A Little Taiwanese Cuisine (on pictures of food)

    Now that I am getting used to the cuisine here and it is no longer a novelty, I chuckle when I think back at some of things that used to disgust or surprise me.  Yesterday Chris and I dined at our regular hole in the wall, steak noodle shop, and saw a small rat, about the size of my open hand, also dining just underneath the outdoor kitchen.  (Basically it's a stand where they cook their food but it's right outside on the street).
   Chris: "Oh, there's a rat."
   Me: "Ew, where?" (Chris points)
   Me: "Oh, it's kinda small."
Then we both went back to our food and kept eating.  Of course it bothers us, but not like how it was before, where a rat would be cause for us to stop eating our food or at least contemplate it.  Now, it's cause for us to not contemplate it, so that we can keep eating... unless maybe a ginormous rat scurried across the table...
   Oh, but I digress, it's almost always not at all like this, most of the restaurants we go to are clean enough to keep the rats invisible.  If anything, it's our fault, Chris and I are still in frugal travel mode, despite the fact that we've been here for almost eight months now, and we are for some reason drawn to the hole in the wall restaurants because it usually means it's cheap.  I can think of multiple times in our travels where we've eaten some sort of weird dish or bowl of soup and it very well could've been a rat itself. 
   Okay I keep digressing, so on with the food of Taiwan.
   Even though when I first got here, and at times even now, I order by basically closing my eyes and pointing at the menu, the Taiwanese fare is hardly intimidating.  I never felt too nervous about questionable foods because it would usually look acceptable, and most of the time tasty.
   Of course, I miss a good old fashioned burger, with a real hamburger bun, or huge pizza slices from Lampost or Giampettro's with dripping cheese (mmmmmm...), or (drool) a carne asada burrito with extra guac... but I actually like the food here for the most part.  Living in a rural town, there isn't a whole lot of variety in my opinion, but I think it's because of my American taste where American food really means a little bit of everything ffrom every culture. So for me, noodles are noodles and rice is rice.  Doesn't matter that it has a different sauce or a different cut of meat, if I eat a noodle dish for lunch and then another noodle dish for dinner, I feel like I've just eaten noodles twice in one day.  But I'm getting used to the idea of concentrating less on the rice and noodles part and focusing on the broth or the other stuff.
   The food here is good, and because of the very strong Chinese influence, I've found that you can cook and eat a lot of things you would've previously never imagined as food.  It keeps things interesting.

   So here's some pictures of food that I've taken:

Every morning, a truck comes around our neighborhood selling food, one morning it woke us up, and Chris went down to check it out and brought back this. He says, "I got dumplings."  I opened it, "No, Chris, you got stinky tofu".  (This is the third time that we've accidentally ordered it.)  I ate one.  Chris ate them all.

Tofu, chicken parts, other weird stuff. 

Steak noodle dish.  It comes on a sizzling hot plate and it's delicious.  

Fresh chicken, like really fresh

   Night markets are a HUGE part of the Taiwanese culture.  Every town, big or small will have at least one night market.  If not once a week, then every day.  Night markets are great fun and the majority of it consists of a plethora of food stands that serve a good snack or meal.

Deep fried squid on a stick

BBQ chicken wings on a stick.  Notice the grill, it's the back of a car, very trendy.

Spicy sea... snails? You get a bag of of them and basically you just suck out the inside.  It's actually good, especially when you're walking around the streets with a beer, which I still can't get enough of because of strict liquor laws back home... 

Deep fried milk balls, or something.

I forget, but I like the dogs on the chair.

Deliciously cheap sushi

Omelet style dishes

More stinky tofu. Stinky tofu soup, or fried stinky tofu

Lots of restaurants, there's over a hundred of them crammed together in a very small area at this night market.

Oyster omelet

   I have more pictures, I just have to find them, I'll make another food post sometime soon.  Hope you're hungry!

