Typhoon Dujuan

typhoon, noun.definition: a tropical storm in the region of the Pacific oceans.  An extremely large powerful, and destructive storm that occurs especially in the region of the Philippines or the China Sea.


September 28, 2015
Today is our last day in Taipei.  We have a taxi scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. to get us to the airport for our 11 a.m. flight home.  We planned to spend our final day holding our favorite grandson.

All we want to do is hold Soup today.

We didn't take our morning walk because it was raining so hard.  I was lying in bed  thinking that Soup shouldn't come out in such bad weather when the phone rang.

7:30 a.m.
David calls to tell us that a typhoon is on the way and we need to prepare.  We need to do the following:

• get food because restaurants and stores will be closed this afternoon and possibly tomorrow
• get water because the water in the building might be turned off
• pay attention to flight information, and be prepared to stay in Taipei another day
• be prepared to change our taxi reservation

8:45 a.m.

• Wellcome to buy water and food
• Semeur to get coffee and croissant

Survival food and water

9:00 a.m.

David arrives alone, to collect all his family's belongings.  He seems fairly relaxed so we visit for about 45 minutes before he goes home to Soup and Chia. We didn't even get a chance to say a proper goodbye to our grandson and his mom.

9:45 a.m.

We drop in to Semeur because our friend Shiny wants to give us a small going away gift.

Shiny and Taylor

10:00 a.m.

We learn that our flight tomorrow from Taipei to Narita, Japan has been cancelled.  We spend hours on the phone with Delta, EVA and Alaskan Airlines re booking our flights.  We will now leave tomorrow at 11:40 p.m.  Fortunately, Ted says we can stay an extra day at our apartment.  We hope this means we can see Soup tomorrow!!!

1:42 p.m.

We are patiently waiting for the typhoon to hit.  It is pretty rainy, but no worse than last night.  I wonder if we'll know when it's really here?

2:45 p.m.
I've had some back and forth with our host, Ted.  He wants to charge us for an extra day since we asked for access to the apartment until 7 p.m. tomorrow.  The Airbnb charge is $704 American.  I wrote to Ted to say that is too much money for this dump.  Actually, I didn't say "dump."  He told me we could pay 3000 Twd ($100) and leave it on the table. Much better, but still too much.

The rain is pretty strong, but we're still wondering when the typhoon will hit.

3:15 p.m.
Lots of  rain, and I hear occasional thumps outside.

4:10 p.m.
Now we've got sheets of rain, lots of wind and thumps.  Birds are looking for places to hide.  The roofs on air conditioning units are flapping.  This may be it.

9:10 p.m.
This is it. It definitely feels like we're in a car wash, and we've been in it for hours.  The rain is so noisy I can no longer hear the AC in the bedroom.

September 29, 2015
I think it's over. All is calm.  It looks a little messy down on the alley, but we'll see more when we go out for coffee.

Our alley is protected fairly well with the surrounding buildings, so it doesn't look too bad.  Areas with trees suffered quite a bit. Lots of bicycles and motor scooters have been shuffled around the streets.

This is a small park near our apartment

Taylor announced that he can't eat another shoa bing, and I insist I can't eat another croissant.  We decide to compromise and each get our own breakfast.  The bakeries are closed, so no croissant or French pastry.  The shoa bing stand is open, but they weren't making the shoa bing wrappers.  So......we got something new for both of us.  I don't know what it's called but it's tasty.

This is like a huge sushi roll.  It's rice filled with egg, seasoned cabbage, something crunchy which might be tofu skin. It's called fan tuan.

As David predicted yesterday, much of the city is closed down.  The newspaper confirms that we made it through a big one.

So, yesterday wasn't our last day in Taiwan. We hope today is our last day in Taiwan.  We can't check in for our flight, due to the typhoon  However, we have a place to be today, before our 11:40 p.m. flight.  Hopefully it will be safe enough for Soup to come visit before we go to the airport and fly home.

