing I find? Yep a McDonalds... This one had multiple floors I'm thinking to myself, with all the great food you can find in the back alleys and roads why would anyone want to eat there. But I guess everyone loves to try to live the "Western Culture Life". So we keep walking down the street to this little restuarant and the cool thing about this is that the entrance was completely open. (My FB Friends can check out a picture I'm tagged in where we are all standing in the entrance way) This restaurant was like Hot-Pot (the first place I ate at) but this had the burner on top of the table where 6 people shared food. So we had duck, cabbage, lettuce, mushrooms, tofu, and corn all boiling in our little kettle with a side of noodles for our meal.

This is how Menus should look like.
They gave us a couple of different sauces to eat with our meal and lets just Life Lesson #3 comes in. My roommate put about 3 little teaspoons of this one sauce all over his noodles and then just took a few bites... literally seconds later he is just drenched in sweat. I was like you ok? He just shook his head no and pointed to the sauce. So I dip my chopsticks in the sauce.. just a tad bit, and DAMN that sauce was hella spicy/hot. So Life Lesson, taste test everything before you put it on your food even if people say that it's good. My two friends love taking pictures so after eating.. well I guess during too.. we took a bunch of pictures. Now these people know how to take pictures, they have this extendable pole that attaches to the bottom of their camera so they can hold it out and take a picture of everybody including themselves. No one is ever left out of a picture here. It's a pretty clever idea, I can't believe I haven't seen anything like it back in the States.

Walking back to the MRT, we probably took a little over 20 pictures... craziness. Oh and I think I started a word fad.. Since I've been here I think the 2 most common words out of my mouth are, Crazy and Awesome. Now everyone is beginning to use them.
Just a random street we were walking down.
I might be the downfall of this dorm because I'm just a big book of American Slang. Anyways, we get back the MRT and here comes this giant golden retriever running around. (There are so many stray dogs, but they aren't like American Strays, these are really nice. Probably because they would die if they were because no one would feed them) This stray dog makes all the girls in my group scream at the top of their lungs. I think that someone just got mugged, but then I just realized it was a giant dog. It ran into this tiny 7/11 and just wanted water. So the employee just turned on the sink and let the dog drink from it. That's why I use the word "Crazy" a lot. How else do you explain that scene. Maybe.. That's Bananas? I'll try to think of something new... I already have a card game named after me because I'm so bad at it and I lose all the time. They call it the Nate Game. Lovely.. Right? Its like slap jack, except you count 1-13 and if the card you lay down matches the number count everyone has to slap the card. Last one gets the pile. Tricky part, playing in Chinese. Thinking now.. I think this may have potential for a drinking game.. The Nate Game... hmm this could get popular..

Blurry, but this is the night market. 
After walking to the MRT we start heading a different way back to campus so that we can stop at the night market. This is where it gets really crazy. The first thing I see is a moped biker gang that pulls out of 7/11. (FB friends check out my roommate's wall for a video I posted about this event) Then I noticed just a crowded street full of stores, vendors, cars, mopeds, and people. Honestly I'm sure I could buy almost anything here. Just looking at all the signs of different shops and looking at all the people that were selling their wares was insane. The only downside of this would be the occasional air spot where it smells like shit. But that doesn't happen to often its just happens when you think.. Ah all the good food smells and BAM! that's when you run into one. We went there to get a drink from this certain vendor. I guess it's really popular at night so it made me think of Rubio's back in good ole' Dub-town. The drink is like warm hot chocolate but it has some sort of flavored "gel beads" on the bottom. So when you drink out of the straw you get a couple of those after every sip. It's actually really good but the first time I tried it.. the texture was really weird.

After than we just headed back to campus and walked up probably 150+ steps on the way. Yeah it pretty much killed our whole group and we had to take a break at the top. It was pretty funny to see everyone bent over from exhaustion. Oh and there was a mini amphitheater right before campus, so obviously I had to try it out. To all those that don't know, you can stand in the middle of the stage and hear an echo when you speak. It's crazy, so I had to stand in the middle and sing/say something.

Hope the pictures make it a little better. I'll try to keep them coming while cutting down on the whole reading aspect. Until next time...

