They could make an entertaining video game out of riding a scooter through heavy traffic in Taiwan, because only the brave -- or the unwitting -- would try the real thing.
Dave needed to head off to the guitar store in downtown Hsinchu, Taiwan, to get his guitar fixed, so I agreed to go when he asked. I thought we'd putter along lazily at scooter-like speeds -- say, 20 kph. Dave quickly disabused me of that notion as he sped up to 60 kph in six seconds and I held his abdomen in a vise-like death grip. Weaving in and out of traffic, paying no mind to lane markers and little attention to traffic signals, we bottomed out on every big bump. "These were made for two short Chinese people," the 170-pound Dave reminded his 200-pound friend. We saw plenty of people accelerating through red lights, not just yellow ones, and I asked, "Does anyone here obey the traffic laws?"
Dave laughed. "You mean the traffic suggestions?"
Harrowing though they may be, scooters are the only way to get around in Taiwan. You can go three blocks before the car you weaved in front of hundreds of yards back even makes it past the intersection in the perpetual gridlock. Turning left is entertaining, as dozens of scooters fill the middle of the intersection, lined up in neat rows and columns. That takes too long, though, so try the savvy scooter's trick. Say you're headed south and you want to turn left to go east at a four-way intersection with four lanes going in each direction. The thing to do is turn right (west), quickly do a U-turn in the middle of traffic, and end up facing east. You get a green light before the poor saps in the southbound lane get a left-turn arrow, and you zoom by laughing.
Did I mention there are precious few sidewalks in Taiwan? Here's another reason it's handy to be on a scooter -- pedestrians can't run over your toes, but you can run over theirs when you zoom by them with inches to spare. It's all one street, and fair game for use by cars, trucks, scooters, sandwich stands, vegetable stands, pedestrians and the more than occasional stray dog. There is no "personal bubble" with this many people around.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Twenty-Four To Taiwan
A fitting way to start one's 24-hour Far East journey is to forget a notepad and rely on a barf bag instead.
Getting down quotations and observations is vital to the travel writer, at least to one burdened with a truly short-term memory. So when the chipper and puffy-cheeked attendant on my puddle-jumper from Lincoln ad-libbed, "And if your travel plans don't include going to Denver, the best time to tell me about it would be right about now," I had to grab the closest dead tree available. The margins of my magazine (the excellent newer volume, The Week) were thinner than The New York Sun, so I grabbed a sparsely decorated bag that looked like a pastry sack and scribbled away.
Haste in writing wasn't needed at Denver International Airport, where constant repetition fastened this oddly humorous line in my memory: "Unattended baggage will be immediately confiscated, and may be destroyed." Well, isn't that what you pay them to do to your checked luggage, anyway, if they don't lose it first? Hard to imagine much harm coming to our articles, however: four big Rubbermaid Action Packers, which my sister-in-law and her husband will fill with their household items when they move back to the United States after three years in Taiwan.
Getting there really is half the fun for a plane buff like me, son of an Air Force office who can identify dozens of aircraft by their engine sounds alone. I'm beating dear old dad to the punch on this one, though, becoming the first Fulwider to fly the mighty Boeing 777. An average-size person is shorter than the landing gear on this behemoth, and a foolhardy person could stand inside one of the two massive turbofans.
There are 43 rows of seats, with the lucky folks in First Class getting their own jetway and bulkhead door. The vastly greater number of unwashed Coach passengers enter through a separate door (walking uphill to the massive plane), but we have five bathrooms from which to choose. And much slower service!
Each seatback has a six-inch viewing screen, with five channels of TV and four movie channels. The screen conveniently tilts forward when the inconsiderate short-legged oaf in front of you tilts his or her seat back into your knees. One day, seat-tilters will deservedly join smokers as social pariahs -- until then, all one can do is mutter and hope to sunburn the offender's neck with a heated glare.