Typhoon Surf (on the beginning of the Taiwan typhoon season)

   I've never experienced a typhoon in my life, I've never experienced a hurricane either since I've spent most of my life in Southern California.  For those of you who are like me and never grew up in an area where you have to worry about cyclones, they're basically crazy super storms.  Lots and lots of wind going in all sorts of directions and tons of rain.
I'm a little anxious but excited to experience a full blown typhoon which is sure to come.  We just had two typhoon warnings in the past month.  Luckily, neither of them made it to land.  I've been told that it's pretty early this year for typhoons to start.  This means that we're probably going to have more typhoons and rain than usual, this last one that just missed us was huge, bigger than Taiwan, and it was a category 4 out of 5.

   I'm worried about all the wind and rain that we'll get.  Landslides are a common problem because of the heavy rainfall.  There are still many remnants of debris from previous typhoons.  If you walk along the coastline in Taiwan, you'll see that most of the beaches are completely littered with mangled pieces of driftwood.  They came from previous typhoons that wreaked havoc and washed everything into the sea.  Another thing that we'll have to look forward to during a big typhoon is our commute into town on our little scooter.  Since it's about a fifteen to twenty minute scooter ride into town, it's not going to be easy going to and from work when winds are blowing at around 100 miles an hour and there's so much rain it'll be almost impossible to see through my helmet's face "shield".  My boss told me that I'll also have to be careful of the wind picking up a large random object, say a sign post, and chucking it at me to kill me. I'm definitely not looking forward to that at all. I imagine I'll be a little paranoid.

   Of course an incoming typhoon isn't always a bad thing, especially for a surfer.  Typhoons bring in some big swell, lots of beaches that look like lakes most of the time will suddenly spit out a perfectly gorgeous barreling wave or just some fun-sized swell.
It's too bad that the overly cautious Taiwanese government thinks this means danger.  If a typhoon even gets too close to Taiwan, a typhoon warning is issued and consequently all of the beaches get closed down.  This means no one is allowed in the water or you can get greeted with a ridiculous fine.  It's really silly because they shut down all of the beaches, even if there are no waves. 
They enforce this by sending the police and coast guards to patrol all the beaches, and the popular beaches for surf are guarded at all times.

   This last typhoon that was making its way towards us produced some great swell.  On Saturday, the wind switched offshore and Chris and I drooled from our rooftop watching the beautiful unsurfable swell. Every hour we walked down to the beach to see if they dropped the tape that was blocking off the beach.  Finally, at around noon, we timed it perfectly, as we walked down to the beach, we saw the bright orange coast guard jumpsuits getting on their scooter as if about to leave.  As we jogged over to them, they zoomed off giving us the "okay" sign.  FINALLY!

   I surfed so hard that I thought my arms were going to surrender and detach themselves from my body.  I caught a few waves where I was in the perfect spot, I would paddle and suddenly the wave would get taller and taller and I would race down the face of the wave grabbing my rail for support, staring at a perfect wall that was lining up so vertically, so perfectly, solely for me.  They had some size too, almost double overhead for me, (but remember, I'm 5'3").  Ohhhhhhh it was so SWEET! One of the waves that I caught felt so big that I actually made a few turns while I was dropping down the face before I even made my bottom turn. It was the first time surfing ever reminded me of snowboarding.  I know some of you surfers out there are chuckling at my childish excitement, but that's how I felt, like a child at Disneyland.  It's days like this I feel like I could devote the rest of my entire life to surfing.  In fact, I do not at all think it's crazy when I hear of people giving up everything they have in search of waves, I get it.

   Once again, I was too busy surfing to worry about pictures, so sorry about that...
Check back later for the next typhoon swell, hopefully I'll remember to take pictures of at least the waves.  

Beautiful Taiwan (a weekend trip to Taitong)

  During a long holiday weekend, my boss invited us to join them on an excursion to the mountainside.  The last time we were in Taitong we surfed some pretty amazing waves so we brought our surfboards with us just in case.  We didn't realize that there were so many other things to do in Taitong and our surfboards just sort of ended up being useless weight in the van.  

