there are dumplings on the horizon...

12.05.2011

Weird Food Update - Everything with Four Legs Except the Table

Many may have heard of people eating weird things in China. What they haven't heard is that part of the reason for this is that people here endured many periods of starvation, one of which was one of the biggest holocausts of the twentieth century: the Great Chinese Famine in which at least 15 million people died. When bureaucratic oversight and crop production failed to meet the needs of the people, they began to eat everything they could up to and including other people.
We did not eat human meat (to the best of our knowledge), but we did get a chance to consume another legendary component of the Chinese starvation cuisine:
 I fed this dog my leftovers.

 It's the circle of life.

 Twice boiled.

 And chewy.  There's not much flavor, so they give you a bowl of fresh mint and chillies to dip it in.

 Unrelated puppy transporting image.

12.04.2011

TIGER STYLE (SAMPOST)

 The emperor's Birch root throne from afar.  I had to walk into the next room to take this because it was being photo-guarded.

 When the Daoists want to party they break out the puppets, firecrackers, and start lighting hell paper on fire in the streets!


 It's a wonder more invaluable historical sites haven't burnt down with all the explosives, flaming lanterns, and cigarettes going around here.

 Never trust an English.   (this is an ATM)

 Taiwan beer for Taiwan Gods.

 LOOK I FOUND AN ARROWHEAD

 To enter the tiger pagoda you must enter the tiger.

 Decoration inside the pagoda.

 Here's a Daoist warrior-god with his mount of choice.

 The Buddhist god of tigers.

 A Taiwanese soda bar with jars of preserved fruit.  (probably mostly plum)

 Here's Laura extracting a delicious non-plum fruit from her nose called sala.  It looks like and tastes like strawberries but with the texture of lychee.

 The tiger cliffs of Krabi.

 Instead of white protective sheets, the monks use orange.

 In order to indicate that the blizzard for sale has not be left out in the hot sun Dairy Queen workers will invert the product.  The flavor being tested here is corn.

 A hopefully fake tiger claw next to a very likely faked rhino horn.

Catgun has a great tasting mango fruit leather.

Taiwan Series!


Here's a video of the chant that goes on for an entire half inning behind the dugout of whichever team is up to bat.  LET'S GO LAMIGO LAMIGO LAMIGOOO!

12.03.2011

First Centennial Photo Jumble Contest!

Dear All!  Please join in this fun contest!  Be the first person to correctly identify the country in which we took each of these photos with a comment post and win a bag of something weird!  (your options for countries are China, Laos, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.  Each appears once.  Limit one comment post per household per day.)
EDIT: CONTEST CLOSED. TYLER MAYO DECLARED WINNER.




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12.02.2011

Forbidden Chicken / Living the Dream

Here I am enjoying two very popular things in China: the forbidden palace and KFC.  LONG LIVE THE COLONEL! props to Richard Y

This post is also a preview of our as of yet unposted collection of Beijing hijinks.  Stay tuned for daily updates.

11.30.2011

A river of limestone and hot springs

Here is a bit of the old footage from the hotspring in Taroko Gorge that was carved out of marble. 
We obviously are still not over Taiwan.

11.27.2011

The Devil's Dictionary (SE Asia Edition)

Hot Shower: A stream of water too small & too lukewarm to cause hypothermia
 
Hard Sleeper: A hard bunk for overnight passage with many smoking buddies
 
Soft Sleeper: A hard bunk for overnight passage with fewer smoking buddies than in a hard sleeper
 
Traffic Law: The widely understood principle that one should honk one's horn at the sight of an oncoming vehicle, pedestrian, or nonchristian thought
 
Dog: The most sacred of all animals  May they be as abundant as the semiedible filth allows
 
Thai Massage:  A singular testing of the hypothesis of King Thasamlapurtha that one women is not able to rip the flesh from the bones of anyone with her bare hands
 
English Menu:  A curated list of food items that do not contain chili pepper and must contain at least 75% of either pizza, pasta, or burgers
 
Price: About 1000% of what you could be paying
 
Tuk Tuk: A fine multipurpose motorvehicle designed for the conveyance of the ignorantly wealthy & large quantities of heroin
 
Monk: The most profitable & fastest growing occupation
 
Spicy: Containing at least a trace of bell peppers
 
Thai Spicy: Containing enough chilis to numb the mouth and face for the rest of the night
 
Guidebook:  An outdated tome of time-sensitive material.