Onigiri - Japanese Snack Food

In Japan, and Japanese influenced-countries like Taiwan, you can get sandwiches at the ubiquitous Lawson Stations or 7-11's, BUT you are missing out on a treat if you just stick with the Western food. Try an onigiri for a light, healthy and very tasty treat. About the size of a baseball, the standard triangular onigiri you can get in convenience stores is also an incredibly well-designed feat of packaging.

The central rice "ball" has a small amount of filling: in this case, if I read my Chinese right, it's creamy shrimp(?) - please correct me if I'm wrong here. But the crispy nori wrapping goes soggy if it touches the rice. Several years ago, Japanese design engineers came up with a way to keep the nori on the outside separate from the rice by a two-layer packaging design. You pull the tab (top dead center of the triangle) out and around, splitting the package in two, then pull off the plastic wrapping from each of the other corners, and voila - crunchy nori wrapped around the riceball. It's like the magician's trick where he pulls the tablecloth off the table and leaves the crockery intact.

Try two different flavors and a drink and you've got a great lunch for around USD$5.

Safe travels! Des

Taoist Temple: Hsinchu, Taiwan

Right behind the inglorious bulk of the Ambassador Hotel, Hsinchu is this gaudy but beautiful Taoist Temple. I'm sure there must be a lot of them around, but this is the only one I can recall ever seeing. It's in use (you can see the lady in the shadows burning incense).

I got back from the long walk (about 3 hours) dripping with sweat and mildly subburned. At dinner that night, my colleague Tommy asked if I'd stayed in the hotel all day. No: why? "It was the hottest day in 40years in Hsinchu: 39.4C". That's 103degF: no wonder I stopped at every 7-11 on the way to drink Kirin Afternoon Tea! [Note that Kirin Afternoon Tea is the official tea drink of the Joys of Travel Blog until someone pays me to say otherwise].

Safe Travels! Des

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Finally, 30hours after starting off down the road, I got to my hotel room in Hsinchu and managed to get a good 4-5hours solid sleep, which is not bad. Up at 5: a little B2B blogging and email, then out into the heat of the day at around 8am...

One of the eponymous "joys of travel" in foreign countries is that every step can bring you a new experience, even after 20 or so years of global travel. Just stepping out of the hotel, there was clearly some kind of wedding car thing going on... but what was the box in front of the bride's car? Pop! Bang! Yup: Chinese celebrations mean fireworks.

Only mad dogs, this sweaty Englishman and 1,000's of Tawanese people were out in the noon day heat. It was 37C at 11:00am (for those of you used to the Fahrenheit scale, this equates to "Sweet Jesus, that's hot!"). Scooters everywhere; and tucked away behind the huge Ambassador Hotel was the Dayglo austentatiousness of a lovely Taoist Temple, which will feature in my next posting.

Safe travels! Des

Welcome

Risking the solipsistic intro that will alienate many readers, I'll start by telling you a bit about me, so that you know that I am speaking from years of experience. I work as Product Manager for an electronics materials company and have global responsibilities that take me all over the place. I get to Asia a lot, and mostly enjoy the food, and have a reputation for eating and enjoying things that others won't, although I don't eat beef or pork: if that makes any sense to you(?). I speak enough of several different languages to get by almost anywhere, and generally find that wherever I go: 90% of the people are friendly and helpful, and 10% are idiots, independent of race, creed, culture or economic status.

I also try (as far as possible) to "fit in", as far as a blond 5'10" Westerner can, with the local culture. For example: the Taiwanese have the Japanese fear of disease, so when I got a cold while traveling in Kaoshiung two years back, I wore a mask (see picture) to prevent contaminating my customers. Whatever works! In the background that's the Taiwanese high-speed rail (THSR) that is the Taiwanese version of the Shinkansen (bullet train) that used to run only from Taipei (in the North) down to Kaoshiung, and I understand now actually runs to Zuoying.