Chinese New Year recap

I didn't blog about my CNY for a couple reasons...

1. I had to do a 報告 bao4 gao4 on it for my Chinese class. It was a 2 part assignment - the first was to hand in a written report. The second was to give an oral presentation on the last day of class. I didn't want to write it in English before writing it in Chinese. Some of my classmates write in English first and then translate it. But I like the idea of just thinking in Chinese. Some things just come out different due to the grammar.
   
2. My CNY was relatively unexciting. While my local family went to Beijing, and my local friends went home, and my foreigner friends went to the beach (Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia), I stayed at home with PoPo and watched over Craig's cats (Zion and Amani) and Bodgy. I also started knitting a hat and reread Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I also did a lot of baking. Really, not much to write home about.
   

Chinese New Year in Taiwan means everyone gets about a week off. And as I found out, everything closes down and people vacate. Taipei becomes a dead city. On New Year's Day, there wasn't anyone else on the street. Usually it's quite crowded so to see the city dead was 很特別 (very special). The funny thing though was that Da Run Fa was incredibly crowded. It's a hypermarket open every day of the year. With nothing much better to do I took a stroll through there to see if I could find a bread pan (nope) - and to my surprise it was more packed than I'd ever seen it.

Once my friends got back we had a little get together and baked pizza one night and had a lamb roast another (I made a soup to go with - a variation on one of my favorite vegetarian soups I used to make back at the Greenlake house with Julie and Theresa).

I also attempted the Tommy's House-Taipei 101 hike again. This time we started from 101 and tried to get to Tommy's. We got there eventually but it definitely wasn't the most direct route, and included quite a bit of walking through a cemetery and then on the street in the end. This checked off one of the things I've been meaning to do since last year - which is to check out some of the hiking trails near 101. There's quite a maze, and I'd be interested in going back to do more of it. It's quite appealing since it's so close to the city - you could make a quick trip out of it if you didn't have time to do an excursion further away.

Baking
Banana Chocolate Yeast Bread
I usually make a Banana Quick bread, but I've been meaning to try a yeast version to taste the difference. So I finally made one - I have to say I like the quick bread version better. As soon as I get my hands on a bread pan, I'll make my favorite versions again.


Carrot Cardamom Bread
I wanted to make a Carrot Ginger bread but didn't have any ginger on hand and the local Wellcome didn't have any either. So I substituted cardamom instead. I don't think I used enough as the flavor wasn't strong enough (though it was very fragrant).

Strawberry Picking in Maoli

How to Pick Your Own Strawberries in Taiwan

1. From Taipei Main Station catch a local train to Miaoli (about 2 hours).
2. Walk outside the station and to the right in front of a convenience store you can catch a local bus to DaHu on the Hsinchu bus line (about an hour).
3. Once you start seeing some strawberry fields, get off the bus and choose a place.
   
4. Instead of picking at the raised bushes where it's pricier, get yourself on the ground and get at the good stuff - it's cheaper and hasn't been picked over. There are regular and organic farms to choose from. Don't forget to eat as many as you put in your basket to get VALUE.
5. Go back home and eat them as quickly as possible. They will go bad quickly. So eat them fresh, freeze them, or cook with them. Here are some ideas...

Strawberry Cake/Bread


Strawberry Pancakes

Bushwhacking

The only other time I've bushwhacked is while snowshoeing with the Trouts in the Cascades. I particularly remember Helldog, flying over the snow as if he was Legolas from Lord of the Rings. Today I had another bushwhacking adventure with Tommy, Dan and Bargearse.

We met at Linguang MRT station on the Brown Line. From there, we were to get to Taipei 101 via a couple mountains and park paths, by way of two tunnel crossings. This is all hearsay, as we never made it to 101. Instead, we found ourselves walking circles up and down the mountain. Any time we thought we'd made progress we'd land in a clearing we recognized from earlier. At one point, we found ourselves in a cemetery (Dan noticed one of the tombs had been robbed - very sad indeed) and eventually ran into a fence when we tried to get past it. Turning back we realized we'd taken most paths and decided to bushwhack our way down the hill to the street, to get to the next hill.

