apples and pears

I have a confession to make: this post and the last post were made from a Starbucks. But wait! Before you burn me at the stake, let me explain! Tired of the expensive coffee and tea at Coffee Shop, I inquired about the supposedly free wifi at the MRT stations. The MRT attendant told me to go to Starbucks, where I bought a special Starbucks internet card. So, yes, I am sitting in a Starbucks, but I didn't have to buy any coffee...just an internet card. Actually, I don't really know who I'm trying to convince other than myself.

Last Sunday, before going to Danshui, I had brunch at a Yong He Dou Jiang (I'm not sure what the Yong He means but the Dou Jiang refers to soymilk). The place was very simple, with a little kitchen area, and a seating area inside and another outside with metal tables and little plastic footstools to sit on. I got a picture menu and sat outside. I ordered three things--a glass of cold soymilk (it also came in warm and hot), some kind of steamed bun (I forget the name--Daphne?), and fried bread. There appeared to be two different kinds of fried bread, but I noticed an item on the menu that seemed to contain both of them, so I ordered that one. One kind was in long strips and had a chewy texture. The other was sort of like a thick fried tortilla, and was wrapped around the long strips, forming a bread sandwich. Altogether it wasn't bad, but a little dry and boring. I learned later that you're supposed to put sauce in it. The bun was much better--steaming hot, light, fluffy, and slightly sweet. To my dismay, it was served in a little plastic baggie. I tried asking for a plate, but somehow ended up with a cafeteria tray. The soymilk was possibly the best part of the meal. It was, as I'd been told, different from the soymilk in the U.S. Namely, it tasted like soy. If you can imagine drinking liquefied edamame (April, are you reading this?), that's pretty close to what this tasted like. But it was also cold and sweet, which made it delicious. There were some other things on the menu that I wanted to try, so I'm sure I'll be going back before the week is over.

Monday was spent mostly writing, studying, trying to book a hostel in Hong Kong (so far unsuccessful), and searching for internet. Daphne, for dinner I went downtown to one of the vegetarian restaurants that your friend recommended: Yangming Spring. It was on the tenth floor of a shiny new building with a glass elevator. In retrospect, that should have told me that something was not right. By the time I sat down in the extremely well-furnished room with the panoramic windows and had my fears confirmed by the menu, however, I was resolved to follow through with the experience. This was definitely the most expensive and ridiculous meal I have had so far on this trip. The main course was wonderful--juicy, deep-fried slabs of king oyster mushroom with wasabi dressing--but the rest of the meal was a monument to food-eaten-for-aesthetic-purposes-only. One dish consisted of a small cube of soft tofu dabbed with pumpkin puree, which the cook deigned to sprinkle with two or three pumpkin seeds. After seven courses, I left slightly hungry.

Dinner tonight was much more fun. After getting back from the National Palace Museum (see below), I set out for a walk through Shilin Night Market. I passed a glass counter arrayed with hundreds of identical-looking brown patties of something unknown, but which looked slightly burnt, only to find out that they came in 10 different flavors including taro. Then I saw a chef standing behind a long, curved bar, which was divided lengthwise so that part of it was a dining counter and the other part was a grill. The chef was frying several things at once, and when something was finished he would lift it up with a spatula and place it in front of the person who ordered it. The food was served on a piece of tin foil on the edge of the grill, thus keeping it sizzling hot throughout the meal. I ordered cod with scallions (although the scallions never materialized). The style of eating was really fun. Instead of a plate, I had a bowl of rice; as things were placed in front of me on the foil, I would shovel some of it on top of the rice, and eat them together. Along with the breaded fillet of cod, I also got sauteed greens (which were a little like spinach) and bean sprouts. There was a couple next to me that was dipping their food in a glowing pile of fried garlic and chili peppers. I asked them what it was, and found that they spoke English and were more than happy to order one for me--it turned out that the garlic and peppers were free if you only knew how to ask for them. This was possibly the best meal that I've had by myself here so far (i.e. without Ivy's guidance), and it came out to less than five dollars. The only disagreeable thing was having to watch chunks of pork sizzle in front of me. The helpful couple and I started talking; they were both from Taiwan but the husband's business trips took him all over the world. Jeffrey (that was his name) suggested that they show me around the night market after dinner. We walked down a stretch that I'd been down with Ivy before, but it was interesting to see it from another perspective. They said they came here at least once a week to take in the crowd and browse the stands. We stopped for a minute while Jeffrey tried on a pair of shoes; while his wife and I waited, a group of red-robed monks walked down the street. What are they doing here? we wondered. Jeffrey bought the shoes and we continued. A little further, we passed the shop with the crane game machines where I had almost tried my luck on a piece of toast. Inside the shop, grinning, one on each machine, were the monks.

Today, as I said, I went to the National Palace Museum. The building is actually named (and possibly modeled) after the original Palace Museum in Beijing. When the nationalist government fled to Taiwan after China's Liberation, they brought with them a good portion of the treasures from the Palace Museum. It's a very impressive collection, ranging from prehistoric jade chisels and earrings to elaborate Ming and Qing Dynasty ceramics. But I spent a lot of time reading the historical context plaques--I wish I was more prepared. While waiting for the bus to the museum, I went into a used bookstore called Whose Books, and bought a copy of The Book of Nonsense and Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear. According to the back cover, Lear was the inventor of the Limerick. Appropriately, the book is full of Limericks, like the following:

There was an Old Person of Chili,
Whose conduct was painful and silly;
He sat on the stairs
Eating apples and pears,
That imprudent Old Person of Chili.

I made up one on the way home:

There was a young lady of Florence,
On whose house the rain fell down in torrents.
When it started to leak,
She gave out quite a shriek,
For of water she had an abhorrence.