frog porridge and other delights

First, as promised, here is a review of a tropical fruit.....the dragon fruit. Not available in the US, this fruit tastes melonish with a bit of an herbal backdrop.

I’m sure that if it was available in the US, the dragon fruit would be ridiculously expensive, like the star fruit (here, star fruit is cheap). I’m not sure that dragon fruit would present any sort of exciting new flavor if you could get it.....it's good, but maybe we in the US already have enough orthogonal fruit flavors to form a robust basis set of taste (the dragon fruit is beautiful, however).

I also had some soursop juice. Soursop looks like a small green spiky melon, but tastes very much like pineapple. Not bad.

I found my chili crab yesterday. This is a dish that I need to learn how to make…..it was so great.

And I ate some frog porridge. Note that you can not see the frog legs in the following photo, but they’re there, sitting below the surface of the superheated rice porridge flavored with green onion and ginger. The taste was OK; not too strong. Frog legs are often compared to chicken, but I think they’re better described as a cross between chicken and shrimp.




Here’s the stall where I bought the frog porridge from; note the cages in the lower corner containing live frogs awaiting their fate (I brightened the image so that you could make out the frog cages more easily).


Another dish that I ate was fried bee hoon; bee hoon is just vermicelli noodles. This was by far the cheapest meal I’ve eaten yet, coming in at about US$1.25. This morning I has fish ball noodles for breakfast. They weren’t too bad.

Last night I went down to Clark’s Quay for the New Years Celebration down there. From what I gather, this place has undergone some serious development recently. There were several thousand people down there, apparently waiting for fireworks. I thought I saw a schedule that said there’d be fireworks down there, but nothing happened. There were just dancers and plenty of westerners buying expensive drinks. I had two Tiger beers (each was US$10); not great but drinkable. Here’s a photo from last night:

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped by a food stall and bought some chicken curry. But I ended up with this sack of curry…not really too edible without rice, which they were out of (there was a piece of chicken floating around in there, which I chowed down on).



Finally, a sign from the local MRT station bathroom. Not the best image quality, but I wasn’t going to stand there too long trying to get a better photo….



And some miscellaneous pictures of Singapore:


Today’s plan: go to see the monkeys at MacRitchie Reservoir Park. There was an article in the paper yesterday about how people keep feeding them, even with a $200 fine. Maybe I’ll get a good shot of some monkey shenanigans.

Finding chili crab

Last night I went out on a search for a food stall sellling chili crab, a local dish, using my Singapore food guide ("Makansutra") as my reference. Unfortuantely, the place I traveled to wasn't there, the victim of a mall remodel. So today I'll be off again in search of another place. An issue with the "Makansutra" is that it's hard to find many of the places listed in the book(directions are poor, or in many cases, non-existant). So I cam back to Little India, and had some Mee Gorang, a local dish invented by Indian muslims consisting of noodles stir-fried in chili sauce with the addition of other ingrediants (eggs, chilis, some veggies, maybe some sort of meat). It was OK, but very cheap (US$2 for a plate). I also got a chance to explore the meat market by the local food court; it was not a pretty sight, with much of the meat not in refrigerators but in boxes, and meat pieces splattered all over. The smell was not exactly pleasant.

Here's a photo from the window of my hotel room:

I'm off to try and find chili crab again. Coming up: reviews of tropical fruit.

From Taipei to Singapore

Yesterday was my last day in Taipei; I spent it going up into the "mountains" just outside of Taipei to an area called Maokong. There's a new gondola system that takes you up there from the zoo at the edge of town. The ride is about 20 minutes (it's a long trek), but I had to stand in line for 1 1/2 hours to get onto the gondola. A very inefficient system....luckily I had a magazine to read. Anyway, here's a view from my gondola as we went up the hill:

And a view of the city's edge from the gondola:

And finally, the top, Maokong station. This area was once used to grow tea (there's still some growing there.....I don't think you can see the plants in the following photo because everything is green, but they're there).


And the road going through Maokong...

The day was grey and drizzly. I had a nice time, however, and am glad I went. I went and had tea at one of the local tea houses. It was expensive...about US$10, but a good experience. You bought a little can of the tea, and they bring out all the stuff you need to make it yourself. Needless to say, I had to ask how to do it properly.


I ate some food on a stick from a couple of the local vendors, and then headed downtown where I got lost in the underground mall system that surrounds the main train/subway system. Eventually I found my way through, and had some noodle soup (with freshly made noodles).

A last view of Taipei, at the night market up the street from where I was staying.

A note of interest.....the people of Taiway really like pets. Lots of little dogs and petshops (plus sad puppy/kitten markets, where the animals are kept in tiny cages that would easily be illegal in the west). Here's a (slight blurry) picture of a dog I saw on the street wearing a cute little outfit:

This morning I flew in to Taipei....here's the gate that I left from.

I made it to my hotel in the Little India section of Singapore. It's really hot and muggy here, and everybody wants to sell you a suit. Just a few minutes after leaving my hotel, I was walking down the street and was acosted by guy who wanted to show me his camera shop. It turns out, they also sell suits. Three minutes later another guy got me into his shop; I did have a mild interest in a shirt or two. After giving me a beer, he started on the hard sell. I ended up buying one shirt, for about $60; this price seems a bit high so I was going to look at other places and get further pricing info before making the plunge into more shirts. My shirt will be ready tomorrow...we'll see how it comes out. One factor in my decision to buy more shirts will definately be the mediocrity of the restaurant the guys in the shop recommended.

