No, I said the gazpacho

 We last left our tired but intrepid neurotic on the threshold of the hotel room that would be his entire horizon for the next 14 days.

Before we continue, it is important to say that Laura and I watched countless videos of people in hotel quarantine in Korea.  The experience varied by the hotel you are randomly sent to, but it was agreed that the Marina Bay was one of the best to find yourself at.  Video after video showed its blessed inmates as having large rooms, well-appointed, with balconies, and generous welcome packages.  The meals shown looked very appetizing, and the internees seemed to enjoy the quiet time to catch up on their yoga and skincare routines and Netflix watchlist.  This looked eminently doable, and here I had won the lottery of hotels.

Now, it goes without say that this is not at all what I found.  Life doesn't work that way, and probably less so for me.  I usually have all the luck of a tree culled for toilet paper hoarded by fat people in Arkansas.

Lesson one: people often selectively present aspects of their lives on social media to appear more glamorous, killing it at life, hashtag-blessed.  You don't see the crying fits, the dirty undies, the shameful online shopping compulsion and crushing credit card debt that goes with it.  Despite being an old hat at the Internet, I forgot this cardinal rule, that people lie in the service of their carefully curated personas, and that what I was being shown was either presented flatteringly, or else wouldn't have made the vlog if the turd couldn't be sufficiently polished.

Lesson two: in the Plague Year, the situation changes by the week.  Most of the videos we were looking at were months old.  It had not occurred to me that the experience might deteriorate as the pandemic wore on.  Our default mode of thinking is that things get better over time, when this year they have run in the opposite direction.  Yes, we now have the vaccine, but more people are being infected than ever, and life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped by a whole year.  All year, I said with the pace of events, I couldn't foresee next week, much less next month or next year.  And yet here I blithely made all my plans and designs and fond imaginings with old information.

Now, having said the above, I may present to you what I encountered.  A small room, in no better shape than one in an aging La Quinta or Holiday Inn, with a view that overlooks a boat yard and a small channel lined with industrial infrastructure.  No sweeping views of the harbor, no people watching.  The YouTube vloggers had been given a prince's ransom in snacks and ramen, slippers, an exercise band for God's sake.  None of these awaited, just toilet paper, a stack of Dixie cups, a few thin towels, and a roll of orange biohazard trash sacks.  Nothing in the way of cleaning supplies, despite maybe wanting to sanitize surfaces, or perhaps in case of spills.  (I later discovered by examining the fire escape diagrams, that there are three different floor plans, and I got the smallest of these.  The videos obviously featured the other floor plans.)

Of course, I was disappointed but desperately tired, ate a small sorry-you-missed-dinner dinner consisting of ramen, a juice box, and a chocolate bar (whatever; real food was coming tomorrow and it was going to be great), and did some cursory unpacking before hitting the hay.

The next morning, the loudspeaker crackled to life and announced, first in Korean, then English (why Korean? This quarantine system is for foreigners, not Koreans—they quarantine at home), that breakfast had arrived.  (This is how the loudspeaker works; 30 seconds of static before and after the announcement.)  I had no sooner unwrapped my breakfast and begun to examine its contents when there was a rap-tap-tapping on my chamber door.  I donned a mask, and there was the facility doctor with a COVID swab.  I told him I had been tested at the airport, that I had papers, that the instruction packet said the hotel test was for people who weren't tested at the airport.  He was adamant, this is policy, we must follow policy, etc.  I cut him off midsentence, pulled down my mask and told him to just do it already.  He was gentler than Nurse Ratched at the airport, but it was still intensely uncomfortable.  He screwed the cap on the test and told me to expect him again on the 13th day for more of the same.

Of course, daily they announce by the same crackly intercom that people who were not tested at the airport will be tested at their doors between the hours of 8 and 10.  I double-checked the paperwork, and indeed, only residents of former Soviet republics and a few select other countries require the extra swab.  Why always the extra scrutiny, I will never know.

Laura has an entirely different experience at the Ramada, where she's quarantining about 40 km away, and I will let her describe her own experience, as well as what passes for food where she's at.  

I can only describe my own meals.  They come three times a day, at 8, noon, and 6.  The meals always arrive cold, without the ability to heat them, and the overall quality varies wildly from school cafeteria to prison chow.  Breakfasts are vaguely Western, with cured meat and eggs, or quail's eggs, and then some oddball elements like cocktail wieners, rice balls, fruit cups that also include tomatoes, and some kimchi pickle, usually of daikon radish.  These are generally the most edible meals of the day.

Meals later in the day can be more or less palatable to Western tastes.  Usually there is rice and some protein, be it bulgogi or katsu-fried fish, kimchi, and then an assortment of other items.  Among these invariably are cocktail weenies, which is incredible given that three separate companies at least produce our meals.  There are various vegetables, usually covered in a garlicky red pepper paste and usually tasty.  Then there odd mayonnaise-based salads, containing some combination of egg, potato, macaroni, and apple slices—sometimes all at once.  There are seaweed salads or pickles, which is not my thing, but not unusual.  But then there are some truly odd, insanely pungent relishes—I don't know a better word, mix, medley?—based on dried shredded squid, dried tadpoles, dried tiny eggs, usually with mung beans.  These I have to carefully remove from the tray before I can begin to eat, and often their odor has already flavored everything else in the box.

Each meal comes with a soup, usually some sort of miso-based broth, or corn purée, which is often accompanies breakfast.  Breakfast usually also comes with plain yogurt, and most meals have a piece of fruit or pieces of fruit (and tomatoes).  Beverages are either a 16 oz. water bottle or a juice box, and only at some meals, with no rhyme or reason I can see for their inclusion or exclusion.  Every other day they may tuck a packaged snack of some sort, a cookie or candy.  Some dinners also include dried ramen, in case you get hungry between meals or if you don't care for anything you've been given.  

These meals don't resemble the YouTube videos.  It's not that there's not enough of it, or that it's very bad, but it's just not good.  I honestly like Korean food, but I don't think this is what Koreans eat.  It's quite a let down.  All your adult life, you choose what you eat, you get the things necessary for it and make it, or pay someone to make it for you, but always something you choose.  Here there is no choice, and the quality and variety are so variable.  (As I often quote my old psych profs, the two greatest predictors of happiness are predictability and control.)  I realize the irony of saying this as a citizen of a nation that locks innocent kids in cages (which I oppose with every fiber of my being), but it just seems to me that, when the food and the room are considered, the amount of hospitality owed to people you lock in their rooms for 14 days, utterly dependent on you, is a little higher than this.

