Tag Archives: food

Chicken Udon Soup

Taiwan, ,

It’s been a while since I posted a recipe! We haven’t been traveling much obviously, but this is the very taste of Asia in a bowl which I love. I don’t really cook Asian food very much because now that we live in Taiwan, that stuff is cheap to take out or eat at a restaurant. We do however have to pay top dollar to eat slightly sweet and not authentic western food, so that’s what I usually make at home to the way we like it. However, I did have the inspiration to make this chicken udon soup recently since I started planning meals at home, and it turned out so well I want to record it for posterity! It’s big on vegetables and taste but very light and healthy tasting. I used this recipe as a basis for it but made my own alterations.

Prep and cooking takes about 45 minutes (or the night before). Serves two generously. I don’t really measure the weight or the amount of food I prepare anymore… I just eyeball it.

Chicken thighs
One carrot
One package bok choy
Two green onions
4-6 garlic cloves
One chunk ginger
One pack of precooked udon noodles
Neutral oil (I used sunflower)
Soy sauce
Japanese rice wine or cooking wine
Dashi or miso
2 quarts chicken or veggie broth

Prep

So start with the chicken, maybe the night before. I started reading Salt Fat Acid Heat this year, have become a fervent believer in salting meat. For tough cuts of beef or pork, the night before or two days before would be great. For something like chicken thighs, don’t sweat it – salt it the night before or like I did an hour before cooking, and they still turn out even more tender and flavorful. I salted the package of chicken thighs with about a teaspoon of salt overall and then let it sit in the fridge for an hour.

Next, prep the vegetables. Peel the carrot and julienne or thinly slice them so they can cook quickly. Wash and cut the bok choy in either half or in quarters lengthwise. Finely mince the green onion and peel and slice the garlic. Ginger can be peeled and sliced into large thin slices, since you won’t be eating them directly.

Cooking

Warm up a tablespoon or two of oil in your pot over a medium heat. I used a large dutch oven (just my new Le Creuset, no biggie). Next, add the chicken thighs and sear them on both sides. Then add a tablespoon each of soy sauce and rice wine. Turn the heat down to low and let the meat cook until done, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Using the same pot, directly pour in your two quarts (or thereabouts) of broth and turn up the heat to medium-high so it can boil. I use hot water pre-heated in my water kettle and add a small spoonful of Better than Bouillon to create the broth. Add a small spoonful of dashi or miso which will add a good umami flavor, and then add a little more soy sauce and stir it up until any soy sauce or anything else stuck to the bottom of the pot is dissolved into the broth.

When your broth starts to boil, you can add your vegetables: first, the garlic and ginger and carrots. Let it simmer for about 5-7 minutes and taste it so you can make sure the broth is really coming together. If it needs more flavor, add a little soy sauce or something else you prefer (like more dashi or miso). It doesn’t need to be too salty since you have the soy-sauce sauteed chicken to top things off. Next, add the bok choy or whatever other leafy vegetable you want to use and the precooked udon noodles. This can simmer for just 2-3 minutes because it takes very little time to cook. At the same time, now that your cutting board has some more space on it (if you only use one like me), go ahead and slice up the chicken thighs.

Before you put it in a bowl, taste everything to make sure it’s ready to go. The broth should be to your liking, and the carrot should be slightly tender, not crunchy. If you can find them and if the chunks aren’t too big, fish out the ginger so you don’t eat it by accident. Ladle the soup into a big bowl first before arranging the chicken on top, and finish with a handful of green onions. If you like spice, like me, you can slice up some spicy red pepper and put it in there along with the bok choy and udon noodles so it doesn’t stay in there for too long. Or just make sure you have the sriracha sauce handy. Enjoy!

Slowing down in Florence

Italy, , ,

If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you may have realized that we’ve been traveling non-stop for the last three weeks, blowing through six cities in Switzerland and Italy. By the time we got to Florence on Tuesday, we were both exhausted. Traveling but taking our time is an art we’ve apparently forgotten all about, five years after our big circumnavacation. So we set about recovering our breath and remembering how to make time for ourselves in Florence.

