Italian Food in Taiwan (Siezeria)

We went to an Italian restaurant the other day in Taipei, Taiwan. We had tried to go eat there a few days previous, but got there just as they were closing for the night. We were so disappointed! We traveled back to the restaurant a few days later, dragging a few friends, because it had looked soooooo good. We didn't want people to miss out on this chance to eat delicious Italian food. We had been in Taiwan for about two weeks at this point and rice wasn't really cutting it anymore. Jon was going to get delicious pizza, and I was going to get delicious spaghetti with tomato sauce and tuna....we looked forward to it all day.

We placed our orders and waited anxiously for our meals to arrive. At this point we were all ridiculously hungry. I about ate my menu. (In hindsight, I wish I had.)

Liv's and my soup arrived first. The minestrone pictured in the menu had beans, noodles, big chunks of tomatoes..., what you would expect out of a minestrone soup. The "minestrone" we received was red water with tiny pieces of cabbage floating in it. It was approximately a half of inch deep in the bowl. At this point Liv knew exactly how the evening would end. I was much more naive.

My spaghetti with tuna arrived. People made fun of me for ordering this, but I love mixing a can of drained tuna in with my spaghetti sauce, just as people add browned hamburger to their sauce. (Tuna spaghetti is really good, trust me.) My spaghetti looked ok, if the sauce was a little sparse. I took a bite. They had poured the red water-soup over the noodles! The tuna was obviously the type of low-quality tuna that is made from the sweepings off the floor of the good tuna canning factory....then they mixed it with sawdust. They didn't drain the tuna either, the bottom of my plate had oil a fourth-inch deep. How did I know what the bottom of my plate looked like? Yes, I was THAT hungry. I scraped off the tuna, let the noodles drip as much as I could and ate about a cup of the pasta. Every single other person's meal was just as bad.

The pictures in the menu looked so good that Jon ordered five different things- the same minestrone soup, a seafood salad, garlic bread, shrimp rice casserole, and a pizza. He said they all tasted the same- like old bread and socks.

Andrew told us that his baked rice casserole was pretty bland, so he mixed it with his also-bland soup and then his meal tasted just plain.

Ugh.

Never get excited about non-Asian food in Asia!

Fortunes

This past week has been really enlightening in terms of my future. During a long train ride, we played the elementary school game of MASH and I learned that my future holds the following.

-I will marry Jon.
-I will be a teacher.
-I will die at 80 years old.
-I will live in Japan.
-My mode of transportation will be a buggy.
-My pet will be a stegosaurus.


A few days ago we went to a Taiwanese fortune teller. We told her our year, date, and time of birth. Then we had to change our time so that it matched the time in Taiwan. I found out that in my previous lives I was:

-A man who was a “playboy,”
-A businessman,
-A servant for the Emperor, and
-Some sort of half-god half-demon spirit.

My personality is that I am stubborn, I love to waste money, but it is easy for me to make more money, I have a good relationship with others, I am polite, I am the boss of my family, and if someone begs me for help, I will help him/her; however, if someone demands my help, I will NOT help him/her.

Also, in terms of Jon, I should,

-do good for him and
-satisfy him.

It turns out that in a past life I cheated on my girlfriends a lot (because I was a playboy), so now I am trying to make up for that by being mean as little as possible.


I prefer MASH, I think.

Hot Springs Rules

Ahhhh! I guess you can't read it very well. I will write a few of my favorite phrases.

"In forbid cameras. Soaking. Food. Running. Caper. Clamors and affects other people the behavior."

"Refuses to rub the body in the pond."

"Serious illness refuses into the pond, the young boy advanced age."

"In fobids soaking the foot."

Taiwan Typhoons

This weekend was supposed to be Taroko Gorge weekend.





However, because of this-




-our plans were canceled. We went to the store with every other citizen of Taipei to fight over bottled water and ramen noodles. We planned to stay inside and have a Typhoon party. Cases of beer were purchased. ..and then carried the twenty minute walk home. We waited for the Typhoon.


We fell asleep to an gentle rain and awoke the next morning prepared to wait out this storm. We went for a walk to relieve the boredom. When the typhoon got here, probably after lunch, it sure would be rough, and we wouldn't be able to go outside, so we better go for a walk now to prepare for being stuck inside for two days. The rain continued to splatter down....we went for another walk and planned to go to a pizza buffet for dinner.


We cursed the light-but constant-drizzle that was a Taiwan Typhoon. I went out for a moment to get a photo of the lame rain. At that moment a gale force wend swept up. It destroyed my umbrella and then went back into hiding.






Never mock the Typhoon!