Why then the deterioration in the quality of the quarantine experience?  Again, some of it is false presentation by vloggers curating their branded lifestyles, and a pox unto them.  But it really does seem that quality has diminished, and I don't know if that's due to the cupidity of the contractors, or funding cuts, or an attempt to subtly discourage all but the most essential visitors, or some combination of all three.

This entry grows too long, and rambles, so I close here.  I will say more about how I structure my days in quarantine in another post.

The road and the miles to Coree

Greetings again from the "Land of the Morning Calm," Korea.  We were last here in 2014, and my, how changed is the experience.

The journey got off to an inauspicious start.  Our trip was supposed to be 1.5 hours to Detroit and then 14-ish hours to Incheon, depending on headwinds.  Instead, during the preflight check in Elmira, already buckled in, it was found one of the engines was malfunctioning.  It would take 4.5 hours to get a replacement plane, and of course we would miss our connection.  This necessitated a four-hour layover in Detroit, five to Los Angeles, another hour's layover at LAX.  But once ensconced in our business-class seats on the way to Incheon, things began to look up again.

At Incheon the troubles were renewed.  I was pulled out of line for a temperature of 37.5°C, which is a low-grade fever.  What kills me is that I was already hauling two heavy bags and didn't want to carry my sweater and coat as well, and thought it might elevate my temperature.  Well, I was right.  The quarantine officer separated me from Laura (she was sent on to her quarantine facility), and I was taken behind a screen to strip off my outer layers.  I subsequently tested at 37.1°C, which is elevated but usually not considered a fever.  Nevertheless, the quarantine officer ordered a dual-swab test, which she said would take 6-12 hours to return a result.

I was ushered to a carrel and told to wait.  Maybe half an hour later, someone came to escort me to the testing site.  As it turned out, this was outside on the tarmac, and I still in my short-sleeved shirt.  But I found the minus-3°C cold infinitely preferable to the nasal swab, which is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever had happen to me that didn't involve a dentist.  (Yes, ladies, I am aware doctors do much worse things to you, but I can only speak to my experience, which, subjectively, was unpleasant.)

I was returned to my cubicle, where I was given a bottle of water and a mylar blanket, and told I could stretch out on the floor to nap if I wanted.  For the next seven hours, I saw no one except a menial who brought me a fish baloney sandwich—three words that should never occur in sequence, anathema sit.  I am not ashamed to admit that as the sixth hour approached, I was beginning to crack up.  I stood up on my chair to look around and saw the terminal deserted.  I gingerly peeked into the other carrels—16 in all—and found mine was the only occupied one in the place.  Had I been forgotten, left to rot in a low-pile-carpeted oubliette?

A bit after the seventh hour, just as I was looking up the U.S. Embassy, a pert young quarantine officer appeared and asked if I had received the test results in my e-mail.  By God, no, woman, or would I still be here?  I would have raised such a hue-and-cry as to have brought half the airport staff running, so on edge was I.  Why I needed to receive it in my e-mail was never explained, and I never needed it for anything else, but this required half an hour of back-and-forth with their IT department to get it successfully into my inbox.  I was then sent to the immigration desk, and after taking my biometrics and pouring over my documents, the immigration officer, confused, sent me to a back office for her supervisor to handle, and the process began anew.  At least this woman's facility with English was good enough for my nervous jokes to land.

Thankfully, my checked bag was still waiting for me at the baggage claim.  I collected this and the customs officer took my declaration slip, dropped it into a basket unexamined, and waived me through.  The cordons corralled me into another cubicle, this one quite sizeable, erected around a low garden, with a desk manned by half a dozen police cadets, all staring intently into their phones.  One looked sleepily through my documents, and told me to sit on the bench for the bus that would take me to my quarantine hotel.  After a few hours, I asked when the bus might come, and was told it was delayed because of the snow, which seemed doubtful, at least from an Upstate New York perspective.  Anything less than six inches is hardly an impediment back home.

Two hours later, after a large group of arrivals joined me, the bus finally showed up.  I think the real story was that I alone was not enough to warrant a pickup, but they were the critical mass.  We boarded and not much later arrived at our quarantine facility.  It turned out to be the Marina Bay Hotel, much hyped in YouTube videos by internees, and shown to have beautiful rooms and a wonderful arrival package.  Surely I was about to be recompensed for all my sorrows.  After more paperwork, and my documents being examined once more, I forked over my $1,680 for the room and was sent up to the 11th floor to lock myself in for the next fourteen days, in peace and comparative luxury.

I think you know where this is headed.

To be continued.

A foreigner's welcome to Liu's Bakery

Since we've arrived in Taiwan, we've been seeing this commercial on TV.  To outward appearances, it's an elderly KMT general brandishing a pistol, suggesting you buy his biscuits or else.  They mystery was killing me, I needed to know what he was saying, and so I scoured the internet.  What he seemed to be selling was branded "Nutricom," so I found an e-mail for Nutricom USA, asking if they knew of the ad and if they could clarify.  Happily, this venerable gent's daughter is in charge over in Florida, and she translated.  Turns out his name is George Liu, and he's selling wheat germ.

"Nutricom has given me strong health and vitality.  This old soldier has none of the Three Highs (cholesterol, blood pressure, sugar).  Modern people eat too well, but rich diets have come to kill!  Nutricom is the weapon to defend your health.  Come to Liu's Bakery and garrison your health.  And don't forget to try our new Sun Biscuits!"

That's a bit of a paraphrase, but essentially it.  His daughter then surprised me with an e-mail saying George wanted to meet me.  A TV celebrity and war hero, how could I resist?  A date was set and I started hunting around for a suitable present.  In Chinese culture, exchanging small gifts is de rigeur, and given his advanced age and venerability, I wanted to make sure I found something to match.  I found a small bonsai tree in a pot, which I thought bespoke dignity and longevity.

It was a rainy morning, so I took a cab to the bakery.  No sooner had I walked in and asked for him, George was right behind me, surrounded by a gaggle of family.  He is a very happy patriarch, and, indeed, very robust for 92.  He saluted, which I returned (Semper paratus!), and he saluted again, this time for my beard.  (It's nothing back home but Taiwanese think it virile and really like it.)  He accepted my gift and we paused for a photo opportunity.  He would tell you his English is poor (it isn't), but he was very jocular and on our way up to his office, he told me he had seven children and 17 grandchildren.  He asked me if I had any children and I said no, and then he offered to give me a few of his as he had some to spare!

