Seen Around Taipei

Just a few random photos which have nothing to do with each other...

I have debated posting this picture. At first I thought it was funny, but the more I look at it the more it seems kind of gross and even potentially offensive. To explain: I was at the fabric market with a friend who was having some tablecloths sewn from fabric she purchased. One floor above "fabric heaven" is an entire floor of seamstresses (men and women - what do you call a MAN who sews? Seamstress seems a feminine title.) While my friend worked out the details of her project I wandered around and came upon this area full of discarded mannequins. I have decided to put the picture here (obviously!) and see what people think. If it is distasteful I will remove it - just let me know.

Eric and Ethan praying at McDonald's. I like the McDonald's sign with the flower behind them, and I really like that I captured father and son praying in public.

I took this picture at my new favorite restaurant, Smith & Hsu. When you sit down the waitress sets a tray with jars of tea leaves on your table. Each jar is labeled with the name of the tea and its corresponding number from the menu. There were at least 30 types of tea. I chose Chocolate Mint Tea and let me just say, I am in love! I want to go back every day. I could have purchased some of the tea to take home but I am not confident in my ability to brew it correctly so, for now, I will have to be content to get to Smith & Hsu whenever I can. Of course, this picture does not show tea, does it? This is the tea set which my friends and I purchased to enjoy with our tea. I must tell you that both of the ladies I was with that day were pregnant so I let them have first choice of the goodies. There were sandwiches (those I tasted were excellent) desserts (I didn't try those - can you believe it?) and scones. From my experience in the States scones were something I avoided as much as tea. Scones were so dry and tasteless that I could not imagine why anyone bothered. At Smith & Hsu I found out why people "bother" with scones! They were not dry and they were not tasteless. They were accompanied by jams and things. Actually I believe we had some choice regarding the jams, but I again left the choices to the pregnant ladies. I tried a raspberry jam which was very good, some clotted cream (which I liked) and something that had a hint of lemon in it and was wonderful. Sounds weird with chocolate mint tea I suppose but it seemed perfectly wonderful at the time.

Speaking of tea, I saw this shop while walking the other day and thought it was funny. "Could I have my tea baked, please?"

And finally, a VERY random photo. As we were driving home the other night I thought how strange this section of road would look to my friends in America. It is not a tunnel, it is the bottom level of a two-level road. It is quite typical here.

By the way, these pictures were all taken on my camera phone. I remember a few years ago questioning "WHY would you want/need a camera built into your phone?" It does come in handy when I don't want to lug my big camera (which I LOVE) around.

P.S. I'm posting this entry from my iPad. Blogging from the iPad is a miserable and tedious experience. Spell check.. well it would bore you if I tried to explain it's limitations here. My point is: if there are typos here I am UNABLE to find them with spell check and as it is now 2:55 a.m. I no longer care if there are typos!!!!!