We have seven nights in this Tuscan city, home of pretty much every single Renaissance painting you’ve ever heard about that isn’t in the Louvre of Paris. Michaelangelo painted here, Botticelli did too, and it’s the adopted home of Leonardo da Vinci. The Medicis ruled here for hundreds of years, gathering the cream of European art and culture and displaying it here in their palaces. When we first sat down with a list of places we wanted to see, it felt like one big headache. I just saw us racing from one museum to another. Needless to say, that’s not anyone’s idea of a fun time. After much deliberation, we balanced the most talked-about places that we agreed we had to see with other smaller quirkier, less-famous museums and sights that we had a personal interest in, and ended up with basically one activity per day. It’s proven to give us enough flexibility, and resulted in enough sleep and down-time.

We found an excellent Airbnb which overlooks a little square in Florence city center, a mere 10-minute walk from the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Florence Duomo) and many other highlights. It has a lofted bedroom and a well-equipped kitchen, as well as one of the firmest couches that I’ve encountered on this trip. Several nights in a row, we’ve been enjoying dinner Italian style with the aperitivo. At many restaurants around Florence, you can hop on in sometime between 6 pm and 8 pm, and they’ll have what they call the aperitivo: for 10 euro, you get a cocktail or drink and enjoy the all-you-can-eat antipasti buffet. You can heap your plate high with any kind of pasta (usually some pesto and tomato variants) offered, olives, bread, veggie dishes like eggplant parmesan, olive or tomato tapenade, slices of fried polenta, stir-fried marinated mushrooms, and much more. We tried it out at a nearby restaurant yesterday, which was fun; I got a Hugo, which is a cocktail with elderflower liqueur, fresh mint, and prosecco. However, even tastier has been having it at home. Our first evening, we bought a local cheese that is gorgonzola layered with marscapone (creamy and stinky, my favorite!), panzanella (a breadcrumb salad), marinated artichokes, olives, and salami, topped off with a freshly cooked baguette. Two days ago, we tried some tortellini instead with white beans and other variants. Tonight, it was freshly fried sausages with an orichette and caprese salad. We have bought our own bottles of Campari and Aperol here, and enjoy making our own cocktails to boot. Honestly, the best hidden tip to travel Europe on a budget is to buy a combination of pre-made supermarket food and groceries and simply cook for yourself. Eating out is a hazard that is more often than not something that doesn’t pay off – we’ve purchased enough dry, tasteless, and prohibitively expensive paninis and pizzas on this trip already, and we’re not even in Rome!

Another observation from our travel fatigue is that we’re not alone. Being tired and traveling abroad is a real challenge, as many fellow travelers can attest to. Florence, Siena, and Venice are all home to very large tourist populations during the summer, and the ubiquity of English means we’ve been witness and accidental eavesdroppers to all kinds of family and couple arguments. En route to San Marco Piazza in Venice, we saw one young Korean couple rowing over what was the correct route to take to the piazza. Honestly, Venice is such a warren of streets that even Google Maps gets confused about where your location is all the time. In the middle of their argument, the woman literally threw up her hands and ran away crying, with her husband in hot pursuit to apologize, but even after three streets (we were going the same way), she would not forgive him. That was one conversation which we did not need to know their language to know it was a very, very bad time. Another time, an American family on the train from Siena to Florence were having a bitter, ill-humored time arguing about cellphones and data usage. The grown son and his wife were sniping back and forth with his mother in very thick Southern accents about exactly how the technology worked and why it wasn’t possible to get messages from the other family members they were corresponding with. It made us both wince each time we heard a “Did you turn the data off again?!” behind us.

We’ll be the first to agree that there’s plenty to get upset about. There’s the hot weather, the bad food where you feel like you’re being ripped off, and the crowds and long queues for every museum, because everyone else is also on vacation visiting Italy. I think what pushes people over the edge is that in the back of your mind, you know you should be happy and having fun. And you are paying a ton of money and spending your precious vacation time to be fly halfway around the world to argue with your loved ones. So of course it sucks – you don’t want your argument by the Trevi Fountain to be your memory of your amazing Italian vacation.