We settled in upstairs in a windowless office, nevertheless furnished with chairs made of the tropical hardwoods and tung oil for which Taiwan is famous.  The walls were covered in calligraphy scrolls, which I later learned were George's own handiwork.  He called for tea, and his youngest daughter, visiting from the U.S., translated as necessary.  As I said, George's English is good, but like most people over a certain age, his hearing is diminished.  It's difficult enough to hold a conversation in a foreign language, but especially if you can't hear clearly.

George was born on the Mainland and served in the National Revolutionary Army of the KMT, under Chiang Kai-shek.  He evacuated the mainland for Taiwan in 1949, and, apart from a stint in Florida, has been there ever since.  He left the army and has been in the baking business since 1959.  George is a physical fellow, and likes to touch your hand and shoulder while talking.  In this way, he leaned in to offer a correction: He was a major in the army, not a general, but unlike all of the generals today, he's actually been to war!  I was half-certain the next thing he would say would be to challenge me to arm-wrestle.

A religious man, George got his start in delivering bread by bicycle at the suggestion of a Canadian missionary.  (Allow me to insert a "God save the Queen".)  Indeed, he was wearing a Gideons Society tie that proclaimed Jesus as Lord.  Do you know where God is, he asked.  Up, I gestured.  Yes, but also here, he said, pointing to his chest.  "God is love.  People kill in the name of religion.  But if you have love, everything in the world will turn out fine.  No wars, no hatred," he beamed brightly.

He's had a few near-scrapes with death in his life that I suspect have sharpened his sense of God's agency in his life.  During the Chinese Civil War, he accidentally shot his foot through his holster.  While he was laid up in sickbay, his unit was all but obliterated by the Communists.  "That gun saved my life," he said.  Another time, he was on leave to see his parents, and his mother had made jiaozi, or dumplings.  Oh, I'm sick of them and I'm late in getting back anyway, he said.  His father took him aside and said, Why don't you just have a seat, eat some, and make your poor mother happy?  So he did, and ended up missing his unit's departure.  As with the gunshot wound, his unit was wiped out and his life spared.

The gun in his commercials was a replica, and he let me hold it.  But George values it as a happy reminder of the gun's part in God's plan for his life.  He showed me his major's uniform and photos, recently taken, of how well he had been received on the mainland as an old veteran, on the outskirts of Beijing where he has established a local factory.  These mementos (and also TV commercial props) he keeps in a small bedroom adjacent to his office, which he casually but in all seriousness offered to lend me when I'm next in town.

By the time the war was over, George was in Taiwan and again in sickbay with tuberculosis.  There's no hope for you, he was told, it's just a matter of time.  It was then that he found religion.  Besides, he had too many buddies to avenge to just give up and die!  So Jesus cured him, but he had yet to embrace humility.  What sins do I have to repent of? he asked.  He was out of the army, with no job prospects and no girls who would marry him without one.  His Canadian missionary friend suggested selling bread to the U.S. military.  Around this time he had the breakthrough realization that "God is love," he forgave his enemies, and things started to click for him.

Indistinct from his business interests, George has long been on a crusade to improve people's health.  People eat such garbage, he says, echoing concerns I've had across East Asia, as people increasingly adopt Western foods.  Ever notice the oldest person alive is usually Japanese?  There's a reason for it.  They traditionally don't eat sugar, refined carbs, and vegetable oils, which are central features of the Western diet.

George's magic bullet is wheat germ, which, compared to regular white flour, is high in protein and bran.  I tasted a bun modeled after the ones he ate in the Nationalist army, made from whole wheat flour.  It was dense, but good.  George watched me very closely to see if the bun would meet with my approval.  And it did.  It is dense but toothsome, and, from my experience of American rations, better than anything they vacuum-pack as MREs. (Okay, I admit: I really like the maple nut-cake dessert.  The squeeze cheese and cracker are a guilty pleasure.)

As with other visitors, George had me write in his diary to memorialize the event.  I was sure to endorse his nutritional theory, as I'd seen what the Western diet was doing to the Taiwanese, as it has done to us back home.  Indeed, refined carbohydrates and added sugars are killing us, and everyone abroad to whom we export our diet.  Acknowledging his age, saying he doesn't think God will grant him more than two or three years (may he get 20!), but he says he is writing a book that will encapsulate all his nutritional theories.  I have nothing to add to his wisdom save that he might read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food.  It might be complex for his English, but he has very patient and loving daughters to translate for him.

He had another appointment for the afteroon, so we had to bring the meeting to a close, but he generously sent me away with samples, literature, and several Chinese Bibles.  I've said before that you don't give a priest a Bible for a present because he likely already has 30, but I make an exception for foreign language editions.  I was just barely manageably laden down with treasures, and I must have looked quite the sight walking the half-mile back to the apartment.

I left Taiwan (this entry having taken me a few months to complete) just as George had asked me to dinner.  I countered that my wife would be in Taiwan this July (as it turns out she won't) but he said he would be summering in Florida (you would have to have experienced Taiwan to understand the logic!).  I don't know when or how but I hope to see George again.  But I feel as though I have more to learn, and he has more to teach.  And beside all that, he is just a damned pleasant fellow.  I will treasure what time I had with him, and if God adds an hour or two, I will be grateful all the years of my life.

I don't know how they say it in Chinese, but as they said at my ordination as a bishop, Ad multos annos—to many years!

Long weekend in Hong Kong, part II

After another excellent breakfast (the Sheraton puts on quite the spread), we headed over to the Hong Kong History Museum.  Immediately we were confronted by a display of 2/3rds-size Star Wars stormtroopers, and then advertisements for a toy exhibit, including Transformers and Gundam.  It would appear the museum knows where the money's at, and is reorienting itself accordingly.  However, the original history exhibit was still there and free, so we went in.

We first toured a section on the formation and geology of the area, followed by prehistoric artifacts and life-size dioramas of paleolithic society.  The next section was the ethnography of South China in the Qing Era, so I assume nothing happened between 8,000 B.C. and 300 years ago.  We saw the floating home of some Boatdwellers, a shy Cantonese people who spend much of their lives afloat; and mockups of a bourgeois home and a humbler city dwelling.  There was a section on Chinese opera and lion dances, a giant festival tower made of buns, and a mockup of a Taoist temple.

