"God of Dinner...and Rock and Ro-o-oll!"

Maybe you're going about it the wrong way, Red A. Get yourself one of these to prepare your vittles for digestion and I bet the wife will let you eat whatever you want.

Last night at the Fairies, this Tu Di Gong (土地公; tǔ dì gōng) - a local earth god not as powerful as one of the Fairies, but one who carries a staff with gourds, a gold ingot, has wings for some reason, and has a noggin that is either encephalitic or can out think Deep Blue - successfully led his plate into total consumption.

Even in spite of a heavy blanket of sweet mayonnaise, diners still found their way to, and ate, the shrimp and pineapple. Even after one Canadian, Andre, tried to de-wing the god for a nosh, he remained standing and proud ( after he was stood back up by the drop-mouthed Taiwanese at the table). Even after another Canadian, Josh, tried to clean him of cigarette ashes on his...um...upper, inner thigh, he remained firm.

In all fairness to Andre, the god's wings were facing him and he just looked like a big, fat carrot. In Josh's defense, he was cleaning it up because we couldn't take it with us. We had to give it back and he had no way of knowing if the next patron preferred regular or menthol.

Bread posts it (again), it must be true!

Either Bread's long-term memory maxes out at one year, or someone is in denial about MTM.

下 一 項

Official Northern Command Web Site (aka, The Eight Drunken Fairies). Good, cheap bear and good, pricey food. Photos of the facility as well as bilingual menu.

下 一 項

The Council of Agriculture's Easy Agritourism web site lists Taiwan's top 10 tours. The Chinese site is much more extensive, listing contacts, travel packages and more photos, but the English site has some valuable info as well. For example, when you choose a location and click on Travel Tips on the left sidebar you can discover that in Alisan plants can attack. Their bites may be mean, but they won't cause death. Also, you should refrain from being Mister/Miss-too-adventurous into the bush.

Under the Speaking Chinese section you will find useful phrases suited for each location, as seen in the example below. Be careful, though. The lady speaking likes to shout, and I really mean shout, at least one of the words for each phrase.

(The third one sounds interesting.)

最 後

Today, I found out how to say herpes zoster in Chinese. For those interested it's 帶狀皰疹 - dai4 zhuang4 pao4 zhen3 - ㄉㄞˋ ㄓㄨㄤˋ ㄆㄠˋ ㄓㄣˇ