We’ve learned to mitigate the worst of the travel by giving ourselves space and time, rationing time spent in museums to one a day (our record so far is five straight hours) so that we don’t start groaning at the sight of another room with oil paintings, and remembering that we actually do like to hang out with each other – those things all help us from becoming that next couple in someone else’s blog entry! And of course, actually having a lovely travel experience to remember. For example, our favorite memory from our first night was actually taking some time after dinner to walk to the Duomo. After the sun had gone down in Florence, the evening was warm and breezy and comfortable. Many other folks were taking the opportunity to be outside in comfort, not just sticking to the shaded side of the street, and some enterprising musicians were playing guitars and saxophones in the piazza. Looking at the large creamy marble cathedral, outlined in pale green and pinks, we just enjoyed being with each other and going no place in particular.

I’ll write soon about all the museums we’ve seen here so far (the current count is three), and we’ve definitely had fun with all our destinations so far, but honestly, the most important thing about Florence is that we’re enjoying this city more than any other place we’ve been to in Europe so far, and that’s mostly because we’ve slowed down!  

A wedding in Geneva!

Switzerland, , ,

We are fresh off four lovely days in Geneva, which proved to be simultaneously smaller and larger of a city than I had imagined. Though those days were in no way jam-packed, we managed to wander into a craft beer festival, attend a much-anticipated wedding, visit an internationally renowned research institution, and climb the tower of a 15th century cathedral. Pretty efficient use of time!

We stayed in an Airbnb in Carouge, a city which was swallowed up by the growing municipality of Geneva sometime in the last few centuries. However, it maintains its own character, with its own churches, market, and town square. When we arrived the first afternoon, we sat in one of those squares munching on sushi and tea from the local Coop, waiting for our Airbnb to open up at check-in. To celebrate having our own kitchen again and our own space, I made a much-anticipated meal of red curry with chicken and rice which we had with a glass of red wine, our third-story window open to the street. Being in high summer, the sun would not set for another two hours. Afterwards, we wandered around the neighborhood, which is how we found La Festibière, which gathered what seemed like all the young people in Geneva with beards and buns to enjoy craft beer. We used our French skills to buy a cup (entrance to the festival) and tokens which let us sample deciliters of different sorts of beer, ranging from Double IPAs to amber ales to very sour ales indeed. We also listened to a swinging blues band and a hometown pop-metal band who had three guitarists and sounded just like Blink-182. The weather was warm and sultry, and I almost didn’t want to go to sleep.

The next morning was a bit colder and rainier, and I learned to my dismay that going to the market in Switzerland wasn’t quite like going to the market in France with Sam and Sarah. Everything was quite expensive here – like 7 CHF (~7 USD) for a kilo of green peppers! So we went to the supermarket instead to get a few staples like pasta sauce and only stopped back at the market for one thing: freshly made pasta. We picked up three each of two very large heavy cannellonni variations (au viande, and épinards avec ricotta), which I wasn’t sure how to cook, but it turned out needed to be baked with sauce and cheese over it. Thus we had a second lunch at home with wine, and it all turned out to be quite delicious, even if it was expensive for a homemade meal. After a nap, we started to get ready for the wedding ceremony and dinner. While we were intending to leave the house around 4:30 pm for the tram, we were greeted at the door with a burst of heavy rain and gusting winds. After eying each other’s wedding clothing (dress for me, blazer and leather shoes for Steve) and trying to get a few Ubers and other services which all canceled on us, we decided to stay put for the time being. It ended up being a wise decision, because it began to hail as well. For the next twenty minutes, the storm vented its fury on the outside, and outdoor furniture from nearby restaurants even fell over in the street. We finally ventured out when it had slowed down, and the rain was no longer going horizontally. Still, my sandaled feet immediately were soaked in freezing rain, and we missed the first tram. At the transport to our next bus, we waited at the bus stop for at least half an hour through an abhorrent traffic jam before Sam’s brother materialized out of the air to bring us over in his car. Thank goodness! About an hour late, we were some of the last guests to arrive at the wedding location, which, just to put the cherry on the sundae, had also recently lost its power in the storm. The venue was darker and lit with candles throughout, and while guests drank champagne and made conversation with each other, some men in work overalls and boots walked around in the background with scowls trying to get the electricity back on. Fortunately, it had not dampened Sarah or Sam’s spirits, and soon after we arrived, the ceremony commenced. Sam’s mother conducted the ceremony, and Sarah’s mother read a lovely excerpt from the homily that their pastor from Tennessee had written for the Nashville ceremony. Steve and I took part in one ritual in the wedding, the handfasting, where we helped tie a red yarn around their hands to symbolize passion and love. It was a really lovely ceremony, and it made both of us think of our own ceremony just a year ago.

