1200 sq ft of Paris in Taipei

Paul, we’re glad you’re here.

One of our favorite French bakery/delis opened up in Taipei recently.  Paul bakery bakes some of the most delicious breads and pastries you’ll ever have.  They also have a nice selection of light lunches to choose from.  Once you enter you could almost imagine yourself back in Paris sitting down for a delicious ham and cheese baguette or a cheesy quiche with a lightly tossed mixed green salad.

A ham and cheese baguette, mixed green salad, soup and tea for around $10.

Bon Appetit

The diversity of restaurants here in Taipei is amazing and it’s getting even better as we find our way around the city.  You can have this beautiful French lunch or walk 30 feet out the front doors of Paul and have a bowl of local noodles for $1.

We are a city of scooters

 

I took a little ride downtown last weekend to see a friend at Taipei’s annual camera exhibition.  It was pretty much a geekfest, and I was happy to be one of them.  The fortunate news is that I only spent nt$200 (US$6) and it was on a completely non-photography related item.

Anyway, there were a few overpasses that I crossed and one of them had a view of a few scooters.  This is a perfect representation of what you’d see at nearly any intersection in Taipei, scooters scrambling for their small section of the road.

I wish I was down there with them

 

Construction is always a hassle for commuters

Test

Ok, here’s the story about this test post.  I was sitting at a stop light, on the scooter of course, just before this one and I wanted to see how far tachnology has come.  So, while standing at this traffic light I took the photo and used the WordPress application for the iPhone to make a posting to our blog.  Yes, we do have some long lights, but it’s still impressive what can be done at one light with today’s technology.  (I typed this caption when I got home.  The lights are long, but not that long.)

Flower Market

Every weekend, the parking lot under one of the elevated freeways turns into a half mile long flower and jade market. A few hundred stalls fill up the parking lot with every type of jade you can imagine and every flower and herb under the sun.

Laura’s picking out some rosemary.

Last fall we planted an herb garden along the side of our house and didn’t maintain it well. We thought we’d give it another try this year and planted more herbs and a few vegetables (thyme, sage, bay leaf, basil, flat leaf parsley, hot peppers, cabbage and even some cat nip for you know who). We’ve already harvested some of the basil and enjoyed a very fresh pesto with roasted walnuts and garlic.

Wild times: Earthquakes and Typhoons

Update: We ended up with 14 inches of rain in 2 days!

It’s 3PM and we’ve already had 3 inches of rain dumpped on us today from typhoon Sinlaku.  The worst part of the storm isn’t supposed to hit for about 18 more hours so I’m sure we’ll see a lot more rain and wind before it’s over.  Right now, gusts are at 130mph and surprisingly we still have electricity, being in the city helps shield us from some of the wind.

The typhoon’s not the only drama right now.  We had a small earthquake on the south end of the island this morning, but we didn’t feel it.  That’s two earthquakes in the last three days.  What fun.

Here’s a screen shot of our the Central Weather Bureau’s website.  We are buried below that mass of swirling clouds.