It’s chaand raat in Pakistan, officially if not actually (it should actually have been last night, but the ongoing spat between the Moonsighting Committee and the Minister for Science and Technology led to Eid being declared for tomorrow in Pakistan instead of today). I ended up with something quite similar to the chaand raat of […]
Bean counters
Taiwan appears to have a surprisingly large number of people for whom a major part of their job description is to sift dust out of coffee beans, pick through them (in extreme cases with chopsticks), roast them in batches of about a half cup each, empty them into a little jug covered with a loose […]
Something starting to click
In the past week or so, as part of my effort to turn my life around and reduce regrets when on a ventilator, I have allocated some time daily to study something interesting. This has been raags, despite my tin ear. I’ve been working my way through a few websites, including the one below, a […]
Tatami afternoon
Our guests left this afternoon, but before that we went to a matcha teahouse in an old Japanese house, very rickety indeed, for lunch and tea. Our plan had been to then get the train to the Chimei museum, a somewhat ridiculous seeming place, part US Capitol and part Versailles, with a collection of Western […]
Finger on the pulse
Last night the Boddhisattva and the Woodland Creature came down for the weekend — lovely to see them, also a pleasant reminder that it is much nicer to see friends when one doesn’t live with them. We went for lunch to the nearby noodle spot, slightly better than adequate this time, and then on to […]
A little sheepish
Sheepishly, last night, I admitted to the GF the existence of this blog. Though I did not admit just how long it has existed, but allowed him to discover it for himself. So, hello, my first and only confirmed reader (other than myself). I shall pretend you do not exist. He also pointed out that […]
Day aquatic
There was an aquatic theme to today, as we went for lunch to renowned old seafood place (founded in 1940, so before the white army retreat into Taiwan) where we had the set menu for two. It began with mullet roe and squid, a crab soup and shrimp rolls, the centrepiece was mud crab on […]
Northern district
This morning we went for an American brunch. It was not bad, nothing to our meal yesterday. Run by a Taiwanese-American and with plenty of other Taiwanese-Americans filling the tables, and the decor and feel was also very American. The GF had a French toast with hash browns, salad and an egg; I had a […]
Third time lucky
Today, our third attempt was successful. The first two had been during the week in which I absconded, to go to a tiny Japanese restaurant with 10 seats, which we had heard was very good but didn’t take bookings. The first time, we arrived before it opened and found it shut. Instead, we found another […]
Week of silence
No particular reason – I had plenty of time, plenty of interesting things happened, wasn’t feeling particularly loathe to engage with the world (at least after I decided to stop reading MetaTalk), I just… didn’t. We have finally made our plans for our next destination in August. East and SE Asia are not really opening […]