We just returned from an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in beautiful Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan. It was a whirlwind of touring the city, driving down the coast to the Dragon Bridge we went to with Josh, touring the rift valley and a day hiking in Taroko Gorge. I have excellent photos to share and stories to tell but not right now, as the work week looms ahead. Having visitors can sure be exhausting.

One note, however. The hotel in Hualien, the Anntiss Ocean View, served sandwiches for breakfast and, while the fruit sandwich and the chicken sandwich were perfectly fine, I decided to try the fish sandwich on our last morning. Picture toast with tuna salad, heavy on the mayo, topped with sliced cucumber, shredded cabbage and onion, and peanut butter. I decided to skip the fish part and had cabbage and peanut butter on toast for breakfast. It lasted fine and I got to finish off the day with a delicious bowl of ramen from the Red Bus, a lovely little restaurant-on-wheels along the Love River back here in Kaohsiung. Meals here in Taiwan can be pretty hit-or-miss.

A trip to Kaohsiung would not be complete without a hike up Monkey Mountain. The day started out cooler than earlier this week and clear, although the smog had really taken over as the morning moved along so the views were obscured by the haze. But we did see plenty of monkeys.

We also saw some beautiful spider webs, one of which Lee got a very nice photo of.

There was a gentleman playing music for the hikers, and the monkeys apparently. By the way, I shot this video before the monkeys peed on me and Lee, which is supposedly good luck. It didn't feel much like good luck to me, but what are you going to do? The music was nice anyway.

Zach and Cierra very kindly agreed to come to school on Friday and be the audience for my students. My lower level ELL kids had prepared a slide show of sorts and recorded an essay they had written describing a space at the school.

It's good for the students to have an opportunity to share their work and they were happy to have Ms. Bestor's son and his girlfriend listen to them talk. A couple of the kids with no filters peppered them with personal questions, like "When are you getting married?" but Zach and Cierra handled them with grace and patience - and a couple of none-of-your-business kind of answers.

I also got to treat them to lunch from the snack bar and give them a tour of the school.

We finished the day with dinner at an Indian restaurant and were quite surprised to find it raining when we finished dinner. I hasn't rained in a month and I hadn't expected it to rain again for another six months. But it felt pretty good and it cleaned out the pollution a bit so we didn't mind. We walked up to the fruit store to restock the larder and came back with persimmon, pineapple, passion fruit, Asian pear, oranges, grapefruit, dragon fruit and wax apples.

Delicious.

We took Zach and Cierra to the night market, on a round-about route along the Love River bike path.

The weather had gotten a smidgen cooler a few weeks ago but it's gone back to the "comfortable-hot" range, according to the government weather page. It a bit sticky for everyone else's liking, although I don't mind it too much. I prefer less humidity but I don't find it unbearable, the way I did last year. It was nice to walk along the river, anyway.

The night market was busy, but not too crazy, the way it can be on the weekends. 

Cierra wasn't feeling up to eating too much (their clocks haven't quite synched up yet) but we did get a nice sampling of foods, even if we did skip the stinky tofu. Our menu included fruit smoothies, German sausages, Hungarian pizza, odd chicken parts (butts and skin, maybe?) and my new favorite, candied sweet potato. We will make an attempt to go back for stinky tofu and scallion pancakes before Zach and Cierra leave. I'm pretty sure their friends will shun them if they haven't at least tried these Taiwanese delicacies.

Zach and Cierra have arrived, a little bleary-eyed and travel weary. One of my goals is to take them to all of our favorite restaurants. I hope they came hungry!

First stop, Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese original. Anthony Bourdain of the Travel Channel fame calls the dumplings there "little pockets of heaven."

They're up early this morning so they've gone off to find our favorite dumpling cart to bring back some breakfast before we head off to work. Tonight we'll go to the night market. I'm pretty sure they'll need naps in between.

We have gotten into the habit of eating out many nights, and who can blame us? The food is great and inexpensive, we have an incredible variety of cuisines to choose from and, frankly, I don't really like to cook all that much. Christmas cookies, yes, but the every day not so much. But I also don't want to never cook. It's satisfying to cook a really good meal at home. Lazy Sunday afternoons are a good time to plan, shop, prepare and then have your home fill with the smells of delicious food cooking.

So today I made the commitment to roast a chicken. Not such a big deal, you say? I am not interested in preparing a chicken that still has many of its parts that I've spent a lifetime trying to imagine were never attached. The chickens at the market here still have their heads and feet. I know that they're supposed to have those parts when they're alive but I'm just not used to seeing them when the bird is ready to come home to my oven. So, no fresh chicken from the street vendors. Instead we picked up a nice, clean plastic bag of chicken from Costco.

It even claims that this was a happy chicken, running free on some chicken farm in Taiwan. All was fine and good until I opened the bag and discovered, to my dismay, that our dinner had not lost its head, or its feet either. I really, really wanted to be strong and embrace my carnivorous self but I just couldn't do it. Fortunately, Lee overcame his own qualms about beheading this poor dead bird and took care of that part. I did cut the feet off all by myself, however.

I didn't eat meat for a number of years but have been happy being a meat-eater for quite awhile. I may have to rethink that position. But not tonight. The bird is in the oven as I type this.

It smells good and I'm getting hungry. When it comes time to slice into it I may lose my appetite for an animal that just a short time ago still had its head. I'll let you know after dinner.

Addendum: I did not lose my appetite. The chicken tasted good, although not great. I think I've been cured of the desire to roast my own chicken. The next time I get an inkling that I'd like some roasted chicken I think I'll just get Costco's already-cooked version. I know those do not come with either the heads or the feet. Although you can get them in the chicken parts section of the store. No thank you.

Today has been a day to think of Paris, including the people I know and care about who live there.