Oct/094
taipei is chinese for “night market”
i have one more vietnam post in the works, but let’s take a quick break to see what else i was up to in the time i was gone from shanghai.
after saigon, i spent some time in taipei for work, and if one has some spare time in taipei, then one really has to go to the night market for snacks or xiaochi
this is an oyster omelette, known in taiwanese as “o ai chien”
Oct/090
back into the rabbit hole
after leaving vietnam and stopping through hong kong, i’m now in taipei, taiwan. unfortunately, this doesn’t bode well for my vacation, since now i’ve been dropped right back into one of the busiest months of work of the year, with one huge project in taipei, and another one in beijing immeidately following, then meetings in hangzhou immediately after. whew!
here’s a photo of a public warning sign in ho chi minh city. don’t climb the electric towers!
it was a great break, but its time to get after it.
Sep/094
packing
so i’m going on a trip.
it’s a long trip. well, not that long, but my longest trip in a few years. it’s about 2 weeks. 1 week will be vacation. 1 week will be work.
it’s continuous, so i need to bring everything i need with me. suits, ties, collared shirt for work. shorts, camera, guidebook, t-shirts, for play.
thats my spare bedroom which has been turned into packing triage.
Sep/090
more food from taipei
yong he da wang – or yong he “big king” is a chain of chinese fast food restaurants here in china. they’re actually owned and operated by jollibee. the food there is okay, they have an okay set of noodles or soup and noodles, but its no great shakes.
if you look in the photo above (clipped from wikipedia) you can see ole’ uncle da wang himself. but note the font and color of the sign.
more after the jump
Aug/092
ille formosa
i used to never like taiwan.
granted, i had never been before, but growing up in cantonese los angeles, i didn’t like hearing the sound of mandarin spoken and a taiwanese restaurant in monterey park accounted for one of the worst meals i had ever eaten (to this day even) so i grew up with an anti-taiwanese bias.
this was amplified when i got to university and there was a taiwanese guy on my floor in the dorm who LOVED to flaunt his money. he drove a bmw 3-series (this was kind of a big deal) had a 27″ television in his dorm room and talked about how bad cal was at this and that and that he was going to transfer to penn at his first chance. my roommate and i became steadfastly anti-taiwanese, in large part due to fred.
however, my first work assignment when working at my second job in hong kong was working on a project in taipei for two weeks and as time went on, i was spending more and more time in taiwan. just through my hazy memories, i was spending 2-4 weeks a year there between 2000 and 2002 working on various projects on the ground in taipei, taichung and kaohsiung and i gradually fell in love with the place.
taipei is not the prettiest city in the world (my friend sam says its “blade runner-esque”) but the people and the food more than outweigh the plainness of the city.
and sometimes, it can look pretty neat.
last week, i had some meetings in taipei, but it turned into a big excuse to eat and eat and eat.
this is from our first lunch in taipei. more to come.
Aug/090
note from taipei
i’ll post photos and such from my trip later, but i’m finding it interesting that there’s a very taiwanese flavor component to food. something which tastes very “taiwanese” – but i can’t put it into words.
tonight shilin night market. yay!