Saturday Adventures

I went to the gym today, and there was a girl there wearing a Texas Longhorn shirt. She was trying the machine next to the area where I was stretching, so I thought I’d be friendly and ask her if she was from Texas. She noticed my Vandy shirt, which probably helped a bit to lessen the awkwardness of some strange sweaty girl asking her random questions while she’s trying to work out, and talked to me for a bit. But she didn’t seem so keen to talk, so I finished stretching and left.

Then I went to Ryan’s to get lunch, this sandwich shop in Neihu with pretty good wraps, and I ordered a BBQ chicken in English (cause I didn’t know how to say it in Chinese). The girl at the register took my order, and then asked me if I was an ABC. She then went on to ask if I taught English and that I looked really young to be teaching. After our short polite chat, I was just waiting for my wrap when she then started the conversation with me again and asked me if I minded helping her with some English phrases. Sure, free English lessons are what I commonly do while waiting for food, no problem. So she whipped out this notebook with a few lines in Chinese and asked me to translate to English. The gist of it was some English-speaking guy/girl was mad at her and not speaking to her, and the girl wanted to make up but didn’t know to communicate her intentions.

This is what I do as an “ABC” here, although technically I’m a TBART (Taiwanses Born American Raised Taiwanese). I approach fellow ABC’s in awkward situations and give free English lessons to strangers all over Taipei.

2010
01/23
CATEGORY
cultural
daily life
food
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Lost and Found

So remember my NYE’s story where I lost my purse and everything in it at the club?

Well, I got it all back today: cell phones, ID, lipstick, keys, etc. Apparently, the bag was found at the Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2 Gate on Jan. 4th. Although, the airport lost-and-found just sent a notification letting me know that they have it. Here’s a map to give you an idea of how far my bag traveled in one piece.

The cash was all gone, of course. The person spent it at 7-11 and left me the point stickers to collect. How nice of him/her. I guess I’m thankful that everything was all still inside the bag, but I just don’t understand why. Why did this person carry my bag around all weekend intact?  And then, instead of tossing it in the closest trash can, he/she decide to leave the country and leave it at the airport to be found. Maybe guilty conscience? Who knows? Or maybe they read my threatening curse of karma coming round again and decided to repent.

Ah, anyway. I’m glad I got my stuff back.

2010
01/19
CATEGORY
daily life
personal
2 comments

Tipping

Fun Fact: You don’t ever have to tip here in Taiwan. Sometimes there’s a 10% service charge added to restaurant bills, but that’s only when you go to a nice, sit-down place to eat. The rest of the time, there’s no tipping necessary for anything: taxis, salon services, eating out, etc. I think hotel services and valet tipping is pretty much expected, but that’s about it. I mean, after a year and a half of living here, I still feel a bit awkward about not tipping. Sometimes I’ll tell the taxi driver or pizza delivery boy to keep the change just because I don’t want to deal with it, but the amount of it is usually so little that I feel more embarrassed than not tipping at all.

Ironically, even though there’s no culture of tipping here, the service here is still very excellent. I would say in about 90% of the places that I’ve ever been here in Taiwan from hair salons to fast food restaurants that required service of some sort, all the employees have always been very thorough and polite.

2010
01/19
CATEGORY
cultural
daily life
fun fact
tourist
2 comments

Shrimping

The new adventure for today was indoor shrimp fishing, or rather, just shrimping. I remember going when I was much younger on vacation in Taiwan, and I’ve wanted to go since I’ve been back in 2008.

We drove to a road down by the National Palace Museum full of indoor shrimp farms where you can get a rod and bait for $300NT($10USD)/1 hr, $500NT($16USD)/2 hr, $700NT($22USD)/3hr.

The bait consists of chicken liver (gross) or smaller processed shrimps (cannibals!!).

Then you set up a spot next to their indoor pools and wait for the shrimp to bite.

We paid for one rod for two hours because we had no idea what we’re doing. After one hour of lots of waiting and nothing happening, I finally caught one! It was a freakin’ huge one, and it fought hard. But here’s a picture of Michael with it since I was a bit freaked about touching it (and it kinda had pinchers too).

After two hours, that was the only shrimp that we caught. They provide nets that you hook to the side to keep the shrimp as you catch them. Some guy walked by as he was leaving and gave us his two shrimps that he caught. So with our one shrimp and the guy’s two sympathy shrimps, we had a grand total of three. Located in the front of the shrimp farm was an area with sinks, skewers, and ovens… so we washed our shrimps, skewered them, covered them in salt, and cooked them (and you have to do all this they were still alive, unfortunately, but you gotta do what you gotta do.) You only see two because one of the sympathy shrimps looked really dead, and we didn’t want to risk food poisoning so we only cooked the fresh ones.

Although the skewering and cooking part was a bit cruel and sadistic, the shrimp did turn out to be pretty tasty, especially considering those babies you’re looking at are worth $250NT ($7.86USD) each. (The better you are and the more you catch, of course the lower in value they become, but that goes without saying.)

2010
01/17
CATEGORY
cultural
food
tourist
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Hot Dogs

I have been looking for authentic American hot dogs to satisfy my cravings, and yet the best ones have been at Costco’s. Sadly, you can’t even get in without a membership or waiting in a line that goes around the block especially on the weekends.

Hungry Girl in Taipei and I did go check out a place called Hook in Zhongxiao Dunhua, but their hot dogs were the really thin, mediocre-tasting, non-American kind, and the wait for the food was really long even when we were the only two customers there.

However, I have discovered that Evans Burger does serve some good ole American hot dogs. They come with really tasty fries, relish, lettuce (???), and salsa. The bun’s kinda weird, but the hot dog is good. Evans also has some pretty good burgers. The one pictured is their Chili Beef Burger.

Ok, now I’m hungry.

2010
01/14
CATEGORY
food
restaurants
4 comments