Cheerio & Enjoi

Alastar Swift


Ps: It's rained everyday that I've been here. Life Lesson #1, always bring your own umbrella.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

A Crazy Island I Call Home

Being in Taiwan for about 2 full days now and I've realized that looking like an idiot is almost impossible to do until I learn Chinese better. To be honest, I have been living off some clif bars I bought at Target before I left because I have no idea how to order stuff. I walked around for about 30 minutes going through all the back alleys and up the streets just looking at all the stores and little food places. It's crazy how different everything is but it's really cool. I was so hungry that I almost made myself point to a random food item and just eat it... but I decided not to. Not because I was scared but I thought I could do way better than just point and smile. So I went back and asked my new friend, Frank, to help me out. He taught me a little basic stuff (which I really should have known) like 我想要这个 (wo-xiang-yao-zhe-ge) and 多少錢 (duo-shao-qian). [Those mean, "I would like that" and "how much"] So now I can go walk around, smile, point, and have something to say in Chinese that is worthwhile.

Crime must be really low in Taiwan because stores just have their goods on the sidewalks and no one watching it. I've also heard from other people that the clubs are really safe because some of the new girls were worried about being jumped. Not to lie I was a little scared too but at the same time I don't know why because I've been walking around this city by myself a couple of time and I've had no troubles. This also leads me to think. Being here for the past couple nights, this culture is way different than America. Well at least the people I have met anyways. They remind me of how I used to be back in the day.. like Freshman in High School. Pretty much having fun without alcohol. It's really fun to play card games and learn new words... but every night is getting a little boring, but I'm sure that's because of my ability to communicate is lacking some. I did find some people that play guitar and basketball. So at the moment I'm not too worried about being bored. Also, I'm in the beginning stages of converting one of my favorite guitar songs to piano. I have the basic layout of the song down (intro-verse-chorus-bridge-final chorus) but I need to find a better rhythm since all I'm doing at the moment is playing the chord once and holding until I need to switch chords. Hopefully soon I'll be able to play my first piano song flawlessly.

One of the things that I was told that might happen would be "culture shock". I haven't even thought about it. Sure I can't understand anything that people are saying when I go out but its kind of fun [to me at least] to be like, OH I know that word! It is kind of weird when I walk down the streets and alleys to only hear a foreign language though. The thing that fascinates me most would be that everyone I have met so far speak at least 2 different languages. Most speak Chinese/Korean/Japanese/English. Some conversations they literally switch in and out. It's insane. I'm slowly learning Korean and Japanese so maybe I can join that awesome group in a couple of months.

I've been slacking on the whole picture taking aspect of this trip. And honestly, I've seen some really awesome things that I wish I had taken pictures of. So from today on, I will have this camera attached to my mother!@#%ing hip. (Hopefully anyways) I wanted to because, there are no words to describe this different culture. It's awesome, terrible, and amusing all at once. I miss a lot of American ways but this culture offers enough positives that culture shock isn't even a big deal to me. I mean on the plus side, I'm like one of the taller people! The biggest thing that has affected me would be that no one really shares the same interests as me... well on a deeper thinking level. I've been searching about watching interviews of Jacque Fresco because after listening to him talk in that interview just leaves me speechless. He has a great level of experience and explains common everyday things that I have never even questioned before. Before I get way off topic, I'll try to take some pictures of this crazy place and show what it is like to live in Taiwan.

Hope all is well back in the lovely U.S of A.

Cheerio,

Alastar Swift


PS: You were right, about page 100 and it's just way to hard to put down. Except I have to force myself to stop so that I don't spend all day reading.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Chapter XIII

===EDIT=== So this post is like a 4 days one, since I wasn't able to finish the first part since I got carried away with packing and talking to friends before I left Wednesday.

Remembering back to being a High School freshman, I thought it would take forever to graduate HS. Walking into Freshman year of College... I thought it would be a miracle if I graduated college. Now, I'm sitting at home thinking I have 4 months of schooling in Taiwan and I'll be done. I guess it'll be a "New Chapter" of my life (or so they say). Hopefully, I'll be able to find a job once I come back to the States in a city that isn't boring or over populated. Maybe Organic Valley.. yeah I'll try my luck there after my trip. Even though it is in... Wisconsin...... I guess I'll just have to suck it up, but you never know I could find a crazy awesome job in the next 4 months so I'm not even going to worry about it.

