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Also included a few from the Dragon Boat Festival (a day off) this week.

• Hong Kong (Apr 3 weekend) – we forgot the camera, so no pictures for you.   Hong Kong was definitely the most expat friendly of any city we’ve visited.  Cynthia, not normally known for shopping, was quite fond of H&M in particular.  We ate Dim Sum, but actually stuck mostly to non-Chinese food (Gyros, Indian, Steak, Mexican!) because we no longer feel guilty about it on a trip.
• Beijing (Apr 10 weekend) – Cold, a bit strange.  We were staying at  a government hotel at the Olympic Green because it was connected to the convention center – the whole area was brand new but virtually deserted.  We climbed the Great Wall, crashed the Forbidden City, tried not to arouse suspicion at  Tiananmen Square (along with pervasive uniformed and plain clothes security) and saw a genuinely amazing acrobat show.
• Shanghai (Apr 15-16) – Just one night for a meeting – stayed at the Renaissance this time which superior to the Hilton
• Penghu Islands (Apr 17 weekend)- Bev and James came to visit is and we caught a flight from the local airport across the street to some of Taiwan’s southern  islands, which we explored via scooter.  Cynthia crashed once ( low speed) and was luckily unhurt.  Bev and James also make an appearance in a lot of our other pics this month.
• Hualien (Apr 24th weekend) – went with a group to explore Taroko’s “Golden Canyon” which involved rappelling UP a small, frigid waterfall and having rocks thrown at us by monkeys.  The next day we did some light whitewater rafting on the Hsiukuluan River.  Richard posted some pics on Flickr, and there are more here in the monthly pics.
• On Wednesday I felt 3 separate earthquakes.  Next up: Typhoon season.

Bejing Duck Pizza at Costco.  Duck+ Green onions + oyster sauce.  Tasty.

$2.50 pork/rice/soup lunch across the street from the office

Teppanyaki in the neighborhood, about $7.  Mine is Rice, Cabbage, Bean Spouts, Garlic Beef, Kimchi, Cynthia’s the same but Garlic Pork instead.

This was my best lunch of the week – this is a grilled baby skipjack  tuna plus a rice/egg/cucumber bowl.  The skin was crispy and salty.  This comes from a Chinese-only place near the office, but I know how to order this now.  The proprietors said I was the first foreigner who wasn’t scared to eat a whole fish there.

Thai milk tea.

Bonus picture.  The building across from ours is almost done, but I still I had to walk under this giant crane right outside our door to get outside.  I’m not sure how they even got it down the street.

This week was the 43rd anniversary of the Catholic parish here, that like everything else  is just a short walk from us in the neighborhood – and they had special festivals to celebrate.   They sent the Pope’s ambassador (the Vatican has the only embassy in Taiwan) to say mass.  Then we were all invited to kiss the relic of the parish patron, St. John Bosco, given that is was his feast day (an intentional coincidence).   I’m new to kissing relics – they don’t usually make an appearance in the US, at least in the places I frequent.  Afterward. there was a delicious 10 course luncheon at a nearby wedding hall that cost $11 for tickets.  Wine (from Ontario!) flowed freely and there was entertainment MC’d by the church ladies.  Members of the parish young and old sang, danced and played  instruments.  Also, there was a sanctioned competitive drinking game between tables, and a game in which people had to trade all their clothes with someone else on stage, “excepting the underwear” behind a blanket the church ladies held up.  I know. Cynthia is always amazed at how Catholics party, her other primary non-mass experience being “Oktoberfest” at St. John the Baptist in Folsom.  Also on her mind – “How come everything is St. John with you people?”

I’m going to try to post more pictures of food – I got feedback when I was back in the US for Christmas that people really enjoyed seeing those pictures in particular.   We’ve been sticking to a working set of some old haunts recently, but we’ll branch out to explore some new joints again once normal digestion returns which should yield some new shots.

We ate at an awesome place near our house this weekend: “Stone BBQ”.  There’s a big hole in the table that they fill with coals, then cover with a marble slab.  Then, you char all you can eat meat, seafood and vegetables, and eat it.  They also have all you can drink beer.  All of this costs less than $20 a person.

All the restaurants and shops play Christmas music in the background, which seems completely out of place but has me “in the spirit”.  I can’t wait to get back to the US next week, unwind and see the fam.

Bacon cheeseburger for Cynthia, “Spicy Mexican” burger for me and wings to share.  I had yet to have anything better than a McDonald’s burger here (Outback: not good), but the bun, cheese, dill pickles and medium-rare non-frozen ground beef all added up to something more than “pretty good for Taiwan”.  Instead it was  just fantastic without any location modifier .   Everything tasted as good as it looked.
The best part is this is all from literally a hole in the wall joint less than 2 blocks from our apartment.  We stumbled upon it walking back from the bike shop  a couple days ago, but we didn’t have time to try it out until today.  They call it “Bravo Burger”.  We’ll be back there often.