We stayed at a place called Coconut Grove.  It's nestled in the mountains away from the city which means, beautiful and tranquil.  The kind owner built the whole area with his bare hands.  He spent twenty years piecing together everything using bamboo, twigs, strings, coconuts and other resourceful things.  It's quite unique and pretty.  

Here he is making handicrafts using bamboo leaves

   He spends his days entertaining his guests with a unique talent of being able to play any song using almost any leaf. He puts it in his mouth and out comes a tune! It's not exactly a melodious, hypnotizing tune... more like a baby duck with a talent, but it's impressive nonetheless. He's actually pretty well known in Taiwan for this bizarre talent.  He said he learned it from an aboriginal when he was young and practiced and practiced.  
   

    The rest of his time is spent fixing up his property.  He built a large pond and put fish in it for his guests to fish out of.  He also makes lots of beautiful furniture and structures using various parts of bamboo trees and leaves.  His place feels like a remote, private museum.  This man is one of the most resourceful people I've ever met.

   We spent one day basking in the beautiful scenery, riding bicycles around a government funded  recreational area called Guanshan.  To encourage bicycling, the government helps to fund bike rentals shops. So, in a very Taiwanese way, there are probably about twenty rental shops lined up right next to each other right at the entrance, beckoning customers.    I rented a great recreational bike for the whole day for $3.  
   The bike path goes through very gorgeous scenery.  Parts of the path run along a river completely surrounded by lush vegetation.  The surrounding views are dotted with rich green hills, rivers and streams and complete with fat, muddy water buffaloes grazing and drinking.  

Three of the many bike rental shops

 


   All in all, it was a nice weekend well spent.  If you're ever in Taiwan, Taitong should not be skipped.

  


  

Small But Fun (some surf pictures of Jialeshuei)

  Summer's coming and that means that the winter swell season is over for Jialeshuei.  There's still surf though just small.  When I first arrived here, the beach was always choppy with ugly currents, but the waves were nicely shaped and the size was decent on most days.  Even when the waves were completely blown out, there were waves that could be caught here and there so Chris and I surfed pretty much everyday the last five months that we've been here.  A lot of times we surf twice a day.
   Now that summer's coming that means the swells are getting smaller and smaller.  The beach that I've become familiar with sometimes looks unrecognizable because it's so flat and calm. Even though the waves are small, the good thing is that there's a lot more offshore days like today.
  
   This morning I woke up, clambered up to the third floor to look at the break and knew that it was going to be small.  It was smaller still so I decided to take out a soft top board from the hostel (soft tops are the long foam boards that are great for beginners).  I haven't been on a longer board than my 5'8" fish in quite a while but it was good fun! Amazingly, the whole two hours I was out, I was the only one surfing today...
I can finally post some pictures because Chris decided to take a break since he surfed most of the day yesterday.  He was kind enough to walk down to the beach and take some photos.

Home- the village of Jialasheui... not sure if it's big enough to be called a village.

Too small for a shortboard

That's one of the village dogs, Moka.  That's me in the water, by myself 

There was one other guy on the beach besides Chris 

All in all, it was just another day...

A Foreign Dental Patient (on my quest to find a dentist in Hengchun)

   I know I keep mentioning how rural my location is but I have to mention it again.  I live in such a rural place that our first month here, I didn't think there could be a legitimate dentist.  One time Chris and I were walking down a lane in Hengchun (our nearest real town) and we noticed a very old man sitting in his living room watching TV.  Normally we would walk on because everyone has a living room with a TV but something about it seemed odd.  On further staring for an extra ten seconds or so we realized with horror that there were two mismatching ancient dentist chairs side by side adjacent to the living room. It looked like they had been plucked out of a dental office and conveniently placed inside someone's house.  We felt rude to be gaping into this man's living room so we walked on but we were sure of it, that living room doubled as a sketchy dental office.  By sketchy I mean about as sketchy as Sweeney Todd's barber shop. It didn't help the case by this conveniently placed sign.

