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This post has been entered into the Travelocafe blogging competition.

If you had to choose just one place you've been to claim as your favorite which would it be? Tough question right? When I first saw this competition I wasn't sure it could be done. My mind flipped through all the beautiful places I've been - Ireland, Belize, Malaysia, London. Not to mention all those other places I haven't made it to yet, which would certainly make the list.

In the end though it could only be New Mexico. I spent most of my childhood in the barren, windblown beauty of the place - the vast stretches of sagebrush, the canyons and arroyos carving out pieces of the earth, the mud of the adobe buildings standing tall against the harsh sun - and my heart still lies there.

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The beauty is hard to see in the cities, but head up north towards the towering mountains that smell of pine, aspen leaves shocking yellow and white against green, or to a Native American reservation where colorful dances still take place to the beat of ancient drums, and you begin to get a feeling for what New Mexico really has to offer.

The rushing Rio Grande surrounded by Cottonwoods always stimulates - raft it if you dare, or just stand on its muddy banks and watch the cold water swirl past.

jbeare - Photobucket

Red chili ristas hang reminding you of enchiladas. Posole and biscochitos, those round cinnamon and anise Christmas cookies all us New Mexicans know so well, are ultimate comfort foods. The blue corn up north and the Hatch green chile down south stimulates even the most uninterested appetite.

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Go see New Mexico for yourself. Watch the autumn balloon fiesta, the bubbles of hot air rising above the river, or visit one of the pueblos to see how Native Americans still live on the land they've called home for centuries. Walk down the quiet streets of Santa Fe. You might see the magic that I do.

When we first moved to Taipei we had a hard time remembering how to get home from the subway. There were so many little alleys and turns. All the noodle shops and parks and neon signs in Chinese looked the same. What should have been a 10 minute walk usually turned into 15 or 20 as we got lost and took wrong turns.

My route

Of course my husband and I found different directions home, each of us knowing that we had the fastest route. We debated it, timed it, and never really came to a good consensus. It eventually started coming down to the details - my walk had more food options so if we were hungry it would be a good way to go, but if we used his route it was much less likely that we would be hit by a maniacal scooter.

His much more peaceful route

I like my way even if my husband's is safer because there's so much to see. Walking home in late afternoon there are always people shopping at the fruit stall or at the butcher where raw cow hearts sometimes hang from hooks over a bucket to catch the blood.


Some days old men gather in the park to sit on the wooden benches and gossip or play mahjongg, the tinkle of tiles hitting together and their low Chinese conversation filling the hot air.  There's always the same guard dog watching the junk shop.  He's scrawny but looks infinitely loyal.


In the beginning I had a list of little landmarks to watch out for so I could get home. There was the first turn at the Family Mart (a local 7-11 type store) and then the Boba tea shop and the husband and wife making rice triangle packets wrapped in banana leaf.


Once I got closer to our place things changed. There were high-rise apartment buildings that all looked the same. Every one of these buildings had guards in uniforms - more for show than anything else (Taipei is the safest city I've ever been to - I don't think these guards see any real action). As far as I can tell, their main duties are to open doors and say hello to people, and to help cars turn out of the underground car parks (totally unnecessary in my opinion - our street is pretty quiet).


I started remembering which way to go by getting to know these guards. There was the young guy who sat in his booth and watched Chinese tv. There was the tall thin man who always smiled and bowed and said good morning or good afternoon to me. And the one who obsessively pruned the small plants in front, walking back and forth along the planters, watering and bending over to pick out minuscule weeds.


Finally I would see the huge park by our place - the old ladies walking their tiny dogs, the teenagers in school uniforms lighting up cigarettes and holding hands - and I would know I was almost home. I'd only have to pass by the 7-11 on the corner and two other apartment complexes before I reached ours (by the way - going my way I pass 3 convenience stores.  See my post about Taiwan Convenience to learn more).

I know my way home now without even thinking about it. Sometimes I change things up to see what's going on down the other streets in the neighborhood, but I usually stick to my noisier crazier way. You never know what you might see around here.

I've decided to start doing a picture of the week post.  Every Friday I'll post my favorite picture from the previous week. These will be filed under Pictures and the country they are taken in. Enjoy!

NOODLES!
I found this week's favorite on Tuesday while walking around taking pictures of the Ghost Festival. 


