END OF THE WORLD

I lied! One more thing. 

Can you spot me (you have to be quick!) I must say that even now that I see the finished product I don't really get the concept, way too highbrow for me. 

Now, finally here I come.

THE LAST SUPPER

Now, off to the airport!!

TAIPEI TIMES

This (rather unfortunately) is what first comes to mind when I reflect on what the past six months here have been like. My teacher kept harping on about how we just got a bad year, apparently it doesn't usually rain this much but....

Anyway, irrelevant now - here I come!

NATIONAL DISH OF TAIWAN

Same as Lanzhou actually, beef noodles.

Slow cooked beef (cheap cuts but if cooked right falls apart in your mouth), noodles, a little cabbage and spring onion in a beef stock broth. The ultimate beef noodle place to me has super tender cuts of meat, a really flavourful broth and a chewy noodle. A bad bowl can be totally inedible, a good one, the perfect thing to eat on a cold and rainy Taipei day. Needless to say, I've been eating them quite a lot lately!

Looking forward to that NZ summer (I hear it's waiting for me to arrive...)

HOMEWARD BOUND

I am leaving this fair city and coming home in 4 days and counting down...

I can't say that I'm sorry to leave, my bags are packed and I have already made a list of all the things I'm going to do once I'm home!

Very excited to be living somewhere new (Auckland), not so excited about the prospect of finding a job, I've been looking for a month so far to no avail... I think it may still be a few more months until something happens. Anyone have any ideas?

In the meantime I can busy myself with home decorating, cooking, reading, finding my way around Auckland etc, I don't think unemployment will be too too horrible :)

These last fews days will involve going to school (finishing my last pesky time card, I will not be missing those), eating froyo, vegetarian buffet, drinking green tea with milk (just discovered this weekend, weird but totally works) and generally counting down the hours...

See you soon!

CHEESY DELIGHT

I really am leaving Taiwan with a bang.

Tonight: a vegetarian pizza shop, with toppings such as "Ginger Superman" "Apple and Cinnamon" "Kimchi" alongside more classic options such as "Rosemary Potato" and "Cheese".

Not much indoor seating (one table that seats 6?) but a lot of customers, there is always a huddle of people standing on the street outside awaiting take-out and groups sitting in the park opposite eating these delicious cheesy wonders. The thing I like most? The size. Each the size of a modest dinner plate - the perfect serving. A good thing too as within 3 minutes walking distance are Froyo AND the cookie store and if you're in the mood for more savoury, those yummy potstickers.... It's a great area to just wander around, picking up snacks at your leisure (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.)

FRIDAY NIGHT FRY

It's been too long since this has happened!

Guo Tie, or potstickers, whatever you want to call them, are pretty delicious. Dumplings that are fried on the bottom, one of the many reasons why I got so fat in Shanghai and thus, not a regular feature in my current diet. Third time since I've been in Taiwan perhaps?

These particular specimens are pretty near perfect, golden brown, crunchy on the bottom but chewy on top, yummy pork filling. Plates and plates were going out of the kitchen, big plates. How do these little people stay so svelte when they eat this way?

THE COFFEE!!!!

It was awesome,  I can't believe I forgot to say this earlier! Rich and chocolaty, with condensed milk if you so desired. Iced or hot it was always divine.

BANH MI

I'm a big sandwich fan, so one of the things on my Vietnam to do list was of course, to sample Banh Mi. Crusty french baguette, pate, Vietnamese sausage, ham, cucumber and picked carrot and some mayonnaise.... it didn't happen until my last day (and I ate it at the airport no less!) but it was delicious.

A FINAL FAREWELL

We had our ups and downs, but by the end of our trip, the group had really bonded. I had initially had my doubts about doing a group trip (my Bamboo Sea experience being the only thing I had to compare it to and that was only 2 days!) We were a group of 10, half retired, and half young-ish so it turned out to be a good mix. It was nice to have company (the thought of going alone was one of the things that made me delay in buying a ticket) but I don't think I'd do it again unless I had a friend within the group and the destination was somewhere really intrepid.

After a few false goodbyes we ended up having a last meal together at an outdoor market. It was lovely, the food was superb, cheap and everyone was in great spirits.

FLOATING ON THE MEKONG

A little day trip from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon for short) to the Mekong Delta. I was disappointed by the water colour, but really what should I have expected? It was fun to weave through the trees on the junks and explore some of the islands.