Taipei Night Markets

Taipei is known for it's night markets.  These markets are scattered throughout the city and open every evening after 5:00 p.m.  They are an opportunity to purchase any  Taiwanese souvenir or food item that strikes your fancy.  They are loud, colorful, fragrant, sweaty places to stroll, shop and eat. A night market is no place to take a baby, so one night we left Solomon with David, and Chia, Taylor and I took a stroll through the night market near our apartment.

Some night markets have extravagant signs.

The one near our house, has a more modest entrance, but it is wonderful.

The sign on the opposite side of the street.

 Walk with me, while we eat our way through the Tonghua Night Market.

First stop, Taiwanese sausages cooked on demand.

We are eating and walking at the same time.

Squid balls.

Chia and Taylor are ready to consume those squid balls.

Hmm, kind of like a fritter with a piece of squid inside

Ribs.

Snails, deep fried squid and crab.

Fry bread

We got the fry bread with chives.  Yum.

Some folks were taking a break by getting a massage.

This place is famous for its stinky tofu.

Stinky tofu is really quite attractive.

Chia was happy to sit down to enjoy the stinky tofu. So were we.

This is proof that I really tried it.

I was very full by the time we got to these dumplings.  Chia insisted, and she was right.  They were excellent.

Noodles fixed any way you want.

The best fried chicken ever.  Notice the TV monitor.  The chef had been on a local TV show.

How adorable are these little characters?  They are like donuts, or cakes.

We're done.  We're hot, tired, exhausted and full.  And, I didn't even take a photo of the passion fruit ice cream that I consumed, or the tarts that Taylor bought, or the sesame liver soup that Chia consumed.  We also didn't buy any slippers, back scratchers, mosquito zappers, cell phones or tee shirts that were also for sale.  We were all ready to go back to the apartment to be with David and Solomon.

Sweet sleeping father and son.

Breakfast

 When I'm at home, I pretty much eat the same thing for breakfast every day- - oatmeal and fruit.  Sometimes I vary it by having yogurt and fruit.  And when I really want something different I'll have a boiled egg. When travelling in a foreign county, it's tricky to find what works for one's system.

We often go to Semeur, which is a French bakery around the corner from us.  This is where we get latte and croissant, or other white flour pastries that are somewhat French but have a Taiwanese twist.

My other favorite breakfast, is from a small stand that isn't too far from us. There are a number of items that one can purchase, but I like shoa bing, which is like an omelette tucked into pie crust.

The bread is baking on the griddle. After it's done, the cook will use scissors to cut it open on three sides.

The women are slipping the egg into the bread. 

After purchasing our shoa bing, we cross the street to 7 Eleven and get our custom lattes.

A perfect breakfast.

A Day Without Soup

 Soup and his parents were invited to a birthday party on Saturday, so Taylor and I got the opportunity to entertain ourselves.  A day without Soup should have been horrible.  As it turned out, it was a wonderful day experiencing the contrasts of Taiwan.

At Chia's suggestion, we decided to take a trip to Yangming Mountain.  We started our journey on the Red MRT line and we got off at Jiantan station.  We are totally comfortable on the MRT because everything is well signed in both Mandarin and English.  And the announcements of upcoming stops are also both in Mandarin and English.  At Jiantian station, we transferred to the Red #5 bus.  That was more challenging because there was no longer any English.  However, with the help of the nice information woman, we learned the Mandarin character for "red" and got into the right line for the bus.

We rode the Red #5 to the end of the line at Yangminshan Bus Station.  Next we transferred to shuttle bus #108.  That also was quite straight forward.  I asked the driver if the bus stopped at Yangmingshuwu and he said yes.  Sure enough, after lurching up the mountain road while hanging onto the swinging handles (there weren't many seats) we arrived at our stop, and other passengers told us to get off.  There we were on a deserted mountain road.  We eventually found the sign pointing to Yangmingshuwu, the mountain retreat of Chiang Kai-shek, which is nestled into the foothills of  Yangming Mountain .  We followed the directions down a forested road and eventually found our destination.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, but the grounds were exceptional.

