Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Work and Play

Yikes, September is flying by.  I'm not sure how it happened that my last post was nearly two weeks ago! How to sum up where I left off?  How to capture Taiwan and the experience of visiting this little island, formerly known as Formosa, only an hour and a half flight from Hong Kong? It's pretty easy: Cheap. Great Food.  Friendly People.

It is also home to all of my relatives on my mother's side.  It's kind of weird (and a bit sad) to have relatives that you just don't know that well - the last time I saw two of my cousins was twelve years ago - and I have another cousin that I haven't seen in even longer.  It's a marked contrast to the large family that Michael has, where all the cousins grow up together and have known each other since birth.  It made me wistful.  Hopefully now that I'm out here and closer to Taiwan, I can go more often and hang out with them.

Unfortunately as with all of my fun endeavors lately, my stay in Taiwan was a (sometimes stressful) mix of work and play.  However, let's focus on the play, shall we?

Four days beginning the Saturday before last was spent in an epic food blur.  This involved Mongolian hotpot, Sichuan hotpot, Sukiyaki Japanese hotpot... mian xian (noodles and oysters), jian bao (fried buns), fried stinky tofu, tian bu la (a mixture of assorted fish balls, tofu and white radish cooked in a savory sauce), pepper buns, sugar cane juice, papaya and milk shakes, steamed clams, mango shaved ice, taro and sweet potato mochi dessert, pig's blood rice cake (did that one scare you?).. and even a Vietnamese restaurant...and a Sichuan restaurant.   Amazing.

I also picked up a few rompers, hair bands, shorts.. all inappropriate for work.

The next time I go to Taiwan, I am going to weigh myself right before and right after, just to see how many pounds someone can gain in the mere span of four days.  It should be an interesting experiment.

Typical night market food - everything tastes better on a stick!
Upon my return to Hong Kong on Wednesday (I booked myself on the first flight out of Taiwan... an epic 7:10 AM flight.  See previous post), I promptly found myself buried in the mound of work that had hounded me in Taiwan and refused to shake free.

Thankfully, it eased up just a bit, just in time for the arrival on Friday through Monday of one of my dearest friends, who is now working in Tokyo and who came to visit and spend her birthday in Hong Kong... with me!  Next post.


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