Oded Sharon's Blog

Chaing Kai Shek Memorial
I woke up extremely late. 15:30. Actually Bob woke me up and we went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. It was actually a rather pretty day, warm, and not raining, so I was feeling kinda bad for sleeping most of it. Because their New year’s festivities are going on for until the lantern or light festival two weeks later, the entire complex was full with people celebrating lights, and light exhibits. There were a lot of kids playing with a flying UFO toy with bright LEDS. They actually looked like UFOs!
I tried photographing them but I couldn’t capture the actual thrill in seeing so many of them flying around at the same time.
There was also a vendor selling them there, He had them in Blue, Green and Red.
I had to buy one. Of each color. Just because I couldn’t decide which is better. Bob bargained with the guy, because he bought one too, so he gave us a good price. I actually cut my finger when playing with it the next day.
The entire complex is very large. It’s in the middle of the city, and has a huge open space there to play with those UFO lights. And practice danding. Think of Kikar Malchey Israel (Aka Kikar Rabin) and then multiply by 30. The memorial hall is it least as big as the Tel-Aviv city hall and the doors are HUGE. Just Like many Asian temples. It’s a wonder how they got to open such things before the invention of the electrical motor…
I manage to do a lot of experimental night photography that evening. There were a lot of nice subjects like the UFO’s and Pagodas, and light exhibits, and since digital photography is so great in the sense that you can experiment with it so much and just see the results instantly without it costing you money, I got a little wild with it.

Chiufen
Phoebe suggested the day before, that we drive to Chiufen (pronounced: Jiu f`en). I couldn’t find it in my tour guide book, because I looked for it in “j” and not in “c”. But they said that it was very close to Keelung, so after a while I just tried to read about the place that comes in the book right after Keelung. Suprisingly it was Chiufen.
Chiufen is a nice little old town, built on a hillside which overlooks the Taiwan coast. It used to be a mining town, for there was a very big gold mine nearby, when it ran out, the place became a ghost town. In the 90’s a movie director made about it, and people got nostalgic, and they rebuilt the place into a very nice tourist attraction. Coffee shop, or actually Tea shop, nice expensive restaurant with a great view, and a lot, but A LOT of gift shops.
I, of course, was a very good costumer and bought gifts at a few of them. Very nice and cheap Chinese toys. The whole town somewhat resembles “Rosh-pina”. Small vacation area, with narrow streets going uphill, and the other stuffs too. All that was missing from Rosh-pina were the local 60’s people you find in rosh pina, and the fact that there aren’t so many Chinese restaurants there.

We sat down at a nice place, outside on the balcony, with a view of the entire area. It’s too bad we only went there at night time, since the views are supposed to be more spectacular during daytime. Bob said we’ll go there again, when Lee is here. And Nelson also said he’d never been there (or so I understood) so it’s a good chance for him to come next time.
While sitting on the balcony a few local fired some firecrackers which I managed to successfully photograph, and also a red hot air balloon which they traditionally fly for good luck. You’ll write something on the balloon, and if flies high enough it will come true. Bob said that he used to fly those when he was a kid and they got up really high some time.
We drove back to Taipei and went to eat some “Congi” or “Konjee”, not sure how to write it correctly. It’s basically the same thing to Chinese as Humos is for us. It’s what they eat after going out, in those places that are open 24 hours. It actually was considered breakfast once, but now you eat it at 1 am. That’s when we ate it. It’s basically a rice porridge, very tasteless, but you get many side dishes with a strong taste that counters that. And you eat them together and it’s very nice.

The National Palace Museum (Part 1 out of ??)

I went with Bob and Phoebe to The National Palace Museum. It’s very big, and have many artifacts brought here by Chiang Kai-Shek. From what I managed to understand, Chiang Kai-Shek was the first Prime Minister of Taiwan. Like Idan said to be, he’s just like David Ben Gurion, only Chinese… In 1911 he rebelled against China and came with his big army to Taiwan to settle it. He brought all those Chinese treasures with him. By force, apparently. Bob thinks that it’s said that there might actually be more valuable artifacts here then in Chinese museums.

I saw ancient Calligraphy, ancient tea cups, ancient tea leaves, all sort of Jade stone, some looked like CD’s…, and part of the Miniature collection they have. Most of the tea stuff and the miniatures I found very nice. The miniatures are amazing. You can see a boat, with extreme detail make out of a Peach nut! I want to try and challenge my sister to make one of these. It’s looks like a very delicate, complex work, which takes a whole lot of time. She can probably do it and do it great. I’ve seen the stuff she makes.

