9/11/10 Random Photos #15

360 degrees at the top of He Huan Mountain



Gaiman should be humbled



"Poisonous Bees"



Asparagus juice?  Are you kidding?



Not looking forward to the experiment

It doesn't smell promising

3, 2, 1...Go!

The asparagus juice experiment goes horribly wrong

9/11/10 Microbrews: Not always better

After dinner we met up with some friends at a local microbrew pub called “Beer City Bar”.  Space wasn’t too thrilled with the location since it was everything he despised and the beer didn’t make up for it.  The beer came in four different styles: dark, light, lighter and green.  The latter was brewed with some type of sea kelp.  Oddly enough, the three that I tried tasted exactly the same: in a word…horrible.  “Fuck! It’s just beer.” I thought to myself.  “How can you screw it up so badly?”

High expectations before I tried it

The beer tasted like chlorophyll gum and all three of them had what the French would describe as a “bouquet de merde”.  I closed my eyes and dreamed of a band of angry Belgians (Do Belgians get angry?) storming into the place and turning shit upside down leaving with the parting threat of “don’t ever try this again unless you figure out how to do it right!”  Space, as my go-to history guy, confirms that on the whole Belgians have not historically been prone to anger; except for King Leopold who would have fucked up beer city bar like he fucked up the Congo.

Seriously, I would have rather consumed a Molson stock Ale that had been left out in the sun for a week.  But the horror didn’t end there and the “Philosophy of Yes” turned on me.  “Do you want to be in a drinking contest?” Asked Space.

“What kind of drinking contest: speed or endurance?” I replied

Space repeated the question.  “Do you want to be in a drinking contest?”  He knew that I was powerless to respond in the negative.  The “Philosophy” had me in its grip.  Mercifully, it was a speed contest; I don’t think I could have handled endurance with the lingering light headedness that I was still feeling from He Huan.

The ladies' contest

Lois, please note the use of glasses thus rendering this a high class event

So there I sat, woefully unprepared and beyond my prime chugging days (I’d actually never had any) with a group of guys who had clearly done this before.  Punishment for the loser was singing in the street in front of the bar, so at the very worst I would lose my pride, get a free beer (which in this case was worth exactly what I paid for it) and sing in the street (something I do anyways).

They handed out straws to even the playing field and deliver the “poison” more directly.  The race was on and didn’t last long, but more importantly, I didn’t lose.  Even more important than that is I didn’t barf.  There were two explanations for my poor performance:

1.      I still felt like I had a piece of glass in my throat.  I hadn’t sought medical attention because it hadn’t killed me yet and I was on vacation so there was no time to waste with hospitals.

2.      We drank beer out of a glass which meant that I couldn’t put a “flow divot” in the can.  The divot is a concept introduced to me by another university friend named Hubcaps, Hubs for short.  He has insisted for years that by making a precisely placed dent near the mouth of a beer can, both the flow rate and taste of the beer are dramatically improved.  He claims the impact of this technique has been proven by fluid dynamicists at MIT but I have yet to find their conclusions published in any reputable peer reviewed journal.

At the table with the pros

 

The guys told me that with a few tweaks to my technique and better straw placement, I too could be a beer glutton.  Oh, to have aspirations!

9/11/10 Feed Me: An Aboriginal Dinner

Taiwan had offered me the “Philosophy of Yes” and at a restaurant specializing in food from the islands aboriginals I offered the “feed me” approach to dining.  The approach dictates that when you are in unfamiliar surrounding and visiting a restaurant that you will likely never visit again one should speak with the staff and ask them to feed you.  More often than not a good chef will be thrilled to be presented with such an opportunity.  Iris managed to negotiate a “feed me” arrangement and soon our table was flooded with plates of unique food, much of it hand picked by the owners.

The rundown:

Sweet potato salad – Sweet potato and wild passion fruit.  I’ve never tasted anything like it and wish I could recreate it.  I’ll try, but the scarcity of wild passion fruit in Canada might make it difficult.

Seaweed salad – 3 different types of seaweed, in the best version I’ve tasted.  Even better than the coriander laced one I ate with Jacob a couple of days ago.  Eaten with eyes closed, it would instantly remind you of the ocean.