Normally I'm not a huge fan of graffiti but this tag really touched my heart. Noodles! Who wouldn't want to sing their praises everywhere?

So tell me, have you ever enjoyed a piece of graffiti? Found it to be artistic and thoughtful?



If You Want to Know More
 

Most of August is Ghost Month here in Taiwan.  Ghost month is actually the entire seventh lunar month of the year so the dates change but it usually falls at least partly in August.

Ghost month is all about celebrating (and appeasing) the spirits of Taiwanese ancestors.  During the first day of the month the gates of the underworld are opened and ghosts can return to this world and wander around for the whole month until at the end the gates  close again and ghosts return to their place until next year.

All sorts of rituals are performed to make sure these ghosts don't overstay their welcome (and probably also as an act of worship).  Especially during the Ghost Festival, the 15th of the lunar month, people make serious efforts to keep the ghosts at bay, lighting paper money and incense in front of homes and shops, offering all sorts of snacks from produce to cookies to alcohol.  This is done in hopes that the ghosts will stay outside the home or shop, enjoying themselves, and forget to come inside and take up residence.




Walking around yesterday, I saw a lot of tents set up outside large office complexes and apartment buildings with rows and rows of tables.  I couldn't figure it out for a while, but on my way back home I stumbled on this.




Obviously these were set up to let people perform their Ghost Festival rituals in an orderly way.  I guess it would be pretty chaotic if all these people set up their own little tables with cookies and incense and juice.  Best to keep it all in one confined space.


Money burning is another important ritual.  No not real money.  Buddhists buy stacks and stacks of fake paper money that they burn in small kilns.  I've heard ghost festival referred to also as National Pollution Day.


I walked through a produce market and was kind of surprised that more people weren't buying fruits and vegetables after reading an article in The China Post about the cost of produce rising 20-30 percent over the weekend ahead of the Ghost Festival.  Maybe everyone had already stocked up.


Obviously I wasn't the only person confused by the lunar calendar stuff.  Making my way through an underground shopping center on my way to the temple, I ran into this.

View of Penang from Bukit Jambul hiking trail

By now you're probably all tired of hearing about Penang - the glories of the food, the prodigious diversity, the intriguing sites. I sympathize, but hang in with me just a little longer. We have one day to go still on our culinary adventure.

To be completely honest, our fourth day seemed a lot like the others. I think by this time I was in information and experience overload. It all kind of started running together and I felt like I needed to hide in a dark cave for a while and just process. But travel and eating waits for no woman.

We slept in late - finally checking out of the hotel around 1:00PM. I think this was the only time in the trip that we failed at our primary objective to never be hungry, which we'd all talked about on our first night in Penang. But chicken rice finally did come and save the day.


We each got a plate of rice and soup to share for the table. The soup was a thin vegetable stock - one bowl with lotus root and one with a gourd or melon. Then came the meat. A large plate of roasted chicken, its dark crispy skin giving way to thin strips of flavorful fat. Another of roasted duck, also with crunchy skin but a more aromatic spicy flavor to the meat. And the best of all, roasted pork. The chopped up pork was a mixture of textures, some bacon-like crispy pieces, others more of a succulent and juicy bite.


After eating we stopped by a haunting old cemetery to take some pictures. It was a Protestant graveyard which held most of the pioneers and missionaries that came to the island during the 18th and 19th centuries. The place was dark and peaceful.


The strangest thing about it was the young couple taking wedding photos around the graves. Wedding photos are a big thing in Asia, couples sometimes setting whole weekends aside to travel to foreign countries and get dressed up in outrageous outfits for pictures. An entourage of camera crews and makeup/wardrobe people follow the couple around, primping them and positioning them in awkward poses while the cameraman bounces around, smokes and throws fits, generally acting like the artist that he surely is. It was bizarre to see them taking pictures in the cemetery (especially considering how superstitious people tend to be in this part of the world) but our friends told us people do it all the time. It seems like an unusual choice to me.


After the graveyard it was off to a local market to get some more of the delicious roasted pork we'd liked so much at lunch. I wrote about the market experience pretty extensively on my food blog - Penang Market


We spent a good amount of time at the market while our friend did some shopping. We took pictures of the seafood, vegetables, fruits and flowers that were for sale and watched as people shuffled in and out around us haggling over their dinner ingredients.

