The Camotes

Obligatory Beautiful Sunset, Mangodlong, Camotes

As I mentioned a few entries ago, Brendan and I spent Double Ten weekend back in the Philippines. I haven't posted about it because I have been too lazy to upload my photos until now. We went to the Camotes, which is relevant to Taiwan in approximately zero ways...

...well, maybe one.

Many people who find themselves based in Taiwan are interested in visiting neighboring countries such as China, Japan and - yes - the Philippines. Writing about our time there is a bit of information that can help people get a feel for the place if they haven't been to Southeast Asia before. What I love about the place, though, is that it's totally unlike the rest of SE Asia. It's been influenced more by Western colonialism (English is an effortless second language for most Filipinos and the country is overwhelmingly Christian) and Oceanic cultural norms than the rest of the SE Asian subcontinent.

Oh, and the beaches are better.

I'll write more about the trip later; we have to get up early tomorrow and I have to go to bed soon. But here are some photos:

Danao (Cebu Island) Coral Stone Church




Sunset on Pacijan Island

Little Girl Who Laughed - Then Cried (Danao)

Adorable Kid on a Banca (motorized passenger boat)

Mangodlong Rock Resort - Pacijan Island

Kids and a Bike, Danao

Kids Behind a Fence, Tulag Island

Grandmother, Tulag Island

Tulag Island Village

More Tulag Island



Green Lake Flowers



Green Lake Tree

Altavista View, Poro Island

Two Boaters, Mangodlong, Pacijan Island
(This isn't a very good photo from a technical point of view, but I am drawn to it. I don't know why I like it so much.)

Things You Never Knew Until You Looked

We decided to spend the day - sun! Finally! - lolling about Dihua Street and looking at the puppetry (bu dai xi) museum one block over (coming from Nanjing E. Road, turn left at Xiahai temple on Dihua and it's at the end of the lane on the right).

Afterwards we got shaved ice at the old-skool place under the old Dihua market facade; the famous one with only three flavors of ice - red bean, green bean and almond - and coffee around the corner. That's when I noticed that the ugly newer building behind the old market facade had businesses in it! I'd assumed it was closed because the only other time I looked, it seemed abandoned.

The only market I knew about was the fairly small one that doesn't seem to be connected to this one, also with lots of fabric vendors, but including fruit, meat and religious item stores as well.

It's not abandoned - the inside is a massive fabric, clothing making, alterations and clothing accessory/bead/feather/ribbon/string market. You can buy any cloth imaginable - from silver tutu fluff to elaborate Chinese silk to fake black fur with white fur hearts on it to old-fashioned floral-print cottons. You can get the cloth made into almost anything, or get old clothes altered or repaired.

And to think - I used to believe that the best way to shop for fabric at Dihua Street (well-known among locals and in guidebooks as a mecca for cloth) was to go into each separate store and vet their inventory!

When It Rains

Sometimes, when the weather in Taipei is just unremittingly crap - when it drizzles for days on end and the sky has been bleak for as long as you can remember - I wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

The feeling rarely lasts long because I genuinely love this country, but it does come. I really don't like overcast skies. Rain is fine, as long as it's good and heavy, or a relief from humidity...and thunderstorms are, of course, awesome. But a gray sky and a light drizzle? Ick. It's unfortunate that this seems to be Taipei's dominant weather pattern.

After chugging a CC Lemon (I need my C) I usually cheer up, but yesterday that wasn't doing it for me.

Then, after our workout, Brendan and I met my sister at Zhongshan to get something to eat. We took the bus to Jilin-Nanjing, planning to go to Ali Baba or Silverfish Thai (such an unfortunate name). Both were closed before the dinner rush.

We ended up in an alley on the north side of the road, by a 7-11...I realize that doesn't help much direction-wise. We had beef noodles under an umbrella, sitting on damp stools.

Those noodles were delicious. They weren't overloaded with MSG, weren't too thin or cheap but not gummy or fat either. I'll take gummy and fat over thin noodles anyday, though. The soup was hearty and the beef chunks were high-quality without being too fatty.

And that - a typical Taiwanese dish that you can find on any streetcorner for 50-90 kuai - cheered me up immeasurably.

You can find the beef noodle guy near the Nanjing-Jilin intersection, north side of Nanjing, by turning right at a 7-11. I realize "turn at the 7-11" is not very clear as there are usually 5 or 6 of them to choose from, but it's not hard to find. Facing Nanjing at Silverfish Thai, it's to the right.

The Asian Canada

Inspired by this hilarious video on Slate (and since I just got back and have nothing else of interest to write about until I get back in the swing of things):











I thought about when exactly I started planning my move to Taiwan. I arrived approximately two years ago, but began planning the move about two years before that...which was just six months after I returned from China, but that's another story.

Basically, I started to plan this move right about the time that Bush was elected to a second term of office - I made good on that pledge to get the heck outta Dodge if we put that yahoo back in office.

And that got me thinking, in many ways, Taiwan is like the Asian Canada. Yes, it's true that Taiwan is small and Canada is big. Taiwan is crowded and Canada is (mostly) sparse. Taiwan is hot and muggy, and Canada is cold and snowy. But bear with me. It really is the Asian Canada.

