Mexico - Summer 2018

Una Cerveza Por Favor
Wednesday, 4 July

This was supposed to be the dull part of the holiday! Pretty much at the top of my bucket list and one of the first things to go on there was a trip to the Galapagos.  After spending several wage packets on our Galapagos tour we couldn't bring ourselves to spend another packet on the flights to Ecuador.  After a few hours of clicking "my travel dates are flexible" and searching "How much does it cost to get to Ecuador by boat?" I found that going via Mexico cut the cost in half!  I suppose I could check out what Mexico has to offer?

Our choices were either go touristy and safe or go off the beaten track and get kidnapped by the Cartel and held for ransom.  Sooooo a week in Cancun it is then... Cancun is as much Mexican as Fosters beer in Australian, but at least we're safe!.  I booked transfer flights and accommodation before reading news articles titled "Cancun: Thriving Paradise to Murder Capital";  "Human head with threatening message found in Cancun" and "Three more heads found".  So really our choice was getting our heads chopped off in Cancun or getting kidnapped by the Cartel off the beaten track.  But does that scare me?! Yes it is absolutely terrifying.  Did I feel in any way unsafe in Cancun? No!  Cancun was AWESOME!

It pains me to say that I am of an age where clubbing every night (what most people know Cancun for - Wooo Spring Break!!) doesn't quite appeal anymore, but that is such a small part of Cancun.  We spent a very busy 5 days here and visited the club strip once and spent no time at all on the beach!?  It seems crazy now to think we visited Cancun and not once sun bathed on their luscious, white sand, pristine beaches.  There is just so much other stuff to see and do here!  We stayed at Brisas Suites in the Hotel Zone which is a small self-catered residential compound perfect if you can't afford don't want to feel imprisoned in your enormous all-inclusive hotel resort.  I hate the idea of having to eat at the same hotel every night!? Why do people do it?  We picked up the keys from a neighbour and instantly felt like we were in a home away from home.  On our doorstep there was a bus that cost 12 pesos (50p) and took you everywhere you could possibly want to go in Cancun.  The layout is perfect here with one long road with the sea running along one side and a giant lagoon on the other; the bus runs the full length and back regularly, all day, every day.  For our first evening we hopped off at St Isla and ate at Taco Grill overlooking the lagoon.

I forget how vast Mexican Cuisine is!  We had spicy pork tacos and I ordered a serving of Escamoles which I had on my "The Sides" list since the beginning of my blog. Escamoles are known as Mexican Caviar, a delicacy that I have not found in any other country so far - more commonly known as ant eggs.  Fried with chili and garlic and served with fresh tortillas it was surprisingly tasty.  Even Becky enjoyed it until I told her what it was.  I have eaten enough bugs now to conclude that bugs as a food group have a taste all of their own.  They don't taste like any meat but if I were to compare it has a definite hint of prawn head or that crustacean smell you get when you barbecue shellfish.  This is my summation of all bugs: the dried mapone worms of South Africa; the fried tarantulas from Cambodia, Skewered scorpions from China, and now ant eggs of Mexico... distinguishably prawny but uniquely buggy.  Washed down with my first real Mexican Margaritas it was easy eating.

Isla Mujeres

Though it felt like everybody we met was trying to convince us to hire a car we just didn't fancy driving.  So, instead we just booked ourselves onto a load of tours.  I easily preferred this to driving and definitely saw more this way than we would have otherwise.  It's Cancun: the place runs on its tourism and we found all the tours brilliantly planned and really easy to organise.  Our first morning took us to Aquaworld to book in some SCUBA diving and we booked a tour with Ekinox Tours to Chichen Itza online.  We spent the rest of the day touring Isla Mujeres by golf cart stopping off at beach bars and visiting the recommended sites such as the turtle sanctuary and "The Best Margaritas in Cancun".  The Chichen Itza tour was perfect.  On the way we stopped at a historical town which looked like a beautiful scene from Breaking Bad with pastel coloured buildings and an old, beaten up church.  Then we stopped for lunch where an old Mayan lady cooked corn tortillas on an open fire and Cochinita Pibil - pork roasted underground with hot stones.  Yes it is all a little put on for tourists but I really enjoyed the whole experience.  Our guides were extremely knowledgeable and walked us around Chichen Itza telling us all about the Mayans.  All about the daily human sacrifices to the Sun God to give it energy so it can battle the underworld.  Then the extra sacrifices into the sinkhole nearby to appease the underworld God whenever a natural disaster occurred.  It was also great to have the guide's advice on how not to get tricked by the vendors; where is best to buy certain souvenirs and the optimum angle for the best pyramid selfie.  After a couple of hours baking under the sun at Chichen Itza our tour took us to Ik Kil sinkhole to have a swim; another place where the Mayans tied stones to people and threw them in for the underworld God.  A beautifully unique swimming hole where 40 meters of water separated us from a bed of human bones (I imagine...).  It would be the most tranquil place in Mexico if there wasn't a thousand other people there... Below you can see my attempt at making a video to give the impression that it was just the two of us there.  Failed.