Those seat-tilters are especially noisome on the 777, which features 2-5-2 seating. Can you imagine sitting on the in the middle seat of five? Getting to one of the lavatories over the laps to two people is difficult enough, but the seat-tilters ensure an even tougher journey by stationing themselves over the two laps you're trying to traverse. It makes for depressingly lengthy glimpses of the middle-seater's posterior region as she or he inches ever so slowly away, butt held high for balance.
For the flight to Taiwan we'd ordered the vegetarian meal because the last time we flew, a person next to us did the same and got a delicious-looking and smelling pasta dish, piping hot, a good half-hour before the rest of us got our lukewarm processed chicken product food substitute. But for our two meals and a snack on the 14-hour flight, we somehow got the vegan vegetarian variety, the most restrictive kind -- no eggs, no dairy. A vegan chocolate-chip cookie tastes mighty different, let me tell you. So we won't try that again, especially after seeing the cheesecake listed as a dessert with the first meal. (They handed out menus showing us all the stuff we'd be missing.) Hey, I'll give them credit for trying, but the miniature plastic-wrapped pita and the two discs of cold pureed something with lentils just didn't cut it as a midnight snack.
The first six hours of the flight flew by, aided greatly by Cuba Gooding Jr.'s hammy overacting in Snow Dogs. After that, things began to drag horribly, and I won't bore you with the details of my futile attempts to sleep. Some wine (free on United Airlines international flights) induced some all-too-brief dozing. But it was all worth it when we descended below 10,000 feet and could see the armada of container ships steaming for the U.S., laden with everything "Made in Taiwan." Then the most excitable of our 12 flight attendants began screaming, in Chinese and English, through the lavatory door at a passenger still doing her business five minutes before landing. This was the same attendant who ran up and down the aisles, frequently, to deliver breathless coffee status reports to her superior, so her fit of concern for the safety rules came as no surprise.
More black comedy greeted us just off the jetway. "Drug trafficking is punishable by death in the R.O.C.," read a large sign placed where no one could miss it. No, it did not say, "And welcome to Taiwan! Enjoy your stay!" in smaller letters.
Next up was the immigration line, one of the easier things to figure out as all the foreigners were in one line and all the natives in another. Don't get behind the woman who looks at your customs declaration form (the one they handed out early in the flight, with much explanation, while everyone was still awake) and says, "What's that?"
They hadn't watered us for a good two and a half hours prior to landing, so we had to find a place in the rather Spartan Chiang Kai Shek International Airport to buy beverages. The Coke machine (yes, America is everywhere) took only coins. There was just one human-operated food cart, so off I went to try out my English on a nice Taiwanese woman. Lesson Number One: You'll confuse people if you make the American sign for "two" with the index and middle finger raised. Turns out an upraised thumb and index finger mean "two" in Taiwan, and what I was doing means absolutely nothing.
Getting down quotations and observations is vital to the travel writer, at least to one burdened with a truly short-term memory. So when the chipper and puffy-cheeked attendant on my puddle-jumper from Lincoln ad-libbed, "And if your travel plans don't include going to Denver, the best time to tell me about it would be right about now," I had to grab the closest dead tree available. The margins of my magazine (the excellent newer volume, The Week) were thinner than The New York Sun, so I grabbed a sparsely decorated bag that looked like a pastry sack and scribbled away.
Haste in writing wasn't needed at Denver International Airport, where constant repetition fastened this oddly humorous line in my memory: "Unattended baggage will be immediately confiscated, and may be destroyed." Well, isn't that what you pay them to do to your checked luggage, anyway, if they don't lose it first? Hard to imagine much harm coming to our articles, however: four big Rubbermaid Action Packers, which my sister-in-law and her husband will fill with their household items when they move back to the United States after three years in Taiwan.
Getting there really is half the fun for a plane buff like me, son of an Air Force office who can identify dozens of aircraft by their engine sounds alone. I'm beating dear old dad to the punch on this one, though, becoming the first Fulwider to fly the mighty Boeing 777. An average-size person is shorter than the landing gear on this behemoth, and a foolhardy person could stand inside one of the two massive turbofans.There are 43 rows of seats, with the lucky folks in First Class getting their own jetway and bulkhead door. The vastly greater number of unwashed Coach passengers enter through a separate door (walking uphill to the massive plane), but we have five bathrooms from which to choose. And much slower service!
