LA sucks. Jet lag sucks. Put together they are a massive, steaming pile of suckage. Make a plan that glosses over those two points and you have a recipe for failure. The ways in which LA sucks are many and varied, so let me come to them as flows within the narrative. For starters, LAX, … Read more
I’m about five hours into the 11 hour flight across the Pacific and this has been a real mixed bag of a flight. Typically, there’s not much that can make being crammed in a tin can for 11 hours “fun” but the quality of the experience can certainly vary greatly. I’m plunked down in row … Read more
There are stories left to tell, like about the vomitorium in the classy restaurant inside the five-star hotel, but they shall have to wait until my return, for in about 30 minutes I’ll be heading out towards the airport to catch in flight 3 hours from then. The family will be staying behind for another … Read more
The changing face of travelling fascinates me. On my first trip to Taiwan, I didn’t have a cell phone, digital camera or laptop computer. Oh how things have changed! On this trip, we’re kitted out for every eventuality. Irene and I both have our MacBooks, our iPhones and my iPad. Linking it altogether, I brought … Read more
About 3 bus stops away from the house is the Taipei Water Park (which, cleverly, appears to be connected to the water treatment plant.) We’ve been meaning to go there since we arrived, but a variety of things such as rain and trips out of town have stopped us. On weekdays, the place is virtually … Read more
It’s Father’s Day, and I’ve been given a rare opportunity to catch up on “stuff.” Irene has taken the kids to meet a friend and dubiously “…let them play in a playground, which [I’d] no doubt be bored doing.” Of course, that’s totally true, but at the same time, it’s rather an obvious excuse to … Read more
Oh, I may make fun of their mystical Chinese medicine, Feng Shui, superstitions, ghost concerns and a host of other completely illogical remnants to the dark ages of man’s reason, but that notwithstanding, the Taiwanese are at heart a science-loving, technology-obsessed people, which makes them infinitely superior to a vast swath of science-denialist Americans who … Read more
Like the US, Costco in Taiwan has a low-price food court, featuring products made from available ingredients at Costco. The menu is similar but different: Chicken ceasar salad Clam chowder Chicken bake Bulgogi (beef) bake Hot dog (all-pork) & drink Seafood pizza Hawaiian pizza Peking duck pizza Bacon cheese hamburger & drink Mango smoothie Hokkaido … Read more
We bought high speed rail tickets at 7-11 and with the purchase we got several free bottles of tea. (Pictured here.) It’s green tea with barley, buckwheat and black bean. It tastes exactly like someone disolved a bowl of Cherios into green tea. Yuck!
To say Taiwan is a country of fads is to say fish like water. They get passionately crazy about the weirdest things! Last week I mentioned the curious food of fruit and condensed milk served over crushed ice. In my opinion this had to be the biggest dessert scam ever perpetrated against humanity. Biggest of … Read more