Comic Rob Shows You How to Use Chopsticks…

Thinking about travelling to Taiwan? We suggest you to learn chopsticks before you go.
If you haven't tried it yet, check out this video below. Comic Rob shows you how to use chopsticks.
Enjoy! : ) Is "axx hxxe" rude? Let us know.

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Taiwan in National Geographic’s Best Trips in 2015

I usually don’t like to be told where to go…  but hey.. sometimes they make sense…

Check out National Geographic’s Best Trips in 2015 – Taiwan. 

“Taiwan

Out of China's Shadow

As China gets mightier and smoggier, Taiwan feels calmer and cleaner. When China restricted access to the internet, Taiwan provided free Wi-Fi islandwide. When China marginalized its ethnic groups, Taiwan reintroduced indigenous Formosan languages to schools. Taiwan ranks in the top 50 (out of 178) on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), while China sank to the 118th spot.

But Taiwan is much more than China’s contrarian runaway bride. The sweet-potato-shaped island—a tad smaller than Switzerland (but no less mountainous)—has a high-tech global urban sector and a thriving aboriginal society. In one decade, "Made in Taiwan" went from being a sign of bad quality to a national statement of pride.

Skyscraper-filled capital Taipei, with a population of seven million, has been named 2016’s World Design Capital. A flurry of new buildings opens in 2015, including a performing arts center designed by Rem Koolhaas's firm.

More than anything, Taipei lives up to its reputation as a food paradise. (note: I think the entire island is a food paradise.) “Forget about breakfast at the hotel,” says Peray, a popular Taipei food blogger. “In the early mornings, at food stalls, you can get clay oven rolls, charcoal grill sandwiches, rice with chicken, and rice noodle soup with pork. The challenge here is staying hungry.” —Adam H. Graham"

If you can, explore outside of Taipei. Check out our tours featured outdoor adventures and culture experiences.

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Wheel Pie – A Must Try Food in Taiwan

What is Wheel Pie?

Wheel pie is a common street snack in Taiwan, similar to the Japanese snack, Imagawayaki. It’s often sold by street vendors. Look for vendors with little “wheel” looking baking molds. That’s probably it. They usually start their business in the afternoon at 3 pm or 4 pm. But I have had luck at as early as 10 am. So look around when you travel in Taiwan. You can easily find one on the street.

It is made of starch and fillings. The most common fillings you would find on the street are cream, red bean, sesame, and pickled radish. Pickled cabbage, taro and peanut are popular too. As stated in our website, quality food plays a very important role in our daily life. Food industry is extremely competitive due to a large population of foodies with spoiled taste buds.

This little wheel pie is a good example.  Although it’s a small pie, street vendors thrive to compete on the ingredients and baking techniques. A popular vendor can attract a long line of people waiting for the fresh made wheel pies.     

New Wheel Pie Flavors

Clockwise from the top left: Fillings of
meat, Oreo, curry, and cherries

Recently a trend of innovative fillings in this classic Taiwanese snack swirls in the local market. From fresh fruits like banana, cherries and strawberries, chocolate, Oreo cookies to eggs, curry and… MEAT..?! .. Yup, that’s right. And people like it! It’s kinda like the idea of ice cream topped with bacon. It tastes better than it looks. LoL.

It is best to eat it fresh. But if you are travelling us, we could arrange a delivery for you. Check out our adventure menu today. 

Picture source:  737 Wheel Pies  and Fushiki 

How to make Wheel Pies?

Not travelling to Taiwan any time soon? No worries! Try these wheel pie recipes at home and see how it comes out! We have never tried these recipes so we are very curious if it actually works. If you do try it out, please let us know. Write us an email or leave a comment below.

Recipe #1: A blog post in English

Recipe #2: A 10-minute YouTube video in English and Japanese

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Taiwan Surf Spot on the Rarely Surfed Lineup Report

An awesome shot of a surf spot in Taiwan in this report. Check it out.

Taiwan Surf Spot

Read the full report here. 

What's fun in Taiwan? For more adventures in Taiwan, please visit friendsintaiwan.net

*Special thanks to our surf spot reporter Steve Milanoski. 

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Seafood Guide #1 : Sustainable Seafood in Taiwan

Taiwan is one of the world’s top seafood exporters. The cold and warm current converging in Taiwan’s water make it a rich fishing ground.  Our fish market never runs out of the fresh fish. The seasons also bring us a great variety of seafood selections. Seafood is on the top of our Must-Eat list for travelers in Taiwan. 

However, Taiwan is not exempt from the global overfishing issues. Seafood lovers, do you know that we might not be able to eat wild fish in 20 years?!?! 