Afterwards, the sun had decided to come out again, and we had the reception in the garden where we enjoyed drinks and snacks while also taking family photos. Steve and I were reunited with Sam’s grandmother, whom we met five years ago while we were traveling in France on our big trip. We had visited her and her husband (Sam’s grandfather), who passed away a few years ago, in Montchanin-les-Mines, which was a very small mining town in a rural part of Burgandy, and I remembered well her excellent cooking as well as the quaint house they lived in. She was actually delighted to see us and remembered me but not Steve, which made us all laugh. I scrounged up enough French to speak with her a little bit about how much we enjoyed being guests at their house, and it made her pretty happy.

Finally, the dinner was ready after the delay from the lack of electricity, and we sat down at a table of fellow international friends. There were a table each for the French and American sides of the family, as well as French and Swiss friends of Sam’s, and the final table was made up of us American friends and international friends who had come to join them. We were joined by the happy couple for the first course, and we enjoyed the food as well as the conversation with our new friends. The dessert was an especial favorite for me, which was called craque-en-bouche, literally meaning “cracks in your mouth”. It turned out to be cream puffs which were glazed with a hardened caramel-like sauce which had a pleasant crunch to it, with a side of raspberry sorbet. All the food was absolutely delicious, and the waiters kept champagne, red and white wine, and even seltzer water flowing throughout. We ended the evening with disco lights, dancing, and even though the lights went out again, we hardly missed it. When we grew too tired, we said goodbye to Sam and Sarah, and wished them well on their honeymoon next week to the Caribbean!

Java’s ancient temples.

Indonesia, , ,

Our third day and final day in Yogyakarta began really, obscenely early. We were up at 3:30 am for our earliest departure yet to see the sunrise at Borobudur Temple, an hour and a half outside of Yogyakarta. We picked up a breakfast box left by the staff at the homestay, and stumbled outside in the dark to a driver who ushered us inside a small van occupied by another couple who might have been French or Dutch. We swayed back and forth and slept for a while before arriving at the destination. At 4:30 am, we disembarked and ended up in an outdoor lobby with many other tourists, some looking wide awake, some very quiet and obviously just waking up. We paid our money and received tickets, a map of the complex, a sticker to wear, and a small hand flashlight, as it was still hours from dawn, and then proceeded slowly through the complex. Though the temple doesn’t officially do sunrise tours, the Manohara Hotel, which is on the grounds of the temple, allows people to visit before sunrise for a more expensive ticket price (450.000 IDR or $30 USD per person). Though easily the biggest expense we’d made so far (besides lodging and travel), it was totally worth it. We were able to make our way up the gigantic ziggurat-like structure of the Borobudur temple in near-darkness, with a trail of bobbing flashlights above and below us. After fifteen minutes of hiking up some of the biggest stairs I have ever encountered, we were at the top.  Continue reading Java’s ancient temples. →

Indonesia’s second city.

Indonesia, ,

Our trip to Indonesia really settled into a rhythm when we flew into Yogyakarta on our second day in the country. It’s just an hour or two away from Jakarta, on the southern coast of Central Java, but Yogya (pronounced Jog-ja) has a very different feel. Steve has developed a theory over our travels, that the second-largest and slightly lesser well-known city in each country, can usually be a much better value for your money. It’s usually less overwhelming, less populated, and cheaper, but often has much of the same amenities and conveniences. Think Kaohsiung instead of Taipei, Lyon instead of Paris, Split instead of Zagreb (although all of Croatia is convenient!), Osaka and not Tokyo, etc. etc. Yogya proved to be another point in favor of Steve’s second-city theory.

We took a local taxi service from the airport into town, just fifteen minutes to our Airbnb homestay. We had picked one close to the airport because we knew that our flight out would be very early in the morning (another recurring theme for this trip), and it proved to be amazing. Omah Garuda Homestay was very large, clean, and quiet, run by a family business. Tami, the receptionist, had an infectious smile and laugh, and welcomed us by name when we first came in. We first considered rushing off to have lunch downtown and seeing some of the historical sights in the city because they closed around 1 pm and 3 pm, but since we had three nights in the city, Steve and I called an audible, and decided to take a break. Continue reading Indonesia’s second city. →

Two days in Macau.

