A little bit of this, a little bit of that

As soon as I typed the title for this post, I was reminded of the best music video of all time - "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim. You have to be a Christopher Walken fan to understand just how amazing it is.

If you can't run the video on this screen, you can go to YouTube to view it directly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8

Anyhoo, it's noon on a rainy, rainy Saturday here in Taiwan. I had a delicious sleep in this morning. It's funny, but when you aren't working you don't appreciate sleep-ins. You're just waking up. Sleep-ins are naughty indulgences. You know you probably should get up and do something productive, but you choose the blue pill and snuggle back down under the duvet.

Speaking of duvets, here's a picture of my "bedroom" in the apartment. As you can see, I finally found a mosquito net for the bed. I attached one end of the net to the curtain rod. I attached the other end to the ceiling using those 3M hooks that you can remove without leaving marks.

I think I mentioned it earlier, but I was surprised to find out that there are mosquitoes all year 'round in Taipei. I got bitten terribly my first week here, and the bites got infected. It's two weeks later and they're still not healed.

So, getting a mosquito net became a high priority. I spent a couple of hours online researching where I could buy one, and then a couple more hours walking around Taipei from store to store. I finally found one in a Japanese home furnishings store in the basement of Momo. I think it only cost NT$299, or $10. It's worth every penny!

There are screens on the windows but they don't fit properly. Plus, whenever I open the door to go onto the balcony the skeeters can sneak in. I'm glad I have a second layer of defence.

So, it's Saturday. For those of you who are keeping track of things, that means I've just finished my first week of work. It went well - the people are all very nice and helpful, there is a semi-formal company orientation process, and there is a lot of documentation for the company's products. I was issued a new laptop and monitor, which caused some pangs of jealousy among team members who struggled with hand-me-down technology when they started.

I definitely chose a good apartment as far as commuting is concerned. It only takes 20 minutes to get from the Dazhi MRT station to the Liuzhongli MRT station. Then, I have a short walk over to Dunhua Rd. and the office.

The "office" is in a 19-floor office tower. Trend Micro uses 18 of the 19 floors. The first floor is occupied by a gorgeous Audi car dealership. (There are no outdoor car dealerships in Taipei - they're all inside buildings.) My department, HIE, occupies the entire 19th floor. On a clear day I will take some pictures of the city from our floor. We have pretty close to a 360 degree view!

Thought some of you might enjoy seeing my Chinese-English keyboard. I don't know how it works when you're typing Chinese characters. I'll have to get someone in the department to show me one day. There are literally thousands of characters in Chinese, so I don't know how people can create all of those characters with just a few keys on a keyboard. Thinking about it makes my little pea brain hurt.

Here's my Lucky Cat login screen. I thought it was a good image to choose, given that I've made such a big transition in life and work.

My biggest challenge right now is finding something familiar and nourishing to eat. The apartment doesn't have a kitchen - yet - so I am limited to uncooked food at home. It's cheap to eat out, but my Mandarin is so poor that I have to rely on places that have English translations of their menus, or pictures of specific dishes.

I've started keeping a log of where I've eaten and what my experience has been like. My first entry was a place called Whalen's that is near the office. It's run by Canadians and they have a fairly Western menu, which actually includes poutine! The food was good but I felt like I was copping out by going there. Going there reminded me of my experience at Taipei 101. I got there at noon and I was hungry, so I went to the food court. There were about 50 different places to eat but none of them had English menus. There were also hundreds of people there and the lines were huge. By the time I walked around and examined all of the options, I was so hungry that it started to affect my mood and my thinking. I finally just went to Burger King and got a Whopper. Problem solved, but burger-eating Westerner stereotype reinforced.

Another, more recent, log entry is for New Health Idea. It's like Salad Loop, but for Chinese food. You grab a take-out container and some tongs and start assembling your meal from the 10 to 20 items on offer, which change daily. Some items are cold and some are hot. One thing I like about this place is that I can take a small amount of something I don't recognize and give it a try. (I tried three different greens yesterday - the spicy watercress was good, but the pickled cabbage was bad and the shredded broccoli was meh.) Another thing I like about this place is how they figure out what you pay. At Salad Loop you pay by weight. At New Health Idea, a sharp-looking woman at the till examines the items in your container, does some mental arithmetic based on food cost and portion size, and tells you what to pay. She charged me NT$70 ($2.00) for the meal shown above. Yesterday she charged me NT$100 because I had a slice of curried pork "schnitzel" and some sesame chicken, as well as veggies and rice.

The other night I got home from work and I didn't feel like having yoghurt and cereal for dinner, so I walked around the neighbourhood to see what was on offer. It's quite common for food carts, cafes, and restaurants to serve breakfast and lunch but not dinner, or to only open for dinner. Some places only open on certain days of the week. So, you have to take your chances and just wander around until you find a place that's open and serves food that you want to eat.

I decided to try Lan Xuan, a classy looking place by Shih Chien University. They had an English menu outside and the "stir-fried spicy green beans with shredded pork" sounded delicious. What they served, unfortunately, was boiled green beans with ground pork. It was the saddest plate of green beans that I've ever seen. I ate about half before I became disgusted by the texture (I hate overcooked, soft vegetables) and abandoned the cause. Sigh. You win some, you lose some. I'm sure that other items on their menu are good, but I'll never order the stir-fried green beans there again!

Well, it's 1:30pm now and my tummy is starting to rumble. I think I'll go to the Wellcome and get some basic foodstuffs first, though - water, orange juice, yoghurt, cold canned coffee, and biscuits. I still have lots of fruit in the fridge so must finish that up before buying more. After that, I'll walk around the neighbourhood and play food roulette again!