After so much hiking in 2007 advising to stay on trail to let old growth forest be, it felt terrible to be tromping down the forest like we did. It's been raining nearly non stop for weeks - so the ground was very wet and just gave way underneath us. If it weren't for Bargearse, a bag of poop in my hand, and sneakers clumped with several extra pounds of mud, I might have made my way down faster. Instead, we got held up trying to figure out the best way down. Bodgy got so nervous at one point he turned back around. But by then, it wasn't even an option. Tommy went back to carry him down. How he did it, I'm not sure, as I thought it was just enough to keep myself from tumbling down towards a sprained ankle and limbs pointing at odd angles.

It ended up being quite an adventure. And when we popped out onto the street finally, we realized we'd just made another circle ending up back at Linguang MRT! An hour and a half of circles. Just as well - it was starting to get too wet and ridiculous. We may try once again before the CNY vacation is over.

(This is for you Dan. I'll post the pictures later. I still think you should blog it.)

...Later has come

Almost a Year Late: Cambodia

After Chinese New Year, Tuyet and I left Vietnam and went to Thailand and Cambodia...last year. I got really behind in blogging while traveling for various reasons, none of which I'll expand on here. Now that it's New Years again and Taipei is like a ghost town, I'll take this time to reflect on what I was doing nearly a year ago.

Cambodia
Tuyet and I landed and I got through customs no problem. She went in the same line as I was and it took forever for her to get through. Once out, she explained that the official had tried to bribe her - demanding money for him to give her the necessary passport stamp. Ridiculous. Luckily she refused and after a long battle of stubbornness, she won and was let through.

After that was standing in line to get a visa. Make sure you have your photos on you (not in your checked baggage) and cash (USD) to cover. We had reserved a room at Earthwalkers, which was highly recommended from my friend, Chewy. They were supposed to send transportation for us, but no one was there when we arrived. We also tried calling them but couldn't get through - definitely had the wrong number. So we hailed our own tuktuk (easy, they're around like vultures) and made our way.

Earthwalkers Guesthouse
Postbox 93073, GPO, Siem Reap
Kingdom of Cambodia
Phone +855 (0) 12 176 12 77
http://www.earthwalkers.no

We soon learned that everything is cheap but people still try to rip you off. Though a $1 motorbike taxi ride sounds cheap, it should really only be half that (2000 riel). After a few days we started bargaining down. Even at the food shops by Angkor, all the menu prices are jacked up by $1USD/4000 riel. Just mention you thinking about going somewhere else and they'll take it down.

Angkor is absolutely beautiful, amazing and awe inspiring. However, it is easy to get watted out. We had a 3 day pass and were definitely ready to do something else before the end. It's too bad you can only use it in 3 consecutive days, as it would have been nice to break it up and gone every other day. As inexpensive as most things are in Siem Reap, be prepared to spend a lot of cash to see the Wats. The top 3 expenses are the airport (entrance visa and exit fees), the Angkor Wat pass, and the daily transportation fees to get to the various sites. If you're alone, it's easier to hitchhike (we picked someone up).

We didn't hire our own tour guide - though I tried to stand near tour groups and listen to what they had to say. One funny story I heard was about this one:

The man has turned around because he thinks the woman has pinched his butt. But it's really the turtle she's carrying that's nipped him on the bum.

There is much to be seen on the walls, many stories visually told. I could recognize some characters from stories I'd heard from my Indian friends about Hindu culture. Even without a personal guide giving you the background, there is plenty to enjoy just with your eyes alone.

Look up...

Look down...

Look in detail...

Look around...