Grand entrance

I can imagine sitting at this little table for  afternoon tea while enjoying nature.

The house is painted dark green to blend into the mountains, and is built as a fortress.  It has the 1970s style that was popular around Portland.  It's really quite lovely.

After a few hours learning, in Mandarin, about Chaing Kai-shek, we trekked back up the hill to the bus stop.  Destination: Qingtiangang for a walk through the mountain grasses and see the water buffalo.  We flagged down bus #108 (buses don't stop just because you're at the bus stop, you have to flag them down) and this time we were fortunate enough to get seats.  After a few stops, I showed the bus driver our destination and pronounced it as best I could.  He signaled, get off now, so we did.

 There we, up in the mountains, at a place called Erziping. Not even close in pronunciation or location to Qingtiangang. We weren't where we intended at all.  What should we do?  We walked around the parking lot, read some signs, and picked out a hike that didn't look too long in duration.  There were lots of people around this time, so we felt all should be well.  And it was.

The trail looked like this all the way.  The paved part on the left is for wheelchairs.

Here's what we found at the end of the trail.  If we were better prepared we could continue to climb the mountains.

The valley at the end of our trail was totally charming.

This is such a contrast to downtown Taipei, and yet we're very close to town.

After enjoying our picnic lunch, the rain started, so we hiked back to the bus stop, and reversed our trip back to our own neighborhood.

After being out in the mountains, we were pretty hungry so we decided to have dinner at the food court in Taipei 101, at Din Tai Fung.  This was not the typical food court meal. Here are three of the most unusual looking foods.

Dumplings stuffed with sticky rice and pork.

This is how the pot stickers arrived at the table.  We weren't sure how to eat them.

The pot stickers look like this when we flipped them over.

I enjoyed watching the men make the dumplings.

As we left the restaurant and started walking home, we looked around and marveled at the variety of sights we had seen today.  The city is so different from the mountains.

Taipei 101

A lovely fountain

Walking home after a lovely day.

Our day without Soup wasn't as horrible as we anticipated.  Plus, we have some lovely memories of Taiwan.

What's for Dinner?

By the end of the day, we all want to stay home for dinner.  Solomon, especially, likes to be in the apartment rather than in a restaurant.

Sometimes a fellow just wants to relax.

Dinner is a bit of a challenge because of the limited cooking space, and utensils. As my friend Karen Jones would say, "This is a one ass kitchen."  It's also a clean up as you go kitchen since I have to wash and  reuse utensils, plates and bowls frequently.

The pot on the left works well for noodles and rice.  I've got two fry pans like the one of the right.  The second pan doubles as a lid.  We are lucky to have two gas burners.  Some apartments only have one burner.

One small cutting board, two dull knives, a dull vegetable peeler and one wooden spatula. What more does a home cook need to prepare a gourmet dinner?

The plastic strainer works for washing veggies and draining noodles. All dinners are eaten out of the four bowls on the left. Inside the strainer are a few plastic bowls, one of which works well for fruit salad.  I use the plates for cut up veggies waiting for their turn in the pan.

  Since David is our vegetarian, I try to cook something that all four of us will enjoy.  My dinners tend to be vegetables and noodles, or vegetables and rice. Thanks to Carissa Roth, I cooked up some tofu that was pretty tasty.  But, I can't really plan what I'm going to cook until I have the ingredients.

What shall we have for dinner tonight?

I bought this fruit at the traditional market this morning.  Fruit salad will be on the menu.

This will be the vegetable course.  Check out the baby corn - the lady was husking it while I watched.

There's nothing too adventurous in my selection of veggies today.  The big white thing on the left is daikon radish. Notice the size of the carrot.

I've got all day to figure out what what to make with the ingredients that I've got.

I went out to get some ginger and garlic to add flavor, and why not throw in some mushrooms?

Guess what?  What I thought was zucchini turned out to be cucumber.  We topped off our bowls with these deliciously fresh cukes.

Here's the final product.  I boiled up some noodles, tossed them with sesame oil and we scooped the veggies on top.  It was a pretty tasty meal.