And then we ate again

Quotes of the day:

“Who’s the woman in the box?”
- Roni in the Wenu Temple (The answer was, “That’s Buddha, reclining.”)

“Daddy! Momma made a star! Momma, make the next one look like an elephant.”
- J after I cut him a slice of starfruit

“Maybe I’ll write Al and ask him to buy a couple extra meals-in-a-bag for when I get home.”
- Mom, the adventurous eater

“It might be fish, or it could be potato.”
- Johnna, who liked it, whatever it was

“I was very brave today, trying all those new things.” “You ate a piece of fruit.”
- Roni, protesting all the food criticism he was getting at dinner

***

Today’s focus is really going to be food, though don’t worry, we’ll talk about sleep some too. And I’ll throw in a couple of tourist destinations for variety.

After a buffet breakfast – the Golden China has a great one – J and I headed up to our room while Mom and Roni had another coffee. While we were there, the tour driver called up to tell us he was there earlier. So J and I rushed around gathering up all the luggage. My urgency apparently made J a little nervous because by the time I hauled the last bag to fling it into the very full elevator, he was shouting, “Mama, come, hurry, the van is here!” over and over again. I hurled it all out into the lobby, then we went looking for Mom and Roni. Who, of course, had already gone up to the room, then down to the lobby, while we went up to the breakfast room and then to the room. Eventually we were all on the same floor and into the van.

It turns out that we were the only people on our tour, so we had the van to ourselves. Not a seat belt to be seen, unfortunately. J roamed around like it was a stationary room. Scary, but not the first time in Taiwan that he hasn’t been restrained.

We drove through the hazy hills to central Taiwan, through toll roads and long, long tunnels and through rice, taro & betel nut farms.

Our first stop was brief, in Puli, at a monument to the destruction of the 1999 7.3 earthquake that leveled a third of the city. There was a tourist center next to it, and Mom and Roni bought plum liquor and J and I ate red bean and fermented rice popsicles. The rice one was great – not so crazy about red bean in a frozen desert. Roni and Mom took quite a while tasting the various alcohol options (what could “essence of ostrich” be?) so J and I went to sit in the shade of a pavilion with benches built from pottery wine urn broken in the earthquake and listened to a band play.

We ate a great lunch in a steamy restaurant overlooking Sun Moon Lake, where swarms of dragonflies darted above a floating garden by the tourist boat docks. A giant lazy susan delivered dishes of fish, chicken, deer and mushroom. All very tasty, though we didn’t eat it correctly, dumping our rice out of the bowls and onto our plates.

Sun Moon Lake used to be two lakes, apparently. We weren’t clear on whether it was an earthquake or the newish dam that brought the two together. It is high in the mountains and a huge tourist destination, but having to recover a little from the recent typhoon.

We went next to Wenu/Wunwu Temple, bright red and gold, with dragons swarming all over it. Beautiful gold and red wind-bell blessings were hung on every railing. A man showed J how to put a coin in a machine which sent a little mechanical woman into a door, then out again with a tiny paper tube that contained a fortune. J’s said that he needed to think, as well as be educated. Roni got one too – his said that he should be honest and he would have a good career.

We tried dragon's eye there - a sort of mini-lychee that you peel and eat carefully around the seed. J was thrilled at the idea of eating an eyeball. Which he actually had the option of doing at lunch, but then he chickened out.

Then on to Syuanguang temple dedicated to a Buddhist monk who spent 17 years trekking through out Asia spreading the Buddhist teachings. He walked through the Himalayas and clear down to the southern tip of India. A statue of him with his bamboo backpack as well as small relic of him is displayed, and also the reclining Buddha that led to the Roni quote above. Out in the garden, near the Buddhist nun on a cell phone, was a huge bell that we all took turn ringing. The low chime went on forever! It was beautiful.

The last stop was a brief and rather sad look at an aboriginal village. I’m against people-as-exhibits so I’d have skipped it. There weren’t many people on the street we visited – the guide really wanted us to see the houses made in a traditional style of wood and bamboo. Just looked like run down public housing to me. It is a relocation reservation really, for the ita Thao people, famous for their festivals with Pestle drumming. Maybe, but it didn’t look like a fun place to live. There are only about 250 people, we were told, the smallest of the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. There was a stop for a serving of tea in a gift shop like place as well, where they talked Roni into a traditional robe and almost talked Mom into a Chinese cypress carving that smelled fabulous. Again, not my favorite part of the tour so far.











Before we reached the hotel, our guide stopped at a huge fruit stand because of a conversation we’d had about the breakfast buffet and how we couldn’t identify all we were eating. The place was like an explosion of color. We bought various types and then came back to the hotel, borrowed a knife, and ate dragonfruit (J’s favorite), star fruit (not favored by any of us), Buddha’s head (looks like a big mutant artichoke but very soft and falls apart in segments, each with its own large seed), passion fruit (seedy and sour but yummy), and mango (not new to us but the favorite of all the grown-ups.) The pictures show the dragon's eye and dragon fruit.

Other things we learned today: Taichung City, where we are staying tonight, means middle city of Taiwan. Taipei means northern city of Taiwan. There is a southern city following the same pattern, but I didn’t catch the name.

Our hotel here in the middle city is quite fancy, though the swimming pool, which we sent Roni to check out, turned out to be the size of the bed and to already have a dozen Taiwanese teenage boys in it, so we passed. Our plan is dim sum for dinner and an early night. Mom is struggling to stay up already and it is only seven. J finally fell asleep in the van about 30 minutes from the hotel, after a day of manic energy and radical mood swings, but we made him wake up so that we’ll have a chance at a quieter night tonight. Yes, ending this entry back on the topic of sleep. J

***

Later: Dinner was very funny, ultimately tasty, and through out a comedy of misunderstandings by the dim Americans. Despite the guide, the front desk manager, and the hotel brochure’s assurances, there is no dim sum restaurant in this building. We settled down instead in a very mauve Chinese restaurant, where Roni and Mom were quite unhappy with the options, then went down one floor to a “western” buffet. We caused the waitress a great deal of trouble before we finally understood what “semi-buffet” meant (the western part is apparently the existence of a buffet rather than the food). Semi means we each ordered a main course and then selected our side dishes. It was an amazing spread – seafood and meats and fruit and veggies of all description. J and I loved the various mussel and shrimp options. But we all sort of forgot that we’d ordered a main dish – there were so many meats and such, and the entrees didn’t arrive for a long time. Mom was just settling down with her dessert plate when a half a chicken arrived for her. Same with Roni’s salmon and my mutton. Really delicious and elegantly prepared and we were all too full to really enjoy it.

My family needs to work past their eating style – poking a dish suspiciously and saying, what is it? in a dubious tone. But it made for a hysterical meal and we certainly got enough to eat and it was very tasty.


Two and a half days to D!