Other adventures in town included visiting a silk farm, boating on Ton Le Lake to see the floating village, and trying to teach Tuyet how to ride a bike. We had gone in both thinking she could and just needed a refresher. After watching her fall multiple times, scraping her legs, and watching locals laugh at her, we decided it best not to have her venture out on the very busy city roads. So I rented a bike on my own and rode around for a couple hours (on my birthday). I highly recommend getting a bike and exploring different parts of town and getting out.

When I got home, Tuyet had surprised me with a birthday cake. We celebrated with the folks at Earthwalkers - staff and customers. We also went out to enjoy more mango shakes and get a massage. Since it was my birthday and it had been a rough month, I was ready to treat myself by splurging on a 4-hand massage. They didn't have it though. We found ourselves at a really shoddy place that didn't know what they were doing - all with false advertising. No hard feelings to the workers who couldn't speak English or understand what the handout said customers were supposed to get. We walked out on them after 15 minutes of awkwardness and frustration. We found ourselves at another place (7 Girls Massage) and were quite happy. We had two young women working on us - mine in particular was quite entertaining as she seemed to hit on me, in a mostly joking way. We kidded around with them despite language barriers, using English, Chinese and Khmer.



A year later reminiscing on the past, I can conjure up mostly positive memories. It isn't until I go back and read old emails that I'm reminded that it was profusely hot. So hot, that just being had me sweating buckets. I guess it's something I don't really like to think back on, but funny how I can have nearly blocked it out completely. So in case you're considering - Siem Reap in late Feb is damn hot.

One thing I do remember clearly is the niceness of the people. Outside of cabbies always wanting more money, if we ever had a chance to chat with someone they were always super nice. Our tuk tuk driver, Sunny, got drunk with us and another cabbie, Manil, treated us to mangoes, chicken and rice, while we played Crazy 8's and Cambodian Poker (a close relative of Vietnamese Poker) by a lake where locals could rent clothes to go swimming. Even the steamed bun man was friendly and wanted us to take his picture for memory's sake.


One of the funniest incidents was when Tuyet and I were wandering around the streets and popped out of an alley onto a main touristy road. A group of Korean tourists were clearly excited and asked me to take their picture. I gladly obliged. Not soon after they asked if they could have their picture with ME! I was quite surprised, and they gave the camera to Tuyet. Finally one of them tried to confirm that I was Cambodian...a local. HA! I had to laugh. Every local I had met was half my size, both in height and in width. The only thing we had in common was black hair and dark skin. So that explained why they were so excited - they thought they had finally found a local. We corrected them and told them we were both American, with me being of Chinese descent and Tuyet being of Vietnamese. They were hardly dismayed - they continued to be friendly and have their picture taken with me. So strange.

Thinking of goodbyes

One advantage of being white is that people spot you as a foreigner and engage you - either b/c they're Chinese and want to welcome you/practice their English, or b/c they're foreign and want to speak English with you. I realize this whenever I'm with my friend Dan. The other night we were checking out the new year festivities near his house (a very long street of booths and super crowded - like being a fish in a school and having no choice about which way to go - I almost got sucked in on the wrong side going the opposite direction). Granted they were salespeople, but it seemed Dan always got pinpointed to have an English sales pitch or an English translation for what they were saying in Chinese to everyone else (including me). On the way back to his house, we ran into his new neighbors. They invited us in for tea, but ended up serving us French wine (very good Bordeaux). He is from France, just southwest of Paris, and she works for the French Institute in Taiwan (ie pseudo-embassy). They are tri-lingual like my sister. She is Chinese and when she saw me she just started speaking to me in Chinese - I think I need to learn to handle that situation better - I just sort of blurt out "I don't speak Chinese! I'm a banana!" It's not that bad, but it's never really smooth. Anyways, Dan just got into grad school and will be leaving this summer. Eric already left to go back, and a few others are thinking about leaving as well. It makes me sad to see so many people go when I've only just got here. I hope others continue to come.

Taipei, where it's at.