twelve years after

Greetings from Taipei! I've been here for over a week now and though I felt like a foreigner (in my own hometown) for the first few days, I'm adjusting pretty well :) Just trying to ease in with the pace of everything, and most importantly, picking up my Mandarin speaking/reading/writing skills (ha ha ha ha...)!

I've mostly been walking around--actually, that's all I've been doing--and exploring the neighborhood: from parks to early morning street markets, down every single lane and alley, each with more than enough Asian delicacies to offer. I swear, there's a restaurant about every two strides. But at least the food is always delicious! Pretty cheap too :) And there's plenty plenty plenty of choices to quell my quick boredom of take-out.

I guess my only complaint would be the greasiness of some of the food. No matter how heavenly it all tastes, my stomach isn't adjusting too well to all the oil. I really miss cooking and baking :( All of my baking stuff, flours, pots and pans are being shipped here by the 26th, so only about two more weeks of waiting until life will feel almost back to normal! OH but wait, you know what? My house doesn't have an OVEN. OH and there's no counter top space either. Okay maybe there's like 2 feet of counter top space, but I'm not sure how that's going to fit a microwave, a small oven, a rice cooker, a water boiler, and a large dishwasher. Not sure how everything will fit, and if I'll even get to bake at all, but I'm sure it'll all work out ^_^

But anyways, I've been trying to take pictures of the city and all of the food I've eaten so far, but 90% of the time I either forget to bring my camera with me, or I forget to take pictures altogether. So here are some photos of what my past few weeks consisted of:

- Eating with relatives on my mom's side for the first time in twelve years.

 - Celebrated my birthday with a question mark candle cause they didn't know how old I was bahaha. Didn't eat any of the cake but I'm really grateful :)


I honestly don't remember much from when I was five--except for random flashbacks of preschool and of me looking like a boy--and I had only vague memories of the city and my relatives; I've never been to any family feasts while in America so, this was a first for me, and it was nice :) Basically it felt like I was brunching with a bunch of strangers, but there was a strange warmth and "togetherness" feel to it too. 

- Eating more with my parents' friends, who have a daughter that loves to bake! :) She lent me a few of her cookbooks that are all in Mandarin so as of now, all are incomprehensible! I wish my Mandarin didn't suck so much -_- I'm working on it! And by the time I'm able to read through a cookbook front to back, birds will sing.

- This is fried tan yuan filled with black sesame and topped with ground peanuts. SO GOOD AND SO GUILTY BUT I ONLY HAD ONE so that's okay right?!?!

- Like I said, BIRDS WILL SING.

- I had to take a picture of this cause the yolk looks uber pretty! My mom went to the super market and bought these freshly laid eggs (I'm not joking, as in LITERALLY just came out of a hen that morning) and the yolks are a golden orange color, reminiscent of sunsets and just very pretty that I had to show you all. I think they taste better than normal eggs but my opinion's probably biased.

- And we finally found purple dragon fruit ^_^ which I think is really pretty too.

- Ji dan gao! Literally means egg cake, but is actually just a steamed sponge cake, and in this case, in the shape of an egg! I had major cravings for these for twelve years now and I'm finally able to eat them! The lady was making animal shapes too and gave my baby sister a free one :)

- Went shopping at a department store called SOGO with mom and sisters, bought bento that I forgot to photo document, mi madre bought a few cream puffs and my older sister bought a strawberry mousse pie, then we went to a really pretty park across the street that had this cool fountain spewing out sewage water. Yeah!!!

- Strawberry mousse pie! So delicious, fluffy, and light even though I only had a micro-bite of it!

- Mini food haul of sale/not so expensive items! Yay for sales and not so expensive food :')! But yeah anyways I bought a bottle of unsweetened lemon verbena tea because 1) bottle is cute and 2) I love tea but mostly because the bottle is really cute. The tea tastes really good too! I bought a little pack of ube (purple sweet potato) pasta and I can't wait to cook it :) and the three SLIMS packs are crackers that were on sale so yes, I had to. I'm eating the cranberry orange crackers as I type and they taste a bit funky at first but the flavors ease out after a while...kind of...hopefully the chocolate and banana ones taste better.

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Overall I'm still adjusting to the environment, to the people, to the culture; I feel less of a foreigner now than I did when I first landed, but I really miss America. The slight language barrier (due to my suckage at Mandarin) puts pressure on me and at times I just want to coop myself up at home to avoid social interaction. But social interaction is probably the best way to improve my Mandarin--funny how things work.

For some reason, going out for a long walk when night falls, with or without a destination in mind, relaxes all of those nerves and worries I had during the day. At night, it always got better. The buzzing yet peaceful atmosphere that paves way for the crowds of people, the food carts that are rolled out into the street to begin their dinner shift, the aromas that overflow and mingle in harmony...nighttime in Taiwan is definitely something to behold--in my opinion :)

I have yet to venture the night markets and other parts of the city, and hopefully then I'll remember to bring my camera along and take tons of pictures and post them here! Oh and recipes will come soon too :) I'm feeling out of place having not cooked/baked in so long...gotta change that! Until then, good night!