Part III: Moving to Taipei to live with my grandmother, learn Chinese, play ultimate in Asia and eat incredibly good food Part II: Returning to the US, land of English, the dollar and close friends Part I: Quitting my job and traveling around the world: France, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Taiwan, Belgium, the Netherlands
Here is the recipe I used to help make dinner tonight. My hosts, Gretchen and KC, are on a gluten and dairy free diet, so I chose this cold noodle dish using buckwheat noodles and made sure to use wheat free soy sauce and tofu. I bought the wrong kind of sesame oil - I'm used to the Chinese kind, which is dark and very fragrant. We went to the local Whole Foods, where I only spotted a plain kind of sesame oil. I compensated by adding more soy sauce - but really, the flavor should come from the sesame. You can adjust the recipe by adding rice wine vinegar to the sauce, or even using meat instead of tofu (shrimp, beef, etc). Carrots also make a good addition, for health and color. You can substitute peas for the spinach. This dish is great in the summer when you want something cool and refreshing. It is also a colorful dish with the variety of vegetables. Cold Sesame Noodles Serves 4
16 oz (2 packages) buckwheat noodles (usually wheat free, but check ingredient list) 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips 1/3 cucumber, cut into thin strips 1 or 2 green onions, chopped 5 cloves garlic, chopped chopped ginger sesame oil (dark kind) soy sauce/tamari (wheat-free) 1 T sugar spinach salt and pepper smoked tofu (or baked tofu if you can find one made with wheat-free soy sauce), sliced into fat strips cilantro
Cook the noodles according to package instructions. Do not overcook. Rinse immediately with cold water until noodles are cold. Transfer to serving bowl and sprinkle with some sesame oil.
If you have plain tofu, heat it with some garlic, soy/tamari, salt and pepper to add flavor. Otherwise, just heat up the tofu in a skillet.
Optionally, you can cook the red pepper. Remove to bowl.
Heat the spinach in pan until wilted. Chop.
Heat 2 teaspoons sesame oil, chopped ginger and garlic over low heat. Remove from heat and add sugar and 2 T soy. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour over noodles.
Combine tofu and other vegetables in bowl. Toss to mix.
10 of us met up at Gretchen and KC's place in Berkeley - reliving and making new memories. As with most troutings, you really have to be there to experience it in full. Here are some pictures from the weekend, which included two hiking trips, a visit to a spa, amazingly huge late breakfasts, and lots of lounging and poker.
I miraculously made all my flights into SFO, via Chicago-ORD and Sacramento-SMF. However, one of my bags got left behind in Chicago - hopefully it will be delivered today. It's not yet 9 am, I've been up for 2.5 hours after maybe 3 hours of sleep. I feel wide awake. This all of course is a clear sign of jet lag, as I wait for everyone else to wake up and get started on the day.
I have access to my cell phone - which is quite exciting - one of the first things I did was message people. My phone still says, "I need to be held" each time a text comes in. This is courtesy of Peter. He also set my voicemail message a few years ago. This was removed immediately after an incident on an airplane. We had just landed and were allowed to turn them on. The whole plane was dead silent and I turned red when Peter's voice shouted out, "SPANK ME! SPANK ME!" When I explained to the woman next to me that my friend often steals cell phones and changes the ring tone, she laughed. I'm not sure that the rest of the plane heard the explanation. It was a bit much for me, so I ended up deleting it, keeping only the tamer of the recordings. But I have a very clear memory of it. Another one he did was, "Touch my bottom!" I don't know where he comes up with these.
I'm nearly all packed now with over 70 pounds of stuff to carry back with me to the States. I'm sad to be leaving the kids - I did a few last flips with Maddie, took a long nap with Wubby, and took a walk with Buggles (while he held onto a disc the whole time).
I'm heading to Berkeley to see friends, family and hopefully a little of the outdoors as well. I'm planning on catching an early morning train from Fontainebleau and hopefully arriving at Grr+KC's by midnight - traveling for 25 hours!
back to packing...
