Showing posts with label yonghe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yonghe. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2013

All Things Weird & Wonderful: Fuhe Bridge Flea Market

DSC06306
The best way to display watches on your arms is to do it with a seashell
up your butt.


DSC06287


The best post on flea markets in Taipei has already been written, so I won't make this much of an informational post. The information is already out there.

Instead, I'll post a few pictures and write up my own experience at Fuhe Bridge Flea Market, which I went to on Saturday morning with my friend June.

To get to Fuhe Market, you can take a free shuttle from MRT Dingxi, but it's super slow and doesn't come often. I'd say just take a cab to the Yonghe side of Fuhe Bridge and follow people as they walk toward the river (it's next to the riverside park).

DSC06309

We decided to check out Fuhe Bridge Flea Market, figuring that if we liked that one, Chongxin Flea Market could be our next stop. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, although I have my eyes out generally for a few coveted items:

1.) A real wood folding table, preferably vintage, that folds up almost completely (about 20cm is all I can spare when it's folded completely) in a medium-color wood (not too dark or blond) without too much heavy lacquer or varnish

2.) Vintage Taiwan Beer drinking glasses - the small kind you get in the 100-kuai stir fry restaurants. I have a pair of new ones, but I would love some vintage ones

3.) A bigger Yixing teapot - I have two tiny ones. I saw a lot of good contenders and may go back for one.
4.) A vintage ceramic plate bearing the stylized character (often looks like one of these)

5.) Cool beaded things of not-high value or production quality I can take apart and turn into my own jewelry items

6.) And I'm pretty much always on board with vintage scarves, jewelry and purses

Someday, someday, I might also come across the right size and weight of carved Chinese wooden door panels/screens in a style and wood I like, to have installed on either side of our Japanese tea room. Not holding my breath for those, though.

DSC06307

While I didn't see those specific items at Fuhe Market, we did come across a lot of cool items. Not just secondhand appliances and electronics (although there were plenty of those, including some electronics you could unironically call "vintage"), but also interesting antiques, like the kind you might find at Treasure Hunt or in the Jianguo Weekend Market.

Treasure Hunt, while fantastic and well-curated, tends to be expensive, and Jianguo Weekend Market tends to be full of fakes - if you want a vintage item to decorate your home, I'd say you're better off here. The people who shop here seem to mostly be old thrifty folks and people buying to resell. They won't be fooled by fakes. You can bargain - June says "anything over NT300 is fair game for bargaining".

I picked up one not-too-vintage Art Deco style purse (looks like something Jordan might've carried in the latest Great Gatsby film) for NT150 and didn't bother bargaining because it seemed like a great price.


DSC06305
And you can get your hair cut. No joke.




DSC06303


You can also find vintage items that are totally cool, but aren't found in antique stores. Clothing, sometimes (really inspect every item you are interested in before making an offer), old signs, old Datong fans that apparently still work, vintage and secondhand musical instruments (for the Western ones, don't look for great quality - most are student models).

DSC06291

Two things you can be sure of are these:

1.) If you've ever encountered a shoe thief in Taipei (one used to - and still might - target my building, which is why our shoe basket for any shoes that are actually worth anything is just inside our door, not outside of it), then your shoes probably wound up here or at the other flea market. Most - maybe not all, but most - shoes sold here are absolutely stolen. The vendors don't do the stealing, but also ask questions.

2.) If you've ever recycled any item that wasn't just an empty plastic bottle - be it an old clock, an old computer, an old chair or even an old phone - by giving it to one of the old ladies with a cart who hang out around garbage time, it almost certainly ends up here or at the other market.


DSC06293
Scary Discount Soldier Babies!














DSC06292

You can also find toys - some old, some vintage, some horrifying:

DSC06302
AAAAHHH!!!
DSC06300

I WANT THIS OLD DATONG FAN. It would totally match my guestroom and is just the right kind of vintage. I didn't feel like lugging it to my private class today, and I am definitely on a budget this month, but I saw many models of this fan at the market. If I can find one that works, I will certainly buy it, clean it up, and put it in our guest room (one wall is the same "Thai teal" color - it would look great).

