DUMPLINGS!
― permanent response lopp (harbl), Saturday, 29 August 2009 02:59 (fourteen years ago) link
LOL
Bubble tea is still the best inside of Taiwan. get one of those giant chicken breasts they pound out and fry. also the Chinese hotdogs. not sure why you would find the best shanghainese DUMPLINGS! and hong kong milk tea in Taipei though!
it's kind of a sprawling city (what Chinese city isn't?) so think about getting a motor scooter like the locals! and a fashionable surgical mask, maybe one with a skull and crossbones on it.
stay away from betel nuts! they taste awful and the buzz is worthless.
― tony dayo (dyao), Saturday, 29 August 2009 05:41 (fourteen years ago) link
hmm maybe Steve is talking about Din Tai Fung. but they have branches all over Asia! maybe they're better in Taiwan.
― tony dayo (dyao), Saturday, 29 August 2009 05:48 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.dintaifungusa.com/en/en_story01.html
― *⁂((✪⥎✪))⁂* (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 29 August 2009 15:39 (fourteen years ago) link
night markets and cheap used scooters both contributed to my decision more than i should probably admit. i'm going there to teach 12 yr olds and adults. had offers from this place, indonesia, moscow and shanghai, but this one just felt the best, and had everything i was looking for (good rep, decent pay, scooters, DUMPLINGS!).
can NOT wait to get there. the fact that it was a snap decision means that it hasnt become this thing that i talk about all summer and eventually get used to. possible negative is that im not fully prepared for the mind-breaking culture/language barrier im about to throw myself at, but it should be okay. the other teachers ive talked to at the school seem alright. anyways, very excited. going to hong kong (brb) the weekend of oct 3rd if anyone's there or has suggestions.
― rent, Monday, 31 August 2009 15:04 (fourteen years ago) link
btw i should say -- thanks for the tips, and for further stoking my excitement.
― rent, Monday, 31 August 2009 16:58 (fourteen years ago) link
well hey, stoked 4 u
i had friends that taught is Taipei and also did film work. they loved the city and i did too when they showed me around.
i also spent some time in Kaishoung and (temple time) Tinian. neither are as interesting as Taipei of course but there's some stuff. i think it'd be really fun to get to know the whole island, take a road trip down the east coast etc
― jergins, Monday, 31 August 2009 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
great for you! I'm in HK right now, so if you need any recs for what to do or have something you wanna find, drop me a line and I'll look into it
― tony dayo (dyao), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:55 (fourteen years ago) link
hey thanks, dyao. i might take you up on that. that's great.
i'm gonna check out as much i can, no doubt, though i hear highway scootering is not for the uninitiated. i guess the mountains are pretty nice too. jergins do you remember what areas of taipei you hung out in?
― rent, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 04:35 (fourteen years ago) link
― rent, Sunday, 20 September 2009 07:35 (fourteen years ago) link
yeqaaaaaa!!!!! just saw the request. you probably know the town better than i do now
― jergins, Sunday, 20 September 2009 07:45 (fourteen years ago) link
figuring it all out, yeah. doing a lot pointing at things. everyone here has so far been extremely kind and helpful. and the food...good lord. ive just been ordering stuff randomly since i got here and im at probably at about a 90% success rate in terms of dishes that i could happily live off for weeks at a time. also enjoying figuring out the traffic & and hoping to graduate from my bike to a scooter as soon as i get the cash together. so far, though, i gotta say im kind of loving taiwan, and i still haven't really left the urban sprawl of my little hub.
― rent, Sunday, 20 September 2009 14:02 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1517307/three-killed-taiwan-subway-stabbing-spree
I'm in Taipei right now and took the subway 4 times today :\
― 龜, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 15:28 (ten years ago) link
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/04/asia/taiwan-plane-crash-transasia/index.html
Jesus
― 龜, Wednesday, 4 February 2015 17:45 (nine years ago) link
That taxi that gets clipped by the wing, it's a miracle the driver just has minor head injuries.
