13.07.2006 or "The most unproductive day"
Today I woke up and realised I have not as yet bought anything for myself to eat for breakfast and even If I were to prepare ahead, I would have to rethink the whole breakfast dynamic. You see to me, breakfast is two pieces of toast and a cup of tea. This combo has served me well for many years and is the perfect thing to fill the body with both bulky mass and caffeine. Here people dont buy toasters as we think of them, they have them in some stores but generally the only toaster you will find is a small front loading grill type contraption which is reminicent of the fisher price kids ovens which were all the rage when I was growing up. You are only going to get one slice of bread in there maximum and you are going to have to do some flipping half way through.
The next obstacle to the breakfast combo is the actual bread. Now, I dont know if anyone is like me but I almost never like to eat sweet things, sweet things always walk a tightrope with me, they can be ok in moderation but most of the time, especially when you arent expecting it, sweet= sickly. And baring in mind that mornings for me are the most unsettled stomach time of the day (hence the toast and tea) It is difficult to accept the fact that all bread in Taiwan is sweet. All of it, even regular sliced loaves, all have at least a sugary quality to them which to me lifts it right out of the savoury breakfast court and into the desert/ snack area which immediately disqualifies it from any place in the Toast/Tea combo breakfast.
Now tea is a similar story, aside from in Starbucks (and not all of them) it is almost impossible to find English breakfast tea anywhere. Two types of tea take precedant here, and this is quite complicated so I will break it down for you. First off you have your green tea (lu cha) which is either served hot, with meals, in winter etc, or cold, in the literally hundreds of tea shops you will find out in town. The cold green tea is mixed with everything under the sun. What I always buy from the 7/11 is passionfruit green tea which tastes a little bit like flat lilt. I used to drink one which contained green tea and Yakhult although not many places strike the balance right any more and it ends up with white globules of solidified milk which stick in your throat: not nice. Next up is the Milk Tea, now when I first came here I made the mistake of thinking Milk Tea was milk with tea (ha, what was I thinking), no It, like the above varieties of green tea are SWEET. And milk tea is the worst culprit because it is so sweet and creamy, its like drinking custard with added sugar. So in conclusion, not being a person who takes sugar in regular tea, I cannot find a drink which would substitute the role which English tea plays in my life back home.
So you know what Im going to do, switch to black coffee. And why black? Because people in Taiwan dont have a real use for milk and there fore it is never around and it is expensive to buy. So now, what do I eat, well going by my past experiences I have mostly skipped breakfast and waited until lunch comes around like I did today. Dont get me wrong, Taiwan has some of the best food you will ever find, but alas, no concept of the bland tasteless breakfast. I give up, if someone could just send me some Kingsmill in the post you would be doing me a massive favour.
This blog is so titled because just like the first half of yesterday I have done bugger all all day expept mope around and play on the internet. I watched Episode 88 of Bleach, the animation is really going down hill, I think that the makers, like me, are beginning to lose interest on acount of the filler. It makes sence, if you were forced to animate something which inceasingly dropped in value because you were not aloud to make the actually story, you would cut corners too. Inactivity definately leads to apathy as I am finding out at the moment, I cant wait for something to actually happen now. Im going to watch Infernal Affairs again later because A) Andy Lau is everywhere I look now, not only Urinals but clothes shops, drinks cartons, food packages. Something tells me I should watch one of his movies so that I dont begin to hate him B) We went to KTV last night and some people were singing the theme tune. The music video made it look like the best film in the world and since I saw it so long ago, I have all but forgoten what it is even about. So I shall partake in that, and watch Takeshis which has been sitting on my HD for about a week now and I have been too lazy to commit to it.
In other news, looks like the Typhoon here is picking up, it getting real windy and even though I still dont know what a Typhoon is, other people sound very ominous about it so I will just stay in side where nothing bothers me. Thats all from today, unless of course something remarkable happens in the next eight hours, allthough I doubt it today.
The next obstacle to the breakfast combo is the actual bread. Now, I dont know if anyone is like me but I almost never like to eat sweet things, sweet things always walk a tightrope with me, they can be ok in moderation but most of the time, especially when you arent expecting it, sweet= sickly. And baring in mind that mornings for me are the most unsettled stomach time of the day (hence the toast and tea) It is difficult to accept the fact that all bread in Taiwan is sweet. All of it, even regular sliced loaves, all have at least a sugary quality to them which to me lifts it right out of the savoury breakfast court and into the desert/ snack area which immediately disqualifies it from any place in the Toast/Tea combo breakfast.
Now tea is a similar story, aside from in Starbucks (and not all of them) it is almost impossible to find English breakfast tea anywhere. Two types of tea take precedant here, and this is quite complicated so I will break it down for you. First off you have your green tea (lu cha) which is either served hot, with meals, in winter etc, or cold, in the literally hundreds of tea shops you will find out in town. The cold green tea is mixed with everything under the sun. What I always buy from the 7/11 is passionfruit green tea which tastes a little bit like flat lilt. I used to drink one which contained green tea and Yakhult although not many places strike the balance right any more and it ends up with white globules of solidified milk which stick in your throat: not nice. Next up is the Milk Tea, now when I first came here I made the mistake of thinking Milk Tea was milk with tea (ha, what was I thinking), no It, like the above varieties of green tea are SWEET. And milk tea is the worst culprit because it is so sweet and creamy, its like drinking custard with added sugar. So in conclusion, not being a person who takes sugar in regular tea, I cannot find a drink which would substitute the role which English tea plays in my life back home.
So you know what Im going to do, switch to black coffee. And why black? Because people in Taiwan dont have a real use for milk and there fore it is never around and it is expensive to buy. So now, what do I eat, well going by my past experiences I have mostly skipped breakfast and waited until lunch comes around like I did today. Dont get me wrong, Taiwan has some of the best food you will ever find, but alas, no concept of the bland tasteless breakfast. I give up, if someone could just send me some Kingsmill in the post you would be doing me a massive favour.
This blog is so titled because just like the first half of yesterday I have done bugger all all day expept mope around and play on the internet. I watched Episode 88 of Bleach, the animation is really going down hill, I think that the makers, like me, are beginning to lose interest on acount of the filler. It makes sence, if you were forced to animate something which inceasingly dropped in value because you were not aloud to make the actually story, you would cut corners too. Inactivity definately leads to apathy as I am finding out at the moment, I cant wait for something to actually happen now. Im going to watch Infernal Affairs again later because A) Andy Lau is everywhere I look now, not only Urinals but clothes shops, drinks cartons, food packages. Something tells me I should watch one of his movies so that I dont begin to hate him B) We went to KTV last night and some people were singing the theme tune. The music video made it look like the best film in the world and since I saw it so long ago, I have all but forgoten what it is even about. So I shall partake in that, and watch Takeshis which has been sitting on my HD for about a week now and I have been too lazy to commit to it.
In other news, looks like the Typhoon here is picking up, it getting real windy and even though I still dont know what a Typhoon is, other people sound very ominous about it so I will just stay in side where nothing bothers me. Thats all from today, unless of course something remarkable happens in the next eight hours, allthough I doubt it today.
posted by Aaron | 10:46 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the educational (and comedy) tour around the important food groups of Taiwan. I'd totally send you some bread but who knows what state it would end up in by the time it reached you. Maybe theres a whole black market of kingsmill and teabags where you have to meet down a dark alley to pick up 'the goods'. You could always try to make your own bread - its pretty easy (never done it myself though) i'm sure the ingredients are out there.
Take it easy man
Post a Comment
<< Home