Pineapple Galore

Been awhile since my last posting. I got a sweet apartment only 10 mins from work, its so nice sometimes I think I am living in a hotel or something. Haven't got internet at home yet... :( I did get some really cheap furniture, unlike N. America, furniture is really cheap here, half price or less of what is found at The Brick, or Leons or even Ikea.

This post actually will be centered around the glorious watermelon, mango and pineapples. These fruits are grown in Taiwan and taste differently from the ones found in Canada. The ones in Canada are brought and bought from Mexico and Latin America. As such, they tend to have more fibre in them, where as the fruit here is really smooth. Its a lot less likely to get stuck in the teeth and extremely sweet.

The mangoes in TW are a little bit cheaper than in Canada, but not by much, but they are very smooth and rarely will get stuck in your teeth due to lacking the strong threads/fibre their Mexican relatives have. The mangoes here defenitely not as hairy as their Latino cousinsbut just as sweet. Unfortunately mango season is over, as well as strawberry season but it should return in a few months when it gets colder.

Today I bought a bag of pineapple from a truck on the street for only $3. The dude had a pickup truck filled with pineapples. He took one out and skinned it and cut it up into squares for me, and gave me some toothpicks to eat it with. Such a great deal, as a comparable amount of pineapple would cost double in Canada, especially because of the quality. The pieces are extremely sweet and not hard although firm. You can eat them all day without getting sick of them, very different from the ones in Canada which are slightly bitter or tangy and quite hard, where you spend a lot of time chewing them and removing them from your teeth.

Watermelons, they are cheap, large and plentiful. Watermelons here, as mentioned in a previous post come in 2 colours, yellow and red, although the red ones taste better. They are extremely juicy, and a glass of watermelon juice can be bought for only 40 cents, 80 if you don't know where to shop. Unfortunately, watermelon doesn't keep well, and best to stick to the juice, as its hard to eat them without making a mess on the street, as I encountered first hand. Unfortunately I do not have a kitchen readily available...

Buying fruits in Taiwan is hit and miss, due to the variations between supermarkets, especially the pricing. The price gouging in supermarkets is crazy, where regularly the fruits have a 200-300% markup. On the bright side, occasionally they will have a 4 cent sale, where certain products are only 4 cents~! Obviously those products sell out super fast. There is no such thing as raincheques or pricematching, after all, this is Asia, but one large Walmart clone called Carrefour is quite good in terms of pricing and convenience. They are located in many places throughout Taipei, but mostly cater to those with cars. They are also really big, bigger than most Walmarts, some even encompass 2 whole floors.

There are some other stores here, such as Costco and RT-Mart, but those are much more rare, only 2 Costcos in all of the Taipei Area, one in Neihu the other in Xji-shi. I went to the Costco, and it was ok, although most stuff there is too expensive due to the taxes imposed on imported products.

The weather here is getting really good, cool enough at night so that the air conditioner is no longer needed, and windy during the day. It has been raining quite often lately, but that should stop soon. I should hopefully get my internet hooked up and new pics uploaded as well.