You should really see pictures, in the gallery, AND you should really go there and see them yourself. Idan would have probably liked the actual museum much better then me, but I enjoy the conversations with Bob. It’s more fun doing the tourist activities here with a local, who’s also a friend. I’m sure most of it is very nice to Bob to, having been in the states for 10+ years…

We ran out of time and only, managed to do 2 out of 4 floors of the museum. There was a sausage stand outside, it’s basically something like corndogs. A Sausage covered with some dough, fried. Bob told me that most of these vendors would gamble with you over more hot dogs. They have dice there, and after you’ve bought one sausage, you can gamble with them and get one for free if you win. I think nothing happens if you lose. Bob says that these sausages are actually very cheap and the whole purpose of the gambling is just to get you buy the first one. Nice trick.

Bob went to some family thing, and I went back to the office, spend two hours here, watched an episode of “The Simpsons” and worked in these blog stories, Uploaded pictures, did some captioning. Talk to Lee on the ICQ, nothing too interesting.

Bob came by later and we went to the Keelung. Keelung is a Harbor city to the north of Taipei. It has some resemblance to Haifa. Mountains on your left and the sea and the harbor on your right. Both Keelunk and Haifa harbor sizes looks just about the same at the glance I manage take. I think Haifa’s is a bit bigger, mainly because there’s this big wheat grinding thing in the middle of the port with all the birds. If you’ve ever been to Haifa you obviously know what I’m talking about.

The reason we went to Keelung is to go to the Night Market. As I said it’s very popular, and one of the main activities of people. Taiwan night life is very rich, and I couldn’t believe there were actually traffic jams at 24:00 near the market. It starts looking to me as if all the night markets here, or markets in general look the same. Bob agrees, and according to him each has something unique you probably wouldn’t find in any other night market. I agree with bob on that. For instance There was only 1 Oyster-egg thing in this market, and it’s sauce looked different. Bob said it was actually not as good as in Taipei. Shih-Lin Night market had more then 5 of those (I stopped counting at 4 and then saw another one…).

I ate some fried chicken covered in flour noodles or something. They had onions in it. I love onions, especially fried onions. I told bob Assaf Razon’s the joke with the fried onion and cooking :

“A friend of Assaf’s didn’t know any recipes, and used to call his sister to ask her how to make stuff, after a while he would start the conversation to his sister by saying: ‘Ok, I’m frying onions, what now?’“.

I think I actually do that with my mom. I can tell this joke about myself too.

I bought something for Lee in the market. Let see if she can guess what it is by just looking at the pictures I took. Lets see you guess.

One thing that is different in these markets from Nachlat Binyamin, and why I think that there aren’t any night markets in Tel-aviv, is that in Tel-aviv, the second floor of the small buildings in the side of the market are residential. There are a few pubs in tel-aviv, like “The Balcony” but mostly they are residentials there. In here, the second floor is used for stores, and restaurants. The buildings look the same though. If they could just turn those buildings into commercial thingy’s in Nachlat Binyamin, I thing the night life in Tel Aviv could be much better. And they should have some food vendors there too, and not only in restaurants, like “Agadir Bar Burger”. I should talk to “Chuldi”.

Thank god It’s Friday.
I stayed up too late last night, talking with guys at home, and writing my memoirs for the Blog, It’s very addictive. I also couldn’t really get a good night sleep. I woke up a few times during the night, and I’ve been tired all day. Along with that, there were some food issues. The guys ordered some spicy noodles for lunch. I tried it. I liked it. It was spicy, and I can handle spicy. I like spicy. They claim that my dish was only 1/2 spicy. My stomach however, don’t like spicy. I ended up feeling a bit bad, and combined with the tiredness I had a little lousy feeling day. But the week is over, and tomorrow or on Sunday I’m going to be acting a little touristy and go to see the places mentioned in the Lonely Planet Tourist book I bought. Probably National Palace Museum and the Chiang Kai Shek memorial park. Both I assume will give me nice photo ops. Probably Sunday. I’m thinking of sleeping very late and watching TV tomorrow. I’ll probably end up writing some more stuff for my Blog…

P.S. I’m eating some Wassabi Kabukim right now, and I just love them. Did I mention that already ?