Wild boar skin – Tasty, but only because of the sauce.  It would take one hell of a refined palate to distinguish between this and pig skin that you could get in any market.

Bacon fried rice – plumper grains than what is typically offered here; reminded me of a dry version of risotto.  Delicious and perfect to cut the heat of the whole chili pepper that I ate but shouldn’t have.

Sliced pork belly – Served cold with sliced radishes and wild versions of a bitter gourd (Wow! That’s bitter!), leek and passion fruit.  A simple preparation that Space wanted more of.

Boar meatballs – cooked to perfection with a rare centre.  Served on a bed of eggplant (I call it the vile weed – one of the only things that can’t eat but am forced to - my relatives insist that I don’t like it because I haven’t eaten it the way they make it) and fern leaves.

Passing cat – no, not a cat in the throws of death.  Passing cat is a wild green vegetable that looks like a cross between arugula and rapini.  Kind of slimy, but that may have due to the way it was cooked; nutty taste with bite.  I finished the plate even though Iris is the vegetarian of the group.

Bamboo shoot soup – simple with a faint taste…I could take it or leave it.

Fried fish – I have no idea what type of fish it was, but they were smaller than my hand and thin as a pancake.  I ate it whole, face and all which prompted Space to start singing “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes, a so for which I happen to know all the lyrics… so I helped him out “Ask a fish head anything you want to, they wont answer, they can’t talk.”  It was served on a bed of battered squash slices.  More please.  Iris, who claims to not like squash, finished them off.

"Roly poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappucino in
Italian restaurants with oriental womennnnn... yeah!"

Vegetable platter – predictably slimy okra, long beans, impossibly bitter bamboo shoots, and some unidentified boiled gourd that I didn’t get to try.

We finished it all of with yellow watermelon and some more wild passion fruit.

Space declared it to be the best meal that he’d ever had in Hualien.  While not as impressed as Space, I appreciated what the chef had done, and even with a less than perfect meal, it’s the company that matters most.

9/11/10 Random videos #2

Musical garbage collection II

He Huan Descent - Visibility's gonna be nil

He Huan Descent - 360 Degree View

He Huan Mountain Descent

9/11/10 Pain…and off in the distance, pleasure

Space’s wake-up call in the morning was like the devil screaming at me while being jabbed with flaming pitchforks.  Last night had gone on a bit too long considering our planned early departure time.  The last gin and tonic which seemed like a good idea at the time was a big mistake.  But irresponsibility has its side benefits; if we hadn’t stayed out that late I wouldn’t have had a chance to take pictures of pigs being butchered in the night market and those two guys wouldn’t have been able to laugh with their families about the drunken guy taking photos of them butchering pigs.

When you’re running on empty, four hours sleep simply doesn’t cut it, but our destination was promising: He Huan Mountain, the highest point in Taroko National Park.  The plan was to drive up as high as we could and then hike to the summit.  An early departure would help us avoid the weekend traffic which could get intense.

We were almost out of the city when Space noticed that we were low on gas.  “We’ll fill up at the station right before Taroko” he said.  Famous last words.  Predictably, the station he had in mind was closed.  Hmmm, what to do?  The decision was to press on and fill up at a station mid-way up the mountain.  We had a third of a tank which should be enough.

As the Brits say: "Keep calm and carry on"

It seemed a shame to blast through the beauty of the gorge without stopping here and there to take in the scenery, but Space was adamant: no stops except for gas until we reached the top.  It was a long haul up the mountain roads and amid the beauty of our surroundings there was unspoken nervousness and worry.  The idiot light had illuminated on the dashboard as if to say “You’re fucked if you run out of gas on this mountain.”

We had climbed to an altitude where the air was cool and dry.  From the first crack of the window I heard it, a screeching noise that was our constant companion.  At first I thought there was something wrong with the car, but the sound didn’t change with our speed.  Twenty minutes later it was still there, surrounding us like the cosmic background radiation that surrounds the universe.  We took a quick bathroom break at a rest stop in the mountain that had a sign saying “Do Not Linger”.  Kind of like a rest stop with a sign that says “Leave Now!”  Upon hearing the screeching sound out in the open, Space declared it to be the mating call of the “Screeching Mountain Eel of Formosa” an often heard but rarely observed species.  A second possibility is that the screeching was from the flying insects that were all around us, but the Mountain Eel seemed to be the more logical and obvious source.

