Always an Adventure...

I'm a fan of afternoon tea, and in these rainy winter days, it's especially nice to spend an afternoon inside with good company and good tea! Recently the shop Smith and Hsu was recommended to me, and I decided to try it out. One of the most enjoyable parts of the experience was when we arrived at the shop. We were presented  with a tray full of all of the available teas to smell so we could decide which one to order. There was everything from black and green tea to fruit teas, rooibos and oolong. It was a tough choice but I decided on #81 fruit blend vanilla cream. I also got a sandwich and fresh scones with clotted cream and lemon curd. Everything was wonderful (though not cheap...) I definitely recommend it though. They have a number of shops around Taipei, and the one we were at wasn't too crowded, but we did make a reservation. They also sell their tea, pots, cups, jams and other things there. There are so many dear friends far away I thought of while I was there,...

Another AWESOME thing that relates to post #18 is:  Eating the last piece of dessert somebody left at your house . Which made me think of my small group. I have taught different kinds of English bible studies throughout my years in Taiwan, and I'm even writing a paper on it this semester. But this year is the first time I've hosted a home group. The focus is bilingual and rather than an English class, it's more like a bible study/discussion. I have about 8-10 people, and I host it in my house, which is great for a few reasons. First, it forces me to keep it clean! Also, as mentioned above, people bring yummy things to share, plus some interesting items like two bags of disposable plastic gloves. Last week is a perfect example of this. We didn't plan to have a potluck, but ended up with a feast! I baked Christmas cookies just for fun. Debbie brought kiwi from her recent trip to the mountains in Taiwan. Andy brought organic "ugly" oranges that he grew himself. L...

A few weeks ago I bought a whole box of amazing Taiwan mangoes. They are one of my favorite fruits here, especially for my morning smoothies! Today I put some in my fresh salsa (as a friend had suggested), and it was deee-licious! It's one of the easiest things in the world to make as long as you're up from some chopping. Incidentally, planning meals is one of my 30 before 30. I try to buy good fresh ingredients at the beginning of the week that I can hopefully use in a variety of ways. It is a challenge because it is so fast, cheap, and easy to eat out here, especially when you're cooking for one. But if anyone wants to try it out, here is how I made it today: 1 medium mango 1 medium red onion (you can use regular onion) 3 cloves of garlic 3 bunches of fresh cilantro 3-4 large ripe tomaotoes Lime juice (or lemon) Chop it all and put it in the fridge. After about an hour the flavors will mingle together quite nicely, and it'seven better the next day! The propo...

I went to Hualian for the weekend to visit my favorite family and see their daughter's graduation recital (see upcoming post), and part of the fun was making rice dumplings, or zhongzi with some of their friends. These are one of the many foods that I didn't really like at first, but have now really grown on me, especially if they're homemade and filled with yummy stuff! There are actually a lot of steps to take in order to make them, and a lot of different ways to do it as well. 1. Soak the bamboo leaves and cook the rice 2. Cook the meat 3. Stir fry the mushrooms, dried shrimp etc 3. Fry the rice with peanuts Then comes the part I was involved with: assembly! 4. Take 2 bamboo leaves and fold them 5. Put some rice in the bottom 6. Add the filling 7. Cover with more rice 8. Shape and finish wrapping 9. Tie up with string The wrapping part is the most difficult, and I admittedly, needed quite a bit of help, but it was fun, and then we got to the best ...

南部 First thing to take note of is the drastic change in wardrobe!  On the first day I was wearing: A hat An undershirt A long-sleeved shirt A hoodie A scarf A thin jacket A raincoat Jeans Rain pants 2 pairs of socks As you can see, by the third day a t-shirt was just fine. The weather was awesome! I asked myself...why don't I live here?? I really haven't spent much time in southern Taiwan, but I've enjoyed every trip I've taken down there. It seems like it's always sunny! I don't know how I would do in the summer heat, but it's a great winter escape. There was also a lot of great food to try, including mountain pig and wild hen (or some kind of small wild bird), and giant shaved ice! I love this place in Kaohsiung! 

I've always loved the show "The Amazing Race" so I was thrilled to find that there is an Asian version . It's still in English, but all the teams are from Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, The Philippines, Korea, Japan, India etc.) , and they race through Asian countries. The format of the show is the same, for those who are familiar with it, including roadblocks, detours etc. Season 3 is on right now, and last week, they came to Taiwan! The funniest thing about it was that they kept asking police officers to help them find different locations, which they did (even escorting them long distances) without batting an eyelash! Glad Taipei's finest are there for such causes, even if they don't stop the scooters speeding through red lights. I was wondering where they would end up going, with all the great places to see, and they ended up going to a place called Shenkeng, which is actually on the way to Yilan! The Shenkeng old street is famous for....st...

If you watch the news, maybe you've heard the stir recently about tainted milk products (especially milk powder) from China, and how a number of babies got sick and even died from drinking milk with toxic materials in it. Well since China is one of Taiwan's biggest trading partners (if not the biggest), it follows that some of those products may have made their way over here. There's been quite a stir about it recently, with some of my friends warning me not to drink milk tea or buy any bread or cake. I know some 3-in-1 coffees have recalled their products. Other stores have posted signs outside saying that none of their ingredients came from China. Today at lunch, the restaurant owner even brought the jug of milk over to our table to "prove" that he was using fresh milk, and not milk powder (though we hadn't actually asked... it came after he offered us all free soft-serve ice cream - made with FRESH milk). As for me, I doubt I've consumed any tainted pr...