I ate with Nelson, Sterling and that other Wesley guy at a very common Chinese Fon-du restaurant. I’m told it’s origins are in Korea. You choose some ingredients you want to eat, vegetables, meat, dumplings, seafood, and they take this cauldron, which is in the middle of your table and fry everything in it, and then pour in some soup base. Then you sit there and let it cook while you make yourself the sauce. Everyone has a different way of making their sauce. Nelson showed me they take a fresh egg and put the yoke inside the sauce you make. He later fried the while egg part (I forgot how you call it). I tried a few sauce combinations myself, with egg yoke and without. The one with the raw egg yoke was a bit strange to me but it was also the tastiest. By the end of the dinner I just combined all the sauces I made into the original sauce bowl with the egg. It created the ultimate sauce. The fondu itself was a bit strange and new to me. Most of the things I tried here so far weren’t completely new. I ate Sushi and Dim-Sum before. But I didn’t eat this. It’s a very common way to eat very simple food. It’s something I’m not sure Idan would have managed without any help, because it’s the “make it yourself” kind of food. They tried to compared this with some traditional stew Jewish make in holidays and Saturday s. but as I explained to them, this has no resemblance whatsoever to Choolent.

Something about names
Nowadays, Taiwanese people have both a Chinese name and an English name. Most of the guys here at the office chose theirs. I know Bob is going to name their kid with both English and Chinese names. I think it’s a nice custom to increase the relationship between east and west. I also think Westerns who deal with Easterns should learn to pronounce their Chinese name correctly, and even probably choose some Chinese name for themselves. I don’t know if I’m going to, though. I can imagine Bob and Nelson’s life would have been a bit harder if they’d been have to use their Chinese names in the states.
Lee’s Nephew, was named Nimrod a few years back. Lee’s sister went to the states when she was in advance pregnancy, and the already chose that name before we could warn them not to name a child this way, when he’s suppose to grow up in the states. When there, the call him Rod, which is a very standard English name.
I know I’ve been made fun of my name a few times when I was in the states, and I don’t want to imagine the childhood traumas for someone called Nimrod. He’ll probably be socially rejected and end up a Geek. Who likes star trek. And is a computer programmer. Like his father.
That actually isn’t that bad as it sound. But still, if you can avoid having your child socially rejected by naming them differently, you should. And if he’s destined to become a geek (either genetically, or religiously, Statistical probability, or otherwise), he’ll become a geek.

Bob is a very very nice guy which I like to hang with very much.
I had a dinner with his family today. They compared me to Idan who ate with them last week. They said we have a somewhat opposite behavior. They said Idan is quiet and a bit shy, while I’m very energetic. I’m not sure if that wasn’t partly the good strong coffee I drank in the afternoon. I do know we are opposites regarding the food. While I eat almost anything, but seafood, Idan eats Kosher. So he’s very limited. Plus I know Idan can be very dull when regarding choice of food he eats. Whenever we would order anything together in Israel, say Italian, I’ll try one of the dishes I don’t know, while Idan would always eat “Pasta Napolitana” which is the simplest, basic, only tomato based pasta sauce. The dinner was very nice, There were a lot of Dim-Sum dishes. It was delicious. I kinda feel guilty when I eat food here that I really like, and that I know is Lee’s favorite. She likes both Sushi and Dim-sum a lot. I even think she likes it more then me. Bob’s family is very kind, I learned a few new words in Chinese, and they even invited me to join them again. I was very honored. I had a great time in this dinner.

A little about Bob
Bob used to be the CEO of Sanctum. Now he’s the Janitor. Or that’s how the guys here joke about him. He still comes to the office, even in weekends. He has a most beautiful fish here which is his hobby. We talked a little about the fish tank and I learned a lot about Corals, Fish, Symbiosis, and Marine biology. Each and every thing in his Aquarium has its purpose. Each fish, algae, coral, seaweed, octopus and the rest of the sea creatures have some job. Cleaning, feeding some other creating, feeding off some other creating, eating some other creature. Everyone has a job.
From what I understood, Bob was born in Taiwan and at the age of 12 after the influence on an American exchange student who stayed at their house, he went to the US, and lived there for 15 years. I don’t understand, and I told that to Bob, how can a child get separated willingly from his parents and go live in a foreign country. Even if it the US. I can’t also truly understand parent that would let his kid go away from his house at such a young age. He told me his mom used to travel a lot back and forth, and I can also understand it if it were at a somewhat older age. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thinking he probably had a great time, and made his parent real proud, and he still kept in very close touch with his family a lot, and obviously loves them and cares for them very much… It’s just a bit odd.