Our first diving day was in a cenote (like a cave but for some reason not quite a cave) which was a brand new experience for me and a pretty damn nerve racking one at that.  We dived cenote Tajma Ha (video below) which had the most stunning aqua blue entrance with small, black catfish and those fish that you find in a foot spa.  I know this because I sat with my feet over the side and saved myself £14.99.  On the surface you just see the most welcoming, cool, crystal waters.  Duck your head under and you see a much less welcoming dark hole into the abyss.  With a torch strapped to our wrists and a guide taking the lead it is more exhilarating then scary.  Controlling your breathing when diving is very important but knowing that you are completely closed in with the only access to the surface being through the small crevice you entered 20 minutes ago, it's not that easy!  It is stunning, but it is not for the panicker.  Some crazy, unusual cave dwelling fish would have been cool but it is the rock formations and incredibly clear waters that make the experience.  Our second day diving was at MUSA or the Underwater Museum of Art which has over 500 life-size sculptures where fish and coral have made there home over the years.  Not as abundant with fish and coral as some would wish but the sculptures really make it a unique dive.

I am loving eating Taco's here and it is difficult to order anything else.  There are places that make nothing but tortillas and they sell them by the kilogram.  Street vendors, restaurants and families buy these and fill them with the most incredible meats, selection of fresh salsas and always one red hot sauce and one green hot sauce.  Which one is the "hot" hot sauce is a game you play each time you eat as it is always different.  Most places just give you the meat in a tortilla and leave you to add your own salsa, sauce and sprinkles to your taste.  Leftover tortillas are quartered and fried into nachos and served with more salsa or guacamole the next day - amazing!  We had fish tacos at a beautiful restaurant called Navios built out onto the lagoon; ate beef tacos with a cactus salsa at St Isla whilst watching England beat Columbia; and ate amazing street pork tacos at 70p each before our night out to Cocobongos.  Cactus has a slime not unlike okra which made the salsa taste as if a family of slugs had walked through it.  The cheap street tacos were, not surprisingly, the tastiest!  They lined our stomach perfectly before our completely off the wall, all you can drink experience at Cocobongos.  Cocobongos gives you everything that could be expected of a club owned by Jim Carrey.  It is exactly what I imagine stepping inside his brain would be like and we both absolutely loved the whole thing.  We got a bus home at 3am buzzing on what we had just watched.

Actual Real Life Mexico
Wednesday, 18 July

This is a little mixed up in dates as since the last post I have been to Ecuador and the GALAPAGOS before returning back to Mexico but I wanted to keep Mexico as one entry.  I am sure 80 year old me will appreciate it when I am reading my life story back to the grand children.

Before going home we have 3 full days to explore Mexico City and really experience Mexican food and culture.  We are staying in Zona Rosa, The Pink Zone, which is known for its busy nightlife and gay community.  Well if you are going to name it the pink zone what will you expect!  :o).  We sat at a busy bar and ordered a taco sharing board and an enormous michelada also known as a bloody beer.  I have said enough about tacos in this blog (but look how good these were!!) but this was my first michelada - a beer with lemon juice, hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce mixed into it and served with a chili salt rim.  What Worcestershire sauce is doing in Mexico I have no idea but we have regularly seen it keeping the ketchup company on restaurant tables; you don't even see that in Worcester!  We had dessert next door at El Moro Churreria who have been making Churros since 1935.  Over 80 years!  Needless to say they were perfect.  Soft and fluffy on the inside with a crunchy, Cinnamon sugar coating.  I am ashamed to say that we (Becky) ordered churros in Cancun and boy were they a disappointment... These more than made up for them!  We finished the evening off drinking a much dreaded but surprisingly smooth Don Julio 70 Tequila and watching a Mariachi Band toot, hoot and whistle.  Within just 3 hours I think we had absorbed more Mexican culture here than we had in 5 days in Cancun!

