Last night the GF and I went off to the soba place again for dinner. First I went shopping in Zhongshan, and bought myself a linen skirt I had admired before, and a top suitable for hiking in (or, more correctly, yoga in). I also bought a bubble tea and sat waiting for the GF to arrive from his weekly massage in the outdoor bit near Zhongshan station, a rather pleasant stretch of concrete adorned with Samsung advertisements and thronged, though not oppressively, with young Taiwanese folks. A busker set up and started playing the violin. An older woman can and sat by me to listen intently and I thought maybe it was the violinist’s mother, but gradually other older men and women also gathered to listen, and some left, putting 100 yuan into her collection box.
Had my first incidence of confusing Spanish and Mandarin as I was doing Spanish flashcards and couldn’t for the life of me recall the word for ‘small’, of all words. I kept thinking xiao? Xiao? Doesn’t sound right, must be Chinese — xiao? I had rather thought the confusion would go the other way and Spanish, which I can speak well enough for a halting conversation, would dominate over the Mandarin.
On the GF’s arrival we went for soba. There was a short wait and when we got a table it was a shared one with a peculiar couple opposite. Well, only the woman was peculiar: in her twenties, immaculate, dressed all in pink. When their small dishes arrived, she raised her chopsticks ceremoniously, and examined each item intently, before tearing apart into careful little shreds, while her companion sat unmoving, and watched, seemingly with baited breath. At last she took a tiny morsel, and he exhaled audibly. Her own expression remained completely blank. Then their noodles arrived. An expression emerged, of annoyance and she raised a finger to demand a soup spoon (her noodles were cold with a dipping sauce so none had been provided). Into the soup spoon she emptied the contents of the little garnish tray (spring onions and wasabi) and then from the soup spoon onto the noodles. The work of the soup spoon being done, she set it aside and took out a small pair of scissors the precise shade of pink of her clothes – I can only think it was intention. With this, she very carefully cut the tempura (which was the usual massive size) into tiny strips. Her companion then ate all the food.
The GF and I watched in surreptitious admiration.
After dinner we were in no mood to return immediately so we went to a nearby cafe, called Olla. At the entrance we were met by the barista who said we could have a table but we were not allowed to talk. So we went in, in complete silence, into a cafe also completely silent, with a Macbook set up on each table. We chose our coffees and I must say they were excellent, particularly the GF’s latte which was the best we’ve had in Taiwan.
We were largely silent throughout the evening and the coffee was, as I said, really fantastic. I didn’t have my book so I looked at some story notes and had an idea for a short story – let us see if it comes to fruition ever. Then I disgraced us as we left by walking into the table of one of the Macbooks. I flushed and looked around, but no one even looked up.