Each seatback has a six-inch viewing screen, with five channels of TV and four movie channels. The screen conveniently tilts forward when the inconsiderate short-legged oaf in front of you tilts his or her seat back into your knees. One day, seat-tilters will deservedly join smokers as social pariahs -- until then, all one can do is mutter and hope to sunburn the offender's neck with a heated glare.
Those seat-tilters are especially noisome on the 777, which features 2-5-2 seating. Can you imagine sitting on the in the middle seat of five? Getting to one of the lavatories over the laps to two people is difficult enough, but the seat-tilters ensure an even tougher journey by stationing themselves over the two laps you're trying to traverse. It makes for depressingly lengthy glimpses of the middle-seater's posterior region as she or he inches ever so slowly away, butt held high for balance.
For the flight to Taiwan we'd ordered the vegetarian meal because the last time we flew, a person next to us did the same and got a delicious-looking and smelling pasta dish, piping hot, a good half-hour before the rest of us got our lukewarm processed chicken product food substitute. But for our two meals and a snack on the 14-hour flight, we somehow got the vegan vegetarian variety, the most restrictive kind -- no eggs, no dairy. A vegan chocolate-chip cookie tastes mighty different, let me tell you. So we won't try that again, especially after seeing the cheesecake listed as a dessert with the first meal. (They handed out menus showing us all the stuff we'd be missing.) Hey, I'll give them credit for trying, but the miniature plastic-wrapped pita and the two discs of cold pureed something with lentils just didn't cut it as a midnight snack.
The first six hours of the flight flew by, aided greatly by Cuba Gooding Jr.'s hammy overacting in Snow Dogs. After that, things began to drag horribly, and I won't bore you with the details of my futile attempts to sleep. Some wine (free on United Airlines international flights) induced some all-too-brief dozing. But it was all worth it when we descended below 10,000 feet and could see the armada of container ships steaming for the U.S., laden with everything "Made in Taiwan." Then the most excitable of our 12 flight attendants began screaming, in Chinese and English, through the lavatory door at a passenger still doing her business five minutes before landing. This was the same attendant who ran up and down the aisles, frequently, to deliver breathless coffee status reports to her superior, so her fit of concern for the safety rules came as no surprise.
More black comedy greeted us just off the jetway. "Drug trafficking is punishable by death in the R.O.C.," read a large sign placed where no one could miss it. No, it did not say, "And welcome to Taiwan! Enjoy your stay!" in smaller letters.
Next up was the immigration line, one of the easier things to figure out as all the foreigners were in one line and all the natives in another. Don't get behind the woman who looks at your customs declaration form (the one they handed out early in the flight, with much explanation, while everyone was still awake) and says, "What's that?"
They hadn't watered us for a good two and a half hours prior to landing, so we had to find a place in the rather Spartan Chiang Kai Shek International Airport to buy beverages. The Coke machine (yes, America is everywhere) took only coins. There was just one human-operated food cart, so off I went to try out my English on a nice Taiwanese woman. Lesson Number One: You'll confuse people if you make the American sign for "two" with the index and middle finger raised. Turns out an upraised thumb and index finger mean "two" in Taiwan, and what I was doing means absolutely nothing.
Thursday, May 9, 2002
A Foodie Treks Through New York City
Here's how to eat the essentials: bagels, pizza, hot dogs and falafel
In Manhattan's Little Italy there is a man who has discovered a most effortless way to make money: Carry a really honkin' big snake through a crowd of people and charge them $10 each to be photographed with it. Makes me wonder why I spend endless hours slaving over a hot keyboard.
Six-foot-long reptiles are just one of the many splendors to be found in The City That Never Sleeps. On my recent trip to Manhattan, though, I wasn't looking for things that taste like chicken. I wanted bagels, pizza, hot dogs and falafel.
