Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Taipei diary: two

Day two, which was actually my first full day in Taipei, had Dala Publishing's Lawren, Olivia and Yuching meet me, Tim Gibson and Ant Sang after breakfast of pork dumplings, fruit and warm soy milk at the Howard Hotel, to take us to The Attic, where we would be staying for our residency in the Artists Village.
 
After dropping off our bags, we were treated to an amazing cooked brunch of pork and ribbon noodle hot-pot and I got to sample sour milk (tastes like yoghurt drink) before moving on to Taipei's speciality bubble tea.


 
 
 
  
Just when I thought bubble tea was the happiest-making food-stuff in the world, I tried black sesame dumplings in red bean soup. Anyone who has spent any time with me around food will know that sugar gives me the giggles. Alas, Yuching had no idea why her favourite pudding made me cry with laughter, just as my taste buds had no idea what was happening to them. Welcome to Taipei, taste buds!




 As night fell, the streets became alive with lights. Taipei is the city that never sleeps. It's also the city with subterranean comic shops such as Manga Sick, where a young man slept on a beanbag by the doorway as ambient music filtered out from a speaker hidden somewhere in the zine-filled shelves.



 But even the mainstream book shop Eslite has 24 hour opening, and gave us a glimpse of some familiar covers before us luminaries went out for the night.

 

Taipei diary: day one, can be read here.

6 comments:

Lori said...

Bubble tea is pretty fantastic, right? I also like those tapioca pearls thingies as a topping on frozen yogurt (I usually have little frozen yogurt and a lot of tapioca and brownie bits). OK. Enough talking of sweets or I'll go directly for my chocolate stash as soon as I finish this comment.

Kass said...

What a brilliant idea to keep an illustrated diary. I'm loving your colorful and giggly account.

Rachel Fenton said...

Bubble tea is the best, Lori. Or maybe rose milk tea is the best. Or maybe sweet potato tea, which tastes like chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.

Rachel Fenton said...

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to keep it up, Kass - a page per day in already activity-stuffed days - but it ended up being a part of the day that I really looked forward to and gave me a really lovely way to remember the whole trip. Im glad you're enjoying it - thank you!

@parridhlantern said...

Loving the idea of you documenting your diary with illustrations as well as with the usual currency of words.

Rachel Fenton said...

Thank you, Parrish - got a fair few more diary posts to upload, so I'm glad you like them.