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I don't think I've described Taiwan much yet. The busy main roads and short, narrow side streets lined with cafes and small shops and street food carts remind me a bit of New York City and also Tokyo, as does the mix of glittering skyscrapers and older buildings. Once you're out of the main part of the city, the tropical forest presses up against the buildings, with ferns and huge-leafed plants drooping over walls and reach out toward the roads. There are banyan trees here, with tendrils dangling toward the ground and taking root where they touch. A lot of the houses have their tiny porches packed with more plants, these in pots. One plant I saw had leaves such a bright pink I thought at first it was artificial.
The food in Taiwan is just ridiculously good. Especially the street food. I have become addicted to soft scallion-specked pancakes rolled up with a salty, savory omelette, both cooked on the spot on a flat top with a basket of eggs and another of plastic-wrapped chunks of white dough beneath it. "Egg cakes" - fluffy oval cakes with a crisp exterior and cakey interior - are also delicious. The other night we visited the night market, a giant sprawling bazaar of food stalls, game stall, pet shops (with hedgehogs and sugar gliders!) and little carts and shops selling clothing and trinkets, and ate a giant flattened chicken cutlet with crispy breading, stinky tofu (not very stinky), a skewer of excellent sausage bites, and mochi in a sweet-savory black sesame miso sauce. The latter was not a success - everyone tried it and pronounced, "Interesting."
Oyce helpfully pointed out to me a stall of Gothic Lolita/punk clothes, manned by a young guy with Goth makeup, elaborate anime hair, and vampire-red colored contacts. I think he may have also been wearing vampire fangs, or perhaps I hallucinated that. I tried on two skirts (one red and black satin, which didn't fit, and one confection of white gauze and satin and black straps that wasn't very wearable), a black corset with buckles on the front, a black lace jacket, and a shirt with detachable sleeves, lace-up ribbons, black lace, and gnomic writing. The vampire shopkeeper informed me via Oyce that the skirt was Goth and the shirt was punk, so I really shouldn't wear them together. I was properly chastened.
I bought the shirt. I would have bought the jacket too, but it was $ 50, which at the time seemed expensive for something I would rarely have a chance to wear. Though now I'm thinking, "That wasn't really THAT expensive for what it was..." I will not, alas, have a chance to go back, as we are departing for Hong Kong tomorrow. Maybe I'll find more outrageous clothes there.
I asked the shopkeeper if I could take his photo. Rather horrified, he replied that he wasn't dressed up, and showed me a photo on his cell phone of himself when he was properly dressed (unsurprisingly spectacularly Goth). I coaxed him anyway. In retrospect, I should have gotten back into one of his outfits for the photo, for however much he was dressed down, he did not compare to my dowdy jeans and gray Americorps sweatshirt.
The food in Taiwan is just ridiculously good. Especially the street food. I have become addicted to soft scallion-specked pancakes rolled up with a salty, savory omelette, both cooked on the spot on a flat top with a basket of eggs and another of plastic-wrapped chunks of white dough beneath it. "Egg cakes" - fluffy oval cakes with a crisp exterior and cakey interior - are also delicious. The other night we visited the night market, a giant sprawling bazaar of food stalls, game stall, pet shops (with hedgehogs and sugar gliders!) and little carts and shops selling clothing and trinkets, and ate a giant flattened chicken cutlet with crispy breading, stinky tofu (not very stinky), a skewer of excellent sausage bites, and mochi in a sweet-savory black sesame miso sauce. The latter was not a success - everyone tried it and pronounced, "Interesting."
Oyce helpfully pointed out to me a stall of Gothic Lolita/punk clothes, manned by a young guy with Goth makeup, elaborate anime hair, and vampire-red colored contacts. I think he may have also been wearing vampire fangs, or perhaps I hallucinated that. I tried on two skirts (one red and black satin, which didn't fit, and one confection of white gauze and satin and black straps that wasn't very wearable), a black corset with buckles on the front, a black lace jacket, and a shirt with detachable sleeves, lace-up ribbons, black lace, and gnomic writing. The vampire shopkeeper informed me via Oyce that the skirt was Goth and the shirt was punk, so I really shouldn't wear them together. I was properly chastened.
I bought the shirt. I would have bought the jacket too, but it was $ 50, which at the time seemed expensive for something I would rarely have a chance to wear. Though now I'm thinking, "That wasn't really THAT expensive for what it was..." I will not, alas, have a chance to go back, as we are departing for Hong Kong tomorrow. Maybe I'll find more outrageous clothes there.
I asked the shopkeeper if I could take his photo. Rather horrified, he replied that he wasn't dressed up, and showed me a photo on his cell phone of himself when he was properly dressed (unsurprisingly spectacularly Goth). I coaxed him anyway. In retrospect, I should have gotten back into one of his outfits for the photo, for however much he was dressed down, he did not compare to my dowdy jeans and gray Americorps sweatshirt.
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