petrichor

Oh yes, the green and red line used to run straight through. I forgot it changes colour on the south side. Sounds like you have a busy few weeks ahead of you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay and manage to find some acceptable Western fare. My son used to eat nothing but steamed white rice at the kind of dinner you describe. I learned not to enquire too closely about what I was actually eating.

Yorkieabroad

An essential skill out here!

Last night some things arrived that looked like spring rolls. One bite revealed they were actually rolls of slabs of squid stuffed with what looked and felt like cream cheese, but had no flavor. Odd texture, but pretty innocuous. I'm not a squid fan, but I can eat it, so I finished. The kids asked what it was, I told a white lie "not sure - don't ask, just try it" and they all finished. Mom then told them, to which the only reaction was "huh - I didn't think I liked squid". Result!

petrichor

They'll be eating pigs' blood and stinky tofu in no time.

Pulaski

He's from Yorkshire, and I am too - eating pigs' blood sausages is part of our heritage.

I'd not had calamari steak until a couple of weeks ago when I ordered a "calamari steak salad" without being entirely sure what I was going to get. What arrived was indeed a calamari steak, probably 3"×5", and maybe a half inch thick. It was by far the largest calamari I have ever eaten, and surprisingly tender it was too.

Yorkieabroad

I'm not that keen on it, but the kids have been doing pigs blood soup back in Houston for a long time. And first night here we were down the night market for a bag of fried chicken and pigs blood on a stick...that's more up my street....it's about the closest to black pudding I've seen outside the UK.

The stinky tofu....hmm, not so much!

petrichor

Black pudding is much nicer than pigs' blood on a stick. but don't tell the Taiwanese I said that.

Pulaski

That information is safe with us, we don't want them buying up our black puddings.

Yorkieabroad

Hmm, had a very close encounter with a rather large snake last night on the way back from swimming. Taking a short cut down an alley between what looks like a junkyard and an allotment, lighting not so good. Heard a rustling, thought it was the wind then I think I stepped on something that shot off across the grass to the right. I may have imagined the "stood on" bit.... The kids were right behind me, and we all agreed it was about 4-5' long, very dark with no visible cross markings, but daughter thought it had a longitudinal stripe on its side. Too dark to argue one way or the other. Looking at snakesoftaiwan.com, that makes it either some sort of rat snake, or a Chinese cobra I'm going with the former, on the basis that the latter would probably have reacted differently, but that may just be wishful thinking I think we'll take the longer way round if it's dark when we leave tonight......

Yorkieabroad

Absolutely, but I'll take the pigs blood on a stick over anything we can get locally in Houston, outside the overpriced Brit shops, anyway.......

Yorkieabroad

So, looks like we are in for a bit of a blow this weekend. What's the local take on it...anything to worry about? power? Food? Water? I mentioned on the weather thread about the total shopping overload that takes over in Houston whenever there is a hint of a hurricane heading our way (which, admittedly isn't that often) but that seems non existent here. Are folk so used to it that its all just run of the mill for them? Or is it not expected to be a bad one?

petrichor

I think for the Taiwanese they're just run of the mill and an opportunity for a day off work or school.

Some expats stock up on torches, candles, food and water. I even saw a post where someone was asking where you could get battery powered fans! We have a small box of dry food and a couple of big water bottles in a cupboard, but they've been there years and we've never had to touch them.

To be honest you'll probably be underwhelmed. In our four years I think I've only seen properly strong winds twice. Mostly it's just heavy rain, which with the current weather we're having would be a relief.

Yorkieabroad

That certainly seems to be the feeling from what I am seeing. Kids are supposed to be going on a field trip tomorrow and Friday, and as of now, it is still on. I, on the other hand, have cancelled my lessons

I'm wanting to go up 101 to see how the damper fares in the storm - the video they have is pretty cool, but I'm the building management migh have other ideas

We're on the 20th floor, with sheltered balconies and opening windows, so not worried about lack of a/c - we're not using much at the moment anyway. I added another couple of bottles of water, another pot noodle each and a sixpack of Taiwan Classic- reckon we're sorted!

We've been in Houston for 12 years, and only had 2 hurricanes I can think of - one we were out of town for, and the other the kids slept through, but I was up all night cos our new pup was terrified. There was a bit of a blow a couple of weeks back, just after we came here, but didn't really come to anything from the sounds of it.

So how does the city fare with flooding? We overlook the river, and the level was pretty variable when we were getting those afternoon rains last month, but never got anywhere near looking like breaching. Of course, those were pretty brief showers, so not surprising. I haven't seen as many of the huge storm drains like you get in, say, Singapore, but there do seem to be a lot of drainage works going on around us.

petrichor

We overlook the Jingmei River (we live opposite the zoo, which is a good place to visit, btw and you can also get the Maokong Gondola nearby, great fun) and the day after we moved into our flat three years ago it flooded nearly up to the road, but since then they've built flood walls. There was another flood in our district a few weeks ago, but I haven't heard of anything else. Flooding is pretty unlikely I'd say. Even if it does happen, people just wade around for a while until the water goes down.

We probably won't get a windstorm as such. It's usually just tons of rain and maybe thunder and lightning. If the wind does get really strong, I think you're right that 101 will be closed anyway. From what I hear the typhoons seem to be skirting Taipei anyway. Very anticlimactic.

Yorkieabroad

I get where you are now (roughly) we are West/South West of you, overlooking Xindian River which was starting to rise as night fell. It will be interesting to see what it's like tomorrow. We've got some wind,

The kids were away on an overnight trip yesterday/today, so last night I went down to the ShiDa night market - small, but some decent food. Not very busy, but not sure if that was because of the weather, or if its always quiet on a Thursday. The wind has been rising slightly here, but nothing spectacular, and just constant steady rain. Took the kids to see the Minions movie at the Vieshow Cinemas near 101 tonight, then had dinner at the food court in the basement afterwards. It looked like the tower was still open, at that time. Very differing forecasts for tonight from Accuweather and Weather.com - one of them had winds topping out at 40mh, the other was calling 80mph!

Yorkieabroad

I just realised the view had cleared, so went out on the balcony and it appears to have stopped raining and the wind has totally died. If I wasn't looking at a weather radar showing the "eye" was a good few hundred miles north of us, I'd be wondering if we were in it now! Quite bizarre.

What was the word you used - "anti-climactic"? It certainly was!