Think about it:

- Taiwan has national healthcare
- Taiwanese society is generally openminded, at least when compared to its propagandatastic neighbor
- There are a lot of Canadians here - though some of them look a bit worse for wear
- There's some big ol' mountains in there somewhere
- Maple syrup is available
- Both have indigenous people
- Lots of Asian folks
- Things are safer, cleaner, healthier and friendlier than in some nearby countries we could name

Camotes Here I Come

See y'all on the other side of this crap Taipei weather...

...we're off to Cebu tomorrow morning to enjoy some time in the Camotes (tiny islands in the middle of the Philippines).

The Bacuit Archipelago, Palawan

Kid on a rickshaw skeleton, Intramuros, Manila

Sunset in El Nido, Palawan

Curious Kids in Brooke's Point, Palawan

Sunset on the Islands, Bacuit Archipelago, Palawan

Yuanlin Rouyuan (員林肉圓)

Ever found yourself on Fuxing S. Road, wishing you could have a nice, hot, local meal that was flavorful, hearty and cheap? In an area dominated by Starbuxes and fake-o Mongolian joints with fancy lanterns, that seems impossible.

But it's not.

I had the pleasure of discovering a new restaurant out of the blue today - and on a very busy intersection to boot! Usually the best places are hidden in the lanes or tucked away in a maze of tiny vendors, but this one was right out in the open.

I'm talking about Yuanlin Rouyuan (員林肉圓) It's right off the intersection of Heping E. Road and Fuxing S. Road, next to Sheng Li - the discount store with the green sign and the giant scary baby cutout perched on its roof.

It's a small unassuming restaurant - well, not so much a restaurant as it is a "joint" - with blond wood tables, disposable chopsticks and old ladies in hairnets shouting orders in the delightful nasal plops and slips that make up the Taiwanese language.

Their specialty is, of course, mba wan (rou yuan) - Taiwanese rice gluten dumplings stuffed with pork and served with gravy. In the night market, these usually come with a pink sauce and are topped with coriander. The women of Yuanlin Rouyuan dispense with the pink sauce and greenery and give you a hearty helping of artery-clogging gravy, topped with cubes of delicious young bamboo and mushroom slices.

And they are absolutely delicious. The gluten isn't too sticky or weird, and the pork is savory and delicious. I miss the pink sauce, but the young bamboo more than makes up for it.

On a rainy, bleak, typically Taipei day, it's a hot meal reminiscent of something a hearty ol' farmer would eat after coming back from the fields. Not that I know if farmers ate mba wan, but they probably do/did.

I also had their lu rou fan, another Taiwanese treat. It was savory, soft and delicious as lu rou fan always is, but I had to add a little soy sauce to amp up the salt.

They serve far more than those staples - a small menu boasts several standard-issue rice and noodle dishes, all of which are served piping hot and ready to combat the city's relentless drizzle, and xiaochi in environmentally unfriendly plastic contraptions. I had the broccoli - cold and garlicky. Yum.

And all for 90 kuai.

Beats eating mediocre pasta at Dante anyday...and those ladies in hairnets are extremely friendly.

Yuanlin Rouyuan 員林肉圓 is next to Technology Building MRT Station on the brown line. Exit the station and turn left - it's past Starbucks and Cosmed, but before Sheng Li discount store and the Heping E. Road intersection.

Taiwanese Pride

I'm loving on this letter in The New York Times regarding the recent article on food in Taipei:

To the Editor: As a Taiwanese-American journalist, I was excited to see Matt Gross’s article on Taiwanese cuisine. At last, I thought, thousands of American readers can see the beautiful, vibrant side of my childhood home.

But my heart sank when I saw that the headline read, “Feasting at the Table of the Other China” (Sept. 21). The New York Times Travel section dismisses the hard-won democracy in Taiwan by calling it “the other China” and by calling Taipei “the Chinese capital you haven’t heard much about.”

Taiwan’s culture, politics, and yes, its cuisine, are an amalgam of Asian influences, and distinctively its own.

Taiwanese citizens have fought and won many freedoms that have never existed in China, including the freedom to vote and to speak their minds. My Taiwanese family shares the same love for food that Mr. Gross describes of his in-laws, but we are even more fiercely passionate about our unique Taiwanese identity.

Eugenia Chien
San Francisco

I couldn't have said it better myself - which is good, because I didn't. This letter is much more reasonable and levelheaded than anything I would have written. Also, it's great to read such a letter written by an ethnic Taiwanese person; there's more impact than if it had been written by a foreigner who simply really loved Taiwan because it's great, not because it's his/her home country.

It would be great to see more of this in the media. If that were the case, Westerners and Chinese mainlanders alike might start to get the message that not every Taiwanese person considers themselves "Chinese", and even those that say "I am Chinese" (or "I am a Chinese" as the case may be) generally speaking do not want unification....

...and even those that do want unification - fewer than you'd think - don't want it right now.

Yay Taiwan!