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!