Finally we headed back towards the area where our friends live. We stopped for afternoon "tea" and had coffee, snacks and ice cream sandwiches at a Malaysian chain called Old Town White Coffee. The coffee originated in a city called Ipoh and reminds me of Vietnamese coffee - the beans are roasted in oil as they are in Vietnamese coffee and its mixed with condensed milk. 


The ice cream sandwiches were very soft ice cream layered in scoops in between toasted bread. It sounded really weird when we ordered it but ended up being fantastic. I wish they'd open up these shops back in the U.S.  I'd probably be there every day. They would certainly give Starbucks a run for their money (if they got onto the merchandising bandwagon that is - we wanted to buy a coffee mug but were only able to get instant coffee packets)


Late in the afternoon, after eating most of the day, we agreed to go on a hike. If we had only known what we were getting ourselves into! The hike kicked our butts! It was one of the steepest hikes I've ever been on, the trail winding through deep jungle. Mosquitoes were everywhere and our sweat drew them to us like we were the promised land. We finally got to the top of Bukit Jambul to see the setting sun over Penang.

We took a quick break and a few pictures then headed back down quick. It was already starting to get dark and I wasn't looking forward to trying to make my way through the dense trees and uneven path in the fading light. Who knew what was in that jungle. We made it out alive, but by the time we got back to the car the sun was gone.


Which leads me to the last meal of the night. Of course we chose Nasi Kandar, the South Indian food we'd had the first night. It was my husband's favorite of the trip and we all wanted to go back for a little more curry, okra and roti. We even gave in and ordered one of the long dessert cones.


It was a pretty rowdy Sunday night at the Nasi Kandar place. A football (er, soccer) match was on - Manchester United vs. Chelsea. Malaysians are really into English soccer. They have a team of their own but we were informed that they weren't very good so everybody watched the English teams. People jostled for tables, many wearing the jerseys or at least the blue or red colors from one or the other team.

And so we come to the end. Penang was an overload for the senses. It was an experience like no other. I found a whole nation of foodies. I found diversity like I've never seen anywhere else. I found a place I might be satisfied with forever. People who know me well know that's saying a lot. I don't settle down very well. I get antsy fast. But I think Malaysia has a lot to keep a person occupied.


But what about those last two meals? That only takes us to 18 - I claimed we'd eaten at least 20!

The next morning on the way to the airport we stopped at a hawker center for one final feast of three more dishes. I guess it depends on how you define a meal, but by our count that pushes us past twenty.

Hokkien Mee

Curry Mee

Kuih Lapis and other steamed sweet cakes with a variety of textures and tastes

The Final Food Talley:
Meals Previously Eaten:14
Meals Eaten on Day Four: 4
Meals Eaten on Day Five (on our way to the airport):3
The Total: 21

Penang: A Food Story - Day One

Little India, Penang

The Day Begins
I woke up on day three wondering if I could really keep up the pace, if the stamina that had gotten me through days one and two was going to help push me through this frenzy of eating and seeing and doing.  I could feel all those previous meals sticking to my bones just where I didn't need them.  My body wanted more sleep, needed time to process all those calories.  A hangover from the beach bar the night before wasn't helping convince me to get moving but eventually I roused myself out of bed and made my way down to the lobby.

Day three began with rain, but it was a really nice relief.  It cooled everything down for a while and made our morning really pleasant.  We made our way to a Malay buffet for breakfast and I was so glad I got myself out of bed!  It was my favorite meal of the entire trip (and with a final count of more than twenty meals, that's saying a lot!)  It seemed a lot like Indian to me with the curries and the rice, but the flavor was definitely unique.

You get handed a big plate of rice, then make your way around the buffet picking out whatever meats, curries and vegetables look good (which for me was a little of almost everything).  Then you walk over to a large bubbly woman in a dark headscarf.  She looks over your plate, mostly to see how much meat you have, and charges what she thinks fair.  You can go back and get more curry for free if you want, but if you get anything else you have to pay again.  The taste was amazing.  Deep and complex flavors soaked into the chicken and lamb braised in the curries.  I will never forget it.

Malay Buffet

Walking the City
After breakfast we started our walk around Georgetown. The rain was still coming down in a light drizzle, but as we moved through Little India I completely forgot. I've never been to India but I've always been infatuated with its culture - the beautiful saris, the amazing food, the intricate gods and goddesses - so this was a real treat for me.  We walked into stores selling spices and bangles and down narrow streets where Hindi and Bollywood music blared. The dress shops with their beautiful bright fabrics captivated me.