On the following day we had a walking food tour booked with Intrepid Tours starting in the Historical Centre at 8am.  After reading about the craziness of the metro during rush hour we decided that the 1 hour walk to get there would be a nice way to see the city.  Thoughts on keeping safe are always at the back of the mind but the walk was absolutely fine as the whole city was buzzing with people already.  On the tour we visited 5 different markets looking at painted murals and sampling some well known local food spots.  Our first bite were some very tasty tamales.  Tamales are made by wrapping corn dough in a corn husk and steaming it with lard.  We had some stuffed with pork and some with cheese and felt completely full with another four markets still to visit.  My favourite stop, however, has to be tacos once again.  We had barbacoa and cecina tacos from one popular vendor (right).  Barbacoa is shredded lamb and cecina are thin slices of salted and dried beef steaks.  I was full from the tamales but there was plenty of room for these!  The tour was an ideal way to spend your first day to get a good grounding on how the city runs.  We used the metro, a local bus and an uber to get around in the tour and our guide answered all of our questions.  We sampled fruits like cactus fruit and mamey; marvelled at potions at the witches market and ate Mexican delicacies such as huitlacoche - a fungus comparable to truffle that destroys corn crops but worth more than double that of the corn in the first place.

I think this is my first country where corn is the staple food.  There are over 50 different varieties of corn here and the tastes and textures can be completely different.  I really enjoyed esquites which is a kind of corn salad I had served in a corn husk and topped with mayonnaise and cheese; Sweet, creamy and savoury it's a cheap and delicious snack.  Part of me wishes that 20 year old me chose South America to backpack around as food is seriously cheap here.  We ate at one place with a queue out the door that had giant containers filled with 4 different types of tacos and help yourself enormous vats of guacamole and pickles.  It fed both of us for 28 pesos! That's just over a pound.  There were even a couple of homeless people eating there too!  Coming to think of it it may have just been a really good homeless shelter... Either way we were stuffed!

All this time eating delicious Mexican food and only in the final days did I actually eat a National Dish - Mole.  I did get to sample different Mole pastes like it was ice cream on the food tour but I had to visit El Bajio to eat it cooked into a sauce.  A typical Mole Sauce has well over 20 different ingredients in it (This is a recipe I found on google: 12 dried ancho chiles, 12 dried guajillo chiles, 6 dried pasilla chiles, 4 tablespoon sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon whole aniseed, 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram, 3 dried bay leave, 1 stick cinnamon, 2 cups canola oil, 7 1/4 cups chicken stock, 1/2cup skin-on almonds, 1/2 cup raw shelled peanuts, 1/3 cup hulled pumpkin seeds, 1/3 cup raisins, 2 slices white bread, 2 stale corn tortillas, 1 medium onion, 10 medium cloves garlic, 2 large tomatillos, 1 large tomato, 1 cup finely chopped Mexican chocolate, 4 tablespoons sugar and Kosher salt.)  with chocolate being the most significant and two types of dried chilli coming a close 2nd.  It's sweet with a little spice and flavours that combine to make something truly unique.  Really like nothing I have ever eaten!  I had chicken thoroughly smoothered with Mole Pablano and resorted to the slightly more acceptable finger wipe and suck when what I really wanted to do was lick my plate clean.

For our final couple of days we did the typical touristy sites made easy by the "Turibus" which was great value.  We bought a one day hop on hop off ticket but could have easily done two days.  We made the mistake of having the National Museum of Anthropology  as our second stop and spending the rest of our day there!  The Anthropology Museum is one of the best things you can do in Mexico City as you explore the entire history of human existence; definitely something not to be rushed.  The history in Mexico City is immense and so the turibus facts and figures through the headphones were a nice little bonus.  We attempted to go to the Frida Kahlo museum but the queue for pre-paid tickets was enormous and we didn't even have those.  We didn't really know or care for Frida Kahlo before coming to Mexico so we didn't fancy waiting the hours required in line.  Instead, we went to nearby Museo del Carmen which was an abolute gem find and fascinating to see the facial expressions on their 6 unidentified, well preserved mummies! However, At the top of my list of "cultural" things to do in Mexico was to watch some Lucha Libre wrestling at the Mexico Arena and so we went and bought tickets the day before the show.  I've always loved a bit of wrestling but even Becky got really into it!  It was great fun and after two double Corona Micheladas it was the best show I had ever seen!

