Taiwan trip part 3

[oyceter]

Finally, I get around to posting more pictures. One more post after this, and I will be done, sadly, nearly a full month after my trip!

All these pictures are from New Year's Eve, which is when you eat dinner with your dad's side of the family and stay up till midnight waiting for the new year. Not that different from 12/31, although we pass time by gambling with red envelope money, heh heh. I won a grand total of 8 NT playing mahjongg for three hours! (that's about thirty cents. At least I didn't lose.) My mom and I first went shopping at Taipei 101, which was amazingly uncrowded, it being New Year's Eve and all, and I got pretty clothes and a book on shoujo manga (in Chinese, woe) and a knitting-sweaters-from-top-down book (also in Chinese, more woe)!

Then it was off to dinner, in which I attempted to help around the kitchen and mostly ended up wandering around and taking a million pictures. I also wrapped spring rolls! We had so many that they were just piled in random places around the kitchen. Then I watched my cousin learn how to knit from her grandma (who taught me how to knit) and was happily warmed by three generations of knitters, and then there was much mahjongg.

My cousins also wanted to set off firecrackers at midnight, but they're banned in Taipei. Not that that actually stops anyone, though. I think he accidentally set one off around the bedroom, because there was much yelling and tumult and the smell of gunpowder, after which my aunt put her foot down and said no more.

Like before, some pictures are friends-locked, apologies for the broken pictures.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 4

Taipei 101 Currently the tallest building in the world, though I can't imagine for very long. I don't know why they wanted to build it in Taiwan. Oh well. It comes with a spiffy shopping center. I haven't been all the way up to the top yet either.

Taipei 101 shopping center And here's the important stuff.. clothing stores! Muhahahah. Also, a ginormous LG cell phone ad.

Taipei 101 inside This is amazingly empty, mostly because we went on New Year's Eve, when everyone else was staying at home prepping for dinner. 101's one of the more high-end shopping centers, so this is quite big and spacious and stuff.

Page One Dum de dum. BOOKSTORE!!!!! A giant bookstore with lots of English books! It's a chain from Singapore, apparently. If I lived in Taipei, I'd go here all the time. Obviously, selection still isn't as good as the States, but it's levels and levels above what we used to have. They even have manga translated in English, which I thought was funny.

Mochi (mwaji in Chinese/Taiwanese/not sure what language it's from) I love these! This little stand is from a chain (sort of) in Hua Lien, on the east coast of Taiwan. Hua Lien's famous for their mwaji, and this store is the most famous. These people are actually rolling them out and making them fresh! It was quite exciting. They thought I was dorky taking pictures of them though.

Taiwan bakery A little more high-end than most, since I'm still in 101, but still fairly illustrative. You can sort of see the strawberry brioches and assorted other strawberry-studded pastries (strawberries are in season in winter and on everything. Not that I'm complaining!), along with random other pastries. I used to think it was horribly fobby and weird that there's everything from green tea and red bean pastries to tuna and ketchup ones, but now I am habituated and like them and miss them.

More bakery goods Mmm, the salty stuff. I don't think you can see anything with hot dog in it, which is unfortunate because they're everywhere. But I think the first thing in the middle row is tuna (tasty), and the puffy things on the end of the middle row are crusty cheese things over bread filled with dried pork (rou song).

Blurry mwaji A blurry photo of the green tea mwaji I got from the place a little earlier on. I haven't had green tea before, so I was quite excited!

Inside of green tea mwaji! I was so excited when I ate it! The inside is green tea paste and the outside is dark!!! I had no idea! I think it's red bean flavored sticky rice! This was very, very good, because the green tea wasn't too sweet and had just the right flavour, and it didn't fall apart in your hand like the peanut ones do.

More mwaji! I was so excited that I had to take another picture! Also, the lighting in this one is better. But yes... best thing ever!

Spring roll filling Spring roll filling that my aunt made. I think there's shrimp, mushroom, tofu, jiou cai (uh, some vegetable that's sort of like scallions but not) and some other stuff.

Jumbo prawns! Check out the prawns! So fat and pretty!

Crabs Muhahaha! Little do they know the tragic fate that awaits them! *more evil laughter*

Shark fin Turn your eyes away if you are environmentally conscious! Herein are bagged shark fins, soaking in preparation to be added to chicken soup.