I LOVE SUSHI !
DISCLAIMER : the following isn’t vegetarian safe.
I ate the greatest Sushi today. The selection was very large, and I tried some new types of fish I didn’t even know existed. The food came on small plastic plates, and there was some pickled sweet-sour ginger in a box on the table that you can take from. No Wassabi though. There was no need for Wassabi. There were plenty in the sushi itself. You basically ordered the food by placing small plastic “name tags” on the counter next to your table, and then the chef will make it. Each dish would come on a different plate, and the have color coding for the plates so you know how much money you are supposed to pay (See Pictures). Most of the dishes came on a few stacked plates. I stayed away from the sea foods. I don’t really like all those Shrimps, and Calamari, and Squids, and other weird stuff. I had some new stuff I didn’t eat before, like some fried egg on rice (don’t know how they call it) and some kinds of fish, and 3 kinds of Tuna, from different Parts. There was a regular one, and two other fatter ones. The real fatty one came on a big stack of plates! I also had a cucumber Nuri cone which was full of Wassabi. Nelson thought it was too much Wassabi. I though it was exactly the right amount: A lot! There’s also something I hear very common in sushi. It’s the rice covered with some fried egg. I havn’t tried it before. But then again, I haven’t eaten so much sushi, or maybe it’s not common in Israel…

Some background about me and my relation to Sushi.
I didn’t like Sushi so much. I never hated it, I really liked the seaweed Nuri pages, but I really didn’t care much for Sushi at all. Me and Lee used to go with Jonathan, and Uri, two of our friends to Onami (is that their name?) it’s this WAY expensive restaurant in Tel-Aviv, and Jonathan would eat a dinner for about … a 1500-2000 shekels, while I’ll eat a small bowl of Miso soup (I liked that all along) and one or two small sushi rolls. I’d always leave hungry and still pay about 100 shekels. Later when Sushi was more popular you could eat it for a cheaper price, but it wasn’t very good. I did always like the pickled sweet and sour ginger and Wassabi. Speaking of Wassabi they have this wonderful Wassabi peanut thing here, it’s like Kabukim only with Wassabi ! it’s Great ! I’m gonna bring some home for the gang, and Lee already got some from me with a special delivery. Back to the Sushi story, One day Lee and Dana ordered some vegetarian Sushi at this restaurant (Dana and Ori B. are the “Thursday Evening Dinner Club”’s official vegetarians.). Dana and Ori used to order Sushi often, but this time was different. Lee and Dana couldn’t finish their big plate of Sushi. So I came to their help. I ate quiet a few Maki rolls with cucumbers, carrots and stuff, and it was quite good. A long after that Lee decided she wants to make and serve some “Make your own sushi” at her birthday party. (See pictures). There was A LOT of sushi there, and about the same amount more in the fridge and another bowl of sticky rice ready to prepare. I eat Sushi for about a week and a half after the party. So I Kinda got used to the taste. One of the things I made was Sushi with Smoked Salmon from the supermarket. It’s actually pretty good. Jonathan would probably have hated it and make fun of me for even thinking to eat it. Well… that’s him. Anyways, that’s how I got to like sushi.
I could have told the same story in one line: I didn’t care for sushi. Lee started eating sushi. She got me eating sushi. Now I like sushi.
I think the longer story is more interesting. Besides, I’m not forcing anyone to read it…anyone besides you. Yes, You! If you ever stop reading this blog I’m gonna rip your throat out!


Keep having fun!

Today was the actual day I told my friends I was in Taiwan. So the posts are delayed by 6 days…
Sterling has this personal mission to make me try all the weirdest thing he can think of. Like Asparagus juice, or Green pumpkin juice. While you might think the opposite, the Asparagus juice is drinkable while the Green Pumpkin Juice is simply, utterly revolting. Sterling told me that Idan actually drank, and kept drinking half a box of the green pumpkin juice until he gradually realized that it’s disgusting, and asked Sterling “Why am I drinking it ?”.


The 100 miles restaurant
DISCLAIMER: the following paragraph isn’t vegetarian safe.
I went eating the with Sterling and Mark at a Japanese make-it-yourself grill restaurant called “100 miles”. The table has a grill in the middle, you get a plate of raw, ready to cook meat (or seafood), and you put it on the grill and just grill it yourself. Or let your friends cook it for you. I guess Idan would go for the later if he’d go there. The meat is nice, and gets to you plate sizzling hot, (the plate is like 2cm’s from the grill), and it’s very tasty. You basically (if you know what you’re doing) can make the meat the way you like it. Plus, it’s all you can eat.

I had lunch with Nelson, and one of the guys in the office who’s English name is Wesley. But nobody actually knows his English name so I don’t know what to call him when I’m talking about him. It was the first day after the holiday, and some stores were actually still closed. It has something to do with luck, or beginning the New Year on a lucky day or something, so those that believe in it don’t work until Tuesday. We simply walked out of the office headed for the main street going restaurant by restaurant looking for somewhere with places to sit. Because many of the restaurants were closed, those that were open were full with people who did work that day. We finally found a place in a small Japanese restaurant, There was a lot of kinds of foods there, and we had a big meal with only 1 dish being Sushi. It was nice, and Nelson and Wesley kept trying to make me try all the odd and unusual things I didn’t know. Some odd soup made out of Seafood, some peanut pudding for desert, and few more dishes I can’t remember because It was actually last week, and I’m only writing it down now.

