Sports geekery

*points to subject* I bet those are two words you never expected to see together on my LJ ;).

But yes.... squigglesquiggleYAYsquee!!!!! OLYMPICS!!!!

Predictions:

1. Evgeny Plushenko will win, or else I will yell at the TV an awful lot.

2. Johnny Weir and Brian Joubert will have horrible costumes.

3. I will yell at the commentators all the time.

4. I will have the same not-very-deep thoughts about nationalism and country pride and competition that I do every time I watch the Olympics.

5. I will either cheer loudly when "Taipei China" enters while yelling at China about the name change, or pout when Taiwan isn't in the Olympics, despite fully realizing that it is a subtropical island and probably doesn't participate much in winter sports at all.

6. I will cheer for the Chinese ice skaters and then feel bad for cheering for China and then feel worse for thinking nationalistically.

7. I will find random sports that I didn't know existed (biathlon?).

8. I will get caught up in totally random sports that I usually care nothing about, just because.

9. I will cheer for all the underdog countries. (Sadly, my brain just collapsed on me and I forgot the word "underdog." I knew it was "under-animal," but kept defaulting to "underduck" for some odd reason. Possibly I was inspired by the dead duck wine bottle holder that my dad has.)

10. I am entirely too fond of numbered lists.

Taiwan trip photos, part 2

Part 1 has me going around Hsinchu, with much random food commentary.

And now, I am picking up on 1/27 (Fri), which is when my mom and I headed off to Taipei for New Year preparations! My dad joined us the day after, because he had to work =(. Poor dad. We went up to Taipei a day before New Year's Eve (that's when the big family dinner is) because my aunt invited us along to go grocery shopping with her! I was pretty interested in cooking the last time I visited, even though I never cooked anything. But yes, we ended up going to Nanmun Shr Chang (South Gate Market -- the old city gates for Taipei are now markets or shopping places), which is an extremely traditional market.

It's funny that I was so excited to go this time. One of my very first memories of moving back to Taiwan is going to a traditional market and being scared silly by the live foods and meats and smells and noises, but this time, I found myself getting excited about the seafood and the hunks of pork and chicken. Someday I should probably write an essay or something about this.

Anyhow. The market was really fun, although the decapitated pig's head disturbed even my mom and my aunt. My aunt is quite a cook, so me and my mom were just following behind her and ooh-ing and aah-ing over how she picked out the best vegetables and seafood and etc. I think my mom was feeling sort of bad about not being quite so professional a cook, but I think my mom is still quite good!

We also scored some live shrimp for lunch, which my mom and I later steamed with scallions and ginger. Fresh steamed shrimp is the best thing ever. Yeah, shrimp scampi and cocktail and whatnot is good, but nothing beats fresh and simple, when you can get the texture of the shrimp and the meat is still sweet and clean.

Then we headed off to Di Hua Street, which is where they sell a whole bunch of traditional New Year's food and I sampled pretty much everything. Yay samples! After that, a lovely dinner at Din Tai Fung, and new clothes and books for me ^_^.

Again, I friends-locked pictures with my family or me in them, so those won't load for some people. But all the interesting stuff is viewable!

ETA:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4

( Ginormous pictures )

(no subject)

Gacked from everywhere.

Ok, I'm a sucker, and this actually interests me:

http://kevan.org/johari?name=oyceter

Select words that describe me and after a while, the differences between how I perceive myself and how others perceive me will become glaringly obvious.