DSC06301

I kinda like the one on the right, and I might go back for it or something like it, if I can justify buying yet another thing to hang on my wall (there's already quite a bit of wall decoration going on at our place).

DSC06299


...but maybe not the handcuffs.

DSC06298

...or the creepy forehead-eye book.

DSC06296

I did find cool beads, but didn't buy much as I plan to go back with a bigger spending budget soon (this month will see me paying for my Delta Module 1 and my one-on-one Chinese class). One guy sold vintage aboriginal beads that looked to mostly be the real deal.

DSC06295

This market is also popular with tea enthusiasts, who will come to buy good leaves, or participate in auctions for the best Yixing teapots. I don't think I will really consider myself local until I participate in one such auction and nab one such teapot. Soon, my precious. Sooooon....

DSC06289

You have to go early - 9am is a good time to show up - and in the summer, be ready - it's hot. Like asphalt and no shade hot. There is also a food market, and there are a few stands selling quick local meals (there's a breakfast place across the street from the walkway to the entrance, too). There are people selling cold drinks. I downed an entire iced sugarless tea in 20 minutes and was sweating so much I didn't even need to pee. And I did get a sunburn.

DSC06288

I also came home with some red lentils to make daal, and June bought a purse and a cute hat. We split a necklace made of beads that look like red and black dice, because we'll both use them.

DSC06286

DSC06294

So many cool plates, but no Long Life plate.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Beef Sashimi, Goose Liver Sushi and My Interesting Month. Plus Links.


BURN IT!

October has proven to be quite the interesting month - I've spent much of it shuttling between Taipei and Donggang for King Boat, one of my favorite festivals, eating some really ridiculously good food and generally making merry. Here's a recap:

Beef sashimi
                 
Last night we went out for beef sashimi at 無雙牛肉 in Yonghe, in a lane off Lehua Night Market (#24-1, Alley 6, Lane 111 Yonghe Road Sec. 1 - you have to enter the night market to get there). Although you can get it elsewhere, I'm sure, this was my first beef sashimi experience and I was pleased. The first plate we got was thawed, but served cold, and had a velvety mouthfeel. The second was more frozen - I preferred the first, but the slight crunch of ice with the second was also good. The chef is a real foodie and has lots of rules (sashimi before soup, don't harass, bother or disturb the boss, beef sashimi only on Wednesdays). Another good find there is the beef soup, which has a slightly cloudy but deeply flavored and textured, a real umami-bomb of broth.

Listen to the boss.
                                     

Another cool temple in Donggang
The week before that, I returned to 貍小路 (Tanuki Koji) on Anhe Road, one of my favorite Japanese-style restaurants (an izikaya, really), which happens to be very close to my apartment. Despite the price (you won't get out for less than NT$1000 per person unless you forgo sake, and why do that?), and the difficulty of getting seats, I absolutely love their food. The old Taipei Times review points to the potato, cheese and fish roe dish, beef sashimi and grilled fish as your best bets, along with sea urchin. The urchin is great and I always love the fish, but the beef sashimi is no longer available. My recommendations are the milkfish sushi, the stuffed chicken wings (stuffed with meat, fish roe and some red pepper for a hot aftertaste), the blanched tomato in sesame sauce and the sea urchin.

我很貴
And then there's the one thing you absolutely cannot miss: the goose liver sushi. It's lightly seared goose liver (not sure if it's foie gras or just goose liver, and I don't want to know) with a touch of a delicious sauce served as one-bite sushi. It seems like a large portion for one bite, but the goose liver melts in your mouth and creates an explosion of earth-shattering flavor. Unless you're a vegetarian, you absolutely have to try it. It will change your life. Just don't sit where I sat: I'm pretty sure they had to clean that cushion after my visit. It was that good.

Between these two memorable restaurant visits, I went to the boat burning that marks the end of King Boat festival. Not only is it an exhausting, but fascinating and in some ways transformative experience to stay up all night on a beach full of people and watch a life-size boat (and huge pile of ghost money) burn at dawn, it also makes for some really cool photos. I'll wrote another post on that later.


