Food

I believe that I've mentioned before that my first few days were difficult as far as eating was concerned. I had a hard time finding vegetarian restaurants and my Chinese isn't good enough to order vegetarian anywhere else. I still don't know many vegetarian restaurants, but I've found one in each key location: one that's a 10 minute walk from my apartment (I don't eat there often, because I don't spend much time at my apartment), two next to the University, and one next to the yoga studio. I eat at the latter one the most because I spend quite a bit of time at the yoga studio (either practicing yoga, reading, or studying), plus I'm usually quite hungry after yoga. :) Like the others restaurants I eat at (except one that's more of a deli within a small food store), the restaurant is a buffet.



You pay based on the weight of your food and if you're eating in or taking away. I haven't figured out the rates, but my meal is usually $3-4 for something like this:



At this meal, I found many of my favorite things (clockwise, from top right): seaweed salad (like the kind at Japanese restaurants) that I put on green stems (some type of lettuce, I think); sticky purple rice ball with sesame seeds (I don't think it's specifically a desert because they don't put it in that section, but I eat it as desert); curly seaweed with grated carrots and ginger; another kind of seaweed that's tied in a bow; squash or pumpkin; bean nuts (not sure exactly what they are, but they're good; apparently they grow in the east of Taiwan on plants that grow in lakes and people harvest them from boats); and Chinese eggplant (the long, brighter purple kind) with lots of basil and a bit of red pepper.

They also have tofu products, but because I don't eat those, I haven't been eating enough protein. So lately, I've started cooking eggs and beans at home, so that I eat protein with 2 meals a day, and then one meal at the vegetarian restaurant.

The other exciting thing I found with respect to food is a street vendor that I could buy something from (there are street vendors everywhere selling food, but all of the food either has meat in it or is cooked in lard). Here's a picture of a man who sells baked sweet potatoes (they're so good...they taste as though they were roasted in a campfire)...I've seen twice in the past week and a half (that's the only bad thing with street vendors...you never know when you'll see them):