The next section was colonial history, starting with the Opium Wars, followed by the British opening up shop and the founding of HSBC.  There were mockups of upper- and middle-class Chinese homes, a grocery, and printing and telegraphy offices, all in a replica Hong Kong neighborhood from 1900.  Then we wound our way to displays relating to the Japanese invasion in 1942.  Unlike Taiwan, Hongkongers did not find Japanese occupation to be a pleasant thing.  Still, they didn't dwell on Japanese atrocities much, and half the display was given over to the Japanese surrender in 1945.

Post-WWII was an economic boom for Hong Kong, in both banking and manufacturing, culminating in the roaring 1980s.  We milled past bright, shiny consumer goods and trappings of prosperity.  At this point, however, there began to be mentions made of the 1997 handover, and as the exhibit continued, and we came closer to the date, I became increasingly depressed.  Hong Kong, after all, was British.  They had never experienced republican or Communist rule.  It was a bit of a betrayal and not unlike trying to hand Florida back to the Spanish.

(Though, every U.S. presidential election, I seriously give the idea thought.  Maybe the French would like the Louisiana Purchase back, too.)

The exhibit more or less ended with the handover, as though time had stopped in 1997.  Of course it hadn't, but discussing events since then would be necessarily political, and HKers have felt like they've been treading water the last 20 years, with Beijing looming larger and larger in their lives.  We left the museum, had lunch at a Thai restaurant, seated beneath the paternal and reassuring gaze of the late Thai King Rama IX.  We then hoofed it back to the hotel, booked a harbor cruise for the evening, and had a nap.

Our first choice of conveyance, a motor junk with red sails, was booked up already, and the next evening wouldn't be available as HK was going dark for Earth Hour.  So we got tickets for a more conventional vessel, which happened to be twice as long a ride and with an open bar.  At the appointed hour after dark, we boarded the two-deck passenger boat and headed to the open upper deck.  Most nights, the skyscrapers put on a coordinated lights-and-laser show.  It's not as amusing as they sell it to be. But I had some nice watery Chinese beer, Laura had her cocktail, and once the light show was over, simply enjoyed being afloat, by turns overhauling or being overhauled by the red junk, our nautical dance partner.

Eventually we were put back ashore, and Laura, having had two rum-and-Cokes, was feeling munchy.  Lucky for us, food trucks lined the way back to the hotel.  We ended up with fried dumplings, scallion-and-ham pancakes, a strangely sweet montecristo sandwich, and something intriguingly branded a "Burger of Sorrow".  This turned out to be an egg on a porkchop on a bun, and the "Sorrow" part was a reference to a classic Cantonese movie we'd never heard of.  In the U.S., this thing would doubtless be covered in jalapenos and ghost chile sauce, to invoke real sorrow, but fortunately we were half a world away.  Full of greasy street food, we went to sleep on beds much softer then we've been used to in Taiwan, which are amazingly still softer than those in Korea.

The next morning, after again tanking up at the hotel buffet, we took the metro north and east to the outskirts of Kowloon, to see the Nan Lian Zen gardens, adjoining the Chi Lin convent.  It is a fairly large walled park in the middle of urban sprawl, and fairly well insulated against noise by the wall.  It's hard to describe the gardens, except that each turn of the winding paths present a new vision of the Buddhist Pure Land.  There are water features, fuzzy pines, and great "virtuous" stones transplanted from who knows where.  Gardeners silently trim the grass with hand shears.  The whole place was replete with excellent spots for a nap, were there no security guards roaming the place.  There was a golden pagoda in the middle of the lake, along with koi fish.  They were not particularly interested in people, as feeding them is forbidden and they can tell a stranger from whoever's job it is to feed them.  Koi are very smart.

We popped our heads into a pavilion where they were displaying works by students at a pottery school the nuns had sponsored to be run by a famous master potter.  Indeed, the gardens themselves were a partnership between the nuns and the city.  For being aloof from the world, these venerable ladies can cut a deal.  Having circled at least the larger part of the gardens, we headed across the road to the convent (or "nunnery" as the signs had it) to see these wizened lady-monks for ourselves.

Alas, they were nowhere to be seen.  The place is lavishly constructed on the usual Chinese model of outer, middle, and inner hall, with two courtyards.  Behind the third hall there are dormitories, which is where we suspect the nuns were cloistered during the day.  The first courtyard featured lotus ponds, but beyond the threshold to the middle hall, no photography was allowed.  All around the second courtyard were shrines with giant gold Buddhas.  Incense wafted from every direction, and a PA system droned "Amitofo," the Chinese name for the Amida Buddha, being chanted over and over.  When we'd absorbed enough sanctity, we exited through the gift shop, where Laura found a nice purse possibly made by the nuns.  I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

We made our way back to the metro and took it all the way to HK Island and the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.  If there's anything I like, it's old nautical shit.  We first had lunch on the top floor in a bistro usefully and charmingly staffed by adults with developmental disabilities.  We then paid our way into the exhibits enjoyed  all sort of models, replicas, dioramas, and artifacts.  Laura was very pleased to find a giant lighthouse lens (glass, of course), and I stepped into a bridge simulator run by merchant navy cadets.  Now, granted, my competition were children who enjoyed smashing the simulated passenger ferry into things, but my piloting impressed the cadets, I could tell.  I sailed the length of a simulated Victoria Bay with nary a near-miss.  I believe I stepped out of that museum a couple inches taller.

We took a real ferry back to Kowloon to rest up before dinner.  We came back to signs telling us the hotel would be observing Earth Hour and dimming the lights.  This might have proved interesting, as we decided to dine in the traditional Cantonese restaurant located in the hotel.  Laura got the tofu (usually a safe bet), but I figured if I was in a foreign land, and the company is paying for it (after all, these are the people that make me live in Nowhere, NY), I was going for the whole hog, by which I mean fried squab and a chicken and frog legs stew.  Laura wasn't thrilled with her dinner, alas, but I rather enjoyed pigeon, and the frog legs were the best I've ever had, scarcely distinguishable from the chicken apart from being bone-in.  Laura had a light, floral tea, and I went for the pu-erh, a completely fermented tea I'd come to enjoy in Hong Kong.

The promised dimming of the lights had not happened, and the only candles were the tea lights under our respective teapots.  We decided to take dessert in the rooftop lounge to see how Earth Hour had changed the skyline.  It was definitely subdued compared to usual, but it was still light enough to read by.  Surely HK has a record somewhere for light pollution.  Without blackout curtains, I'm not sure I would have slept the weekend at all.