Spring rolls everywhere We had a lot of spring rolls. It got difficult finding places to put them in my aunt's kitchen.

Giant apples I just wanted to show everyone how giant the apples were. They're Fuji apples from Japan, nicely packaged as a gift box from someone. Sadly, they didn't taste that great. But they smelled heavenly -- the entire car smelled like apples, honeyed and delicately sweet.

My dad and his wine My dad, who is very proud of himself (and his wine). People always say I look like him but I don't think so. (I am prettier, damnit! *snork*)

Dad and uncle My dad and his younger brother. Yes, both of them like wine. Somehow, this gene escaped me and my sister.

Me and my mom and spring rolls Me and my mom make spring rolls! I haven't made them for years!

Me making spring rolls I make spring rolls!

Spring roll I made this one! It's lovely. I can never decided if I like them best just like this, freshly rolled, or after they've been deep-fried. They're good both ways, and my mom got the skin that morning from another market. She said she had to wait in line forever.

Deep-frying spring rolls And here are some spring rolls being deep fried in the kitchen.

Beef Wellington My mom picked up food and brought it over. This is ostensibly beef Wellington. However, it doesn't look at all like the beef Wellington I saw on Food Network, and I trust Food Network with my soul. Also, even more spring rolls!

Dad and uncle, again My dad and my uncle in their natural habitat: on the couch with a glass of wine.

Me and my dad Ok, my whole family makes fun of my dad for his wine thing and so we end up taking a bazillion pictures of us with wine glasses.

Me and dad and bottle Um yes. I mentioned the wine?

Murder! My aunt demonstrates how to kill a crab.

The Death of the Crab Apparently you're supposed to take a chopstick and find the holes right between the eyes. Then you shove the chopstick in till it hits the back and squiggle it around a bit. The paper towel is there because my aunt doesn't like it when the crabs look at her while she does this.

Assorted things Little mashed potato balls and bacon around asparagus... these went with beef Wellington.

Mahjongg! Me, my youngest cousin, my uncle and my mom playing mahjongg. My mom is beating us all.

Mahjongg again! Don't look at my tiles! (not that I had anything particularly good)

First course! In which we have aforementioned beef Wellington, tea eggs and meatballs steamed with sticky rice on the outside. (The meatballs were especially tasty)

Attacking the beef Wellington The beef Wellington was quite awful. First, we nearly needed a chainsaw to cut through the outer pastry crust. After that, it was incredibly salty. Horribly salty. Dead Sea salty (or so I presume, having never been).

More environmentally unsound food Abalone slices on top of baby bok choy. Or... baby napa cabbage. I can't remember the English. I think it's baby napa cabbage?

More abalone! I loooved this! My aunt basically took the very tender inside layers of napa cabbage (the long, ellipse-shaped cabbage thing) and braised them, probably in some sort of stock, with abalone on top. I love abalone. It's chewy and tastes properly seafood-like, without having the funny gritty things that oysters and clams sometimes do.

Roast lamb Mmmm, roast leg of lamb with asparagus on top. It almost looks too salty, but it wasn't. Also, the lamb was wonderfully tender and slid right off the bone.

Closer look A closer look at the lamb.

Prawns! Stir-fried prawns! They are so lovely! Alas, these were also a wee bit too salty as well (but I think the plate is cute).

Lasagna I think my mom decided to bring western food to new year eve dinner because one of my cousins (*gasp*) won't eat seafood.

Family members My cousin, my aunt's sister, and my aunt's mom.

Mom and dad My mom's shirt is the same color as my lovely sofa!

Chandler mom Note my mom's Chandler-esque smile. Chandler from Friends, not Raymond Chandler. Though that would be interesting.

Me and my dad Unsurprisingly, with more wine.

Two cousins My two older cousins (my aunt and uncle have three kids).

Crab! And here's what became of the crabs so cruelly murdered earlier on! This one was cooked with butter and onions. Very, very tasty. I got that giant claw!

Crab #2 This crab was steamed. Even better than the butter, IMHO, because it tasted so fresh.

Stir-fried veggies Mmm veggies, how I love you.

Fish Fish served properly (i.e. with sauce that brings out the fish flavor instead of masking it). This was steamed whole with scallions and ginger on top. Then my aunt poured soy sauce on and layered more scallions and ginger on. Then she spooned on heated oil. Since it was new year's, we didn't finish the fish.

