Eating and Strolling

My goal of staying awake yesterday was not particularly successful. However, I did succeed in getting a SIM card, so my little China phone (tiny Motorola, circa 2006) is up and running again. I bought the SIM card at a 7-11, where I also got an onigiri (rice triangle), passion fruit juice with coconut jelly, and some peanut flavored douhua 豆花 (tofu jello). It's a good thing I got all that snack food to eat, because the process of applying for the SIM card took forever. The 7-11 had some cafe seating, which was awesome. I was impressed that 7-11 employees were able and willing to do all that paperwork. It seemed like a lot of trouble for them, but they were really friendly about it. They chatted with me and asked me questions. Am I here to study? Am I here with family? When did I arrive? How long am I staying? I answered all these questions without any trouble, and it was good to have a little practice. I was thinking about this article on "micro-aggressions," the idea that these kinds of questions are actually a very subtle form of racism. But I don't know, here at least and for me, it just feels kind of nice. What else are people going to say to me? should I be annoyed by their very desire to make conversation? But I'm here on my own and it's nice to have conversations.

A more complicated case was the kid also sitting in the 7-11, who stared and stared and stared, and was clearly desperate to run over and interact with me. Her mom was doing a very good job of telling her this wasn't polite--and not "don't stare at the foreigner" but "don't stare at other people and bother them"--so I didn't undermine that by responding. Besides, I just wasn't quite in the mood to interact with a little kid at the moment. They are much harder to understand, for one thing.

I was tired out by all that activity, so I came back up to my room and hung out for a while. But one of my other adventures of the day involved a big alley-market. All kinds of things were being sold here! Including stinky tofu, which I am really going to have to try this time around. It is *so* stinky though. I'm going to have to wait until my stomach feels braver. There were also all manner of produce, household goods, and other items. It was very crowded but a fun place to stroll and watch.

Later I walked around until I got pretty solid on the local geography. The streets and alleys are twisty and unpredictable, so my already weak sense of direction is useless. But since I am more of a landmark navigator, once I have been somewhere I can get there (and back) again. Among other things, I located the nearest MRT stop. It was raining so much, though, that I decided against taking it. Instead I bought a bubble tea to get a little more caffeine in me (so cheap! 30 NT=$1!), and then wimped out and went back to my room. (More napping. Little bits of work.)

I was surprised how early it got dark here, before 7. But we are so far south, I guess, that all days are roughly the same length. At dinnertime I went out again, in a new direction. I found a Starbucks (wrong time of day for coffee though), and then a big night market.Very good for when one has to eat alone, as I remembered from Sydney!

The thing I decided to try is an awesome food fad called "big sausage hugging little sausage" 大腸包小腸. This is Taiwan's answer to the hot dog, and far superior! The "big sausage" is rice inside a sausage casing. The little sausage is an ordinary Asian pork sausage. Both sausages get grilled, and then they slit open the big sausage and put sauces, cilantro, scallion, and cucumber shreds inside. In goes the little sausage too, some hot sauce, and then the whole thing gets deftly dumped into a little bag. Hard to eat, but delicious!

Here is my sausage in progress.

It was nice wandering around the night market. I didn't feel like buying any clothes or shoes, which were being sold in abundance. But I was nice to have things to look at.

After eating my sausage, I also bought a little bag of bell fruit. I didn't take a picture, but this is what they look like. They have a very light taste, kind of a little like an Asian pair but not grainy, very very wet, and a different flavor. They don't grow on a cactus, but I think they are what cactus fruit should look and taste like.

Here are some more pictures from the night market:

Various Little Stands

Bitter Melon Juice Stand!?

Entrance Gate

After all that napping, I did not do a good job with sleeping. I slept about two hours, then was awake for 4 hours, then slept another two hours. In my experience, the second night of a big jet lag is always the hardest. I probably should have just taken a sleeping pill to begin with. Instead I'm doing it the hard way and trying to force myself to stay awake all day today.

Rice Porridge, Red Bean Pancake, Coffee, Lychees, and Nietzsche

I ventured out for breakfast, fully intending to have danbing (scrambled egg crepe) and doujiang (soymilk) again. However, I wanted to see what the breakfast geography was in other directions, so I went somewhere else. The somewhere else I went didn't have dangbing or doujiang, but instead had zhou 粥 (rice porridge). I like to take what the world offers, so I had that. I carefully read the menu outside the stand, and asked for "pumpkin and vegetables"... but of course pumpkin is a fall thing. He didn't have it, but had taro instead. No problem. He asked if I wanted the vegetarian option, and I said yes. I don't really fancy seafood for breakfast. Maybe it wouldn't have been seafood, but just in case. On the way back I wandered through a produce market, lost my sense of direction, and ended up in a street with grocery stores. So I ducked in and grabbed some sugar for my coffee, some lychees, and a little pancake with red bean filling. Also a reusable shopping bag, one of the things I should have brought from home. Back in my room, I made coffee with the new hipster aeropress that I brought with me (brought the coffee too). All this made a great breakfast. Since my body thinks it's dinner time, breakfast is the time when I am the hungriest!

Now it's raining really hard, so I need to remember my umbrella when I go out. My goals for today are to ride the MRT, find the university, start making progress on my housing search, and STAY AWAKE! For real this time!