A dress shop - Little India, Penang

A fortune teller sat on the sidewalk helping two young men learn their fates.  Spices lined the sidewalks in big burlap bags, spilling out onto the street in waves of smell and crunch.  Stalls at the intersections sold an array of snacks - pumpkin filled samosas, fritters, and pakoras - and incense that blew all around scenting the air.

A Fortune Teller - Little India, Penang

In 2008 UNESCO declared Georgetown, along with Melaka, a world heritage site. A lot of beautifying and preserving has taken place since, and we visited several of the buildings, including the Goddess of Mercy Temple, the Pinang Peranakan Mansion (yes the same Peranakans with the fantastic nyonya food from day two) and the Hindu Sri Mahamariamman Temple.  The most amazing thing about these sites was the intricacy of all the buildings.  The mansion was covered with detailed ivory and woodwork, the temples had tiny figurines and statues covering most surfaces.  They all seemed lovingly taken care of (or at least lovingly refurbished).

Sri Mahamariamman Temple.  This gateway is home to 38 Hindu deities - Penang.

Pinang Peranakan Mansion - Penang

The Food Frenzy Continues
All the walking made us hungry again of course, so it was off to find the second best meal of the trip, the Char Koay Teow I've mentioned in previous posts, made by this man - a true artist.  In less than three minutes he'd made three plates and handed us one. Talk about fast food!  We stood right on the street, trying not to fall into the deep gutter behind as traffic passed, and ate our hearts out.  I'm still craving another plate of this stuff - it was street food at its finest.



Bad Monkeys!
We took a quick stroll through the Botanical Gardens after our snack. It was nice to get out and get a little exercise after all the eating we'd done.  The park was beautiful - full of rare and interesting plants. A large population of very hungry monkeys ran all around trying to beg or steal food from visitors. These monkeys can turn vicious quickly, hissing and even biting if you don't give them food so I was surprised to see some tourists sitting with them, taking pictures, feeding them right out of their hands. It was a bad idea and we got out of there before we could witness the mob scene that would surely follow once the food was gone.

A minute after I took this picture the monkey rummaged through the front basket on this motorbike and found something he liked.  He quickly lifted it and took it up a tree.

Shopping
Afterward we headed back to the hotel for a break.  My husband and I rested for a while and then decided to go to the night market just outside our hotel.  The night market was different than the ones here in Taipei - a lot more like what you might find in Thailand.  It's much more tourist oriented - tiny buddhas, pillow covers, obviously fake and cheaply made Louis Vuitton purses - that vacationers want to take back with them instead of the more utilitarian clothes and shoes that the Taiwanese buy.  I guess it comes down to the fact that Taiwan is just not a tourist destination (yet).

Another Perfect Ending
The night ended with another fantastic meal - my third favorite of the trip. We went to another Indian place which was very different from the Nasi Kandar we had the first day.

Day three was my favorite overall. Not only did I get to try the three dishes that topped my list for the trip but I got to experience a little taste of India.  Most importantly I got a better feel for the cultural diversity that makes Penang the vibrant place it is and the tolerance that allows it to thrive.  It's strange that coming from America, a country that touts diversity every chance it gets, it took seeing a place like Malaysia to really understand what diversity is all about.

It's not about expecting newcomers adapt to our way of life while pretending that we're open to diversity because they get to keep their religion (as long as it doesn't look too threatening).  It's not about having kids sit in mixed-race classrooms.  It's not about saying we're diverse while kicking out people determined to speak their own language instead of quickly embracing English.

It's about taking in all the insanity and chaos that comes along with being truly diverse.  It's about eating a cheeseburger alongside someone eating chicken feet and not being grossed out. It's about being comfortable on the beach with women in burkas and women in bikinis.  It's about not only tolerating other languages, but trying to learn a little Chinese or Spanish or Malay ourselves.  It's about tolerance of different opinions (although not necessarily acceptance). That's the kind of diversity I hope we can all embrace.

The Food Talley:
Meals Previously Eaten: 8
Meals Eaten on Day Three: 6
The Total So Far: 14
Meals not listed above: a stop for pakoras and samosas on the street in Little India, two meals at a hawker center where we tasted another noodle dish called Mee Goreng and Poh Piah - an eggroll of sorts with prawns

Penang: A Food Story - Day One


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