Pictures

At a Hakka restaurant in Beipu: two plates of fried bantiao noodles and a plate of yam leaves.


In the mortar is green tea, and in the dish at bottom are the other ingredients for lei tea (擂茶), peanuts, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, and black and white sesame seeds. At top is a glutinuous rice snack covered in sesame seeds and at right is a mashu (glutinuous rice mash) covered in sweetened ground peanuts.


Those little balls of mud were rolled out of the holes by little sand crabs at the Nanliao beach. The crabs run across the sand so quickly they look as if they are being carried by the wind, which makes them very hard to catch. But I developed a bold technique wherein I swiftly cover the crab's body with my shoe. However, this method was frowned about by the pro-crab lobby, who complained that it could have a serious impact on quality of living for the crab.

This snake died on the road near my apartment. After cooking in the sun for a few days, it turned blue, which was equally attractive. Unfortunately, my picture of it as a blue snake didn't turn out.