Xmas 2009

This was one of the chill-est Christmases ever.

We gave up on trying to feed 17 people using one oven this year. Stove has 4 burners. Spaghetti it was, and it was delicious.

We got a second large table for the dining room, and it was perfect. All elbows were welcome at the table.

The beach was warm and lovely until right about the time I took this photo.


We all stayed over and discussed family business. No knickers were twisted in the process. All children will write temporary wills within the next two weeks to make our mama happy.



And I have come to the conclusion that this cast iron tape dispenser is not the embodiment of my father. Yes, he owned it. But its serrations no longer cut, it doesn't have a spindle any longer (notice the festive Ikea peg substitute). It is entirely bogus and my mom has to get something else.



This however, is 100% dear. While looking through the freezer for alternatives to ice to keep beverages cold, Mom and Sis found all kinds of stock made by Pop in years past. 15 year old fish stock, anyone? All of the containers were labeled in his handwriting. I got to keep one. It's the simple things, like something that your loved one touched or wrote, that help keep them with you when they're gone.


Maybe Mom can keep the tape dispenser.

But I hope she doesn't :)

Taiwan Wrap Up

Friday was the day of my presentation: one hour plus a half hour Q & A.

There was no simultaneous translation. While the translator was translating, I kept myself interested by counting how many people were asleep or wearing face masks in the audience. The presentation itself went smoothly, but toward the end of it the battery in the microphone went out and made weird noises. While waiting for a technician to help, I began to do a little dance to the rhythm of the dying microphone. Luckily, people laughed.

After the presentation, people rushed the stage with their flash drives extended, wanting to slurp my Keynote. I was wiped out and hungry.
That evening we ate one last time at the Restaurant 101. I didn't adequately describe the restaurant before, so I will now. It's directly on the street. The dining room is a paved area outside the kitchens. There is a roof, but there are no walls or windows. It's open to the street beside it, with plastic sheeting that can be rolled down as necessary. Diners sit on pink plastic stools at red enameled tables, waiting for yummy things to emerge from the kitchen. The ladies did their ordering magic and happiness began to appear at our table. First was an unripe papaya salad with goji berries. Completely delicious, with a dressing of rice vinegar, salt, and sweet & lo. Sugar just wouldn't have been the same.
This photo captures some of the other things we ate. We craved greens, and what we ordered looked like young laua'e fern. It was bitter, and served with garlic and some small pitted things. I thought they were olives (a stretch, I know) but on second thought they could be something like ginko. The fluffy concoction is something that I will call "Prawn Fantasy". Part of me doesn't want to know what was in it, but it seemed like battered prawn and banana served on a lettuce leaf with shredded wheat, apple and a chiffonade of nori. Wow. Not pictured: the salt-baked fish, which was yummy. We ordered an ungodly amount of food, but we ladies were able to tuck it away quite well.

I had one more trip to the silly bar with the boys and that's where I thought the trip would end.

The next day, however, I ended up working a few hours, going to an opening and then going to the airport.

So ends Taiwan

Taiwan, Day 5

Thursday I saw daylight during work hours. I took my box lunch and my host's mom's American cel phone outside and talked to mrguy for the first time that week. This was the view, and I had it to myself:


After work we had our adventure in Italian dining, Taiwan-style.

This meal came about because one of our tour group loves wine and cheese, will eat McDonalds and I believe that I've seen him eat a steak. He never eats the local cuisine. When he found an Italian restaurant, we went as a group.

What a night.

We bought wine at the 7-11 and then headed over. The restaurant seated us in their empty, weirdly decorated upstairs dining room. It was very cool. Chandeliers of many eras dotted the ceiling. A photo mural on one wall made all the pictures we took look as if we were eating among a crowd of people. The food took well over an hour to come out of the kitchen, but not all at the same time.

The wine was so bad we poured it down the drain.



It all sounds horrible, but we had a really great time.

After dinner we went to the night market. I bought a very tiny hat. Then we wandered around looking for a suitable bar in which to have a beverage. I got scowled at when I interrupted someone's karaoke, and then we finally found Mixer Cafe Day Bar. Decorated with thrift store finds, it was perfect.

If you're ever in Kaohsiung and want a cozy place to have a drink, I'd recommend it.

Taiwan, Day 4

This may have been the day that my factory-issued pedometer went missing. I was finally free. The amount of walking we were doing in the museum and after work made my numbers really high so it's a shame that I dropped out of the competition. However my Nintendo pedometer, which I was also carrying, continued to be very pleased with me.

At the museum we had lunch with the director and got to see pictures of our colleagues from the press conference on the front page of the paper.

This was also the day I was introduced to soup dumplings. After work the ladies went to the dim sum restaurant in the hotel. I'm not a big dim sum fan because pork isn't my favorite. That said, the consistency and execution of the idea of soup dumplings I liked tremendously. A little about soup dumplings here.

As you can see, we laid waste to their offerings:


Surprisingly, the restaurant also knew its way around a dessert. They made a white chocolate and black sesame pudding that was really tasty, and an herb jelly that I just had to try.

It was refreshing?