A few of my favorite things

Lychee - 荔枝

The rumor has it that the major element of my deciding to visit Taiwan in June is the Lychee fruit.  The rumor has it all wrong - - it is the only reason.  I’m kidding of course...or am I ? I do love this gloriously extraordinary fruit.  Here is a Wikipedia link for more information about it.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee

  

A Lychee tree - right in front of my nieces' house.

 

These are ripen chilled Lychee.  YUM!

A closer look.  Truly a beauty inside and out... taste awesome, too.  I have made up my mind that I lack the ability to describe the taste of Lychee.  The first adjective comes to mind is "Heavenly!" and it still seems insufficient.  Do not make the mistake of comparing the taste of the fresh Lychee to the canned version of this fruit.  It is borderline sacrileges and I mean it. 

Shoes 鞋子 

I shall admit that I love shoes regardless of where I find them.  The ones I found in the department stores in Taiwan are simply amazing.  The selections, designs, qualities and best of all, the prices are outstanding and so fabulously attractive.  I wish I had more room in my suitcases and a higher credit card limit ;)

Check these out! 

The sound of cicada - 蟬聲


How do I describe the sound of cicada?  Let me try.  If good-bye and hello; friendship and love; memory and loss have a sound and it would be the sound of cicada… screechingly loud, intense, full of longing yet so tender and patient.  I could never tell how many of them together can create such a sound or if just one cicada can make a music so strong, so touching and magical.  It’s a sound I haven’t heard for many years; and when I heard it this time around, I closed my eyes to make sure that it will stay with me always.


I finally found a live cicada on the tree.  It looks like a giant fly on the main branch of the tree closer to the top.

Thanks to Zack, here is a closer look at the cicada.

Shaved ice - 銼冰

Nothing better than a bowl of shaved ice topped with cooked mung beans or peanuts or fruit or milk or all of them in the hot summer afternoon of Taiwan.  This one is sold at Costco (Yes, I did go to Costco...three times.)  The shaved ice is topped with mango chunks, mango jam and vanilla ice cream.  It's a very clever and delicious combination. 

Juicy dumpling - 湯包

Mostly served at breakfast but I could easily have it for lunch and dinner.  The filling is similar to the fillings of dumplings 水餃 or pot stickers 鍋貼 which is a mixtures of chinese cabbages, green onions, ginger roots and ground pork.  It is shaped like a bao (包子). Though I don't know what the trick is to make it so that when you take a bite out of this steamed dumpling, the flavorful juice of the dumpling flowing into your mouth and you are in love instantly.

Rice paddy field - 稻田

I love the view of rice paddy.  The stories that grow from it, the whispering of the crops on windy days and the ever changing color - so many different shades of green - except when it's time to harvest then it's golden.

The two pic above were taken the first few days when I was in Taiwan; the next one was taken the last day I was there.  By the end of July, early August, the rice field will be ready for harvest and the color will be an intensified gold.

Guchol and Talim

Honestly I don’t know what I’ve done to these two to have them shown up on the days we planned to drive to northeastern part of the island. Before the days of our planned trip, the warnings of their upcoming visits to Taiwan were constantly on the news. To avoid any clash with them, we canceled our trip and instead sitting in the house watching them did their usual dances that involved speedy wind and heavy rain.

Just as fast as their presences were known, they left quickly. I looked out of the window and wondered if I’ve dreamt the two days of excessive rain. Until I watched the news I saw the reality of their strength: Lives lost and home destroyed; roads and bridges washed away; many fruit trees were ruined so did the owners’ livelihoods. The pictures on the news spoke more than a thousand words. All of a sudden, my missed opportunity of traveling to a new place, to see the Pacific Ocean from this side of the world, seemed very insignificant.

In the midst of Guchol’s and Talim’s visits, one boy welcomed them with open arms - - literally. He stood outside, faced the sky with his arms wide open and let the rain pouring down on him. He laughed and hollered “Mama, the rain is warm!” While his relatives nervously requesting me to get him back inside the house before he gets sick, I smiled at this adventurous little guy and holler back “Yeah, isn’t it cool!?”

Everyone should have such an experience – at least once – and I forgave Guchol and Talim because of it.

Chubby girl too can run?