I was reading stuffwhitepeoplelike.com for amusement as I was thinking about blogging an observation I made yesterday. There are a LOT of things I could list, but here are 5 things off the top of my head. I can also reflect on how local I've become through this exercise... 5. Scooters : they're everywhere, fast, easy to park, and get their own lane on many highways. Though I waited quite a while before I got one, I also like scooters. In fact, I'm going to go for a little cruise when I'm done writing this post. 4. Red bean : Not salty but sweet, these beans find themselves in the traditional cold soup, desserts, ice cream, and now in Costco muffins instead of chocolate chips, much to my dismay (I DON'T like red bean in case you didn't gather that, though I HAVE started to enjoy Taro in some circumstances, which is another Taiwanese favorite) 3. Pearl Milk Tea : Zhen Zhu Nai Cha, is a must-try here in Taiwan, with a number different shops claiming to have inven...

Thursday afternoon Woke up shivering and teeth chattering, it was really intense. People were talking to me and I could answer, but really couldn’t make myself stop shaking. Learned a new Chinese word: fa dou (shivering or shaking) it sounds like “giving out beans” though probably not the same tones. 發抖....發豆 Finally I did stop and they took me down to x-ray (requiring your bed to be wheeled through where all the outpatients wait, isn’t that lovely?) and back up to my room. I slept off and on, and had more visitors. The cleaning lady bought me dinner. I’d chatted with her a bit earlier when she came to empty my garbage, and around 5 she started getting concerned that I might be hungry. I ate ritz crackers and an apple, but she insisted that she go down and buy me something. I tried to refuse again and told her that some people were brin ging me stuff later. She came back to my room a 3 rd time and said she was about to get off work and she really thought I should eat something, so ...

There is this great restaurant not too far from the place I stay in Taipei which is part of an Australian chain (I think) called FROOT! It serves delicious yogurt smoothies and other treats all made from fresh fruit. You can also add multivitamin boosters, calcium, etc to drinks for free. Today I decided to try their lunch special, so I had a smoked salmon sandwich on whole grain bread, a salad with yogurt dressing, a few pieces of fresh fruit, a mango banana smoothie, and a blueberry/yogurt tart for dessert! It only cost me NT$149 or around 5 dollars Canadian! What's nicer than a lazy Saturday afternoon with good (cheap) food, a novel ( The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger), and no responsibilities! (Especially since I have a workshop next Saturday morning!)

Sometimes Taiwanese attempts at western food still end up being very... Taiwanese. Ordering a "salad" at a lot of restaurants will get you a few pieces of iceberg lettuce drowned in mayo with a couple of raisins on top. True to form, my "fruit bagel" this morning included apple, dragon fruit, raisins, lettuce, and thousand island dressing! hmmmm it was edible, but I don't think I'll order it again!

this overdue blog update is brought to you by the friendly neighborhood construction...grrr Life in Taiwan is punctuated by short breaks between construction it seems. First it was the house above us, then across the street, and now it seems to be right outside my window .. i mean somewhere below. Anyways, there's nothing I can do about it, except be grumpy that it woke me up at 8 on a SATURDAY morning! Taiwan doesn't have as much construction as China, especially from what I remember from Hong Kong, and of course I'm sure there's even more in Beijing as it's getting ready to host the Olympics. But people are always building something new, or renovating their old place, or building an MRT station or.... It just seems like there's way more than in Canada, and due to the close proximity of everyone, especially in crowded Taipei, you can tend to feel like there's no escape from it! On a list of countries by population density, Taiwan is number 15 . What about C...

Chinese New Year is coming!! Yilan has set up a "New Year's Street" which has some performances, food, and vendors selling tons of holiday wares, including new clothes, dried fruit and fish, candies, tea, and nuts. These are all things that you would find yourself snacking on during a visit to a Taiwanese home during CNY. Most towns have their own small New Year's streets, but Taipei has a huge one called 'Di Hua Jie'. I went there a couple of weeks ago with Michelle and Lauren who were up from Yuli. The main events at the street hadn't begun yet, but we still got to see (and sample) tons of interesting things! Here are some fish ovaries, which are dried and... well I'm not exactly sure how they're prepared or consumed, but I won't make it for you, don't worry! We also saw dried seahorses, shark fins, and giant dried mushrooms: At one end of the street is a temple where young people go to "pray" and burn incense, what are they pr...

I didn't have the opportunity to celebrate much on Canadian Thanksgiving except for a phone call home where I got passed around to a bunch of family members. Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in Taiwan, but around the American date, more Thanksgiving-y stuff becomes available at places like Costco which sell turkey. On Thursday, Sylvia, a coworker who I work with at one of my schools, invited me to her church. They were having a Thanksgiving service/outreach event with a turkey dinner afterward. The service was good, but quite long, with a number of testimonies from different people in the church. The dinner included turkey, tofu, sushi rolls, red bean cakes, you get the idea... but it was a fun time and I got to meet the members of Sylvia's small group, which holds its meetings in English! Here are some pictures taken by others to give you a taste of my celebrations. But the celebrations weren't over there! On Saturday a bunch of us gathered at a co-worker's house for...