Fit for a Prince(ss)

(coffee with unlimited red tea... it's as if they want us to use their facilities)

I am not a coffee drinker by nature or habit, save for a brief stint at the Bo'. I like it OK, but my drink of choice is first water, then tea. Yet the People of Taiwan keep feeding me coffee. Fancy coffee at that. All foamy and what not (except for the one above)-- because it goes with breakfast, chocolate, pizza... the list goes on. Today was so one of the new client-baristas* could practice making cappucinos. Tim had the first cup, found it not frothy enough, and got them to make a second cup for me-- even though I'd drank my iced tea already. Consequently, I'm super alert right now and pumping out entries like it's my job.

*My cousins/uncle run an amazing training school for people with mental retardation (MR seems to be the most PC term at the moment) and they have a bakery cafe in which the clients are involved in every part of the production.

Sun, Moon, and Stars

Just how obsessive are the Taiwanese when it comes to food? I took a day trip to the mountains with my parents' friends a couple of days ago and this is how they talked of certain food stalls and restaurants: "That's where we came for popsicles." "This place has really special tea eggs." "I'm making a detour to get iced tea here." Do you know how devoted people have to be to maintain a business in the hills where all you sell are popsicles? Popsicles that are made of water and sugar. To be so specialized and successful that you are known for your tea eggs (hard boiled eggs steeped in soy sauce, sugar, and tea leaves)- things everyone can make. There are so many iced tea stands in Taiwan that I don't bother learning where they are. Because if I wanted some, I could just walk a couple of blocks in any direction and there will be someone selling me drinks. (and failing that, I'd run into a 7-11) And yet people drive out of their way to go to favorite stores..

People keep shaking their heads at me when I tell them all the things I've eaten at night markets. "Did you go to the crepe place?  What about the tofu places?"  "Uh... but I had iced tea?"  Because it's not enough to eat at night markets, you have to eat at the right places, and being too lazy to stand in line, I tend to eat at all the wrong places.  Vacation life is harder than you might think.

Too Many Words

Glad Embankment Air Delicious Food Plaza probably would not have been my first choice of a translation for the food court. But I'm certainly glad that they went with it. It is increasingly difficult to find funny English things in Taiwan, what with everyone learning English and all. These types of things only happen when you step away from Taipei.

Speaking of stepping away, I have really come to appreciate major train and high speed rail stations in Taiwan. They are clean, well lit, efficient, traveler-friendly, and well equipped with convenience stores, helpful attendants, spotless restrooms, etc., etc. Step away from the major hubs, however, and you have the little county train stations. That operate without escalators. Which meant lugging my backpack and carry-on suitcase up and down long flights of stairs. Two days in a row. While other people look on with faint amusement. And an old lady chided me for having too much luggage. "Where are you going?" she kept on asking. "There's almost no room for your legs in the seat."

Taiwan, J'Adore

Our super good family friends, Ruby and Glenn, opened up a personal pan pizza joint in Taipei a couple of years ago. I love these guys and if you are ever in the city, you must vist them. The dough is made from scratch (as in by hand by hand, as in no industrial mixers on the premises) and each pizza is made to order. I used to ride on Glenn's shoulders when I was little (but not that little- he still let me get away with it when I was 9 and gave me a piggy back ride today just to prove that he could) and Ruby made my award-winning science fair poster for me when I was in the third grade.

When I finally visited their restaurant today (in a new, swanky location) and got to watch them in action, I made a joke about spitting in the pizza dough for some extra flavoring.

Glenn: Maybe it'll rise differently with the spit.

Moi: Spit is warm. It will totally help with the rising.

Glenn: You've been into gross out humor ever since you were little.

Faux Godmother: Really?

Moi: Wasn't I always good and quiet?

Glenn: That, yes, and I can't remember specifics, but I'm pretty sure you joked about some disgusting things when you were little.


I have no recollection of this.

A Case of the Unday

Today was an "un"day. Unexpected. Unusual. Unlikely. It all started at 5am with the driver that never showed up. For whatever reason, the car we had arranged for Ashley did not show up at 5am. The oddity and offness of the day continued with oversleeping and running late to lunch with my faux-godmother (she's not technically my godmother but she has known me since I was little and is very good to my brother and I and was our most trusted long-term babysitter). Running into a rain storm while peddle-boating with faux-godmother's real godchildren. And then there was the wardrobe malfunction. This being polite company, I can't disclose the details, but it did involve a trip to the nearest available undies store where the over-attentive sales lady over-shared my measurements and commentary on my body size with faux-godmother while I was in the dressing room (I believe the trigger was "I like your uniform."). Yet the surrealness did not end there. The surrealness was sitting on the edge of a hotel bed sipping Inner Mongolian milk tea (salty and strange) as faux-godmother visited with a distant friend on a sighseeing tour from the mainland whose father had taken a fall. Huh? You say. Exactly. Huh, indeed. A completely bizzaro day.

For the Changs

Spotted in restaurant restroom in Insadong: the largest tongs I've ever seen, mysteriously clipped to the wastebasket for paper towels. Why? Why? Why? Please speculate.

Da Bears

The woman who took this picture is Taiwanese, so when I asked her to take the picture, I asked her in Mandarin (which is good, since I don't speak Korean). She replied in Mandarin. But perhaps because of Ashley's presence, she also spoke to us in English and asked us to say "cheese," which we did. Her daughter or niece did not know that we spoke Mandarin and kept commenting that we look "really stupid" when we posed like that. That made me want to slap her. So I did.