The proper New York bagel is purchased from a guy stooped over inside one of the donuts 'n' bagels carts you'll find on every second or third street corner. The bagel is about as big around as a coffee saucer and thick enough that people with small mouths (that does not describe me) can't quite get the whole thing in. It's already sliced and has about a quarter-pound of plain cream cheese smooshed (not spread, that would take too long) between its halves. It's not refrigerated; refrigeration for dairy products is highly overrated, and besides, the New York air has some remarkable preservative qualities.
You must order coffee with your bagel, even if you don't like coffee, so you can see how the laws of physics don't apply in the city. Your stooped-over bagel cart guy will put your java (which he brewed fresh a week ago, just for you) in a paper cup with a plastic lid, then place it upright atop your bagel in a small paper lunch sack. He'll do it in such a way that when you drop the whole package from waist height, the coffee will not spill. It's amazing.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, find a pizza place -- some parts of town, like portions of the Upper West Side, are so backward that they have a pizza place only every third block. You'll find two or three pizza joints on a good-quality block. Ask for a "slicearegulartago." That's a slice of plain cheese pizza. (Check the per-slice price; if it's more than $1.95, it's foo-foo tourist pizza and you don't want it.) Don't order toppings. They're unnecessary, and expensive. Your pizza purveyor, who may actually be Italian-American, will pull a slice from a pan that's been sitting in a display on the counter for several hours and throw it (sliding it would be too slow) into the oven. This counter-sitting and re-heating is the key to New York pizza; it does something to the crust at the subatomic level that makes it delectably crispy and yet soft and chewy at the same time. It makes it New York Pizza, the kind you have to use bold letters to describe. I've had a slice of pizza in New York fresh out of the oven, and it just isn't the same. Ya gotta let it sit there and contemplate its pizzaness, its place on the island of Manhattan, and the ultimate sacrifice it will soon make in the stomach of a hungry customer. Respect it, and it will respect you.
I told you that you don't need to order toppings, because you don't. That would be stupid, when all the toppings you need are provided free for you right on the counter. Best of all, they come in convenient shakers. You've got your Parmesan cheese (Romano in the high-class joints), your oregano, your red-pepper flakes, your salt and -- if you're really lucky -- garlic powder! If you're really talented, like I became after three months living in New York and eating nothing but pizza for lunch, you can shake so much Parmesan onto your pizza that it's like getting extra cheese for free. The talent part comes in doing it fast enough to avoid getting The Evil Eye from the pizza purveyor. Once the top of your pizza is snow-white with Parmesan, turn it green with the oregano. Then red with the red-pepper flakes. Heck, it'll be like Christmas in July.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, head for one of the two places that explain how people can afford to live in Greenwich Village: Gray's Papaya. This, my friends, is Hot Dog Heaven. Bliss on a Bun. For 75 cents you, yes you, can have a hot dog onto which a sweaty man in white will pile endless sauerkraut -- for no additional charge. The line stretches down the street as starving Greenwich Villagers, wallets empty from paying their $2,000 rents, wait for a little bit o' Heaven slathered with spicy mustard. But you don't just go to Gray's Papaya to get a hot dog for 50 cents less than you'd pay anywhere else in the city, you go to get, that's right, papaya juice. It's one of several exotic fruity delights they have; pina colada and orange juice are there, among others. The dogs are even better than the ones you get from Der Wiener Schlinger in Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Yes, that good.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, it's just a few blocks to Mahmoun's Falafel, also in the Village. Prepare yourself, for you are about to have a taste experience like none other. For the last hour and a half (you did eat in 30-minute increments, didn't you?) you have eaten but peasant food; tasty, but simple. Now you are about to consume the Pita Fulla Passion, the Mediterranean Magnificence. You enter the narrow doorway, and before you stands -- not much at all. And that's the glory of the place! Four long steps and you're at the counter. You order a falafel sandwich, pay two dollars (much cheaper than anywhere else in the city) and half a minute later it's in your hand, its vegetarian goodness ensconced in aluminum foil. You sit down on one of the 10 seats in the entire place, and think, "My walk-in closet is bigger than this." Then you unwrap the falafel and the aroma wafts up to tickle your nostrils and your fancy. In one bite are found fried balls of ground chickpeas and spices; tomatoes, lettuce and tahini sauce, a mixture of ground sesame seeds and oil. Not a single animal died in its production, yet it's a perfectly filling meal.
