buried-in-stardust

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hope you've been having fun in taiwan!! i'll be going there soon too, right when it's gonna be super hot LOL do you mayhaps have some recs on places to check out in taipei? or anywhere, really, our itinerary isn't fully set yet haha.

I haven't been checking my inbox so chances are you've already gone on the trip--sorry!

Some places I'd rec:

Night markets! I go to Tonghua the most because that one is closest to me, but Shilin and Raohe are really good too! I hear people say not to go to Shilin, but I think it's fine if you're only getting the food. It's the other stuff like clothing that's more of a rip-off. Also the paths at Raohe are really narrow, so avoid going on weekends. I still like Tonghua the best, and not just because it's closest, but because it's one of Taipei's larger night markets with plenty of variety, but it's never too crowded, even on weekends.

Maokong! If you like tea this is a must-go. Test-taste the tea, get tieguanyin tea ice cream, get tea infused food and specialty tea at a teahouse and while enjoying the view, learn the art of tea making, and buy tea directly from the farmers. You can walk through the tea farms, and it's a good place for hiking too.

Maokong gondola: The Maokong tea farms are at the top, but along the way there's Taipei Zoo and Zhinan Temple, both of which are worth visiting, I think. Taking the gondola is more fun than taking the bus, lol.

Not really in Taipei, but Tamsui is really nice. Walk along the old street, get their specialty ageh (阿給), iron eggs, fish crisps and fish ball soup, take the ferry across to Bali, bike along the river, and watch the sunset. I'd also recommend the castella cake here.

Huashan 1914 Creative Park has many arts and crafts exhibitons, shops, and performances. Lots of cool stuff to see if you like art, and nice to just walk around too.

Hot Thermal Valley and the nearby Beitou Hot Spring Museum. It's a cool scenic spot, and there's some interesting history behind the hot springs (I went with my aunt and she kept saying it looked exactly like what she used as a child: the tatami, bathhouse, etc.)

TBH I think pretty much everyone will recommend these places lol. Also I haven't been to Datong or Wanhua like at all, so I don't have any recommendations for either of those districts, although I'm planning to visit over the next few days before I go to Penghu.

If anyone wants some more specific (food) recommendations for these places, feel free to ask!

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I went to a themed restaurant for the first time! At Syntrend Taipei, Kirabase is running a Tian Guan Ci Fu themed café on the 8th floor from April until the end of June, and I only found out about it a few days ago 😅. I was going to go with a friend, but she has to be in Jiayi until mid-July, so I ended up going by myself.

Yes, that sign says no photos, but one of the staff said it was all right as long as you don't take any of the staff.

(I went in at 2pm on a weekday, so there weren't many people)

They also had these that you could take pictures with:

The food's a bit expensive and nothing special, but also fans don't care all that much about the quality of the food lol.

Flower Crown Martial God Cream Chicken Noodles: Cream chicken pasta, mixed vegetables, rose petals

White-clothed Heavenly Official's Vow: Blueberry cheesecake, vanilla ice cream, mixed berries, rose petals

Crimson Rain Brownie: Chocolate brownie, sugar soaked berries, cotton candy, rose petals

Ghost King's Red Wine Stewed Meat: Potato stewed beef, white rice, salad

Crown Prince Pleases the Gods Rainbow Puff Milk: Strawberry milk, cheese foam, rainbow puffs

Three Thousand Lantern Berry Drink: Sugar soaked berries, honey peach gac fruit tea, strawberry popping pearls

Wind Master Breezing Through Spring: Mashed green apple, cherry petal syrup, calpis, soda water

Ghost City Orchids: Mashed blueberry, blue citrus syrup, soda water

General Breaks Though The Clouds: Blue citrus syrup, milk, cheese foam, espresso

Heavenly Official Without Worries: Americano, cheese foam

And what fans care more about, the little gifts!

Spending any money will get you one paper placemat per person as well as one random meal topper and one random paper coaster:

For the conditional items: You get a random collecter's card if you spend $500, two if you spend $1000, and if you post a photo tagging Kirabase, you can choose a postcard:

You can also buy matte stickers, badges, and acrylic keychains:

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Logged into Douyin for the first time in a long while, and apparently Douyin has blocked the lesbian tags (again)??? And it happened over two months ago??