China, , , ,

Despite being just over two hours away by plane, Steve and I had never been to Macau, a former Portuguese colony which is also a hop and skip away from Hong Kong. We decided on a whim to visit this week, and it was a fabulous decision. Macau is a strange little contradiction – a Chinese city with a strong Portuguese presence and heritage, an overseas European settlement now turned Special Administrative Region (SAR) but also a part of China at the same time. We spent two days walking through very twisty streets and ate a lot of sticky sweets and delicious food, and enjoyed seeing some awesome sights.

We flew into Macau on Tuesday in the middle of the day, and it was a bit rough of a start. First, we had no Internet access initially, because the 2G internet afforded by our T-Mobile cards overseas in almost every other country we’ve been to didn’t seem to be working. The driver of the 26 bus that Google had told us to take into the city gruffly informed us we should take the MT4 instead, and I was trying frantically to figure out if we had enough coins in HKD to get on the bus. After purchasing a SIM card out of a vending machine and identifying the MT4, we finally were on our way.

Macau is best known for its gambling, huge lavish and opulent buildings like the Venetian, Sands, and the Wynn. The golden flower shape of the Grand Lisboa skyscraper loomed over the city peninsula and was visible everywhere we went. Since neither of us were much interested in exploring the gambling aspect, though, we decided to make our focus the food and European legacy of Macau. After dropping things off at our hotel the Ole Tai Sam Un, we set off by foot for St. Paul’s Ruins. It’s the second best known thing in Macau, a former church that had been rebuilt and burnt down several times, with the 1843 conflagration leaving just its front façade intact. It sits above a wide flight of stairs and a small square, and today figures into the selfies of pretty much every tourist who visits Macau. The façade is beautiful, and about two feet thick, retaining weathered green bronze statues of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier. We roamed around, and then walked up the hill beside it to the Fortaleza Monte, a small fort which had some beautiful views of the city and was also home to the Museum of Macau. We walked through the small museum, learning about different architectural styles and the history of the numerous forts that had been there before. Continue reading Two days in Macau. →

Return to the western motherland.

USA, , , ,

I’m fighting jet lag and some exhaustion in order to put some fingers to the keyboard. Twice in the past year or so, I’ve started an entry about our visits to Seoul and Kyoto/Osaka, but it’s so hard to encapsulate everything about a new visit to a new city, and yet that’s just what I want to do. Recently, we also went back to Taichung for a day, and in revisiting some of the blog entries I wrote in the summer of 2015 about our time there, I was reminded of not only how lovely some places were, but how I was transported back to that rhythm of life by the entries I wrote neatly documenting the minute details of our lives. It made me resolve that I’m going to spend more time putting that down, even imperfectly or piecemeal. Perfection is the enemy of getting anything done, as far as my blogging is concerned. So here’s some imperfection.

I had been planning my first trip back to the US since we moved to Taiwan, but it got moved up since I left my job at the end of December. Thus,  I scheduled it for late January to avoid the crush of Chinese New Year, but I forgot the temperatures I would be facing. In fact, I left all my scarves and gloves in Taipei, and the first day out here, I started bitterly regretting that fact. The weather is just one of the many things I’m startled by. I’ve taken to religiously smearing Vaseline on my lips before bed, and reviving my habit of lotioning up. The cold is not only cold – it’s dry. I raise static on my arms taking off and putting on sweaters, the ends of my long hair stick to my puffy jacket, and I actually shocked myself the other day, something I haven’t done since 2013 in Chicago! How cold is it, you might ask? After lows in the 40s Fahrenheit in Taipei, I’ve now been thrown into the lower 20s, with significantly less humidity and more wind. My phone still thinks I’m in Celsius territory, though, so it routinely reminds me that it’s -1 degrees Celsius outside, striking fear into the hearts of those who know me back in Taiwan. Thank goodness for long underwear and my double-coated method, although I did have to buy myself something resembling a hat and gloves the first day I was out.  Continue reading Return to the western motherland. →

Return to New Orleans.