Addendum to the Post:  When Mother heard the story, she said, "I like the kid.  She's like the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes."  Also, Koreans really like Teddy Bears.  Also, the woman at the Chinese restaurant (at a tourist hub no less) spoke neither English nor Chinese.  And insisted on speaking to me and not Ashley.  Her stubbornness  made ordering incredibly difficult.

Like Royalty

Yesterday, I had my first free meal by myself since coming to Seoul, and since I probably won't have too many free meals alone for another week or so, I took the chance to do what I'd often wanted to do when I'm in Asia but so rarely get to do: eat a convenience store meal. I love Asian processed foods. I prefer them over Asian fast food. And both of these, of course, rank above American and European food. For about $4, I got a bento box with chicken katsu, kimchi, side salad (which comes in a separate case so you can remove it before you microwave the rest of the tray- they think of everything), and a big bag of chips. That's pretty amazing considering how I could spend the same amount of money for a cup of coffee at the cafe next door. And it all tasted great. I wanted a dessert pastry to round things off but was much too full to eat anything else. And of course, I had it all with awesome yogurt drink. Drinking it every day at Ashley's is totally bringing back childhood memories... memories of drinking it every day.

Twice as High

Today, while strolling around a rose garden (as one does), we witnessed Hilarious Korean Scene #837: A boy wearing these cute butterfly balloon wings was beckoned into a picture a couple was taking (the man was taking the picture and the woman was posing).  The woman pulled the boy in, but made him turn around so that his back, and not face, was to the camera, so that only the wings and the woman's face were in the picture, and not the little boy.  Yet that wasn't the oddest part.  That came when she released the little boy.   And we realized that the boy did not belong to the woman.  She had just pulled a random child into the picture and turned him around to take a picture with his butterfly balloon wings.

Bon Chicken Bon Bon

Three things made me very happy today.

1. Awesome stroll and bike ride along the Han river today.  There was a lovely park and lovely company and most lovely of all, we had fried chicken for dinner.  And the chicken was delivered to the park.  How amazing is that?  Every major park in the world should have the option of fried chicken delivery.  Though I would just settle for fried chicken home delivery.  It's not fair how many fried chicken joints there are in this country.  They even have an abbreviated term -chimaek- for (fried) chicken and beer.  That's how common it is.  You've got to respect a country like that.

2. What do I love more than awkwardity?  More than pictures of foreign toilets?  Foreign toilet awkwardity.  I don't have a picture yet, but I learned today that what I thought was the overzealous, unnecessary emergency button in the metro bathroom stalls were actually equally unnecessary "courtesy buttons."  What are courtesy buttons?  They make a flush noise to disguise any other noises that you may be making that you want to disguise.  Except it sounds totally fake, so people will still know that you are doing something that warrants noise cover up.  Also, it doesn't make a lot of sense.  People will also know what you are doing by the length of time you are in the bathroom and of course, the smell.  Plus, the courtesy flush button doesn't actually flush.  So really, it announces to the whole world that you are peeing loudly, retching, or dropping a deuce.  Happy flushings!

3. I thought I'd left my anti-itch cream at home but I just found it and all is well with the world.  Except for the clear liquid oozing out of my mosquito bite (sorry, we already talked toilet stuff so I thought we could continue in this streak).  Finding the cream has actually been my happiest accomplishment today.  And I've had a really good day.  Because I am supposed to apply this cream 2 weeks out of each month.  And I am not supposed to eat that much fried chicken.

If I Were A Rich Man's Child

I have been in Seoul for a few days now, and tonight, I got to have Korean BBQ in Korea.  It was phenomenal.  It wasn't just the good meat (and it was good meat! I need to order pork BBQ more often), but the nice ventilation system they had (so I don't reek of smoke) and the fact that the wait staff went gaga over Amelia and pretty much babysat her and showered her with candies while we ate.  People of Korea, you are brilliant in many respects.

Yet the best story of this trip so far has nothing to do with Korea or Koreans.  It has to do with one very special birthday boy Mark, whose father had the most ingenious theories on discipline: The Two Hundred Dollar Cash Drawer.  In order to teach his three children responsibility, Pere Mark had a drawer that he stocked with two hundred dollars in cash.  If ever his children needed to use any money, they were to simply take the money out that they needed and write on the envelope how much they took and what they needed it for.  That was it.  The idea was to teach them accountability.  Because there is no better way to hold teenagers accountable for their actions than a bottomless drawer of cash.  The pure creativity and naivete of it all had me laughing for 5 straight minutes.

Of all the crazy parents in all the world, Lord, how did Mark get the good one?

Must See Thursday

Well, that was a fun way to spend an evening.
Let's go over things I have mastered: 2.4 languages, regression and analysis of variance, analysis of rates and proportions, theories on family change and culture, basic cooking techniques, walking, following movie plots- the list goes on and on. This afternoon, I added 'navigating the Seoul metro system' to that list.
Unfortunately, the list of things I haven't mastered is even longer. It includes: breathing while swimming (and ergo, swimming), not being awkward, blowing bubble gum, and most pressingly, reading digital watches.
That's right. I messed up reading my digital watch today (yes, digital, as in the kind with numbers and not hands) and thus totally missed meeting up with Jae. So instead of spending an evening catching up with Jae, I've spent it in the station and on the metro, questioning my own literacy. I've had worse Thursday nights.
Sent from my iPod