Shark fin soup OMG SO GOOD. Chicken soup (more like chicken stock) with bamboo shoots and shark fin. This would have been heavenly even if it were just the soup, because it had so much flavor and body to it. Collagen and ham do such wonderful, wonderful things to plain water.

My bowl of soup My very pretty bowl of chicken soup.

Knitters! The next generation of knitters! My cousin's grandma taught me how to knit almost twenty years ago, and now she's teaching my cousin. The three of us sat around and chatted about knitting and yarn.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

The paper towel is there because my aunt doesn't like it when the crabs look at her while she does this.

I can see her point! But, crabs are yummy. It's their own fault.

[oyceter]

I know! I was half grossed out while she was killing them, but then.... they were very tasty later on!

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Those apples are HUGE.

[oyceter]

They're so pretty too! Sadly, a little mealy on the inside, but they smelled divine.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Sort of like matsutake mushrooms-- they smell incredible, but taste like any mushroom.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Why don't you finish food on New Year? So you will always have food left for the rest of the year?

That green tea mochi looked divine.I've never seen that before. And the crab and prawns and soup looked sooo delicious too.

In Japan I got addicted to sausage rolls.

Finally, you do look like your Dad. You have the same happy smile.

[oyceter]

Awww, thank you! We have very large, goofy grins ^_^. Thankfully, there are no pictures up here in which we pretend we are dinosaurs, but they have been known to exist.

The green tea mochi was awesome!!

What are sausage rolls? They sound tasty.

And you can finish most of the food, just not the fish. Fish in Chinese sounds like wealth (yu), and so you eat some and have enough left over for the next day so that you will have wealth (or fish, I suppose, if you value them) all year round.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

They're bread rolls with a sausage hidden inside. I first bought one by accident-- I thought it was something sweet-- at this boulangerie-type place in Kyoto, I think, where you get a tray and go around picking up baked goods with tongs. It was so delicious I went back twice in the week I was there.

[oyceter]

Oh nice! Those remind me almost of those kolache things I had in Texas, which looked like innocent buns until you bit into them and found barbeque.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

There's several different kinds of kolaches - the square kind with depressions in the top that are filled with fruit fillings or some sort of flavored sour cream filling, and the sort that look like pigs-in-a-blanket, with pastry wrapped around sausage or sausage and cheese.

If you ever find yourself out this way and have a couple of hours to kill, we can drive down to the Czech Stop in West, which is a convenience store (honest!) famed for its kolaches.

[oyceter]

OOOoooo cool! I am a fan of kolaches, especially the BBQ one and the scrambled egg ones that I had (though I pick out the jalepenos). I like any sort of meal you can carry in your hand!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Taipei 101 looks just like one of those toy swords made of nested conic sections. If the foundation flicks its wrist, does the building suddenly get three times as tall?

I fear the tea eggs. Are they what they sound like?

[oyceter]

*snork* That would be rather frightening! Maybe it happens during an earthquake or something.

Hrm, tea eggs are basically eggs that have been steeped in a very strong tea mixture thing for a long time. They're actually pretty tasty; less bland than normal boiled eggs.

[seajules]

You do look like your dad. You've both got this very impish look in your eyes. That's how my dad and I look alike too. *G*

These pictures make me So. Hungry. Well, not the pastry ones, but the other bits. I want to try some of everything that wasn't pastry. Also, I want to see Taipei 101 in person, because it looks so very, very cool. Why do San Diego malls not look cool like that?

[oyceter]

Hee!

Taiwan's going for this whole modern look now, which sort of amuses me. It's also really odd because they're building all these new things next to old, run-down things, and all in all, it's quite odd.

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

Aw, sorry Oyce, I gotta check you off my friends' list--I just realized I can't see the pictures of your mom and dad any more, now that you've locked them, and cut back so drastically on your own friends' list...it just feels like snooping somewhere you're not welcome, y'know?

:o\

[oyceter]

No problem, although the cutting down was more of a comment on my reading capacity than on who was or wasn't welcome in my LJ.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Oh, bakery goods! I love them so - since Richmond, B.C., which has a large Chinese population (mostly from Hong Kong) and a lot of Chinese bakeries close to home as the result.

other food also looks interesting. ;)

[oyceter]

I love the bakery goods in Taiwan! There are so many odd variations!