You Flyin' Solo? 'Atta Girl!

Cheers to that American guy who pointed me in the direction of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial today just after he gave me the title for this post. It was just after lunch when I made the decision that interesting soft beverages were definitely going to be a theme. It's hot out, I'm apparently not supposed to drink tap water for the first few weeks and it's a whole world of new flavours to discover!



The green one had little chunks of aloe in it but tasted oddly like the under-ripe sour grapes that used to grow in my grandparents' backyard in Scarborough except they'd added enough sugar to make the whole thing tolerable. The orange one was unsweetened iced-tea! Available for mass consumption! This single beverage lead to me to a re-evaluation of this whole food blog in Asia concept. As much as it seemed cool, my palette hasn't developed in the right way to do reasonable reviews of food. I'm going to try sort of an honest reactions thing, but if it gets boring then I'll just give an itinerary of everything I'm doing and leave this whole place for my mother to read and leave it at that.

That being said, lunch was fantastic.



After being pointed in the direction of "the best beef noodle place" and told to order the sixth thing over ("dry beef noodle") I walked in, sat down, and was presented with a little ordering sheet in Mandarin. Well, I counted to six and put a check beside it. The woman gave me a confused look to which I gave a smile meant to communicate "I don't really care what it is, just some lunch, this place smells nice". A woman joined me at the table; she schooled me in the proper spoon-chopsticks-slurping method of eating and we exchanged companionable smiles. She finished before me and went over to a table of school boys; in English, one of them asked me where I was from and told me she'd paid for my lunch! Really? I'm starting to like this place.

Also recommended:

A beer and build your own deep fry with an Australian:



The other two beers were Corona and Budweiser!

So, this was cool, you take everything, put it in a basket, and then it gets deep fried and sauced for you:





That being said, I find liver difficult to take. Fermented tofu, however! Yes! It's tofu that doesn't taste like nothing. It has sort of a similar effect to adding a ton of mushrooms to a pasta dish.

Adriana and Airplane Food

Let's start by saying they feed you a lot. All of my flights were booked through Air Canada; I'm not sure if this is indicative of some sort of North American diet excess or if it's just that eating is a really good way to kill time during about thirteen hours of flying and nineteen hours of travelling. The same did not apply to alcohol. I had three drinks over the course of ten hours from Vancouver to Seoul and my flight attendant started giving me prudish looks and suggesting I have water (three drinks! ten hours! I'm a nervous flyer, even with the added effects of air travel this doesn't exactly lead to a sloppy drunk). But that last hop with Thai air? They gave you wine with dinner and followed it up with a complimentary whiskey. For a two hour flight! I like them more, even if they don't have little touch screens on the back of every chair.

But let's get this started!



My first meal I was given a choice between beef with noodles and chicken pasta. I opted for the pasta, I'm not sure why I thought this sounded safer. Both looked questionable at best. Those pickled veggies weren't all bad, though. And chocolate brownie is always a good idea - surprisingly moist. The chicken was not as chalky as I would have expected.

The second meal came only about three and a half hours after the first - this time I opted for the Asian option:



No dessert! Just fresh fruit, as I ate it I wondered if that nurse at the travel clinic would be mad at me for eating the fresh fruit as I was told not to (seriously, no fresh fruits and veggies my whole time in Asia? I can't wait to break this rule today!). Pork with rice, again the meat was surprisingly tender. Too bad it was in some seriously gummy rice with an overly sweet sauce. Too much salt does not even begin to describe it....

But wait! There's more! Even more!



This came about two hours after the last meal. You've had Mr. Noodles before, right?

After a couple of hours in the airport in Seoul (in which I consumed a pocari sweat, sort of like gatorade but in a can and not nauseatingly sweet) I got onto my second and final flight to Taipei. As soon as we're at cruising altitude we get fed (for a two hour flight? sweet!).



They also had a seafood option but I was horrified at the thought of plain seafood. So more pork for me! This was definitely yummier (not that I was at all hungry at this point, but I was bored!) That little coffee cake stuck to my teeth and tasted of generic sugar. Not as sugary as the brownie from my first flight. Also, it came with kimchi. I had one bite but I find it overly spicy. Does anyone have kimchi eating advice? Also, this bun was warm, with hard butter; definitely preferable to the cold bun with whipped butter served on both air Canada flights.

Alas, I forgot to bring my camera down for breakfast at the Holiday Inn this morning, but I will tell you it involved hot dogs, steamed eggs, and miso soup.

And now, Adriana vs. public transit. Wish me luck, maybe I'll stop for a snack on the way...

Hello and Goodbye

Welcome to any and all who wish to read my travel tales (okay, it will probably mostly be about food); I've just gotten off a ten hour flight and have another plane to board in an hour. In my present state, I feel it's safer to leave you in more capable hands:

If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?

-Richard Bach (from Jonathan Livingston Seagull)