   

It is important to know the sustainable seafood in Taiwan before you go.

The shortage of fish stocks

There are a few reasons that cause the dramatic decline in our fish stocks, overfishing, illegal fishing, habitat damage and regulations.  

Overfishing: Catching Fish Faster than They Can Reproduce

Today, 90 percent of the world's fisheries are either fully exploited, overexploited or have collapsed. The global fishing fleet is operating at 2.5 times the sustainable level—there are simply too many boats chasing a dwindling number of fish. One reason is the advent of industrial-scale fishing invented in the 80’s.

Illegal Fishing

The fewer fish there are, the more desperate we become to catch them. Inevitably, this leads to illegal fishing. International fisheries management agencies report that at least a quarter of the world's catch is illegal, unreported or unregulated.

Habitat Damage

Gears that drag across the seafloor like trawls and dredges can destroy delicate habitats that provide shelter, food and breeding grounds for fish and other species.

Regulations

Around the world, regulations dealing with overfishing and other ocean issues are, with few exceptions, weak and poorly enforced.

For more research information, please visit

SeafoodWatch by Monterey Bay Aquarium

Overfishing in One Minute

Smithsonian  Museum

World Counts: Overfishing Facts

What can WE do NOW? Selecting Sustainable Seafood.

We can do it. It is not so hard. There are plenty of general sea food guides available and guides specific to certain countries or areas.

The choice of sustainable seafood can be complex sometimes when you don’t have much information about where it is from. It adds a bit more complication when you travel to a foreign country where you may see seafood that you have never seen before. No worries. Follow the rules of thumb below and save some seafood guides in your phone. You are good to go.

Rules of Thumb

1.         Common > Rare species

2.         Silver > Colorful species

3.         Migratory > Sedentary species

4.         Sand > Reef Rock inhabitants

5.         Avoid seafood transported in long distance (energy consuming)

6.         Avoid long-lived large predator fishes (high in heavy metal accumulation)

7.         Farmed > Wild Caught species (depending on the species)

8.         Species farmed by botanical feeds > by fish meal

9.         Choose lower trophic level species

10.       Avoid seafood caught by unsustainable fishery methods

Taiwan Seafood Guide by the Fish Database of Taiwan (click for the link)

This guide is awesome. It lists photos and Chinese names (pinyin) for popular seafood you will see in the restaurants and markets in Taiwan. If you can’t recognize it by the photo, you can ask them to tell you in mandarin and search by pinyin. The best way to use this guide is to open the link on your phone and save the screen shots. When you are out at the restaurants or markets, just pull your phone out and there you go.

Alternatively, you could click on these photos and save them.

  

NEW! Taiwan Fish Database released a PDF version of Taiwan seafood guide. Please feel free to download here if you would like a print out copy. 

We will cover the seafood recommendations in Taiwan soon. Stay tuned and choose good fish.

FYI, we also recommend some cool, handy seafood guide apps. They are not specific to Taiwan but it might work for where you live. Check them out.

Seafood Watch

Android

Apple

Good Fish Guide

Android

Apple

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Discover Hometown Surf in Taiwan #1

It was such an adventure discovering hometown surf the first time.       

“Look, Taiwan got some surf dude…”My Sol Cal surf buddies always show me surf stories or pictures about the surf in Taiwan in the magazine. Having been residing in Sol Cal and surfed a lot of places in different countries, I do want to discover the surf in my hometown sometime. It has been put off for years because my visit was always occupied with family activities and errands.

Finally once-a-life chance appeared itself: 24 hours. During one of my visits, my parents had to attend a very important wedding out of town. I was left home alone for one day! I immediately called everyone I know. No one wanted to take a day off to get in the water in Dec. Water temp was still in the 70s but the air could be in the 60s. It was the kind of season that only surfers could enjoy going to the beach. It could be a bit intimidating and exciting at the same time, thinking that I had to surf in a new spot all by myself.   But I can’t waste this once-a-life time chance. Surf forecast showed knee to waist high the next day. It would be a piece of cake if I could find the spot.  Quickly arranged things with a local surf shop there, I rushed to the train station.

