Ten years ago today, I left San Diego for Taipei, with layovers in Seattle and Tokyo. There are so many subjects that I never even touched upon. One of these years, maybe I’ll finish writing about it. Is there even any interest in hearing the rest of the stories?
It’s strange, the things you miss. Yes, I would love to go back and revisit the National Palace Museum and see festivals and check out temples, and of course I miss all of the wonderful exchange students (though they wouldn’t be there, should I return)…but the thing I’ve been actively craving for the last decade? Street food. Not even high-quality Taiwanese restaurant food, but street food. The spicy beef noodle soup I used to bring home in a clear plastic bag, the bubble tea, the long, rectangular crispy dumplings, candied haw, green onion pancakes, red bean-stuffed pancakes, EVERYTHING ON A STICK…the list goes on. Some things, like bubble tea, have taken off in the area and I can acquire them when the craving turns into a desperate need. Other things, I’ve been futilely trying to purchase or make myself ever since. Sadly, the closest thing I’ve found to the beef noodle soup is a frozen food version from the 99 Ranch Market–whenever I’ve spied something that might be right on a Chinese restaurant menu, the noodles have been wrong or the broth is wrong, and the tastebuds searching for that particular sensory memory are disappointed again.
I can hardly believe it’s been ten years. It doesn’t nearly feel that long ago! If it were more recent, I’d stand a chance of finding the instant noodle commercial that Beth and I were in on youtube…but sadly, ten years is a long time tech-wise. I don’t even know whom I might contact to try to get a copy for myself. As it stands, I don’t even know what the hell noodle company it WAS. But I still totally endorse their product. 100%!
Now I feel hungry!
Me, too. 🙁 For stuff I can’t have!
I feel some nostalgia as well for my international trip I took last year to the Netherlands. The next group is on there way, posting to facebook and I feel some sadness because it was a fun time and I would like to do that again.
I am beyond ready to have another international adventure. Canada does NOT count.
I think I have missed food the most from all the places I’ve ever lived, and that’s just within the US. Maybe it’s because friends we can keep in contact with, and places we can revisit in our minds and photos, but taste is so specific…
(There are fewer occasions when I’ve really wanted to be walking in a specific place again, but thinking about it helps in a way that thinking about food I crave definitely does not.)
You’ve nailed it, I think. It’s why every time I go back to WI, it’s practically a tasting tour to devour every little thing I’ve missed over X period of time since I was there last.
Dude, there is ALWAYS interest in hearing your stories.
Just take that as word of God given.
~Aramada
hahaha I get that this is my LJ and I can wander off on whatever tangent I want but I don’t want to think I’m boring the hell out of people. 🙂
Well I just went back and read all your Taiwan entries for the first time and I DEMAND MORE STORIES!
::grins:: Better?
~Aramada
Well I just read all thirteen entries of your adventures in Taiwan. Thank you for letting me live vicariously through you. 😛
I hope you enjoyed them. 🙂
How is your Chinese now? Sorry I wasn’t able to read the linked entry, I have to leave for class in a minute so I just skimmed, so I don’t know what your proficiency was before you went over there. I did a summer semester at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China and another semester of Chinese when I got back, but it’s been a year now since I’ve taken a course and pretty much the only thing I can remember how to say is “today’s weather is better than yesterday’s weather” 🙁 it makes me so sad. I tried to continue with my Chinese at the university I transferred to, but they teach traditional characters and I only learned simplified and I didn’t have enough time to catch up.
My Mandarin is awful, unfortunately. I hang out in the great wall mall as much as possible to eavesdrop and see what I can pick out of conversations, but it’s pitiful. I knew absolutely nothing of the language before I went, they put us all in cram school for a month, and then we were on our own. I feel like if I were immersed in it again, a lot would come back, but at the moment, I suck. I haven’t ever been able to read in Chinese with any proficiency; we were taught some basic stuff in traditional characters, but they deemed (and I think they were right) that it was more important that we get a handle on spoken than written.
You had long hair! 🙂
(I understand missing places you’ve been, even though I’ve not been to Taiwan specifically. Sensory memory in particular can just come at you out of left field sometimes).
cheers,
Phil
I haven’t had a haircut in a good long while, it’s just about as long now as it was then. 🙂