   Unfortunately one day, about a couple of months ago, I was lunching on 'niu rouh mien' (beef noodle soup) when suddenly half of my molar broke off.  It just broke off.  At first, I thought it was a piece of bone but then something felt funny in my mouth and I realized that the bone was my own tooth.  It was a slap in the face because I was already having a horrible week.  Anyway, here I am, in a foul mood, the beginning of the work week and holding a piece of my tooth.  I figured I would have to give one of these sketchy dentists a try because there was no way I would be able to make an emergency trip to Kaoshiung (the big city a couple of hours from here) until the weekend.

   I definitely didn't want to go to the living room dentist so I asked my coworkers if they had ever been to a dentist in Hengchun.  They said that they all go to Kaoshiung but one of my coworkers recommended a dentist in town since it was a sort of emergency.  He said he went there years ago before he found a dentist in Kaoshiung and that he remembered that he spoke some English.
   The next morning before work, I scootered over there and went inside.  After the secretary or counter person or whatever rudely helped me (she was exasperated that I couldn't speak Chinese) she told me to sit down.  I waited and became aware of my surroundings.  It was about a 10ft x 10ft room with one chair, a very old dentist working on some woman's teeth and the tiniest counter that served as the cashier/reception.  The room was old and everything in there seemed old but it wasn't ancient and it felt more like a dental office than somebody's living room.  I decided that this was my best bet and waited patiently.

   The dentist spoke English but it was quite obvious that his English vocabulary consisted mainly of dental terms and he kept using his concise dental vocabulary on me.  It wasn't that he was trying to show off his English skills at all, it's because part of the Taiwanese dental education is to learn these words and he must've assumed that any English speaker would use these words in their daily vocabulary.  For example, instead of 'filling' he kept saying amalgam, he also used words like, composite resin and prophylaxis.  All with a very thick accent.  It took my full concentration to try to register what he was saying.
   After checking my teeth he concluded that my tooth was broken (I know!), and that he was too old to fix it.  Literally, he said, "I do not have stamin to fix tooth, I recommend you go other place." Fortunately the visit only cost me $3 (my awesome health insurance) and doubly fortunate he told me that the Hengchun Christian Hospital had a dental office.  I was relieved because it's also known as the Tourist hospital so there had to be English there (but there wasn't really).

   A friend helped me find a number to that hospital and she made me an appointment.  When I got there, it was a world of a difference.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a legitimate dental office, here in Hengchun! For one, the office was very white with those bright florescent lights that I'm accustomed to associating with medical treatment.   The nurses were all dressed up like nurses, the dentist was wearing a bright white lab coat, and everything looked clean, clean, clean.  They even had a separate room for kids decorated to seem less frightening.  The doctor however spoke less English than the last doctor (but still used all those dental terms) but he was very nice and told me that all I needed was a filling.  Fifteen minutes and $3 later, I was fixed. 

   Today, I just got back from getting my wisdom teeth pulled.  It would be nice if the dentist spoke better English... especially when after he pulled my teeth he told me that I had to keep the gauze in place for another hour and not spit anything out.  Then he just kinda got up and left.  Leaving me standing there not knowing what to do next.  It's funny, a lot of times in Taiwan, I feel like I'm a part of a scavenger hunt.  The nurse doesn't speak English so she hands me the receipt and points down.  I go back to the first floor to another nurse who doesn't speak English and she writes down how much I owe, then points to the pharmacy.  I walk up to the pharmacy, hand them my paper and they give me my medicine.  In broken English, I'm given dosage directions and then I'm finished.  Sounds easy enough but it can be stressful, trust me. (So why not go learn Chinese? IT'S FRIGGIN' HARD!)  So I leave with my questions  unanswered like, "Do I put a piece of fresh gauze in my mouth?" "How long will I bleed?" "Can I talk?" "What can I eat?" "What can't I eat?"   Luckily for me, I have the internet.

   Despite my lack of Chinese and having two gaping holes in my mouth, I feel fortunate to be covered by their wonderful government health insurance. I paid $3, YES $3! For two of my wisdom teeth to get extracted, including antibiotics and painkillers... I don't think I have to remind any of you what ridiculous prices I would've paid back at home.