One thing I brought with me to Taiwan is my awful habit of jogging/running/shuffling.  It is more preventative than the actual desire to run in this inhumane humidity.  Beside visiting family and friends, I am in Taiwan for one important purpose: eating.  To make sure I don't end up rolling home like a ball, I run in the morning.


There are two places I go for my run: one is this quiet path in the science park where it is like an oasis among the industrial buildings; the other one is the sports park where a standard running track exists and an Olympic-size swimming pool with a fun kids' pool where the boys love to go and we've been there just about every other day.


I love running on the path of the science park because it's much quieter and cooler with the trees lining the path.   To get to the park though, I have to hike up a .8 mile of 12% grade two-lane freeway. ( I know the exact distance because I have my Nike plus with me.)  During morning commute hours, the exhaust from the cars and motorcycles are just too much to bear for the hike.  So on the days I don't get up early enough, I go to the sports park.


There are always people on the track either jogging like I do or walking.  After I've finished my 8 laps, I was doing the stretching and trying to cool down.  A guy walked past me and said: "小姐胖胖也可以跑哦!" (Translation directly: Chubby miss too can run, huh!) I was half amused and half shocked and all I could utter was "WHAT?!" in English.  That startled him because he looked sheepishly and nodded his head with apologies in Chinenglish "So-ree, so-ree."


Later on my way home, I thought his comment is actually a compliment, at least I've decided to make it so.  Yes, chubby girls can run too and I'm the proof of it!  So for breakfast I added another order of juicy dumplings - yum!

I run around this man-made pond.

The path around the pond.

The path lined with trees.

Juicy dumplings (湯 包.）  Will post more about it later.

The best intention

I was convinced of one thing during the 12-hour confinement with Henry:  The way to hell is paved with good intentions; and I hope certain that the MD who "do not recommend sedating your children for purpose of taking a long trip" are on their way there.  Or maybe I should be clear that at least one of them is going to be there considering I've given out her name and phone numbers to the passengers seated around us in the EVA flight #25 from SEA-TEC to TPE.  I would laugh an evil, manic laugh right now if I'd really done it...


The 5-hour layover at SEA-TEC wasn't too bad at all. The boys were entertained by Apple Inc.  I only had to take Henry for a walk around the entire S wing of the airport twice.  While we were walking around, Henry was quite friendly to everyone with his usual comment to me "Who is that guy?" and then his greeting of "Hey, guy! what are you doing?"  Most adults, blessed their hearts, were kind enough to respond with hellos or how's-goings. Some of them were even smiling when they saw him running at full speed through the crowd.  (The logical explanation for their good nature is obviously the I-am-so-glad-I'm-not-his-mother!)

The EB (Energize Bunny) in Henry finally died when we boarded the plane at 1:30 A.M.  "This is way too easy!" I foolishly grinning to myself while settling in for the long flight.  The plane soared into the night sky and Henry let out a blood curling scream "My ears popped!" (Yes, I have taken him to see his doctor before our trip; yes, his doc informed me that it is entirely normal for the wee one to have the ear-popping sensation.)  Looking at his contorted facial feature, I knew he's so tired, so miserable and so irritated that he couldn't stay asleep.  He cried and sobbed sentences like "I don't love airplane!" Or covering his ears and said "Help me, please help me. My ears hurrrrrt!" The most heartbreaking ones were "I WANNA GO HOME!" and "I WANT DADDY!"


I cradled his small noggin, tried message his ears and jaw, offered lollipops and the crying and the fussing continued.  All of a sudden we heard this voice, coming above Henry's seat, yelling "Would you please stop crying?!?" I turned around and faced this not so young woman who obviously had no children of her own (maybe for the best?) and I gave her the evil eye and said "He is tired, his ears HURT and he is only 3. Do you know how tough this is for the little guy???" What I really wanted to say is "F__k off, b___h!!!"  But I didn't - I've complied with one of the ancient requirements of being Chinese - always be polite and never to cause any ruckus. (Figuring this is a good practice since I'm going to be a Chinese again pretty soon.)  On and off we went like this for a while until finally I was so tired that I just put the almost-asleep child down on the floor and, guess what, he slept quietly.


And the time slowly went by with me being not really able to sleep.  Though when I was just about to sink into the dreamland, the cart was pushing towards us - feeding time! - and I turned around from the path to any sleep to be in the mother mode.  Then I watched jealously the boys promptly falling asleep after their bellies were full.

 Yep, like this.