讀萬捲書不如行萬里路 - It is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books

One of my favorite things about Chinese is that there are these proverbs and idioms with enormous backstories that ultimately lead to a moral.  It's almost like they speak in riddles which gives rise to quotes like this one from Yao Ming after a defeat: "You have to understand that I look at the game in two parts -- one part is the enjoyment of playing, the other part is winning. Today, I achieved half of that." The title of this post is a bit simpler than that, but a fittingly pretentiously end to this blog.

That's right.  This is it.  Post #90 (which happens to be one of V's favorite numbers).  I didn't get as close to 100 as I had hoped, but I did actually write more posts in these 12 days of March than all of January.  Plus, 90 posts means I averaged a post about every other day.  It's a little sad to see it all end as I put a lot of hard work into this blog (sometimes more than others). 

Currently toying with the idea of continuing it at home, but I'm not sure what the interest level will be.  Chicago is not quite as exotic as Taipei and Tokyo...  Also our normal life is much more mundane.  Let me know what you think.

The saying in the title is about how first-hand experiences are more useful than book-knowledge and theory, but I'm taking it more literally.  Spending so much time abroad was a truly eye-opening experience I have to thank V for not only making it possible, but pushing for me to go.  She was right, and it really changed who I am and how I view the world. 

I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to be for the summer, but it would be nice to be able to come back.  This will probably be my last chance before I graduate and return full-time to my responsibilities.  Who knows.  Let's keep our fingers crossed for Post #91 in a few months.

In the meantime, our final full day in Taipei was as frantic as usual as we ran around doing last second errands and meetin up with people.  Pretty early in the day, we first caught wind of the earthquake in Japan and spent the rest of the day being fed information and misinformation from various sources.  I had knots in my stomach until late in the day when we finally got some access to the internet.

However, we had business to take care of, so we went on our way.  First up, we met up Irene for a bite to eat at Sadaharu Aoki. 

I was eating at least.  V and Irene just picked out three pastries to split.  I tried them too, so they basically split 2.5 pastries for "lunch."  Both of the layered mille feuille's had kinda stuck together so that the layers became more like solid cookies.  The cream filling was nice, but not on par with the luxurious desserts we had consumed in the past week.  The matcha one in the middle surprisingly did not have much of a matcha flavor at all.  In fact V ordered a matcha as her drink and it came sweetened with no foam.

I don't think the Taipei branch knows how to do matcha that well...

I ordered a sandwich and salad set.  The picture they had in the menu was of this fresh looking layered club sandwich with plenty of greens.  I ended up getting two giant pieces of bread with cheese melted on both sides and ham in the middle.  Not exactly the "light" lunch I had been looking forward too. 

I wouldn't change a thing though.  That sandwich was delicious.  There was a layer of creamy cheese under the melted cheese and the ham had a distinct pepperiness.  Coupled with the super flaky and giant pieces of bread it made for a unbelievably hearty and delicious meal.  This also means I basically ate cream and butter for lunch.

On the other hand, the salad was super disappointing as the greens showed some signs of yellowing with age.  Gross.

I followed up my sandwich with what looked like a taste of Japan.  Forgot what this is called, but this layered matcha + azuki concoction had a surprisingly heavy chocolate influence.  The matcha gelato on top was pleasant and very heavily tea flavored.  It would have balanced nicely with the azuki in the middle...if the middle layer had been azuki.  There was actually very little red bean in there and much more chocolate pudding.  Then chocolate ended up overpowering a lot of the delicateness of the green tea and really ruining the whole dessert. 

Overall, Sadaharu Aoki was surprisingly disappointing.  I'm pretty sure it presents itself significantly better in Japan or Paris, but they might seriously need to reevaluate the quality of their Taipei branch.  Given the prices we were paying, it simply did not meet our high expectations.

