Travel is the ultimate teacher...no doubt. I am currently sitting in my room on the coast in Kenting, Taiwan (on the southern most tip of the island of Taiwan) watching typhoon Morakot pound the island. Hopefully you can see the satellite image from the previous post. It came out a bit chopped up but if you click the picture you should see the whole image. Pretty amazing stuff. That monsoon storm on Phuket was NOTHING compared to this storm. This storm has been howling for almost 12 hours now. The sea is unbelievably rough. Check out my video on the usual spot.
Anyway, this is actually great to be on Taiwan during this storm as the internet is still working perfectly even out here on the tip of the island. How I do love things that work. Now if I just spoke some Mandarin.
Check out the other videos of Taipei too. I am really enjoying Taiwan. I took the bullet train from Taipei to ZongCheng which is near Kaohsiung (pictured at left), the largest city on the south end of Taiwan. I jumped on a bus from there and was in Kenting 2.5 hours later. There is a large national park covering most of the southwest coastline which is really gorgeous. Big mountains right down to the edge of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. At the moment, I am quite glad to be on this end of the island as it sounds as if the typhoon will hit the north and northeast parts of the island the hardest.
Have to add a bit about food in Taipei and here in Kenting. I had the distinct pleasure of having Taiwanese hot pot in Taipei (the Taiwanese version of Shabu-Shabu - famous Japanese dish) and it was quite an experience. There is a whole street of hot pot restaurants on one street and I picked my choice based on the fact that it had a cute sign with a mushroom on it. Mushroom sashami anyone? No one in the restaurant spoke English and the menu was all in Mandarin, so I just winged it and it worked. The mushroom sashimi was fab, slices of a porcini type of meaty mushroom and served with shredded cabbage, wasabi, and soy sauce...YUM!!! The dried mushrooms were a bit more confounding. I was also served some tea where nearly half the mug was flowers and other things. Back to the dried mushrooms....mmmmm....the lady in charge came over and saw me staring oddly at the dried mushrooms and pointed to her mouth which I assumed to mean they were to be eaten dried. She smiled when I picked up the first couple and popped them into my mouth. The first couple I tried were very nice with a hint of toasted garlic flavour and very crunchy. The other ones looked like fur and I had been curious about them as you see them in many of the bakeries wrapped about buns and bread. I cautiously picked up a small amount and put them in my mouth. Gag reflex...I swear they tasted like those "funny" mushrooms that I've heard (wink...wink) taste like cow poo. I didn't have my camera with me that evening which is really too bad as I have NEVER seen so many different types of mushrooms. The basic hot pot is a boiling vat of broth with easily 10 kinds of mushrooms and some pork balls in it. After a few minutes of boiling you get to add even more mushrooms and cabbage. The final stage is to dip some super thin beef in it for a few seconds until it is barely cooked. Then you make a party in your mouth with a bit of mushroom, cabbage, beef and broth in a bite. You also drink the broth on the side throughout the meal. It's delicious and very healthy.
Awesome cookies from a Taipei bakery which I bought because they were so cute but they were also delicious with a soft buttery sugar cookie base and buttercream frosting.
The buffet spread here at La Chateau in Kenting really needs pictures to go with it so I will get some pics in the a.m. and you will see what a Taiwanese breakfast looks like.
The storm is pounding harder and harder here so send some positive thoughts to all of the people who may be adversely affected by this storm. I understand it is expected to hit the coast of mainland China quite hard. The wind gusts are now up to 130 km/hour by some reports.
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain. ___Anonymous
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