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”

here’s a salty chicken stand. you basically pick what sort of things (pig’s blood, calamari, peppers, mushrooms, etc.) you want fried along with your chicken. hand it in a basket to the deep fry guy and wait for 5 minutes . ..

here’s the results – note that we’ve already eaten about 3/4 of the bag.

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.

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.

this is what i got going on:
luggage
1 tumi tech 2 fold suit bag
1 tumi tech roll-away suit-case
1 columbia titanium computer backpack

clothing
5 t-shirts and polos of various adidas NBA related designs.
3 brooks brothers non-iron shirts
1 suit – calvin klein, bought on sale at macy’s
1 pair jeans – cheap pair from h&m
1 pair khakis – i think these are an expensive pair of dockers
1 pair basketball shorts – adidas pre-game shorts
1 pair cargo shorts – nike black
1 pair swim trucks which double as soccer shorts
socks and underwear
i’ll probably throw a baseball hat in somewhere and a cal t-shirt
toiletries and medicine
1 pair adidas sambas
1 pair adidas adistar running shoes
1 pair black work shoes (la suanda)
belt and 3 ties

tech
1 nikon d80, 2 lenses 18-200mm and 50mm 1.8
extra camera battery and charger
1 iphone with charger
1 ipod shuffle with charger
1 blackberry curve with charger
1 lenovo thinkpad x61 with plug

other
1 copy – lonelyplanet vietnam
1 copy – “who are we? – america’s great debate” by samuel p. huntington
1 jumprope

where am i going? well, you know vietnam. here’s the itinerary:

September 30 – Shanghai to Hong Kong
October 1 – Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City
October 5 – Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong to Taipei
October 9 – Taipei to Seoul to Beijing
October 11 – Beijing to Hangzhou
October 12 – Hangzhou to Shanghai

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

what i didn’t know was the origin of the restaurant – in taiwan, there’s a small chain of dou jiang (soy milk) breakfast places called yong he dou jiang da wang – named after taipei’s yonghe county. last time i was there, my boss took us to a yong he dou jiang da wang. hey check out the color of the sign and the font!

i grew up eating you tiao (chinese crispy fried dough sticks) so i know how greasy and oily they can be. however, the you tiao here was crispy without the slightest hint of greasyness or oil. the soy milk was creamy, without being overwhelmingly thick and the egg pancakes, again, they’ve mastered the art of deep frying without greasiness. anthony bourdain has talked about finding places which serve one dish, and only that one dish, for x number of years. while the yong he king of soy milk does serve a wider menu, their soy milk and fried breakfast foods surely do prove mr. bourdain right. also, they make the mainland/filipino imitation, a poor one, at best.

the final results: you tiao, egg pancakes and soy milk. breakfast of champions!

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.

Hong Kong

Taipei

two of my favorite cities in asia. aside from the work, i see a lot of eating . . . and eating in my immediate future. will try to post from the road.