AYE PAPAYA!

I thought I would be over jet lag by the sixth morning into my adventure in Taiwan. But my body clock is trying to tell me one of two things: either I am still not running on local time, or contrary to (very) popular belief, I am a morning person. Every morning with only one exception, I have woken before sunrise, which is around 6am. I am also really tired by 9.30pm, but I love sleeping, so this bothers me less. My cousin has been joking that I am much older than my years, and my real age is in fact 48 years old… I am beginning to agree.

That’s not to say these early starts are without benefits. Although we might not be in the mountains here in Daxi, it is easy to look out of any east facing window more than 3 storeys up and see layers of jagged silhouettes searing into the sky. The 360 degree view from the roof of the apartment building where I am staying with my cousin and his wife offers a vantage point with spectacular views of the eastern mountain ranges that carve their way towards the south of the island. It’s a spectacle to behold in the mornings, especially when the sky is clear, as it was this morning when I woke. At such an early hour the tangle of tree tops and colourful roof tiles, interspersed with a jumble of allotments, outhouses and concrete townhouses of Daxi present their own charm against such a spectacular backdrop. Out of view to the West is the coastline that separates Taiwan from China – it is obscured by the highrise apartment buildings that fan out from the cities of Taoyuan and Jhongli (this is the view at sunset below).

Each day I am pleasantly surprised by the peaceful nature of the morning in Taiwan despite the bustling mainstreet of Daxi not far from the windows of the apartment. Although there are many Taiwanese who work the standard hours of 9am to 5pm my cousin and his wife have been afforded the luxury of waking up according to their own body clocks rather than an alarm clock. This is because, like most English language teachers here, they work in afterschool programmes, called “cram schools” or “Buxibans”. Often work begins around 4pm, and continues until around 8 or 9pm. It is very different to waking up in the early morning without the immediate sense of needing to be somewhere very soon. The best way I could describe it is to liken it to Sunday mornings. To have the morning to undertake the menial tasks of the day, but without any sense of urgency, is such a novelty. As one who likes to lie-in I had been concerned that I would be unable to achieve anything in the daytime, but I am finding that my greatest hours of productivity could easily be in the morning here.

This morning I woke with the sun before 6am (again!). Noticing the sun shining through the living room window I made my first port of call the roof (hence the photos)! Of course, upon my return to the apartment, the second thing I sought was a cup of tea (PG tips of course – I will cover tea in another post). I then turned my attention to food. Yesterday we had been to a Taiwanese style supermarket market (I will have more on this in a later post too!) and, among other items, I had picked up a papaya. Of course, this being a first papaya I have prepared (in fact, the first I have eaten too) I did the British standard in fruit preparation: peel, slice and deseed. The order in which I did these three actions still remains open to question as I was pretty hungry by now – hunger blackout. These details are less important, and in fact I think it is commendable that I didn’t slice my fingers off given the sheer slipperiness of the fruit once peeled. I can’t speak for all papaya, but I think this was a good one – the yellow skin indicated its ripeness (or so I am told). The orange fruit itself was delightfully soft, and although not dissimilar to melon, the flavour is light and distinct - almost perfumed. I think I will be enjoying many more papaya during my stay in Taiwan!

To accompany my tea more than anything, I tried a couple of slices of blueberry bread that I had picked out at the bakery in the same Taiwanese market. Next to a savoury bread loaf that was covered in pig hair (I’m glad I was informed of this, as it actually looked delicious), this blueberry bread had appeared to me to look just like a milk loaf that you might find in the local bakeries of West Wales (shout out to Judy and the Selcons! J). It had the same corrugated surface, the same cylindrical shape – it nearly fooled me, until I was informed by Maxine that the contents were much sweeter. I enjoyed this sweet treat – much like a swiss roll made with sweet bread dough, and filled with blueberry jam and buttercream.

I am about to endeavour on a walk to a local temple. I don’t know what I’m looking for, or what awaits me…

Edit: turns out the "pig's fur" my cousin described to be coating the savoury bread loaf is in fact not pig's hair at all, but rather a form of dried, shredded and flavoured pork meat! The likelihood of me trying it has just increased tenfold!