Having gone to bed and rising again to enjoy our last lavish hotel breakfast, we climbed into a cab and headed back to the airport.  Apart from the trials and vagaries of air travel, not much remains to be said.  Taiwan immigration hardly looked at my passport before stamping it with another 90 day visa.  Not to be preachy, but it's amazing how disinterested immigration officials can be when their country isn't hated by half the world.  Such comparisons--which country does what differently and possibly better--are one of the intellectual joys of international travel.

Long weekend in Hong Kong, part I

A few weeks ago, we went to Hong Kong for a long weekend.  Laura's experiment was running long, and in order to extend our visas, we had to leave Taiwan and come back.  Since it's less than a two-hour flight west, Hong Kong suited our purposes nicely.

Hong Kong is a collection of islands and a peninsula on the coast of mainland China.  From 1842 to 1997, it was a British colony.  (Fair warning, I'm about to launch into a history lesson.)  In the early 19th century, the British wanted Chinese porcelain and tea.  The problem was, the British didn't have anything the Chinese wanted in trade.  The imperial government insisted on cold hard cash, in the form of silver.  The British didn't want to part with their silver, so they managed to smuggle live tea plants out of China and start tea plantations in British-held India.  But unlike tea, porcelain doesn't grow on trees.

The British finally found something the Chinese would accept in trade: opium, made from vast poppy plantations in India.  The stuff is seriously addicting, and was wreaking havoc on the Chinese middle bureaucratic class particularly.  The Emperor in Beijing told the British to stop, the British said "Make us," and the two sides went to war.  The Chinese, being militarily backwards, lost, and gave the British Hong Kong Island in 1842.

A second war resulted in the British getting the Kowloon peninsula in 1860.  In 1897, the British leased additional land (the "New Territories") north of Kowloon for 100 years.  Fast forward a century, the lease on the New Territories was running out.  And though the British held Hong Kong Island and Kowloon in perpetuity, they doubted they could hold it against the Red Chinese.  Further, they wanted some of that sweet, sweet Mainland trade (cheap plastic shit!), and Hong Kong was a sticking point.  So in 1997, they lowered the Union Jack and handed the colony over to the People's Republic of China.

With Hongkongers (the preferred demonym; I kept calling them Hongkongolese or Hongkongolians, though, of course, not to their faces), the handover has not been popular.  While under the "one country, two systems" rule, HK has been allowed a degree of self-rule, self-policing, separate trade policies and its own border controls, HKers perceive greater encroachment by authorities in Beijing, including efforts to supplant Cantonese culture and language with Mandarin.  Futher, they've seen their economy's growth rate slow to a crawl since 1997.  Unscientific polls conducted by local newspapers suggest a majority of HKers would return to British rule if they could.

The flight, on Hong Kong Airlines, was fairly pleasant.  The seats are more comfortable, slightly roomier, and they fed us, even on a short flight.  It puts the lie to American carriers' claims that they have to squeeze us the way they do (figuratively and literally) to remain competitive.  Still, flying is flying, so when you factor in getting to the airport, getting through the airport, takeoff, flying and landing, going through immigration and customs, and finally getting to our hotel in Kowloon, Laura was perkier but I was bushed.  So we managed to take a stroll around a very long block and get dinner at the first thing that appealed, a British pub-themed restaurant with somewhat indifferent fare.  But we were fed and ready for bed.

Early the next morning (after a sumptuous hotel breakfast) we checked out a park we'd seen the night before, which has an old masonry observation tower that offers views of the Bay.  We wandered to another park closer to the water, dedicated to Bruce Lee and Hong Kong cinema, including handprints of many famous stars.  We then found a 7-Eleven (they are almost as ubiquitous there as they are in Taiwan) and bought metro passes.  Descending to the subway, we found the sort of clean, efficient mass transit system we see everywhere in the world (except for the U.S.), and took the train under Victoria Bay to Hong Kong Island.  It became noticeably cooler and breezier as we zipped along under the ocean.  Emerging from underground, we could see immediately that HK Island was much hillier than Kowloon, with most walkways on a grade.  

A few, miscellaneous observations about Hong Kong.  It is similar in many ways to Taichung or even Seoul, with a lot of modern buildings, including some very tall skyscrapers.  These tend to sit close to the shoreline where the land is most flat.  There are also a lot of signs of former colonial rule: Victorian buildings, English signage, statues of British monarchs and colonists, driving on the left, and British-accented English is spoken about half the populace--though mostly as a second language and not without traces of a Chinese accent, too.  It's very pleasant to hear.  Police are dressed much as you'd see in Britain.  Taxis are all red, and share the same body type regardless of manufacturer.  These are not quite as comfortable as the ones we've been enjoying in Taiwan, but most of the cabbies speak enough English not to have to write directions in Chinese, as we do here.  Hong Kong is also a lot more diverse than Taiwan.  Here you can go a day without seeing another foreigner, but the streets and subways of HK are thronged with people from all over the world, particularly the West and the Indian subcontinent.  The latter of these seem very heavily involved in the suitmaking business there, and everywhere near our hotel there were men outside tailor shops, trying to entice people to come in for a fitting.  As I aspire to only wear Hawaiian shirts, I declined every time.

Now on HK Island, we wended our way up a hill to the botanical gardens.  I am a hillwalker with sturdy calves, but the severe grade winded even me.  The gardens were very nice, with a large fountain and a sweeping view of skyscrapers up and down the hill.  We found a statue of King George VI, and, pious Anglican that I am, I knelt for a short prayer for the repose of his soul.  The gardens are also home to various bird enclosures, including some very pink flamingoes.  In the wild, the flamingo is pink from the tiny shrimps it eats.  Here in their enclosure, however, their water was dyed red!

We next set off to take a tram up the tallest mountain on HK Island, Victoria Peak.  When we arrived at the terminal, the line snaked on forever.  There was a short line, however: all you had to do was buy a ticket to Madame Toussaud's as well, which is located atop the Peak.  I've always wanted to see a Madame Toussaud's, so we did just that.  A short while later, we were in the tram, going up an impossibly steep incline, averaging 30 degrees.  The car looks rather antique, heightening the sense of excitement, and is pulled along the bottom by two braided cables as thick as your wrist.  A soothing ratching sound was heard as backstops popped up behind us to arrest any sudden backward motion.  The foliage obscured the view much of the way up, but at the top we were treated to breathtaking views of the city and Victoria Bay below.

