Learning to Upload. Adding a Link.

Today I practiced uploading and linking at the Apple Store.

You can scroll down to see the link I made to our hotel in Tapei.


Jed and I will be staying at hotel 73.



Next are pictures of Sabrina and Rainbow. In Taiwan, couples take extensive photos before the wedding.



I'll be adding more pictures and links in the days ahead.

Pie in the Sky

The best airline dinner I ever had was 1/2 a chocolate fudge, candy cane pie. My friend Anne and I were visiting Minneapolis, and she bought it for the flight back home.

It was a refreshing act of boldness, eating that pie.

Indeed, it was the exhilerating, defying-of-expectation statement of two single mothers who'd met when our kids were in preschool. No more lukewarm chicken breasts in brown sauce with a smattering of green peas rolling about in a plastic tray for us. The kids were grown. It was time for a new slice of life.

Some dreams are pie in the sky -- someday, maybe, kind of things. Others are the kind you actually bite into and taste. This was that second kind -- forbidden, chewy, gooey, delicious, scrumptious -- a turning point.

In time, Anne moved from New York to Colorado and began anew. While, I met and married the comforting-as-chocolate-fudge, exhilerating as a peppermint patty, life partner I'd always wanted.

Packing for Taiwan, I think about that pie. That memory, still so vivid, is what propels me to skip the usual pumpkin this year, for a more exciting adventure.

By the way, I've written a book --

By the way, I've written a book. If you like the blog, I'm sure you'll like it.

Copy and paste the link below to find the book on Amazon.
It's called: "Wanderlust: A Naive Adventurer in Europe & Asia." I believe it's funny and a very good read!

http://www.amazon.com/Wanderlust-Na%C3%AFve-Adventurer-
Europe-Asia/dp/1439211833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=
1256050464&sr=8-1

I'm incapable of eating without dribbling.

For most women of small to average cup size, dribbles of food fall past their bazooms, into their laps and onto their napkins. Not so for me. My jutting anatomy stops the free-fall of soup, coffee and sauces, leaving me perenially messy.

At home, I can always eat unrobed and catch stray green beans almondine in my cleavage.

And that's when I'm using spoon, fork and knives -- implements with which I have a lifetime of experience.

But, what will happen in Taiwan when chop sticks meet tofu? I mean, when I have only a few changes of clothing?

Spots. That's what will happen. I dread slippery noodles. Droplets of soy sauce. And roasted scorpions falling off wooden skewers onto my shirt front.

Knowing myself, I am toying with taking a bib.

I am aware that a bib on an adult is a fashion faux pas that most women would never consider.

But, is it such a bad idea? Fashions change. Hats were in. Hats are out. Hems go up. Hems descend. Bibs could catch on. I can't be the only woman who spends much too much money at the dry cleaners. In this economy a bib could make a valuable contribution to one's budget. And I'm not certain that a boldly patterned bib, or maybe a rich metallic, or something sophisticated, by say, DKNY, automatically makes one unattractive.

What a dilemma.

My husband Jed has a floor-length raincoat. I think I'll pack it.

Packing -- Less or More.

In the 19C when people traveled they'd bring along trunks packed with about a gazillion clothes and toiletries.

I suppose it wasn't as easy then to pop out of your hotel and buy whatever you forgot from the same stores (with identical piles of tops and bottoms) that you'd shopped back home. And I know that Taiwan has malls and stalls and racks and stacks of anything I could want.

So this time instead of dredging my closet and drawers for every last sock and undergarment I've never never worn but might be indispensible, I decide to pack light.

To this end, I buy a small, red satchel on wheels and start packing early.

6 weeks early. My goal is to vet each item. Try on. Refold. Shake out. Pair with pants, same purse, shoes. Refine. Jettison.

At an Eddie Bauer Outlet I buy two pair of khaki pants "made for the traveler" with lots of zippers to hold oddities and Kleenex. I love them. I figure I can pair them with short and long tees in brown, tans, and yellow. I'm off to a good start.

