Where Did All the Time Go? aka Fooding In Asia

I've been home for over a week, but I just haven't found the time or energy to post. There's so much I want to write - mostly about the food in Taiwan, but I'll post some photos instead.

One short, interesting anecdote. The hotel we stayed at in Taipei had a huge buffet breakfast every morning. Rice porridge, miso soup, eggs, weird ham products that purported to be bacon, salad, etc. There was also yogurt and fruit. Cantaloupe, kiwi, and one morning, this white fruit with black spots, kinda like kiwi, but white and bigger. I didn't know what it was, but it didn't taste like much. Later that morning, we got in a cab to go to a restaurant, and as cab drivers and most Taiwanese people are super friendly, my dad struck up an easy conversation with the driver. We started talking about fruit, and the driver mentioned that there's this thing called dragon fruit - red on the outside, but white on inside, with black spots - that we should stay away from b/c it gives all Westerners the runs. Pshaw, I thought, I hate generalizations.

We ate lunch. After lunch, my stomach felt funny. I thought lunch wasn't agreeing with me, but when I got home, yeah, the runs. In retrospect, I think it was the dragon fruit. Kinda coincidental, no?

Onto the pictures!


A plastic food display at a restaurant outside Tokyo.

Fish-shaped fish product.

Fresh grilled little octopus.

Denny's, duh.

Traditional Japanese dinner. This is like 5 of 1000 courses we ate.

Fresh mochi, meet plush mochi!

Plastic sushi display.

Fresh papaya milk. Yum.

Night market - ENORMOUS sausages.

Night market, Taipei.

Dinner at night market - including octopus pancake.