Surf, Food, Drink (My Weekend in Jialeshuei)

This past weekend I stuck around Jialesheui and enjoyed a fun-filled couple of days with no work.  Of course, I only work about eighteen hours a week so I don't mind the weekdays too much but it's nice to not have to go to work at all on the weekends. 
    On Friday, the wind switched direction and the wind howled offshore all weekend.  Suddenly our little surf break that we started to call home turned into a completely different beach.  Usually there are lots of chop and when you look at the beach it doesn't look very inviting for a swim but suddenly all the chop was gone and the sets that were rolling through were beautifully shaped offshore waves.  The only problem was they were about waist high and packed with longboarders.  It was still a blast and I surfed my heart out.  I regret not taking any pictures but as a surfer, it's tough to want to bring out your camera when you can be surfing instead.  My apologies. 

    About a half hour scooter ride away, there's a place called Houbihu marina.  It's a nice spot to go snorkeling and they also have a fish market where you can buy different kinds of seafood and have a delicious seafood lunch.  After one of our long morning surf sessions, we went with some friends to have a sashimi lunch.

This whole sashimi meal cost me 3 bucks!

An type of eel decorated with huge fish eyeballs.  I couldn't stare at this for too long. 

These food stalls offer the biggest pieces of the most delicious calamari. 

A HUGE lobster

    After lunch we hit the waves again and surfed.  When the sun started to set, suddenly everyone else left and Chris, our friend Adam and I had the whole beach to ourselves.  We surfed 'til it was dark and it was a memorable, small, offshore surf session.  (sorry, no pictures again, too busy surfing)


    Last night, we had some guests staying at the hostel and they asked us to join them for a drink.  What was supposed to be a brief drink turned into a loud and raucous drinking game that lasted a few hours.  They convinced us to shoot kaoliang (a harsh, cheap Taiwanese liquor I mentioned before that happens to taste like poison). Chris and I bought it once at a supermarket.  We stood in front of the liquor aisle completely confused and not sure about what any of the clear bottles in front of us were.  This old man walked in and made a beeline for a big bottle of something so we decided that it must be a good, local drink.  The price tag, $3 for about a size of a liter bottle should have warned us but we just excitedly hoped that it was a good, cheap drink.  We took it home and after taking a few sips of it we started to wonder if we had accidentally bought a cleaning product.  That bottle lasted us a very long time.
    Anyway, so here we were back in the living room with shot glasses of kaoliang being offered to us.  So we drank and gagged. We drank some more and we played a few rounds of American drinking games that we had to offer them and luckily they thought were fun.  I know alcohol's not the greatest thing in the world but it's such a wonderful lubricant for language barriers.  I think I learned more Chinese last night than I have in one month.  Too bad they're mostly words pertaining to drinking...
   I don't really drink very much anymore and I was reminded of why when I woke up today with a massive headache.  That kaoliang is so bad for you.  It seemed Chris and I were the only ones hungover though because everyone else woke up early and seemed fine.  Maybe kaoliang is just bad for foreigners...

We taught them a simple version of "Kings Cup"

Hello Pygmy Elephants! (Mr. Aji: Borneo Cowboy)

In the jungles of Borneo I was lucky enough to encounter some wild pygmy elephants.  Contrary to what the word pygmy might imply, these pygmy elephants were more elephant than pygmy.

On a recent trip to Malaysia, Chris and I and a group of other travelers that we met at the airport stayed at a wonderful jungle lodging called the Paganakan Rii.  It's a beautiful place nestled in the jungle. Everything is well maintained, the dorm rooms that we stayed at were huge and nicely constructed.  For hostel prices, this place is pretty much a resort compared to a lot of holes that Chris and I usually find ourselves in.  Enough about that, let's get on to the elephants.

