Taipei the *real* night market

TODAY in Taipei I made it to an "official" night market. It is very near a university and it was Saturday night so, ... CROWDED. We got onto the main drag and shuffled along interminably to get 5 feed down the road. Thankfully it was not a hot sweltering night, but I just don't understand why it is like this when the market is there EVERY night and it sells the SAME stuff (nothing interesting) and actually offered very little in the way of food stalls.

We were expecting to have dinner there and were looking forward to something called a Small Biscuit wrapped in a big biscuit- or something to that effect. It is actually not a biscuit at all but a sausage inside another sausage. We never found this delicacy. (Good thing too, Chinese sausages are not exactly healthy treats- they are sweet-ish and very more like a thin chorizo (but not spicy) or salami (but sweet).

We ended up eating at place famous for its soup. We had Chicken soup with chicken and weird vegetable, chicken soup with herbal medicine and chicken, and herbal medicine soup with a chicken stock base with noodles. Quite yummy actually.

Since it is near a university, at the market's fringes one can find lots of cafés full of students studying hard on their laptops. These small independent cafes are of course either über hip or painfully cute. It is an interesting mix of crowded pushing and quiet spaces that I don't think other university areas in other countries quite have!

Taipei the night market

TODAY in Taipei I realize the whole city is like one big night market. There are street vendors selling corndogs, fruit, waffle sandwich things, bitter melon juice, other salty juice, corn that can be colored all colors of the rainbow, dumpling, beef noodle soup, potstickers, won ton soup, smelly tofu (this seems to be the season- it is EVERYWHERE), meat or veggies on a stick, buns filled with meat or beans or other stuff, rice noodle soup, even shwarma-type sandwiches...

In just about every district, as far as I can tell, it is possible to find a snack. And people line up to get their favorites. Last night there was a huge line to get red bean filled waffle (it is not really a waffle but a very popular thing here- it is a cup made of batter with a scoop of filling and then a matching lid placed on top and sealed together with more batter). Today there was an even longer line, including foreign devils, for 'flour rice noodle.'

More surprising was the line out into the street for STARBUCKS. A very popular Starbucks that is definitely the biggest Starbucks I have every seen. 3 stories!

Besides the food kiosks and carts and small street restaurants, small shops and people with rolling hangers and tables selling scarves and sweaters add to the night market feeling. Even better, I don't know if it is this weekend only or if it is a regular thing, but in this one walking street area there was live music on virtually every corner! From a blind man playing Erhu with an accompanying rock background emanating from some speakers to full 6-person band with synthesizers and sound boards! right there on the street.

Taipei is interesting too because the signs are vertical rather than horizontal, giving it a more exotic feel than Hong Kong or Shanghai. People are friendly and it is easy to get around. The taxis all seem to suffer from overuse of the air freshener so they all smell sickly sweet with a base note of stale smoke.

Just when you thought they couldn't fake anything new

Today in Hong Kong I learned how China has gone one step further in the Fakery Game: Fake jobs for University graduates!!
The schools want to get their statistics on grads who go on to full employment up, so they are hiring new grads for jobs that don't actually exist.
In some cases, the students just see their name on a list of New Hires.
But evidently is is a long-standing practice. In fact, often students are asked (or required) to bring a letter of employment before they can get their diploma!!
Vocational schools usually boast 85-90% employment for new grads! Evidently is it a not so well kept secret in China.

Lady Boy Lady Boy now you have a home

Today in Bangkok I read in am American news paper about a young boy who was shot at school because he liked to dress like a girl. I struck me even more because just yesterday I read in a Thai newspaper about a school here that has decided to allow girls and boys to choose which uniform they want to wear: girls' or boys'. They even put in bathrooms for this "third sex."

While "lady boys" have long been an "attraction" here in Thailand, today they are no longer relegated to the seedier bars of Pat Pong and are working in many different industries. As a habitual skin care shopper, I have seen many very feminine, graceful, beautiful men as salespeople and managers. Many more young boys are realizing their affiliation and, to it's credit, Thailand seems to be accepting these boys, adding "third sex" facilities and passing laws of inclusion.

And then there's America, purportedly the land of the free and proponent of diversity, where people who don't fit into our boxes are not just ridiculed but slain.

I'm Turning Japanese

Today in Hong Kong I spent the afternoon in Japan. A very popular thing to do here is to take photos in a kiosk and then add stars, hearts, happy faces, flowers, etc. so the photos come out with these decorations. The machines are all in Japanese so we had no idea what we were doing (although we did this last year for my birthday too) so the first batch were terrible. You have to decide which background you want (I chose some scary thing with ghostly hands everywhere- I thought it was happy hands!), then do some funny poses (hand gestures and the like), pose for really fast sequence of pictures, then choose 4 of the 6 poses, then you have 3 minutes to decorate. It is really very taxing.