BUT, I'm very disappointed in the Superbowl/Superbowl Ads/Superbowl Halftime/Christina Aguilera. What a terrible 3 hours. (alright not all of the commercials were bad... but most of them were) I missed the whole, I am a professional singer but yet I'll forget the National Anthem. That is just insane, but I'm sure America will forget about it in a couple of weeks. Moreover, the half-time show? WOW. It was probably the best show I've ever seen. They rocked it! [Sarcasm at it's finest] I'm not saying that I could set up and arrange a better half time show... but I honestly think I could. Even thinking back to last year's SuperBowl, I was watching it with a friend and I remember we looked at each other and said, "what is this?" I want to even say that her mom called her and said something about the halftime show. So I guess if next year's Super Bowl has a terrible half-time show, I might just never watch it again. With seeing all this fail happen for 3 hours, I just think to myself that I might have to start going towards advertising. Wasting millions for ad space and they throw out some below-par commercials? I just can't understand that they feel that the commercial is AWESOME! blows my mind.

Well tomorrow is when I start this epic and long journey (est. 26 hours). The crazy part of this trip will be the fact that I will totally miss a calendar day. February 10th will be totally inexistent to me. I leave late Wednesday night and will arrive at my destination early Friday morning. CRAZY! So does that mean I kind have time traveled ahead? or I don't know, I feel like I'm getting screwed over by not being able to part take in a Thirsty Thursday.

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So I wake up after a 12 hour slumber on this horrible thing they call a bed. It's a wooden plank and they gave me one small pad, one sheet, one pillow and one blanket to sleep on. Today I'm definitely going to have to buy a ton of blankets to make this "bed" some what comfortable. Other than that, the dorm isn't bad. I share a room with 2 other people. One I haven't met yet and one is a 31 yr old Japanese guy, who is actually really nice and I wouldn't have thought he was 31. The building I'm staying in is really old school. It feels like I took a jump back from civilization because everything feels like the 1980s or even before. Everyone is really nice that I've met. I haven't really spoken a lot since I've been here except when I met up with my Xiongdi, who gave me a tour of the campus and explained some differences about cultures. Other than that, its pretty much me with a puzzled look trying to figure out if the group I'm with is talking Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Taiwanese. But once and a while, I think they pick up on the fact that I have no idea what they are saying and they try to include me by speaking English. I hope in about 3 weeks, I'll be able to pick up Chinese pretty well, since just after one night I started to remember a lot of what I have learned over the years.

Last night we went out to eat as a giant group. Pretty sweet place we went to, I have no idea the name of the restaurant... but I do know they had a sweet entrance. It was a normal entrance you'd expect to see with a motion detector but instead it had a push button. Which I pressed probably like 7 times. Anyways, this restaurant had several tables with each spot having a circular hole cut into the table. I found out that there was a coil underneath so when they brought out the bowl of water we would cook our food. Which was pretty sweet. So they brought out a platter of veggies and a mixture of tofu and meats to put into the boiling pot of water. Half way in I discovered a giant shrimp in the platter. It honestly looked like it just died 5 minutes before they brought it out to the table. The little guy was all there antennas and all. I guess I just have never seen a real shrimp in real life. I ended up trying so many things last night that I have no idea what everything was. Something tasted pretty good, some weren't the greatest, and some had a really weird texture to them. I only spent $7 on that meal and I think it's the most food I've ever ate for that much. I honestly couldn't move. Plus they had free ice cream! But I did learn something cool about oysters (which I've never had until that night). When you boil them and they open right up, they are fresh/ just died. If they are open a little before you cook them, they've already been dead for a while and if they don't open up when you cook them... well "they say", Stay Away! To me, those things just have a weird texture that I can see why people might not like eating them.

Anyways, It's surprising what you can learn from talking to someone for a short time. I'm reminded of this constantly since I have been meeting people from all around the world last night and I'm sure I'll meet many more in the days to come.

Until next time,

Cheerio

Alastar Swift


ps. I'll try to remember to flash my skills at photography so that I can make this blog less reading and more like a picture book. Oh and to those that know me.. All their menus have ZERO pictures...