― xelab, Wednesday, 4 February 2015 17:51 (nine years ago) link
Video in link is pretty intense btw
― 龜, Wednesday, 4 February 2015 17:56 (nine years ago) link
it's been a very bad week for unsettling/horrifying accidents and other acts of violence.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 4 February 2015 18:08 (nine years ago) link
at least the ones that appear in the news
i think i need to step away from mass media for a while
prayers for more survivors
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 4 February 2015 18:09 (nine years ago) link
going back in a couple of months, i don't know if ilxors care but eh
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 06:37 (six years ago) link
The DUMPLINGS! in Taiwan are far superior to all other DUMPLINGS!.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 January 2018 07:36 (six years ago) link
I am half dumpling. (taiwanese).
oh cool!otm re the dumpilngs, they are incredible in taiwan
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 07:37 (six years ago) link
I haven't been back since my early 20s. My mom doesn't like to go back because everything is automated now and she is just not having that.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 January 2018 07:39 (six years ago) link
okay i don’t quite understand that
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:01 (six years ago) link
sure you can buy a drink with your train pass but
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:02 (six years ago) link
how're yr traditional characters, AA? been listening to a bunch of taiwanese bands who play/tour on a japan-taiwan-xiamen-guangzhou-hong kong circuit.
(been slacking on my chinese so a bit embarrassed to post in the relevant ILx threads plus now I'm back on twitter I feel vaguely engaged by liking dylannn's tweets, heh)
― etc, Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:09 (six years ago) link
my trad chars are exploding, mainly because i’ve spent at least the past six months chatting almost exclusively to people in taiwan and forcing myself to use the trad keyboard. it’s sticking. this will be my fourth time in taiwan, and i can’t wait to see how much easier it is to just read all the stuff that baffled me in 2014.if you feel your chinese is waning, keep up something on a regular basis. watch youtube videos, listen to podcasts, anything to keep it moving. that’s what i did in my horror year (2016–2017) and it paid off enormously.
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:16 (six years ago) link
My mom is super old school. She won't even use a computer. So she gets stressed out about having to use a machine to buy tickets, etc.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:25 (six years ago) link
ohhh, yeah that would be stressful if you don’t want to learn how to do a load of things that were once done for you
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:28 (six years ago) link
i had planned to stay in taipei and meet a load of people, but (a) having realised most will just english at me the whole time and (b) one guy i haven’t even met was desperate to travel across the country just to meet me (despite me saying no a hundred times), i’m going off on my own. fuck it.definitely going to hualien because the earthquake has rendered the locals desperate for visitors/income and because the damage was relatively minor beyond those four buildings that fell down. enough of taroko’s open to make it worthwhile. also i’ll probably go back to kaohsiung for longer than a few hours this time. really loved it the first time round.
― reverse-periscoping (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 26 February 2018 05:56 (six years ago) link
tainan? i took a day trip up from kaohsiung and really liked the city
― alomar lines, Monday, 26 February 2018 06:10 (six years ago) link
i’ve spent time in tainan before, also getting around is a pain in the arse. not compelled to rush back there tbh.
― reverse-periscoping (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 26 February 2018 06:19 (six years ago) link
i’m in tianmu (failing to find a bluetooth keyboard) and have just eaten a deconstructed hamburger
― karl wallogina (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 2 April 2018 06:18 (six years ago) link
oh and hualien is all running as normal, apart from some completely unremarkable car parks where the damaged buildings used to be. everything i wanted to see in taroko is accessible. also i’m convinced there’s more soft jazz per capita than anywhere else in the world.
― karl wallogina (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 2 April 2018 06:22 (six years ago) link
i have no memory of tianmu or the deconstructed hamburger, but i did find a six storey building full of bluetooth keyboards
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 8 February 2019 21:38 (five years ago) link
i had planned to stay in taipei and meet a load of people, but (a) having realised most will just english at me the whole time
i’m going back soon (fifth time iirc) and would be open to a lot more englishing, since my chinese has gone backwards recently and i need a leg up to get back in.
towards the end of the above trip i ended up going to drinks with some people who spoke varying levels of english and played cards against humanity all night. it was fun. usually i put so much pressure on myself to achieve that i forget to just enjoy the place.
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 8 February 2019 21:47 (five years ago) link
this time i have put very little pressure on myself to achieve and as a consequence i have achieved. made an absolute pantsload of friends too. i love the hell out of this place.
― times 牛肉麵 (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 26 April 2019 04:06 (five years ago) link
Pig intestines flew in Taiwan legislature as fist fights broke out in bitter debate abt Taiwan gov decision to import US ractopamine pork which is banned in EU and mainland China pic.twitter.com/XVRd5OM6wG— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) November 27, 2020
I would religiously watch PMQ every week if it ever got this good
― calzino, Friday, 27 November 2020 11:33 (three years ago) link
I want to see similar resistance to that ghastly US chlorinated chicken in the UK as well. I want to see chicken guts getting thrown about like confetti!
― calzino, Friday, 27 November 2020 11:39 (three years ago) link
A Taiwan politics perspective
https://labourreview.org/labor-politics-in-taiwan/
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 13 January 2024 13:08 (four months ago) link