Then you gave to decide who gets which picture, cut them up, and then get them laminated! Voilà a special little plastic card of you and your students looking stupid!!

While waiting my students to get theirs cut and laminated, I am watching a Japanese music video where cute girls keep tripping and spilling food in slow motion on heavyset guys laying on the beach.  Weird!  First it's an ice-cream cone, then an icee, then ramen, spaghetti, soup, and pork chop rice!! I don’t get it.

Only in Hong Kong

Today in Hong Kong I noticed something that I think I would only see in Asia's International Financial City:

Of course one thing that you can only find in Hong Kong (mostly) is the bamboo scaffolding which seems to be everywhere here, but only used sparingly in other Chinese cities:

More Photos of Old Malacca

Malacca is a curious juxtaposition of Chinese, Dutch, and Malay. Malacca has a quaint old town with Chinese, Portuguese, and Dutch shop houses, and there is a Hindu temple, a mosque, and the oldest Chinese temple in SE Asia (maybe) all on the same street. Today I learned about the difficulties of preserving some of these old places. I visited a conservation project that is trying to renovate a Dutch shophouse using original materials, which includes lime. Evidently lime is porous and allows excess moisture to escape, while cement and paint seal it in and ruin the walls from the inside. The house next door has used cement so salt deposits leach out onto the conservation house's walls.










Down the street is the home of an obviously wealthy (über rich) Chinese family of the 1930's. Huge and gilt, the place is a museum of museum-quality furniture, house wares, embroidery, and house décor carvings. Down to the underside of the stairs and the railings in the stairs, everything is detailed and touched with gold. Gaudy, but beautiful.

Old Malacca

Today in Malacca I had their famous chicken rice balls. These are balls of rice full of chicken flavor (must be cooked in chicken stock). Served with cut up juicy chicken, you've got yourself a yummy meal for 2 bucks!

Other delicacies here include the Nyonya food (Nyonya is like the Singaporean Peranakan: people of mixed parentage: "foreigners"- usually Chinese or Indian men marrying Malay women several generations ago ((see Singapore People)) ). Spicy Otak-otak fish mush (yummy), chicken soup with a dark tangy sweet broth, nyonya laksa (curry like noodles), and I don't know what else! More things definitely but hard to describe.

Malaysia is full of street food and Malacca has its own. But most places seem to close early. We walked by a riverside cafe that seemed like the perfect place to sit and have a drink and watch the sky turn colors. But they were closing up at 6 pm! Maybe of was because it was Tuesday- the day many places close shop due to tourists going home on Mondays.


Malacca was declared a UNESCO heritage site last year and evhdently the tourists descend on the weekends. We did see a Chinese tour group all taking pictures with a group of Muslim girls in their veils.

Faceless Beauty

Today in Hong Kong I visited the new Sephora store. It is really big but has pretty much the same things we have in the US stores. Except they have this interesting product that removes more than make up:

Macau's Money Malady

Today in Macau I am eating a French crepe in a little cafe with Chinese art deco trappings in the village of Taipa. Crepe and croissant not bad!
This place was actually recommended to me by an American gondolier last time I was in Macau - September 2007. It's called Cafe Cheri and it is a nice respite from the casino fare and is right around the corner from the famous Pork Chop Bun restaurant. And sure enough, today the line to pick up a pork chop bun is down the street- 75 people long at least!

Taipa is still sleepy and quaint, although there is a McCafe and a Kholer store and there are a few tourists walking around despite the drizzle. That's good because the Macau local economy needs tourists to spend money in local places, not just the Vegas transplants.


Actually, what with the financial crisis and new restrictions on mainlanders coming to Macau, the Venetian was relatively empty compared to the frenetic swarming of gamblers and their families of the hey-day of when it first opened: gamblers, gawkers, grannies and kids...

Now they have put up barriers and built new hallways so the non gamblers aren't tempted to squat on the floor and watch the gamblers. They put up a curtain around the lounge with live music so the gawkers don't take all the seats without buying a drink. And instead of a gold rope to keep out the kids from the gambling area, they have a line of yellow clad security guards.

The taxi driver said that now they only get business on the weekends. The mainlanders come in busses and the Hong Kongers are feeling the pain of the financial crunch. All construction has stopped on the second phase of the Cotai Strip (or whatever phase they are in) and hulls of unfinished buildings stand with their glass and steel exoskeleton done, but with no guts.