Screeching mountain eels of Formosa - video

The unenforced rules... lots of them.

A little further up the mountain we breathed a collective sigh of relief when we finally found the gas station.  As it turns out, the idiot light was more like a nagging mother than a real indication of danger, a nagging mother who constantly tells you to “be careful” about absolutely everything.  We still had 13 litres of fuel left.

On a table outside the gas station, bottles of the dreaded mijo were lined up.  They had a campy label with two guys in suits giving the “thumbs up”.  I was surprised to learn that the men were the President of Taiwan and another high profile politician.  I repeat, the President and his sidekick appear on the side of a bottle of alcohol giving the “thumbs up”.  Yet another Taiwanese “What The Fuck” moment.  Try as I might, I couldn’t picture Stephen Harper on the side of bottle of Alberta Premium Rye.

Alcoholism...two thumbs up!

As we continued to drive up the mountains there was a rapid change in scenery.  The tropical plants thinned out and were replaced by pine trees.  If you just looked at the trees you could easily think that you were in Canada.  The screeching insects had disappeared as well, perhaps due to the noticeably colder air.  3.5 hours after leaving the house, we reached our destination at the top of He Huan Mountain.  I stepped out of the car and put on a long shirt.  Even though it was cool the heat of the sun could be felt strongly because of the lack of clouds…we were above most of them.

At one of the scenic overviews we saw a guy playing his guitar…poorly.  “Oh Shit!” said Space.  “No matter where you go there’s gotta be a Jack fuckin’ Johnson trying to pick up chicks with his guitar.”

“More like Jerk Johnson” I said.  In this impressive setting, wouldn’t it have been great if people could just stand back and take it all in.  Amazingly, there were no vendors selling useless crap, and not a gift shop in sight.  We made a hasty retreat and began hiking up a trail to the summit which was about another 400 metres up the along a rocky crest.  The sign read: “No Entry… The trail is precipitous in places and dangerous”, but we ignored since the rules were rarely enforced anywhere in the country and if we fell and died, it wouldn’t matter anyways.

There were very few people on the trail; Space and I looked like renegades because we lacked the serious hiking equipment that everyone else seemed to be wearing.  T-shirts and shorts?  Where are your hiking poles?  Your knee pads?  Your hiking boots?  You westerners are nuts!

The air was thin and such a seemingly easy climb became very difficult.  I began to breathe heavily and feel slightly light headed. I knew that I had put on weight since my arrival, but I didn’t think that I had turned into a fat guy.  The sensation of walking along the ridge was strange.  Your sense of perspective plays with you: the ridge underneath your feet passes by as quickly as you walk while the distant scenery doesn’t move at all.  If I could bottle this sensation, I’d be a millionaire.

We reached the summit a short while later, a total height of 3416 metres.  We had passed by many people on the trail during our climb and we had the summit all to ourselves in complete peace and quiet for a while, just is and the sound of the wind.  The tourist traffic was far below and just like good children could be seen and not heard.  We didn’t linger long.  I could have stayed all day and taken it in, but thick clouds were beginning to roll in and getting down the mountain would be painfully slow if it started to rain.

I hadn’t descended more than 100 metres when I heard the menacing sounds of Taiwanese pop blasting at full volume from a guys hand held radio.  Up here?  He couldn’t be serious.  What the fuck is wrong with people!

Taiwanese Pop on He Huan Mountain

The clouds began to roll over me as I made my descent; the only other time I had been similarly enveloped in clouds I was in a tube with wings typically referred to as a plane.

The mountain had blown my mind in the most profound way.  It’s hard to describe and I don’t think that what I felt would necessarily be felt by others in the same situation.  I can picture someone climbing to the top, taking a photo with a disposable camera “click…zip, zip, zip, zip” and then leaving; the only purpose of their visit being to say “He Huan…been there.  With all that I took from this, the other approach can only be described as a shame.