USA, , , ,

Written Sunday, December 27 – New Orleans, LA

We woke up this morning bright and early, and headed out for one last breakfast. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was dressed quite differently – instead of flowery beach wear or white sheer shirts and dresses, people had much more workaday clothing and sweaters on as they ate eggs and oatmeal. When you disembark, you can either opt to put out your luggage early in the morning or before you sleep with colored tags, or you can disembark any time in the morning as long as you can carry all your bags. (This option is called “Easy Walk-off Disembarkation,” I kid you not.) I used to be one of those people who packed gigantic bags that I could fit in. Now that I’m a seasoned traveler, I have a lot more scorn if you couldn’t fit everything you need into a carry-on bag. After all, Steve and I have gone for week-long, month-long, and even year-long vacations using just a carry on! All right, I’m getting down from the soapbox.

We emerged into the humidity and heat that is New Orleans after a short disembarkation, and walked off to our hotel near the French Quarter. Our room wasn’t anywhere near ready, of course, at 9 am, so instead, we simply put our luggage away and set off to explore the French Quarter. Our first real stop was the St. Louis Cathedral, which is a prime landmark. It’s a beautiful cathedral, initially built by the Spanish and carried on by the French, and the seat of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. It’s the oldest cathedral in continuous use in the US, and we didn’t end up walking around very much because there was a mass and then a christening in progress. I took a few pictures, and we milled about Jackson Square checking out the flowers and the crowds. We had only been drifting around for about half an hour before we ran into two of the same couples we had enjoyed dinner with last night. We knew one pair was going to hang out in New Orleans for a few days, but the other pair had a flight around 9 pm, so we ended up hanging out for the rest of the day. Continue reading Return to New Orleans. →

Setting sail from New Orleans.

Caribbean, USA, , ,

Written Sunday, December 20 – Travel Day + New Orleans, LA

The beginning of our trip was a bit rocky. My plane out of GSP was delayed twice, to the point that I was worrying about missing my connection. Fortunately, I was able to switch over to another plane to CLT and catch my connection to New Orleans (MSY). It was a tumultuous morning! I met my mom at her gate, since I arrived slightly before her, and we caught a taxi to the Port of New Orleans, which is downtown.

Our first time in New Orleans, and I have a headful of preconceptions built around Katrina, the Superdome, stories from friends who have been, and the French Quarter. We drive downtown past some epic graveyards and into downtown New Orleans, which is very orderly and straight, streets radiating north from the Mississippi River. I saw a line already forming outside Mother’s Restaurant, which I understand is one of New Orleans’s mainstays, and also glimpse some of the lovely historic buildings along the way. I’m looking forward to exploring it when we come back!

It took us a lot of queuing and scraping around to get to the cruise, but finally, we manage it! We’re sailing on the Norwegian Dawn for seven days. When we took our first cruise four or five years ago, we also took Norwegian, and I have the vague impression it’s a little bit better than Carnival, which we did last year. It’s a seven-day cruise to Mexico and the Central Americas. My mom has been to Cozumel before, but neither of us have really done Costa Maya, Belize City, and Roatan, Honduras, which are the other destinations. Generally, we’re probably just going to do a lot of snorkeling! Continue reading Setting sail from New Orleans. →

A happy return to Kaohsiung.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, , , , , , ,

Written on the 781
Kaohsiung-Taitung
Sunday, July 27, 6:13 pm

It is the evening, and we are seeing our first sunset over the mountains. We’re most of the way through our rail journey from Kaohsiung to Taitung, winding a slow counter-clockwise arc around the southern tip of the island and emerging on the eastern side of Taiwan. Many of our evenings in Taichung and Kaohsiung on the west coast have featured splendid sunsets over the water and a city, but in Taitung and Dulan on the east coast, we will be chasing sunrises over the water and sunsets over the mountains.

The hillsides here are fairly rugged, and the train zips long much closer to the water. For some parts of our trip, we were darting through mountain tunnels to emerge on a narrow railway with the water and a precipitous drop on one side and on the other high mountains that we had to lift our faces to greet. The view is definitely worth it. On the right, the sky fades from a pale distant blue to light pink clouds, and then back to the blue-grey of the ocean. On the left, mountains barely a dozen meters from our left will loom close, and then give way suddenly to large expansive green valleys. Deep in the heart of the valley, we can see the lighter and mistier shapes of more distant mountains, and finally beyond that, the clouds themselves, gilded and illuminated with a deeper richer tone by the sunlight that has already sunk beneath the mountains. It is really strikingly lovely. Continue reading A happy return to Kaohsiung. →