Next I buy miniatures of Tide, Oxi-Clean, toothpaste, and hand sanitizer, as well as every other trial size pack sold in America today, including off brands. I read not all public restrooms have toilet tissue. I buy that too.

I need aspirin, acid reducer, and other bodily correctives. If I could find smelling salts I'd pick that up. Figuring the hotel will have shampoo and conditioner, I resist. For anything else, I've decided I will visit a Chinese herbalist.

Rust goes with khaki. Orange goes with khaki. Should I pack those shirts?

Purple goes with khaki. Pink does too. Which jacket? Purple, pink? Jean?? Raincoat?

If I take the purple jacket, maybe I should pick up the fuchsia blouse I saw on sale. As a matter of fact, the fuchsia would also look nice with the pink jacket.

The pink has a little turquoise in it, also gray. I have a long-sleeve gray tee. And a turquoise knit top. Hah! And a turquoise skirt!

Hat. Sunscreen. Sunglasses.

Tasting & Traipsing with Monique S. - Read 1st.

Turkey In Taiwan

Turkey in Taiwan has a nice sound to it. How it will taste is an unnerving unknown. Is turkey even on the menu in Taiwan? That's the dilemma my husband and I find ourselves in after I accept a wedding invitation from my grad school buddy for over the upcoming Thanksgiving break. My name is Monique Stampleman. I teach college sophomores to write advertising copy. To get this job a half-dozen years ago, I needed to go back to school for a Masters. That's where I met Tzu Hui -- or Sabrina. as we knew her.

Sabrina was young, smart, funny and beautiful. She came to the US from Taiwan to get her Masters in Communications -- despite the fact she didn't speak any English at the time.

Sabrina's a quick learner and excelled in class. I'd probably been out of school longer than she'd been in the world. But we paired to do a study of porn on the internet. What we saw was beyond translation. We became fast friends.

So now Jed, my beloved husband of 3 1/2 years, and I have told the relatives that someone else will have to bring the sweet potatoes with tiny melted marshmallows this year. We're flying to Tapei friday morning, November 20. We'll return in time for my 12:00 pm office hour on Monday, November 30.

Why Taiwan? Why now? Sabrina had flown in to New York for our wedding. So although about 17 countries outranked it on our intend-to-visit list, Taiwan -- the former Formosa, "the beautiful island," -- as we learned, jumped to the top.

"Did you know the tallest building in the world is in Taiwan?" I ask Jed. "Did you know two common street snacks are congealed pigs' blood mixed with rice and something called 'stinky tofu'?"

Jed is busy learning Mandarin from Chinese fortune cookies. Already he has mastered the word for watermelon and the phrase How are you -- Ni Haw Ma. "How are you and your watermelon?" I'll ask Sabrina's father first thing!

My knowledge of Taiwan and its particular character are limited. Jed tells me that the movie "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" is Taiwanese. We watched it together soon after we met, almost seven years ago. As I begin to read about it, Taiwan's reputation as a food destination is confirmed. Sabrina's wedding to Rainbow (his name), will be a traditional Chinese ceremony on the afternoon of November 29. Until then, we can traipse about all week and eat, eat, eat.

"I see Drunken Chicken on several menus," I tell Jed. "Also, Peking duck," I add. These might be good substitutes for turkey, I think. "There are also plenty of restaurants that feature chicken feet," I say. Jed is ignoring me. He is studying the Taiwan MRT subway map. Its almost perpendicular intersecting arms makes navigating Taipei appear simple enough. From looking as indistinct physically and culturally as a big mushy bowl of congee just a few days before, Taiwan is being to take shape in both our minds.

Still the process is different than when you've had a lifetime of selective attention on one destination or another. I have a sense of Bhutan. I've never been but want to and have picked up impressions here and there. It's the same with Bali and Macchu Picchu. The place Taiwan holds in the world is an empty map for me. I'm embarassed to be so ignorant.

There doesn't seem to be much travel literature on it. Perhaps I could write a blog about our trip. I've never written a blog. I've read very few. I 'm not even on FaceBook. I don't know how to twit. However, my 20 something son -- who prefers to remain nameless -- has upped my techno-expertise by teaching me how to text. I leap.