                    

                    

After the burning, we slept in and spent the rest of the day in Donggang - I'll write more about that later. What I'll note here is that we ran into an off-duty spirit medium the next evening - I thought he was doing some sort of ceremony around the still-burning remnants of the boat and ghost money, but no, he was taking photos.

And then he let us do this (in fact, it was his idea):

                       

                       

As you can see, I am way more comfortable as 濟公 the eccentric monk than Brendan is. Clearly I am a kindred spirit to Ji Gong (hah!), no matter how unflattering his robe is on me. An eccentric monk with a benevolent heart who enjoys meat and alcohol? Sign me up! Except for the monk part.

Part of the "South Taiwan, So Cool" Exhibit                    
Before heading down for the boat burning, I stopped for a few hours in Kaohsiung. This doesn't get its own post because the show is over, but Pier 2 was having a really interesting exhibit on products designed and made in southern Taiwan (South Taiwan, So Cool!). Some of it was graphic design, with a huge display of southern Taiwanese graphic design from the 19th century up until modern times, some was artsy design or traditional cottage industry stuff (think Hakka Blue, Meinong oilpaper umbrellas), some was manufacturing (think Kymco bikes), some was local goods (think baked goods).

                         



The entire exhibit was in Chinese, which was a shame - I can read but I'm slow, and I had to get to Donggang, so I only had the time to read a few plaques. Foreigners who can't read at all would be at a loss here, and yet I can imagine there are foreigners who are illiterate in Chinese but would be quite interested in something like this. Signage in English, even if it's kind of Chinglishy, would have been a good idea.

I also stopped at the Dome of Light just for fun - I love it and haven't been there in years - and got some famous Gong Cha lightly salted cream green tea (near MRT Yanchengpu). Now, I just found out that there's one right near my apartment on Tonghua Street, but at the time I didn't realize that and I thought it was all special. But I don't regret going all the way out there. That tea is GOOD!



Donggang's famous place for eatin' is Huaqiao harbor market (華僑市場), where I ate very well for those two weekends, ping-ponging between a guy with a truck that sells grill-your-own local fish, snails, cheap oysters (one serving is NT$100, three servings is massive) and handmade Taiwanese tempura (甜不辣) among other things...and Yu Nong (漁農), the best restaurant at the harbor in my opinion, which does a mean tuna belly and some fantastic fried fish balls.

In Donggang we enjoyed some good Vietnamese food, too - one of the best things about heading down there is enjoying the tasty and generally authentic Southeast Asian food available due to the large SE Asian communities in the area.

One small part of The Dome of Light
             
I also did what I would consider to be one of my best presentation seminars - I'd done great ones previously for some other clients, but this one really knocked it out of the park. We got a fantastic group of people from Moet Hennessy (the luxury conglomerate that also owns Glenmorangie, Ardbeg and other wine and spirit purveyors. I linked to Glenmorangie's Taiwan Facebook page because I heard a whole presentation about it the other day) who already had strong English and were very receptive to advanced-level skills, bonus lessons and tips, and feedback. It capped off with a 20-minute talk on whiskey tasting, delivered by a fantastic presenter. It went 10 minutes overtime (final presentations are meant to be ten minutes) but was so interesting that nobody bothered to stop him from talking.

It was much better than the time I did a similar seminar and got to hear a presentation about erectile dysfunction in obese Asian men at 9am on a Saturday in a hospital conference room. I'm happy that I now know a lot more about whiskey (which I was already a fan of, the peatier the better), but could stand to know a bit less about erectile dysfunction in obese Asian men.

Finally, I got my permanent resident certificate (woohoo!). They say the process is supposed to be quick. It's not, at least not for me. I started it in May and got the card in October.

Oh yes, and I met Jet Li.

                             

I'll leave you with some links - 

US isn't doing so well in gender equality (duh)

An honest discussion of the wage gap

Sexism in the skeptic/atheist community: the scandal continues. I'm a skeptic and an atheist but not a part of the community, and not interested in being a part of it. This is a part of the reason (also, I just don't like joining groups. Dunno, I'm weird like that).