Here are the addresses for the restaurants mentioned above:
Gray's Papaya: West Village: 402 Sixth Avenue at 8th Street.
Mamoun's Falafel: West Village: 119 MacDougal St, between Bleecker Street to the south and West Third Street to the north.
Other restaurants to try in New York are:
Mocca Hungarian Restaurant: For central and eastern European cooking on a budget, this is the place to go. Roughly the same cuisine, of higher quality, is offered a few blocks north at Heidelberg. But why pay? Mocca's $6.95 lunchtime prix fixe menu, available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., is absolutely astounding. You get fresh bread, soup or salad, your choice from a generous list of entrees, and dessert. The service is phenomenally gruff and rude; your plates will be dropped onto your table, and you will not receive a single smile from anyone. But the food, oh, the food. It's heavy and delicious. We tried the Chicken Paprikash and the Wiener Schnitzel and found both above average. Allow time for a nap afterward. Upper East Side: 1588 Second Ave., between 82nd and 83rd streets.
Excellent Dumpling House: Chinese noodle dishes in astounding variety, many with delectably unidentifiable ingredients and all in servings that only the hugest of appetites could conquer. A favorite among people on jury duty because it's so cheap. We went late at night and were served quickly, but we hear it's packed during the day. The decor, dominated by baby-barf-green tile, makes the restaurant look like a gigantic bathroom. Chinatown: 111 Lafayette St., between Canal and Walker streets.
_____
This piece is adapted from one that originally appeared August 15, 2000, in Nebraska StatePaper. You can see the original article here.
Six-foot-long reptiles are just one of the many splendors to be found in The City That Never Sleeps. On my recent trip to Manhattan, though, I wasn't looking for things that taste like chicken. I wanted bagels, pizza, hot dogs and falafel.
The proper New York bagel is purchased from a guy stooped over inside one of the donuts 'n' bagels carts you'll find on every second or third street corner. The bagel is about as big around as a coffee saucer and thick enough that people with small mouths (that does not describe me) can't quite get the whole thing in. It's already sliced and has about a quarter-pound of plain cream cheese smooshed (not spread, that would take too long) between its halves. It's not refrigerated; refrigeration for dairy products is highly overrated, and besides, the New York air has some remarkable preservative qualities.
You must order coffee with your bagel, even if you don't like coffee, so you can see how the laws of physics don't apply in the city. Your stooped-over bagel cart guy will put your java (which he brewed fresh a week ago, just for you) in a paper cup with a plastic lid, then place it upright atop your bagel in a small paper lunch sack. He'll do it in such a way that when you drop the whole package from waist height, the coffee will not spill. It's amazing.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, find a pizza place -- some parts of town, like portions of the Upper West Side, are so backward that they have a pizza place only every third block. You'll find two or three pizza joints on a good-quality block. Ask for a "slicearegulartago." That's a slice of plain cheese pizza. (Check the per-slice price; if it's more than $1.95, it's foo-foo tourist pizza and you don't want it.) Don't order toppings. They're unnecessary, and expensive. Your pizza purveyor, who may actually be Italian-American, will pull a slice from a pan that's been sitting in a display on the counter for several hours and throw it (sliding it would be too slow) into the oven. This counter-sitting and re-heating is the key to New York pizza; it does something to the crust at the subatomic level that makes it delectably crispy and yet soft and chewy at the same time. It makes it New York Pizza, the kind you have to use bold letters to describe. I've had a slice of pizza in New York fresh out of the oven, and it just isn't the same. Ya gotta let it sit there and contemplate its pizzaness, its place on the island of Manhattan, and the ultimate sacrifice it will soon make in the stomach of a hungry customer. Respect it, and it will respect you.