Madame Toussaud's is fun.  The wax statues are incredibly lifelike, they're not roped off and you're perfectly able to put your arm around Nicole Kidman, or (as I did) sneak a cheek-kiss from Audrey Hepburn.  The absolutely best part was Queen Elizabeth's statue, as it is the closest I am every going to get to my famous distant cousin.  There were figures of Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, Chou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping.  Sadly, nowhere to be seen was my friend, Chiang Kai-shek.  There was also a statue of Barack Obama in an Oval Office mockup.  They were charging to take pictures with 44, but the likeness wasn't entirely convincing and he hadn't gone gray yet, so we skipped.  There was a lovely section of Hong Kong cinema stars, including Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Michelle Yeoh.  And the tour finished with rock-'n'-rollers, from Elvis, the Beatles, and Freddie Mercury, to today's stars Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.  Taylor Swift is uncomfortably tall, but Lady Gaga is more our sizes.

Having seen a bunch of people we'll never see in real life, we went back outside to take in the sweeping views and walk along the mountainside a bit.  We then returned to the tram and went back down the hill.  Unsurprisingly, the seats still faced the mountain, as the 30 percent grade meant that facing the other direction, you'd never keep your seat.  The descent was faster, but not in an uncontrolled way, and very soon we were back on the streets to roam Hong Kong once more.

Almost by providence, one of the first things we stumbled across was the Anglican cathedral, St. John the Evangelist.  It is a somewhat vernacular Gothic church, with nothing to make it particularly stand out, apart from the side chapel, from the vault of which hung old tattered flags, a faded Royal Navy ensign and a blue colonial flag.  Along the walls were memorials to the local regiment, the merchant navy, and one Royal Navy ship in particular.  A book nearby listed all the former memorials the Japanese occupiers had removed and melted down in World War II.  The cathedral also had a bookstore, and I thought this was opportune for scaring up some postcards.  A sign said there was a clergy discount, so I meekly showed the clerk my business card.  Oh, she said, the clergy are on a retreat today but are coming back for vespers, you should wait for them in the church to have a chat!  I thanked her and made like I was going to do just that, but we quickly escaped down the hill.  I was in no mood to explain to yet another Episcopalian clergyperson, or gaggle of clergy, my bogus priesthood.

In search of a metro station, we ambled down closer to the waterfront, and crossed under the HSBC building.  HSBC, if you didn't know, is the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation.  Out front were the bronze lions that grace all the HSBC-issued HK banknotes, with which Laura posed for a picture (other tourists were seen to do the same).  In the courtyard was a statute of a longtime governor of the bank in the 19th century, a bronze frock-coated baronet.  Nearby was what looked like a courthouse, built of stone in the reign of Edward VII, with the royal arms displayed in the pediment.  Really, HK is a British town, and the sight of the Communist Chinese flag fluttering anyway is somewhat jarring.

Descending back underground, we returned to Kowloon so we could rest before dinner.  We decided upon a place near the hotel we'd seen the night before, which specialized in Beijing and Szechuan cuisine.  The gimmick of the place were large mythloric masks hanging from the ceiling.  We had various dumplings and spring rolls, and then something advertised to us as "crispy beef."  It was crispy all right, but also candied.  I couldn't tell by the waitress' expression whether she was annoyed or bemused that we hadn't eaten it.  We then took a stroll along water by the glow of countless skyscrapers, in the same HK cinema-themed park we started the day out at.  Then it was back to the hotel to sleep the sleep of the dead, and recharge for tomorrow's adventures.

(To be continued.)

Chiang-ing of the Guard in Taipei

On Sunday we went to Taipei to see the Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Halls, by cab to the high-speed rail station, and then again from the Taipei Main Station to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

In Chinese culture (and I've seen it in Korea, too), important people have memorial halls built in order to preserve their memory.  It's where their name is displayed in exquisite calligraphy and where their portrait is hung or a statue is placed.  These memorial halls seem to be more significant to the memory of the celebrated person than their actual graves, even.

Sun Yat-sen was a leader (and quickly the leader) of the early Chinese revolutionary period, starting on January 1st, 1912 when the last Qing Emperor was deposed.  Before he died of cancer in 1925, he founded the Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang or KMT--authentically pronounced Gwoh-min-dahng) and set the stage for his protege Chiang Kai-shek to make the "Northern Expedition" to bring the warlords into line with the new Republic.  Sun Yat-sen is revered on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

Despised on the other side of the Straits, however is Chiang Kai-shek.  A consequence of the Northern Expedition, he fought the Communist Party during the civil war period (1927-1937, 1946-1950) and the Japanese during World War II (1937-1945).  He eventually lost the mainland and retreated to Taiwan, which, with U.S. military help, he was able to hold.  For the next 25 years he held power in Taiwan as president of the Republic of China, and frustrated Chairman Mao and the People's Republic of China's desire to be recognized as the "real" China.  He was a U.S. ally in WWII and a signatory power at the founding of the United Nations.  The U.N. seat was only given to the PRC in 1971, and U.S. recognition was switched only in 1979.  And while the Red Guards were pulling a Taliban and smashing antiquities on the mainland, Chiang made fostering traditional Chinese culture and arts a state policy.

Nowadays, though, Chiang Kai-shek is not universally admired here in Taiwan, either.

When Taiwan was surrendered by the Japanese, the KMT behaved rather badly towards towards the local population (primarily Min-speaking people who migrated to Taiwan in the 300 years before the Japanese took Taiwan in 1895, and had never been under Republican Chinese rule), and when they revolted, the KMT brutally put down the revolt and established martial law that lasted (with the further excuse of hostilities with the Communist mainland) until 1988.  The island was flooded with more than a million Mandarin-speaking Chinese from the mainland who weren't interested in Taiwan's unique pluralistic history and culture so much being part of China and taking back the mainland.

So, in the post-martial law era, the KMT has lost the presidency twice to the opposition Democratic Progress Party (DPP), the first time 2000-08, and then again in 2016.  They represent the view that Chiang Kai-shek was a nasty brute and that Taiwan should be independent and part of neither Communist or Nationalist China.  In 2007 they proposed to de-consecrate the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and turn it into a museum for martial law brutality, as they see it.  But then the KMT was back in power, and they put the Kai-bosh on the plan (so many pun opportunities here, you can't possibly know).  Now that the DPP is in office, last month they reintroduced their plans for De-Chiang-ification.  So now was the time to see the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall while it was still the same.