A really good answer to guys who feel they've been "friend zoned" - either be her friend, or don't, but make that decision for you and don't blame her for her lack of interest (but do walk away if she strings you along with no clear answer)

Boosting the birth rate in Taiwan (which I personally don't think is necessary beyond attaining replacement level birth rates)

Is paying a new graduate in Taiwan NT$20,000 a month for a 25-day/month work week even remotely acceptable? I don't think so, but the government doesn't seem too concerned. They keep the minimum wage at about NT$17,000+/month and don't seem to be doing much to address the issue. I might write more on this later.

Even Nice Can Be Annoying - a good answer to why women get annoyed when men hit on them.

Mitt Romney Greets a Gay Veteran, Has His Ass Handed To Him - Mitt Romney would probably not say right to a gay person's face, or address the LGBT community, that he supports continued discrimination against them, that he believes it is right and legal to restrict their rights and block legislation seeking to end such discrimination. That it's OK to treat them as second-class citizens because his religious opinion is more important than their rights. (If he did do that I'd still think him vile and bigoted, of course, but at least I'd say he's got a pair of brass ones, no matter how misplaced his ideas). Had he known that veteran was gay he probably would have changed what he said - to what, exactly, I don't know. If you're not willing to say something to someone's face, or address a group head on with your views, it is a good sign that your views are terrible.

Same for a lot of Republican candidates and legislators talking about women's issues, by the way. I doubt Richard Mourdock would go up to a rape victim who was impregnated by her rapist, and tell her how to feel (specifically that she should feel the child is a 'gift from God' - a god she may not believe in), and that feeling any other way is unacceptable to him because for some reason his opinion matters.

I do think there is hope for the Taiwanese economy (these guys are my clients, by the way, so I'm kind of biased). There may not be hope for wage growth or sane working hours, but I don't believe Taiwan's economic prospects are so dire as many locals believe.

"I'm feminist and it's tradition in China? On keeping your last name" - a great blog post by Jocelyn. Only one quibble -  it's not longstanding tradition in China. It's a relatively recent change, and even now the husband's name + "tai tai" (太太), a la "Madame Chiang Kai-Shek" was the typical form of address for a woman - among others that all stressed the husband's name over any mention of the wife's. Even in Taiwan many of the older women still go by their husband's last name. In our apartment complex, plenty of articles in our local newsletter refer to women with two last names - theirs and their husband's. I wrote something quite different awhile back, on how it's normal in Taiwan not to change your name, but I did. 

I am, however, considering legally changing it back and just going by my married name socially, as other than my marriage certificate, that's what I do anyway.

And just a final interesting photo:

   

Monday, March 23, 2009

Lehua Night Market


It says "Beer and sausage - definitely good friends". I agree.


Yesterday we headed out to the city of Yonghe, a suburb of Taipei that's just brimming with class and sophistication -

(ahem)

- to check out Lehua Night Market, revered by my students as the best in the Taipei area.

While I disagree that it's the best in the area, I have to admit that as a night market it combines an exuberance of the sacred...

Hey, adorable kids with balloon hats are sacred!

...and the profane...

Look for the new James Bond film, Goldenbum, in a theater near you!

...that I find truly amusing.

And for Yonghe, famous for Yonghe Soy Milk, old waishengren from Sichuan and a fantastic Sichuanese restaurant, at least one organized crime racket known as the Zhu Lian, love hotels and the Museum of World Religion, I have to say it's pretty sizeable and pretty good. Worth a look if you are interested in exploring every nook and cranny that Taipei and surrounds has to offer.

Some photos, for the heck of it:

You know, I've eaten frog. It's not half bad. Rubbery, but flavorful and unique. Does not taste like chicken. This frog, however, looks horrific. Seriously, this is enough to make me go vegetarian. Poor little guy.


Incense burners and lights


Straight from Japan - the world's tiniest hot dog, in gummie form!


My sister, the starving college student, tries on clothes as she contemplates making extra money as a betel nut beauty.


Something about "Grandpa Brand" white pepper powder had me in giggles for...minutes.


Joseph and the amazing deep-fried oyster spinach pie. It was pretty good actually.