I told you that you don't need to order toppings, because you don't. That would be stupid, when all the toppings you need are provided free for you right on the counter. Best of all, they come in convenient shakers. You've got your Parmesan cheese (Romano in the high-class joints), your oregano, your red-pepper flakes, your salt and -- if you're really lucky -- garlic powder! If you're really talented, like I became after three months living in New York and eating nothing but pizza for lunch, you can shake so much Parmesan onto your pizza that it's like getting extra cheese for free. The talent part comes in doing it fast enough to avoid getting The Evil Eye from the pizza purveyor. Once the top of your pizza is snow-white with Parmesan, turn it green with the oregano. Then red with the red-pepper flakes. Heck, it'll be like Christmas in July.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, head for one of the two places that explain how people can afford to live in Greenwich Village: Gray's Papaya. This, my friends, is Hot Dog Heaven. Bliss on a Bun. For 75 cents you, yes you, can have a hot dog onto which a sweaty man in white will pile endless sauerkraut -- for no additional charge. The line stretches down the street as starving Greenwich Villagers, wallets empty from paying their $2,000 rents, wait for a little bit o' Heaven slathered with spicy mustard. But you don't just go to Gray's Papaya to get a hot dog for 50 cents less than you'd pay anywhere else in the city, you go to get, that's right, papaya juice. It's one of several exotic fruity delights they have; pina colada and orange juice are there, among others. The dogs are even better than the ones you get from Der Wiener Schlinger in Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Yes, that good.
Thirty minutes later when you're hungry again, it's just a few blocks to Mahmoun's Falafel, also in the Village. Prepare yourself, for you are about to have a taste experience like none other. For the last hour and a half (you did eat in 30-minute increments, didn't you?) you have eaten but peasant food; tasty, but simple. Now you are about to consume the Pita Fulla Passion, the Mediterranean Magnificence. You enter the narrow doorway, and before you stands -- not much at all. And that's the glory of the place! Four long steps and you're at the counter. You order a falafel sandwich, pay two dollars (much cheaper than anywhere else in the city) and half a minute later it's in your hand, its vegetarian goodness ensconced in aluminum foil. You sit down on one of the 10 seats in the entire place, and think, "My walk-in closet is bigger than this." Then you unwrap the falafel and the aroma wafts up to tickle your nostrils and your fancy. In one bite are found fried balls of ground chickpeas and spices; tomatoes, lettuce and tahini sauce, a mixture of ground sesame seeds and oil. Not a single animal died in its production, yet it's a perfectly filling meal.
Here are the addresses for the restaurants mentioned above:
Gray's Papaya: West Village: 402 Sixth Avenue at 8th Street.
Mamoun's Falafel: West Village: 119 MacDougal St, between Bleecker Street to the south and West Third Street to the north.
Other restaurants to try in New York are:
Mocca Hungarian Restaurant: For central and eastern European cooking on a budget, this is the place to go. Roughly the same cuisine, of higher quality, is offered a few blocks north at Heidelberg. But why pay? Mocca's $6.95 lunchtime prix fixe menu, available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., is absolutely astounding. You get fresh bread, soup or salad, your choice from a generous list of entrees, and dessert. The service is phenomenally gruff and rude; your plates will be dropped onto your table, and you will not receive a single smile from anyone. But the food, oh, the food. It's heavy and delicious. We tried the Chicken Paprikash and the Wiener Schnitzel and found both above average. Allow time for a nap afterward. Upper East Side: 1588 Second Ave., between 82nd and 83rd streets.
Excellent Dumpling House: Chinese noodle dishes in astounding variety, many with delectably unidentifiable ingredients and all in servings that only the hugest of appetites could conquer. A favorite among people on jury duty because it's so cheap. We went late at night and were served quickly, but we hear it's packed during the day. The decor, dominated by baby-barf-green tile, makes the restaurant look like a gigantic bathroom. Chinatown: 111 Lafayette St., between Canal and Walker streets.
This piece is adapted from one that originally appeared August 15, 2000, in Nebraska StatePaper. You can see the original article here.
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