The entire B2 area of Bellavita is actually restricted to photography.  All the pictures above, we had to take in secret.  I did take this picture of V and Irene out in the open and they didn't complain at all.  I guess since I wasn't taking pictures of the goods (or so they thought), they didn't have any problems with it.

We got up and headed to the register to pay and somehow got charged less than a third of what we had ordered.  We paid it and as the confusion was setting in, I said, "算了吧" and we jetted for the exits.  On our way up the escalators, we realized just how much we had underpaid and started to feel really bad.  I began to envision the poor girl manning the register getting in serious trouble and we made the collective decision to go back.

Turns out they had no idea.  We actually had to convince them they had charged us too little.  It was weird that the girl kept apologizing for getting the bill wrong...  Shouldn't she have been saying "thank you" that we came back?  We were walking away, when she finally called us back and gave us a free cake.  Good thing or else we might have just left the situation feeling like we had simply been too nice.  We're really nice people. 

V had an appointment to meet someone and pick up a usb key she had purchased via an auction site.  It's always interesting to me how a lot of people prefer to meet and hand over items in person instead of simply shipping them.  We all headed over to Sogo at Zhongxiao Fuxing, I decided to split up with the girls so they could go on a shopping date and did some shopping by myself.  I'm comfortable doing that.  It was a decent exercise in Chinese, and I think next time I should spend more time by myself so I don't have to rely on V and practice my language skills more.

I finished my solo round of Sogo with about ten minutes to spare.  So I decided to head off to a bakery to check off an item on my list that I had originally given up on.  More on that later.  By the time I showed up, V had already picked up her usb key.  Apparently, they had met up with Irene's brother and his girlfriend and gossipped about the experience briefly.  I felt really left out.  It was time for us to go, so we said goodbye to Irene and hopped into a cab to brave rush hour.

We met up with the family around 7PM for our last supper and finally got access to an iPhone.  It sucks not having internet access through our phones, but fortunately we found out that everyone in Tokyo was alright.  It's pretty surreal that we were just there and in fact a little over a week ago, on a train passing through Sendai.  Crazy stuff. 

Dinner was at Shanghai Shanghai again which is actually not called that at all.  Its real name is 紅豆食府 - Red Bean Restaurant.  Didn't bother to take pictures this time, since we've seen it all before.

Less than a day before we fly out, I'm making an attempt not to eat too much.  There are few things I find more uncomfortable than sitting on a plane for umpteen hours with a full stomach.  That doesn't mean there aren't a couple things I want to eat.  I may be carbed out, but I still have room for the single best bread I have ever had.

If you are ever in Taipei, go check out Chirle Brown bakery.  I can't vouch for everything in the store, but make sure you get the thing above; I swear you will not be disappointed.  I'm gonna have it with coffee in the morning.  Actually, I have two so I'll take one back to Chicago with me as well...

This trip of ours has been great.  I might have doubled my number of facebook friends and definitely doubled the number of pictures of me there are on facebook.  Also my use of that website has grown increasingly prolific...  You could probably qualify me as a fb whore now.  Let's face it though, facebook was an important part of our whole earthquake follow-up.  We first started to check news websites and then realize that checking facebook would actually be the best source of information.  Amazing.

I seriously think our time Japan and Taiwan has changed our overall lifestyle as well.  For one, we will never be able to look at sushi the same.  Food aside, in the past we've always hosted people in our house, but I've come to realize that meeting outside and not having to worry about messing our place up is a much more enjoyable experience.  We've always had to clean up afterward and ironically just not as comfortable with us worrying about the mess.  I think we'll try to spend more time out on the town, even if it's somewhere close to home and costs a bit more.

Tomorrow, we finish packing, go see Grandma, and then leave in the early afternoon to catch our flight.  Nothing interesting is going to happen, so I'll end the post here.  It's been a good run.  Thanks for reading and keep in touch everyone.  To everyone in Tokyo: Stay Safe!  See you on the ground in America.  Here's to ten thousand more miles.