WHITE ROSE

A Hoi An specialty, they were so delicate, with a tiny ball of pork perched on the top. I ordered it blindly, not really knowing what would come but they do really look like roses, gorgeous.

MANGO ROOMS

We had extra time in Hoi An due to overbooked flights to Ho Chi Minh City ("because of the Tet" of course). By our last day we'd basically done all there was to do and an unfortunate number of our group had various stomach upsets. As a consequence I spent the day wandering by myself and ended up splurging (relatively) on lunch at Mango Rooms, widely considered the best restauarant in Hoi An, I'm told that even Mick Jagger has eaten here.

I had a very enjoyable meal, the sun was shining, there was free wifi (I was so impressed throughout the trip that almost everywhere we went had wifi), and the food was awesome.

BEACH TRIP

It was great to hop on a bike after days of my physical activity being limited to hopping on and off a bus. A short 15 minutes later and I was at the beach. It was warm but not warm enough to get in the water (it is winter here afterall!) I contented myself with just looking.

BACK TO SCHOOL

Cooking class was one of the things I was most looking forward to given how everyone seems to rave about them after coming home from a Vietnam trip.

Our teacher was fabulous, I can't believe I didn't get a photo of her! Very talented, I was impressed not only by her kitchen time management skills (so efficient!) but also by her almost encyclopedic knowledge of english song lyrics, she did indeed make cooking very fun.

MY FIRST AUSTRALIA DAY

I was made an honorary Australian for a day. We celebrated with mango gin cocktails by the riverside, followed by lunch.

HOI AN

My favourite place by far, this charming old town was so much fun, helped of course by the huge improvement in weather. A bit touristy but I didn't care, it was just so damn pretty. Hoi An's claims to fame are great tailors, well preserved (or very well recreated) old streets, and lots of restaurants, there is also a beach a quick bike ride away. A few days here were definitely required after the sightseeing centric itinerary of the past few days.

TRAVEL DAY

I wasn't sad to be leaving Hue after several days of this, fine weather was after all one of the main things I was hoping to find in Vietnam! We started the 4 hour bus trip to Hoi An nice and early, though as always with a group (I soon found) this meant half an hour after we were scheduled to.

A HOME DINNER

In Hue we also had dinner in a local Vietnamese household. Their altar, just inside the doorway was spectacular, as was the food! The stand out for me was the pumpkin and peanut soup that tasted like pumpkin flavoured peanut sauce. I also love the heaping of fresh herbs on every plate.

ON THE BIKE

A different kind of bike then I'm used to!

A motorbike trip through the countryside outside of Hue. Good fun and the drivers were so skilled at navigating potholes etc without even having to put their feet down.

Highlight for me was a vegetarian lunch at a nunnery, so delicious! It was the first truly fresh meal I had had since arriving, previously being overwhelmed by fried things. Definite downside to travelling as a group: finding a restaurant that suits everyone.

SEEING THE SIGHTS

Hue was kind of drizzly and grey the whole time we were there, which I'm told is not unusual. There were lots of old things- citadels, pagodas, temples etc to be seen. To be perfectly honest when I'm alone this is normally the kind of thing I would skip but it was surprisingly ok. Having the guide (Khoa, who was with us the entire trip) talk about Vietnam's history (so many wars!!) made it quite educational. There was even a boat trip thrown in for good measure.

BANH KHOAI

We brought the new year in on an overnight train from Hanoi - Hue (well the others did, the train departed at 11pm and I was asleep by 11.15pm, I've definitely become a convert to long distance train travel.)

When we arrived in Hue late the next morning I was famished and at our first meal, ordered one of the Hue specialties. A crispy rice pancake with bean sprouts, prawns and pork. Yum.

NEW YEAR TREES

In order to properly celebrate Tet (Vietnamese lunar new year) every family needs one of these trees, and a blossom tree for their house.

The more fruit, the more good fortune and fertility the family will have in the new year. They varied in size, these were some of the larger ones, and people managed to balance them on the backs of their motorbikes, very skillful indeed.

HALONG BAY

Day one we left the madness of the city for an overnight boat trip in Halong Bay. The dock was crazy, so many tourists on so many boats! Out on the water it was better, the weather wasn't fantastically clear but it made it quite dramatic, the limestone rising out of the water surrounded in fog.