Namely, the tags #le and #姛 (lesbian = 女同, 姛 is used because it combines 女 and 同). So now people are using #la (a term for lesbian is 拉拉; la1la1) instead. I also saw some posts using the tag #陈乐 (popular lesbian creator, I've translated one of her videos here) instead. Huh

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A performance of 遊台灣 (Exploring Taiwan) by 陳亞蘭 and 曹雅雯 at an art gallery opening I attended in Tainan. Instruments: guzheng, dizi, erhu, pipa

(Song is in Taiwanese Hokkien)

(Also I stole the video off my aunt bc i forgot to record it sooo)

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My grandma and great aunt every three minutes after speaking rapidly in Taiwanese Hokkien, knowing I can only understand a few words here and there, even if I am currently learning: 我/阮講話你聽有無 / Góa[n] kóng ōe lí thiaⁿ ū bô?; (Do you understand what I/we are saying?)

Me, every single time: ...聽無 / Thiaⁿ bô...; (...No...)

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Also hi I'm not dead. I've just been trying to make the most of Taipei/Taiwan while it's not too hot and I don't have to go back to Canada yet. I'll eventually post the photos and stuff I have once I have some time, though many of them will be months past the day/month/season relevant to the posts I totally didn't forget to open tumblr or douyin for more than a month shhh

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I'm getting so many mixed messages about my Mandarin speaking, somehow. I get comments that it's easy to tell that I grew up overseas (one memorable comment being that I seem like a foreigner child 外國寶寶), but then I also have full conversations with people where they're surprised once I say I'm Canadian because "they couldn't tell".

??? I don't understand. Is it my accent? The vocabulary I use?? Sentence structure??? Maybe I sound more dumb than foreign so they don't really pick up on it.

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Serious kudos to all the interpreters out there 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 My brain wouldn't properly cooperate with me when I was guiding a friend through Taipei 😅 Reading something in Mandarin and immediately saying what it is in English was a challenge 😭😭😭 Especially all those drink names, I can't even tell what's in it half the time, and I kept saying red tea instead of black tea

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Apparently Uncle Sam is recruiting students to work part-time at this bubble tea shop lol

We are recruiting YOU

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Some stuff I had while in Tainan:

牛肉湯 (Tainan-style beef soup). NTD$100. Fresh beef in a light broth with shredded ginger.

四神湯、碗粿、蝦仁肉圓 (left to right). NTD$40 each.

四神湯 (si4shen2tang1; four herbs soup) is traditionally a broth made of lotus seeds, chinese yam, gorgon fruit, and barley. I think this one might be just 薏仁 (pearl barley) and pig intestine though.

碗粿 (Hokkien: uánn-kué; lit. bowl cake) is a sticky rice cake. This one uses southern-style ingredients: shiitake mushrooms, egg yolk, pork, dried shrimp, topped with soy sauce paste.

肉圓 (Hokkien: bah-uân) is a sticky dumpling made of glutinous dough, filled with pork and other ingredients. This one was filled with shrimp and braised pork then steamed, and is a Tainan specialty.

百香果 (passion fruit). I only ever get the preserved stuff in Canada, so it was nice to have fresh passion fruit for once.

虱目魚丸湯 (milkfish ball soup). NTD$130/bowl. The one I ordered had all the fixings: 魚肚 fish belly, 魚皮 fish skin, 肉餃 pork dumplings, 粉蒸 fish covered in a rice flour paste and steamed, 脆丸 milkfish balls, 蝦丸 shrimp balls

糖葫蘆 (tanghulu). NTD$40. Fruit covered in a thin coating of hardened sugar. I got a grape tomato and preserved plum (蜜餞) skewer, but vendors were selling strawberry and just tomato ones as well. I did see one vendor selling grape and mandarin orange ones, though.

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I'm finally kinda settled in Taipei now, so I now have a little bit more free time! I'll be posting some more touristy posts in the coming days before the semester starts

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Lion dance training out of costume

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woc我不想再看到爭吵cny和lny說法的帖子了 每次打開xhs就會有 點不感興趣都沒用 煩死了 點開了reddit r/china_irl又又又在討論這個 啊啊啊

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祝大家新的一年巳巳如意，蛇来运转！

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My mum just told me today that she wants to borrow my MDZS set to read, which reminded me of this post again lol

Unfortunately (?) my uncle never brought up MDZS again to me, so no idea if he even finished it. We'll see in a few days if he brings it up when I go see him in Taiwan

...

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[eng by me]

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TBH I'm way less sensitive to racism/sinophobia than other diaspora are, probably because I never really faced very many instances of racism/microaggressions growing up. There's also a lot of ethnic Chinese where I live, like nearby is Richmond, which is over 50% ethnic Chinese.

So when I see stuff online, I can afford to just roll my eyes and ignore it, or dismiss it when maybe it shouldn't be dismissed. So, when it comes to cultural sensitivities, racism, and similar topics, people will be way better off listening to what other diaspora have to say than pretty much anything I have to say.