[PostEdit] One of my last activities was to go through my sister's pictures of the kids. This one I copied - it cracks me up the way the two cubs sleep - they are completely out.
I got back to Samois Saturday afternoon - I was happy to see everyone again. It felt like I hit reset on my patience meter and could handle being with the kids for extended periods of time again. I think knowing that I won't be seeing them so often makes me handle the tough spells better. It was fun to pick up the kids and swing them around again. Also incredibly tiring as I almost immediately broke into a sweat doing it.
Saturday night, I went out with my sister for dinner at a Chinese-Vietnamese-Thai restaurant in Fontainebleau. This is the first Chinese restaurant I've been to where the staff doesn't speak mandarin. Well, one guy did, but he seemed to run off - either because his Chinese wasn't that good or because he didn't know the answer to my sister's question about available vegetables. Usually at Chinese restaurants, there is more food in the back than is on the menu - especially to cater to Chinese clientèle - who tend to like more authentic food than the Americanized version (or in this case, the Frenchified version). My parents often order what's in season (veggies and seafood) by talking to the employees. This didn't seem to work here - our waiter went off and asked someone else to talk to us. My sister ended up talking to the new guy in English - which she later explained as a conscious choice to save face - his Chinese might have been so accented she wouldn't understand, or he might have spoken Cantonese - and since she knew he spoke English, she went with that as first choice. The concept of 'saving face' is something you read about a lot in prepping for travel in Asia - but something I don't think I've ever thought about so thoroughly and quickly as my sister in those 5 seconds.
On Sunday, I went to Maddie's pony club for the first time. I took a lot of pictures and videos because Brianne seemed so excited about it during her visit, but didn't actually get to see it. We started out by watching the bigger kids finishing their lesson. Then Maddie found out her pony assignment (Caramel), saddled up and got on in the covered area (it had been raining in the morning, hence an indoor lesson). They proceeded to warm up by walking around the ground slowly and eventually gaining speed. They even did a trick where they turned around on the saddle while the pony was walking. I was impressed. Unfortunately, Caramel was acting up, and Maddie got flung off at a failed turn - she was just like a rag doll flying through the air until her helmeted head hit a wall. Scary stuff, but she got right up and back on - somewhat shaken but otherwise unscathed.
Monday's highlight was a quick bike ride to the Base de Loisirs in Bois-le-roi. This time I biked all around the park, past the Equestrian and tennis courts. I even ventured down a path into the Fontainebleau forest before turning back b/c the grounds were too muddy. It was a quick 45 minute get away, in beautiful weather, while the kids were napping. I came back covered in flies - my shirt looked like the Mavis Beacon typing car race window - where for every mistake you get a dead fly on the screen.
Oh, and I almost forgot about the morning. Laura and I were sitting at the dining table, facing my sister when her eyes seemed to just pop out of her head. I turned around and saw something flying all over the place - bat or bird? Definitely a bat (maybe a birdy bat at best). My sister was in shock wondering where it came from, as it appeared suddenly. We opened the windows and doors to encourage it to go out - but it flew around missing the exits and then landed behind the stereo where I took a picture of it, looking much smaller with wings not at full span. Taking a picture of it flying around the kitchen ceiling, while also holding an umbrella (to both help shoo it away and prevent it from flying into our faces), proved a difficult task. I came out with just one blurry photo that doesn't do it justice. I should have used video.
I have 2 more full days here - since returning I've been trying to get ready for departure - doing a dry run in packing (looks like I'll be able to take most everything home), looking up prices (to figure out what I'll be doing after CA), and researching places to go. If anyone has any advice on travel within the US - preferably the western third, do let me know. Right now, I'm thinking about the Grand Canyon, Glacier Nat'l Park, Yosemite, Bryce/Zion, Colorado, and other CA locations. I'll have 2 sets of about 10 days each in which to visit some of these locations. All advice appreciated (comment or email).