Whew!  I'm sorry for all the history, but it's necessary to understand why we were visiting the place.  The Chiang Kai-shek (CKS for short) Memorial Hall was completed in 1981 and differs from most memorial halls in that it is more a pagoda shape than a rectangular building.  The first thing we went to see, since it was nearly the top of the hour, was the changing of the guard.

When you get to the top of several flights of steps, the Memorial Hall opens with an arch.  Inside, under a rotunda canopy of the KMT sun emblem, is a giant bronze statue of CKS, flanked by ROC flags, and calligraphy of his political principles carved on the walls.  In front is a large red carpet, and on two short platforms, two army guards in ceremonial uniform, with white gloves and webbing, chrome helmets and nickle-plated rifles with bayonets attached.  At the top of the hour, two relief guards with rifles led by an NCO with a pistol, enter from a side vestibule and slowly march to the center of the carpet.  The guards on the platform descend and there's quite a bit of smart drilling, which includes a fair amount of saluting, brandishing bayonets, and twirling rifles.  And despite all the "crash and stamp" of boots and rifles, almost all of it is done wordlessly.  It was all quite impressive and is worth a view on YouTube, if you can find a video of it.

Once we'd seen that, we descended downstairs to see the museum in the undercroft.  There you can see CKS' writings, calligraphy, uniforms, flags, medals (he was probably only second to Marshal Tito in foreign orders and awards), sedan chairs, Cadillacs, and a full replica of his office, complete with a wax likeness of the Generalissimo himself.

After this, we had a bite and hopped in a cab for the Sun Yat-sen (SYS) Memorial Hall.  This was built in 1966 in a more traditional shape, but still has some mid-century modern elements to it.  For those of us of a certain age, it's homey in its datedness.  Had the red carpets been replaced with orange shag, I would have been completely at home.  Here there's a bronze statue of SYS even bigger than CKS's, surrounded by flags and a mezzanine with bronze bas-relief plaques depicting SYS's career.  We again saw the changing of the guard ceremony, and with a few alterations for the differences in architecture, it was essentially the same as the one at the CKS Memorial Hall.

Sun Yat-sen's personal legacy is much safer than CKS's, and throngs of people relax and play in the square in front of the Memorial Hall and adjacent gardens.  Being revered in mainland China as well, there are quite a few mainlanders in attendance.  It's hard to put a finger on exactly how, but mainlanders dress a little differently than the Taiwanese, in a sort of plainer, slightly dated way.  They are also, compared to the polite and quiet Taiwanese, loud and pushy.  We had a look at a gallery with colorized photos from SYS's life and career, and I had elderly Chinese practically pushing me to get a closer look, yammering away at a half-shout the entire time.  I was starting to see the DPP's point on reunification.

Admittedly we didn't explore the entire building, but there didn't seem to be quite the same museum setup as at the CKS Memorial Hall, with very few artifacts on display.  But there was a delightful retrospective exhibit of the mainland-born Taiwanese ink painter Luo Feng (b. 1937, presumably still alive and well).  She works in a style that bridges classical ink painting with more modern forms, sometimes painting more her mood or an impression than an actual representation of a real landscape.  She works equally well in the classical mode, and one painting that absolutely knocked my Gudetama socks off was a traditional ink painting of Yosemite.  I don't know if I can lay hold of a print, but I seriously want one.

And with all that accomplished, we returned to the train station by cab, took the train back to Taichung, and then another cab home.  The transit system here is widespread and very easy to navigate, but can tire you out, too.  Our little jaunt north involved five taxis and two one-hour train rides, and we were flat-out bushed.

Post-script: Laura and I have debated whether it's worth the extra $10 to upgrade from standard high-speed rail tickets to business class, so we rode up to Taipei in standard class.  Laura may still feel differently, but I was definitely confirmed in my preference for business class.  The seats are wider and softer, the floor is carpeted, there are foot rests, no middle seats, and they bring you a drink and snack, and even a newspaper if you want.  We had bought two very tasty boxed lunches at the Taipei station for an insanely cheap $3 each, making the trip homeward very sumptuous, satisfying, and peaceful.

Birthday cakes in Taiwan--Rachel's post

I was excited to visit Laura and Ian in Taiwan. I’ve only been outside of the country once before, and this was my first official passport stamp (because Australia uses e-visas).

The flight out was actually pretty enjoyable. If you’re ever on a long-haul flight in economy class, I highly recommend having having planned ahead and selected a special meal when you booked your ticket. Everyone with a special meal gets served first and if you select the vegetarian option, at least on United, it’s curry for dinner, curry in a pita for a midnight snack, followed up by a nice hot breakfast curry. It’s hard to make curry unappetizing. 

As Laura had promised, once the plane landed I made it through security, customs, and the baggage claim without any local language skills. Ian had graciously traveled to meet me at the airport, so he handled getting us onto the right bus and train. By the time we got back to Laura and Ian’s place, the travel time amounted to 20 hours from my door to theirs. 

(Fun comparison: Walking would have taken approximately 78 days, non-stop, assuming you can walk on water)

We did so much during the visit (Jade market! Fine arts! Animatronic dinosaurs in the museum! Arcade games! Night markets! Fruit tea!), but my favorite thing was just being able to spend that chunk of time with Laura and Ian. 

Here are a few stories from the trip.

The Cat Café or The importance of a convincing smile

Laura has developed a special way of compensating for not knowing the local language. Whenever someone starts speaking to her, and she can neither understand nor reply in a way that they might understand, she smiles, says “It’s OK! It’s OK!” and agrees to whatever it is they’re saying/offering/asking. She is very convincing. And it works! They give her whatever the default thing is, or guess at what she wanted and give her that. Most of the time that’s what she wanted, or at least not far off. 

On the first full day I was in Taiwan, Laura had to work, so Ian and I decided to visit the cat café near the apartment. We were greeted by a smiling waitress who was wearing a cat ears headband. Sadly, I’d left my cat ears at home, so I couldn’t match her. 

She showed us downstairs to a room with one very nonplussed scotch fold cat and handed us the menus. There are two main things that make the cat café a cat café: First, there are cats. Secondly, the establishment serves lattes with foam sculpted into the shape of cats. You can order lattes with one, two, or three cats.