In the evening Sterling took me to a small mall, very tight, which had a collection of hobby shops. I bought 2 IAF planes, Apache AH64 and Kfir. Both with Israeli coloring scheme. I also saw a few Star Trek models that I’m going to buy, but I didn’t at the time because I wanted to compare prices with the internet first. We continued in that neighborhood, (called the West Gate area), to a big place with fashion stores, food stands, restaurants, and KTV’s. A lot of KTV’s (**).

We ate some angel-hair noodle soup at this place where people just stand there and eat it. You use these plastic bowls, and you have to return them, so I guess that’s why they don’t just walk away with the soup, like one would do with a Falafel, or a Laafa. Sterling claims it’s not popular to eat walk-and-eat kinds of foods here. I don’t know. It was very nice, and I added some spicy sauce to it that gave it some powerful tasty feeling.

(**) KTV – Explanation :

KTV = Karaoke TeleVision. A “club” with private rooms, a television, speaker system with microphones, and a very wide selection of Karaoke songs. You order drink, and are suppose to have fun with your teenage friends while singing.

My tourist book says not to try to understand that kind of culture of Karaoke singing, and there’s even a picture of a donkey, with a microphone, singing, and the caption under the picture is “Don’t Make An Ass Of Yourself Singing Karaoke”.

Today’s Headline :
“Whale explodes in Taiwanese city”.

A Whale…
..
Exploded…

Doest it sound a bit fishy to you too ?

Couldn’t sleep tonight either. I actually woke up at 6 am. Couldn’t sleep at all. Even tough I was dead tired. I Ran out of HHTTG episode in the CD I had at the hotel room, I had the rest on MP3 at the hotel, but my CD Player don’t read them. It’s too old. I’m gonna buy a new one here before I go back. I had another 45 minutes of book at the office, but I didn’t feel like getting up and dressed and go to the office just to get one CD. So I started reading the tourist book.
I found out some things I already knew, and learnt about a few places I can probably visit in the next weekend.

At the morning (afternoon), I went and stayed at office, watching a Smallville episode. It was the day before last of the new year’s. Nelson called me and we went to the Shih-Lin Night Market after he was through with some family dinner or something, we went to the market along with his girl friend and a friend of hers. Hanging with Nelson is good. He kind of reminds me a bit of cousin Alex. Only Chinese. I think it’s something to do with his accent and his height. He’s not a “Gil Biderman” high. Nelson is cool to hang with and we have a lot to talk about usually. I think that everybody here at Sanctum is very friendly and nice, and so does Idan.

The Shih-Lin Market is very large, and was very crowded that night, because of the holiday. There is a “food court” area which has a lot of different varieties of dishes. I ate some fried fish pieces that has the same sauce that the Oyster egg thing has. Nelson had the oyster thing. He bought me some drink called “Frog Eggs” (See Pictures). Don’t worry. It’s not actually frog’s eggs. It’s like some Jello-Ice-Tea with small dark starch balls. They even have larger straws for the cup, that are available almost only in Taiwan, and it’s mainly just for this drink. We then stood in line for some fried chicken. It’s basically a Schnitzel. A very good one for that matter. It’s not made out of bread crumbs but some other way to use flour, and they season it with spices, like black pepper and red pepper powder which made it a bit over spicy. Also it’s big. Very big. And entire chicken’s breast I’ll assume. We went to some of the smaller streets, it resembles “Nachlat Binyamin”, a lot of vendors with carts. Stores that sell all sort of clothes and stuff. It’s what you’d expect in a night market I guess…

Nelson bought me a prepaid SIM card that you can stick in your GSM Phone, and just talk here without all the extra roaming charges I Pay for using my Orange phone. I stuck it in my phone and it didn’t work. “SIM card not accepted”. Nelson told me that some cell companies lock their phones so you wouldn’t be able to able to use them In other networks. That isn’t nice. A short Google search for “Hacking Nokia Phone Sim” didn’t help. I found out HOW to actually hack the phone, but you also need Orange’s code, which I don’t have. Hacking is such a nice illegal hobby. Thank god I don’t practice it, nor do I support, or encourage anyone of take part in hacking in any way.
*** DISCLAIMER ENDS HERE ***.