There is a lot to keep you busy in Mexico City.  We had a day where we just jumped on and off the metro (with our new found confidence after our tour) and visited small cobbled street markets, unusual museums and out of the way cafes.  I ate Huevos Rancheros at Lalo Cafe, fresh ceviche at San Juan Market and Tlayuda(right) from a vendor in the park as my final meals in Mexico (ignoring the rack of ribs and plate of wings from Chili's before heading to the airport...).  Our number one concern before visiting Mexico was safety.  Taking a few precautions we kept to busy streets and didn't stay out overly late and so never ran into any problems.  You could very easily be to cautious and miss out on so much of what Mexico has to offer and so our Intrepid Tour on day one really helped us understand what we can do.  As long as you have your wits about you, safety should not be the reason to not visit Mexico.  On the other hand, I spent 5 days in Cancun and 3 in Mexico City so who am I to judge?!

Taiwan - Spring 2018

Nobody spits on the street 
Wednesday, 4 April

We have a world map on the wall in our international school in Beijing and every now and then we get a government inspection to check that we are following all of the rules.  We pass with flying colours every year bar this one map that they have grave issues with - it shows Taiwan as a separate country...

Within the first day of arriving in Taiwan we started comparing it to Mainland China.  The sound of the middle aged man hawking up his guts and cars honking their horn 20 times to encourage the old lady to cross the road faster definitely seem to be one thing that separates the two nations.  The love of tiny ratty dogs and stinky tofu; however, is something that keeps them very much the same.  In fact, on the dog front, Taiwan may be even worse as I challenge you to walk down a Taipei street without seeing a little dog being pushed in a pram or carried in a back pack.  I can't help but realise how ridiculous that sounds whilst I type it but they actually do have, I assume, baby buggies specially made for dogs here!  What they don't have are streets covered in the tiny, worm like, ratty dog turds...

We spent a full day walking around the popular areas visiting Peace Park, the Botanical Gardens and Longshan Temple.  Our day was essentially walking for an hour, sit down to eat, walk for another hour, sit down somewhere else to eat.  Sometimes even eating whilst walking and then sitting down somewhere... to eat.  Taiwan is certainly a foodies heaven.  Little cafe style restaurants line every street and I can't walk past something I haven't seen before without buying it; much to the annoyance of Becky who constantly found herself losing me as I had followed my nose somewhere down a side street.  Taiwan's National Dish of Beef Noodle Soup was found in one of these small restaurants and was slurped up in an instant.  I very well could have queued for an hour at a famous Beef Noodle joint but I figured that any restaurant that specialises in making beef noodles are going to make pretty damn good beef noodles - it's Taiwan!

 

The biggest thing I was looking forward to in Taiwan were the incredibly famous and abundant Night Markets.  Just in Taipei there are over 50 night markets that each have their own pull with individual stalls specialising in something.  Like Spain have their tapas, Taiwan has "XiaoChi (小吃)" which translates to "small eat".  I have spent every evening so far munching my way through a different Night Market; it is literally my idea of heaven.  Our first Night Market was ShiLin which is Taipei's largest.  Deep fried needle mushrooms on a stick and crispy baby soft shell crabs were may favourites there.  The best Night Market so far; however, was FengJia in TaiChung which felt much more local.  I had a delicious sticky grilled Taiwanese sausage that was stuffed inside another grilled white sticky rice sausage which I thought was a genius idea. A meta sausage! My favourite night market snack would have to be the oyster omelet though.  The combination of textures and flavours are perfect and clearly a fan favourite.  The one thing that's missing from these awesome night markets is a decent place to buy a beer.  Spain's tapas sole purpose is to accompany your alcohol and all of Taiwan's 小吃 would sit perfectly next to a cold beer.  We spent at least an hour hunting down a pint at FengJia Night Market until we eventually found a stall with two proper pub style beer taps.  Glorious! What came out of those beer taps? Tea... tea!? Not even long island ice tea.  Plain, old, regular tea. Oh the disappointment!