Here's one photo of Little India, along with a picture of (a small portion of) the food court across the street from my hotel.

And yes, there is a 7-11 in Little India.

Taipei 101

Yesterday I hit some of the local sights. First I went to Longshan Temple...here are a few photos of the place:

Note this business located across the street from the temple. I think it was a coffee shop, but I'm not 100% sure. I see many shops where I can't figure out what is bought/sold/done there.

Here is the Chaing Kai-shek Menorail. It looks like something you might make out of legos.

Finally, here is the approach to Taipei 101, the word's tallest building. At least at present; I think there is a building being constructed in Dubai that will be taller. The problem with playing the "word's tallest building" game is that you will eventually lose, sometimes in a suprisingly short amount of time.

I paid about $10 to zip up to the 89th floor in an elevator that travels at about 30 miles per hour. Here's a view from the top (the day was cloudy, and the windows a bit dirty, so the image isn't the clearest).

In the center of the 89th floor, they had this room where you can go and see the "damper baby" (their name), a giant passive damping system designed to reduce swaying in the building by about 40%. It's a giant steel spheroid suspended from the 91st floor, weighing in at about 660 tons.

There's a giant mall at the bottom of Taipei 101. As you go up in floor number, the stores become more exclusive. On the 5th floor they where showing off some Ferraris/Maseratis at some sort of sales show. Some of the cars where $400,000US, but I hear that they throw in the throbbing techno soundtrack they were playing at the show for free.

Outside, on the ground floor, Toyota was showing off a new model of the Corrola.

I ate dinner in the food court of Taipei 101 and paid about $5-6US, the most I've paid for a meal since I arrived. I also ate at Mister Donut again, eating a strange (but tasty) green donut. And, at the Night Market, I ate a shrimp pancake thing (covered in tomato sauce) that made up for it's lack of flavor by adding extreme sliminess.

I also played some more claw machines, winning a bunch of key chains and a few (small) stuffed animals.

Finally, here's what's dominating the news around here lately.....

Shilin Night Market

Last night I went to the silin night Market and picked up some food....there are little night markets all over the place, full of carts selling assorted food (much of which looks totally nasty/unsanitary....the worst have to be the Stinky Tofu carts, however....they smell like concentrated garbage/open sewer....I've seen locals turn up their nose at these), but the Shilin one is the largest/most famous.

On the right is a bubble tea place where I has a bubble tea for about $1US. I also ate some shumei dumplings (delicious) and a strange Taiwanese version of a hot dog where a sausage is served using some sort of large rice sausage as the bun. It tasted OK, but was a bit greasy and not the most convenient to eat (rice sausage is not as as ideal as a bread bun). I also ate a donut at a nearby Mister Donut, a Japanese donut chain (the donut was only OK...maybe that's why the place is called "Mister donut" and not "Donut King" or something like that)

Close to the Night Market were a couple of street filled with shoppers. And lots of claw machines. I don't have a picture of these, but they are all over and are quite different than the American version. Most notably, after the claw is raised, it releases immediately, making transport to the hole imossible. Basically, you have to knock the prizes into the hole (generally, they're placed near the edge to give people any sort of chance). I played a couple of dollars, and won two small stuffed animal key chains (one's an alien, the other is some sort of egg lady).

Here are photos of the shopping streets (sorry for the blurriness):

Arrived in Taipei

After a 13 hour flight from Seattle, I've made it to Taipei. I've only wandered the streets here for a couple of hours so far...my first impressions are how dumpy the place is, plus the sheer number of scooters. They actually seem quite dangerous as you can't always hear them as they zip out of an ally way or around a corner. Here's a sample of the scooter density:





When I arrived at the airport, a nurse took my temperature. Apaprently, if you have a fever, they make you wear a mask when you're here. Many of the locals can be seen wearing these (especially when riding scooters); maybe it's some sort of local fashion. I went in to a drugstore to get some Sudafed (my nose is still uner attack from my Mother's cats), and the medication came with a free mask.


I ate my first street food today, some sort of fried pancake-like thing, similar to some things I've had in India. Not too many shops are open yet.....my understanding is that they open up at night. There are a few open, however, many of which feature a small case of assorted pig (and other animal) organs...I think I'll pass, even with my iron stomach (many of the establishments don't really look too sanitary anyway).


My other food adventure: I ate a bag of Taiwanese Cheetos. Not as good as the American ones. I like to taste the local Cheetos when I'm traveling (the best I ever had where in Mexico....definately the cheesiest).

Well, it's been a while, but I thought I'd return with a photo of a new "friend" I found in my back yard: a giant (fist-sized) toad.

The toads here burrow underground, coming out when there's enough rain to surive. Hopefully this one will be OK; I poisoned a nearby ant hill (full of large, biting red ants) that he/she might have been using for food.

Other news: I discovered that the compliation "Whore: various artists play Wire" has a My Bloody Valentine song that I've never heard before (apparently the last one they recorded). I ordered the CD from Amazon last week and was pleasently surprised that it had arrived already today. I've been listening to the MBV song (Map Ref 41 N 93 W) over and over.