in addition to everything else, people will drive their scooters on the sidewalk. you always kind of need to be on the lookout.
when you have a crosswalk, or even when you have the green light, you need to be aware of cars turning. there is no assumption that pedestrians have the right of way - quite the opposite. and you need to look both ways on a one way street, because scooters don't care.
you can eat a filling, good meal for under $1 us. very filling and delicious cabbage dumplings are about 20 cents us, grilled bite size sausages are about 15 cents.
there is a system of hand gestures for numbers here that i dont understand. since it's all done with one hand, 1-5 make sense. 7 looks like a 7. and 10 is an x with 2 hands (the only one to use both). the others, i don't know. and when representing larger numbers, there is a syntax that i don't understand. i'm sure it's easy and it helps. maybe i'll get it later.
children, when they aren't pointing and laughing, often say "HUH-low" to me as i pass them on the street.
the average doorway here is just high enough to slam the top of my head. this is exacerbated by the little step that you see as you pass through the doorways. i have taken to bowing as i enter a room, as a show of respect to the pain that the door can cause me. my new religion will be devoted to avoiding the pain of banging your head.
you can get a cheap (under a dollar) sushi like thing in the 7eleven/circle k stores here. it is a triangle of sushi rice with a little smear of something (i like the crab and the tuna) wrapped in nori. it's pretty easy and good.
i made myself congee for breakfast this morning. it's recommended for invalids, and my stomach problems may qualify me. i just put last night's left over rice in a pot with some water and a slice of ginger and cooked until it was a good soup consistancy. i added green onion, salt, a little pepper and a little bit of soy. yum. and my stomach felt ok. today i bought brown rice - we'll see how that works.
i get to listen to late night seattle radio on the internet during the day here. i like it a lot.
3 comments:
is it reasonably possible to be a vegetarian in taiwan? is vegetarianism a concept that shop owners and food servers would generally be familiar with if you asked them about the food they serve?
good luck with those doors. metal health will drive you mad.
vegetarianism is no problem. the buddhists here are vegetarian when they want buddha to be nice to them. i have eaten mostly vegetarian. to be absolutely sure, there is a reverse svastika (sauvastika) that they put on vegetarian resteraunts, which tells you that they didn't cook the vegetables in lard. i really eat very little meat here - some seafood, but my favortie dishes (garlicky greens, eggplant, etc.) are all vegetarian. and that's how i cook.
woops, i stand corrected. r. tells me that the veg. resteraunts that i go to here use stocks that keep them from being 100% veg. in taipei, there are many, but here, if you want to stay 100%, you need to cook.
Post a Comment