So at this resortish hostel, we got to meet Mr. Aji.  Mr. Aji started his career as a jungle tour guide about ten years ago.  He's great at it and he obviously loves what he does, proven by his small van that we had the pleasure of riding in. The interior is literally covered with pictures of all the possible jungle animals can be seen in Borneo.  The upholstery of his car, from the dashboard to the seats, from the roof to the floor, were covered in crazy, colorful, jungle patterns made of faux fur; zebra stripes, leopard spots, etc.  I felt like I was inside of a crammed jungle disco. (Sorry I failed to take pictures)

So our troupe booked a tour with Mr. Aji to float through the famous Kinabatangan River of Borneo. We saw lots of different things: snakes, probiscus monkeys, baby crocodiles and huge lizards.   Good ol' Mr. Aji had an amazing eye for spotting anything living through the thick jungle vegetation.  A couple of times, he would yell excitedly, "Look there! Snake!" or "Over there! Lizard!", "Monkey!"  Each time I would scan and scan on either side of me and realize that suddenly the snake or whatever was two feet from me, or directly above me.  Mr. Aji would intentionally get as close as possible.  We woke up one slumbering snake and he even urged one of our guys on the boat to touch the poor snake.

Our troupe. Mr. Aji in the back with the scarf and glasses. 

Mr. Aji in the background, "Touch it! Touch it!"

Poor snake slithering away after being poked by an unwelcome human finger.

This is a probiscus monkey.  It was jumping from branch to branch.  They're awesome!

While floating this river, everyone, especially Mr. Aji had all of his senses alert for any signs of pygmy elephants.  Unfortunately to our dismay it was starting to look bleak.  No matter where we looked we couldn't see them.   Mr. Aji was starting to give up when he got a call. There was a sighting nearby! We got back on land, hopped inside of his van and drove into literally, somebody's jungle backyard.

We drove through a very narrow unpaved road that cut through the middle of the jungle.  It was very muddy from recent heavy rainfall and the windows were steaming up because of the thick humidity.  We knew we were close because the lush jungle vegetation on either side of us looked like elephants had just trampled through. We slowly trudged up the road, on alert and holding our breaths, when we suddenly heard an elephant's trumpet! It was such a beautiful sound and I suddenly became very aware of how exciting this whole situation was.  Through the steamy windows we desperately scanned the jungle all around us hoping to glimpse an elephant.  For a split second Andy (our new friend) and I saw one! But the van passed it and when we backed up, it had disappeared into thin air.  We slowly turned around but it took FOREVER because the road was so narrow so it was like a 40 point turn.  We managed to get back around and luckily one of the elephants had gotten curious about the commotion we were making and peaked it's not so pygmy head out.

We were so excited! Mr. Aji told us that we could get out of the van, which seemed a little dangerous but why not? He warned us not to make any sudden movements and loud noises because they had a baby elephant with them so they were very aggressive.  I got to stand about twenty feet from this magnificent creature!  I could tell that it was agitated because it was trying to hide it's baby from our view.  It kept disappearing back into the jungle then coming back out.  Then we saw mama elephant and I started to think, "hmm I really don't think they like us being here." Then I realized that  papa elephant was getting closer and definitely unhappy.  Mr. Aji whispered to us, "Shhh... slowly get back into the van."  I was suddenly very aware that this elephant was going to attack one of us. The thought of being crushed by an elephant flashed through my mind, I even thought that I could crawl under the van, but then I realized the van was half the size of the elephant. Without a word, we slowly but urgently crept back into the van.

Chris took this video footage of the elephant but when Mr. Aji told us to get back into the van and the elephant started coming towards us, he panicked like a little girl, then the battery "ran out".  

When we got back in the van and shut the door behind us, we zoomed away and all of us broke out into excited chatter and whooping.  Mr Aji started handing out high fives and we all nervously laughed when Mr. Aji quite seriously exclaimed, "Wow, so many times I have to climb tree! We are lucky!"  Then he told us a story about a time when he encountered aggressive elephants while touring around a very obese German couple.  He said they were each over 300 pounds, he laughed and said, (his words) "I never knew that such fat people could run so fast!"