Other than food, probably the best thing we bought was an "Easy Card" for the Metro.  Not only was it easy to get around Taipei but we get to use it in Kaosiung too!  After a full day of Taipei we woke up early the next day and got on a train to visit Taroko Gorge.  With lush greenery, mountain cliff views and easy access paths we very happily spent the day here.  The help desk told us everything that we needed to know at the start; what sites to visit in our time frame; which buses to catch and even where to eat lunch.  After a day of rambling we slept on the train ride back and felt that we had a very successful day.  It's an early start to do it all from Taipei but it was very easy and we didn't feel rushed.  Being back in Taipei also meant that we could have a lush foot massage after a day of hiking. Winner!

The following day we went to the station and bought all the train tickets required for our trip.  That is a single to Taichung, a single from Taichung to KaoSiung and finally a single from KaoSiung all the way back to Taipei.  In total, on the fast train which is substantially quicker, it cost us just under £75 each.  TaiChung has a few draws but mainly for being the birth place of the incredibly tasty bubble tea.  If you have not heard of bubble tea it is a sweat milky tea with giant tapioca balls that you slurp up through an extra thick straw.  Living in China I have drunk many bubble teas but I did not expect it to be so different here.  Every corner in TaiChung has a bubble tea store but we decided to take the store with the queue.  This particular store has several outlets and it's the brown sugar bubble tea that will change your world.  Bubble tea aside, TaiChung itself is worth the visit as it is the nearest city to the popular Sun Moon Lake and even better it is home to the largest night market in Taiwan - FangJia Night Market!  Though this was where we spent an hour trying to find beer and ended up finding tea; a pint of delicious papaya milk almost filled the void.  We decided to do a bike ride on the "Houfeng Bikeway" that I had read about and we thought it was a brilliant afternoon activity.  We rented bikes for cheap and cycled over 20km on bike only paths through parks and gardens stopping at points of interest indicated on our little map provided by the old man that hired his bikes to us.

We took a public bus (paid for on our easy card!) to Sun Moon Lake for another bike ride (above) but all in all felt that it was a little underwhelming.  It is a big lake and we had a nice day out but I arrived thinking that it would be a highlight of the trip but so many other things outshone.  The most unexpected highlight of TaiChung was probably the little Rainbow Village we visited on the way to the fast train train station before heading to KaoSiung.  The story behind the Rainbow Grandpa and why he decided to start painting these houses is so sweet and he was even there with paint on his hands after his morning paint session.  Sun Moon Lake was nice and all, but I'd make Rainbow Grandpa my priority!  Him and a slurp of brown sugar bubble tea.

台湾人很亲切

Sunday, 8 April

We're using the fast train which is a little more money but so convenient! From the top of Taiwan (Taipei) to the bottom (Kaohsiung) takes 90 minutes! This made it totally possible to see a good range of Taiwan in our short time.  Kaohsiung instantly feels more relaxed with a less busy city like culture.  People are sitting out on the street eating shaved ice desserts as the sun sets and the general hum of the city is of chatter and laughter over car engines and horns.  We arrived late afternoon and after checking in we walked to the port and took a ferry (again using our Easy Card!) over to Cijin Island to spend the evening.  It is such an easy excursion and whilst there you just hire a bike and roam around.  Or in our case hire the horribly bright love buggy with heart shape backrests because that was the one you got the best deal on you totally love your girlfriend that much.  We explored for a couple of hours driving to the important sites and seeking out the best places to eat.  We settled for a seafood feast at a busy looking restaurant where you pick your seafood from the iced up tables outside and tell them how you want it cooked.  Being able to speak a little Chinese definitely came in use here! 

With a belly stuffed full of fish and clams we were waddling towards the beach when we came across a dessert I had read about online - the ice cream spring roll (locally called Run Bing).  Ice cream wrapped in a pancake like wrap doesn't sound that interesting.  Add shavings of peanut brittle to the mix starts to make it sound a little more exciting.  Throw in a few sprigs of fresh coriander and you have gone from "a little exciting" to "what's wrong with you!?".  So that's ice cream (we had the choice of peanut, taro and vanilla flavours), peanut brittle shavings from the biggest block of peanut brittle I have ever seen and coriander leaves wrapped up in a thin pancake.  I was dubious but my god it tastes extraordinary!  It's not like Chili-Chocolate where people just agree that they taste good together in fear of being dubbed a food dunce; the coriander is genuinely what makes this dessert. It's sweet and creamy but with the most amazing, fresh, aromatic layer to it. 