We tried to order cat lattes, but there was a problem…which we couldn’t quite grasp. The waitress explained the situation, and we tried to explain back, but since we were each using different languages, it didn’t work. After a few repetitions, creative pointing and hand signals, we got the idea that the latte foam artist wasn’t at work yet. The waitress was offering to bring us one latte now, and cat lattes in a couple of hours. We decided we’d be fine with just the normal lattes. 

It was time to try out Laura’s technique.

“It’s…OK. It’s OK?” I said

She looked at me skeptically.

“Its…OK?” I tried again. 

No dice. 

(I later asked Laura why the magic phrase had failed me, and she told me that clearly I didn’t believe in it hard enough. You have to be obviously and unreservedly enthusiastic about accepting the unknown offer, and I was not.)

Ian pulled out his phone and typed “We are okay with the plain lattes” into Google Translate and showed the waitress the translated text. She burst out laughing, pointed at the word that “plain” had been translated into, and giggled again. We tried reverse translating the Chinese back into English, but we got the word “plain” again. I really want to know what that word was translated into. I suspect it amounted to something like “We approve of the ugly lattes.”

At any rate, the waitress called someone on the phone to translate for us, and we were eventually able to order and drink our ugly lattes while the cats hid from us, like cats do. After that experience, I tried to sincerely mean it when I said “it’s OK,” but I just don’t have the knack. 

The Food: Tea houses and less successful dining experiences 

Udon noodles are always delicious, but they are even more delicious in Taiwan. 

My favorite meal from this trip was probably the vegetarian udon noodles and mango coconut milk bubble tea at the Chun Shui Tang teahouse. The Chun Shui Tang teahouse is one of two tea house (franchises?) that claim to have invented and/or popularized bubble tea, and whether they’re responsible for the creation of the drink or not, they make delicious bubble tea. We went back there a second time, and I ordered exactly the same meal. 

Laura and Ian also took me to the Wu Wei Tsao Tang teahouse. It’s a beautiful wooden structure, with tea rooms arranged around a pond that is full of gigantic koi fish. As they've surely explained here before, the tea cups in Taiwan are tiny little glasses, and you brew and drink many, many more rounds of tea than I could handle. We actually felt the need to tuck the bag of leftover unbrewed tea into my bag so it looked like we’d drunk more than we had.

We had two entertainingly uncomfortable restaurant experiences:

One night we decided to stay close to the apartment for dinner, since it was pouring outside. So we made our way to the nearby vegetarian restaurant, Veggie Wonderland. Turns out, it’s an Italian restaurant! (We should have run at that point, but we did not.)

The food wasn’t that bad, but it was weird. Imagine a vegetable lasagna, but instead of spinach and tomatoes, the vegetables in the lasagna are cabbage, bok choy, and green onions. That’s pretty much what I got. It didn’t taste too bad, but we did put the leftovers in the bin earmarked for hog food, near the dumpster outside of the apartment.

The second less-than-successful experience we had was our time at the hotpot restaurant in the mall. 

I’d been to a hot pot restaurant once before, years ago. It’s only slightly more complicated than fondu. There’s a burner in front of you, and you get a pot of broth or water. You order things to cook in the water (meats, vegetables, noodles, etc) and they bring you those items. Often, they’ll provide recommended cooking times for the raw food.

During my time in Taichung, we mostly went to restaurants that had English translations on their menus. Unfortunately, not every restaurant that has an English-friendly menu is English-speaking friendly. We had some difficulty figuring out how to order. Even though it looked like you could simply order pre-defined packages (sets) of food, there were actually some options that you needed to choose between. Much pointing and confident “it’s OK!” saw us through.

Laura and I both ordered the vegetarian hot pot option. I was surprised by the size of the enormous bowl of cabbage, tofu, mushrooms and unidentified mock meats that the waitress brought us. Was some of it intended to transform the water into more flavorful broth? Were we supposed to casually eat half a head of cabbage as part of the meal? We tried sneaking peeks at other diners to see what they cooked, but we didn’t get a lot of clues. (Meanwhile, Ian is merrily and easily cooking and enjoying his various delicately sliced meats.)  

Eventually we cooked and ate enough to consider dinner completed.  

The search for cake

For the last couple of years, Laura has visited California for our birthday. This year, I was returning the favor. But whether you’re on the West Coast or in the Far East, a birthday’s not a birthday without cake. You’re more likely to find steamed buns and bright fluffy white milk bread than a chocolate cake in Taiwan. So Laura and I went on a quest to find all the types of cakes we could. 

We found:

Lemon cakes—Sponge cake with crisp lemon frosting. I loved it.

Pineapple cake—Traditional Taiwanese cake. It’s almost like a shortbread biscuit with a slice of dried pineapple tucked within.

Green tea cake—Laura had this on her ice cream from Miyahara Ophthalmology Department (a very fancy ice cream shop, despite the name). Meh.

Cheesecake—This was the fluffiest cheesecake I’ve ever had. Very nice!

Some fruits I would not recommend

Cherimoya—A cherimoya looks like an armadillo would if an armadillo was a fruit. It has a kind of scaly green exterior. The skin is poisonous, and the seeds (which are spaced throughout the flesh) are also poisonous. But if you persevere and avoid the skin and seeds, you can eat the firm, damp white flesh. It takes a little like a cross between coconut and feet.

Eggfruit—The eggfruit, or canistel, is cheerful yellow fruit and is shaped somewhat like a mango. The fruit gets its name from the texture of the flesh, which has the mouthfeel of an overcooked hard boiled egg. The flavor is...unremarkable. 

Fruits you should try 

Starfruit—The starfruit in Taiwan was as big and juicy as those Mike and I had while on our honeymoon in Hawaii. You can even just eat it like an apple, if you don't feel like cutting it into pretty star-shaped slices.

Purple Dragonfruit—This looks just like a normal dragonfruit from the outside, but cutting it reveals an exiting deep fuchsia flesh. Sure, it tastes pretty much like normal dragonfruit, but the color! So bright! This fruit is also useful if you need to stain clothing, furniture, countertops, or cutting boards.

Note: Eating this fruit produces the same after-effects as beets. 

Something else you should try 

Visiting Laura and Ian when they travel! This was such a fun and fascinating place to spend time together, and they're excellent hosts.

—

(Editor's note: Rachel makes an excellent guest too, and we enjoyed having her.  She was also a great sport for agreeing to author this guest post—Thanks, Rachel!)