The public transportation system in a big city like Taipei can be confusing sometimes, even for a native Mandarin speaker like me. I jumped on to the train at 730 pm that was supposed to take me to the surf town, according to the staff.  At rush hour, the train was crowded… full of students and people just got off work. I was very excited about my adventure. People started to get off the train, as the train left the city further behind. Finally it was just 4 or 5 people in the train carriage. At 9 o’clock, the train conductor announced that next stop would be the final stop for this train… I looked up the name on the map…  

Wait no… it was like 2 stops prior to the surf shop stop!!  I turned to the train conductor, a man in his 60s who looked like the grandpa next door. He asked, “What are you doing there?” … I thought to me myself, “this old man probably doesn’t know what surfing is”.. so I said, “ I booked a hostel there”. He went, “are you going to surf there by any chance?” I looked at him, astonished.  I replied, “so.. do you surf”?  He said, “ ya… I’ve surfed for 30+ years… in fact that was the reason that I took the job as a train conductor because it took me to the surf town every day!  But I started to like skiing recently. I organized several ski trips to Korea online every season!”…  I was speechless… yeah man… a grandpa train conductor who surfed and skied and organized trips online?!… What a great omen for the adventure, although I still needed to figure out the way to get there.

I was told to wait for another train at the “last stop”, a little train station for another 30 minutes. No one else was there. Just me and another nut who took the wrong train as well… my phone rang. It was my mom.

Me: “Hi mom”.

Mom: “Hello. What are you doing? Is everything all right?”

Me: “Everything is good”

Mom: “Where are you? Why it sounds so empty”…

Me: “I was… hum… in a train station”

Mom: “WHAT??? What are you doing there??”

Me: “I’m going to surf…”

Mom: “to SURF? Don’t you surf enough in LA? Why can’t you stay at home and wait for me to come back? Who are you going with? Where are you staying?”

Me: “errr.. no body… I’m staying at a local surf shop”…

Mom: “WHAT????? You’re going alone??? It’s really late now and you haven’t got there. Go home now. You can go next time.”

Me: “I’d be fine…”

Mom: “G-O H-O-M-E”..

Me: “I can’t…”

… silence…

………………..

Mom: ”FINE, GOOD LUCK”…  finally my mom burst it loud and hung up.

The nun gave me a smile. I smiled it back. My heart sank a little. I looked around the dark station again. Ya…. It was kinda sketchy being here all by myself at this time of the day..  but I have been to worse parts of the world. I would be just fine in my home country. Most of people were nice anyways. I was so close. I couldn’t just turn around.

  

At 10 o’clock, I arrived at the station in the surf town. It was dark. A woman took off the train at the same station too. From the corner of my eye, I saw a guy in his 20s and a little boy waiting at the station. I went pass by them and walked outside of the train station. The surf shop told they were “just outside of the train station.” But I saw nothing outside of the train station. There might be something.. but street was so dark... I couldn’t really tell. I decided to walk towards a light about 500 yards at the left of the station. Occasionally trucks and cars sped past by with whistling and yelling… then I heard people walking behind me. Many thoughts came to my mind. I started sweating and getting nervous so I walked faster and faster towards the light. I started to wonder if it was a wise idea. Maybe I should have waited for next time. The steps behind me sped up too. I started to run and reached this little grocery store with the light before they caught up with me. “Excuse.. excuse.. me... where.. where is the.. the surf shop?! “, I asked while catching my breath.  “Excuse.. excuse.. me... are.. are.. you.. Ming..?” a voice came from my back, out of breath too. I turned around and they were the guy in his 20’s and the boy. Whue!! I relieved and laughed. They weren’t sure if I was the guest they were expecting. They wanted to ask me but I kept walking faster and faster and started running.

I followed them back to a small surf shop that had like 3 racks of clothing and a bunch of surf boards. Behind the store there was a room with wood floor. There was a huge flat screen TV in the room, some blankets, pillows and the owner of the surf shop, a man in his mid 40s with long hair, and his 3 yr-old daughter.  “Wait…I did not just book a sleeping space in this room… this can’t be real…” I thought to myself.  The owner started to introduce himself and gave me a warm welcome. It turned out that he was a fellow surfer and a pretty nice guy.  They later showed me the dorm room I would be staying behind the house... Whue!! Great. Things looked more legit now.

Next day I went surfing early in the morning with another surfer who happened to be in the dorm that day. Although it’d probably be a piece of cake for me to surf alone on a small day like that, I just felt so much relief and comfortable getting into a new spot with a local.  The spot was not well marked either. The surf shop was right by the water. We still had to walk past a few bridges, beaches and dogs to get there. There was nobody. No other surfers. Pretty cool. We surfed in a beautiful bay surrounded by high mountains.  It was a right point break so the shape was good. The water was still warm in the 70s in Dec. Wave was small that day but I was still super stoked about the entire trip. I sat on my board thinking “I can’t believe I make it!”

For more info on the surf trip in Taiwan, please contact Friends in Taiwan.

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By Ming for Friends in Taiwan Adventure

info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net