Kaohsiung is just a very beautiful city.  We both agreed that we could happily live there.  We spent the best part of our day at Fo Guang Shan Temple which was an Easy Card coach ride away.  Like most travellers in Asia I feel pretty templed out but there were a few new offerings here.  It kind of has a Buddhist temple theme park feel to it.  Though if you go expecting theme park you will leave very disappointed!  We found ourselves watching a not so exhilarating Buddhist cartoon in 4D. Lots of taking your shoes off to enter rooms, walking around for a minute or two looking mildly interested in things before putting your shoes back on and doing it all over again in a different room.  The worlds tallest sitting Buddha took a good photo...  Like I said, if this was my first temple I would have probably been blown away.  We walked around Lotus Lake for the sunset and ate at the Rui Feng Night Market desperately trying to find one last ice cream burrito with no luck.

Like Japan, Taiwan has a very impressive food selection when it comes to trains.  A full meal conveniently packed to take on the train with you will set you back a couple of quid and it is like taking a delicious home cooked packed lunch.  Slightly different to your Ginsters pasty and a bag of cheese and onion crisps back in the UK.  90 minutes later we were back in a cold and strangely miserable looking Taipei.  Arriving in Taipei from Kaohsiung felt like returning from a lovely summers holiday.  

If I were ever to open a restaurant I would attach myself to a fish market or a butcher.  Fresh produce guaranteed every day and the specials board will be whatever fish/cut was going cheap at the end of the day.  Taiwan fish market has taken this idea one step further and opened an entire food court!  Addiction Aquatic Development is a genius idea and I just had to check it out.  The place has a wonderful buzz about it in the evening and after gawking at all the different stalls and beautiful seafood we settled for a sushi spot.  I loved it and would happily come back to try a different restaurant.

We did very well on the food front in our final days in Taiwan.  If Taiwan chose to have a second National Dish it would undoubtedly be braised pork over rice (lu rou fan).  Fatty belly pork cooked with whole boiled eggs is Taiwanese comfort food and we found a small place with a fast moving queue outside.  Being able to read Chinese came in use here as a small sheet of paper and a pen was thrusted into our hands and we were to tick the dishes we wanted.  No pictures, just Chinese writing.  A friendly local standing behind us spoke English and confirmed with us that we actually ticked what we wanted.  He also confirmed that without a doubt this was the place to eat Lu Rou Fan in Taipei. It was called "Tian Tian Li (天添利)" on HangZhong street and it truly did serve the best bowl of delicious melt in the mouth braised pork over rice.  Sweet, savoury and fatty it is certainly not something that you should eat every day but if I lived here it would be unbelievably difficult not to!  I washed this down with possible the most unusual juice I have ever imagined.  Taiwan like to juice a vegetable that just the name itself tells you it's absolutely not a good idea.  There is no masking the flavour of a bitter gourd but I had to do as the locals do!  Turns out that Taiwan prides itself in its farming and the bitter gourd with its surprisingly sugary, sweet flesh is one of their success stories.  Another food experience we had was shrimp fishing.  I had done this once before in Singapore but it was nice to introduce it to Becky.  We caught 9 in total and had them simply grilled with salt on site.  

Our last days in Taiwan were spent ticking off any final touristy spots like the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial and the impressive ceiling in the Formosa Boulevard Metro Station.  It has been a great week and fascinating to compare with mainland China.  Chatting to our masseuse we learnt the word "qinqie (亲切)" which she used to describe the Taiwanese.  Qinqie means caring and perfectly describes them.  Every Taiwanese person we had the pleasure of talking to did genuinely seem interested in what we had to say.  One night, 4 of us were drinking beers in a local bar and a young lady came and told us that the old gentleman sitting on the other table insisted he bought our drinks for us.  We tried to politely decline but he came over and just seemed so pleased to host us in his country.  He kept saying in mandarin "thank you for coming to Taiwan".  You just help yourself to beers in the fridge in this particular restaurant and the waiters count the number of empty bottles you have to calculate your bill and this lovely old man insisted that he took our bottles and put them on his table.  I feel like our time in Taiwan can be summed up in that one bar.  Time to look up some international schools in Taiwan...