Notes on Modern Nomadic Life

From the ancient Phoenician trading in the Mediterranean to the warring Mongol empire to modern day immigrants trading skills, there has always been a strong impulse for a subset of humans in each competing society to up and go in search of better opportunities. Large diasporas made up of Chinese, East Europeans, Asians and including a large chunk of the direct descendants of the Phoenicians, Lebaneses.

Formed around city-states, Phoenicians mirror modern electronic nomads moving from metropolis to metropolises: San Francisco, New York, Montreal, Vancouver, Paris, Munich, Shanghai, Buenos Aires... Centers of composite multicultural societies or melting pots , they've far outproduced and out-innovated sedentary locals by exposure to a large variety of cultures in the same lifetime.

Whether genetic impulse or societal pressure or maybe both (after all, migration is part of the human experience), these movements have led to a global culture further extended in modern time by the Internet and air travel.

Strong and welcoming cultures to immigrants have created liberal and open-minded city-societies with an appetite for constant changes. Trading has moved from physical objects to ideas or at least ideas of physical products and the rate of exchanges has accelerated.

Modern nomads have few physical possessions and rely instead on their electronic assets as the center of their identity. Instead of buying souvenirs to collect dust, they keep their possessions light with a focus on consumables and digital copies. Their life is often anchored by sedentary family members and friends in many countries with which they keep contact through intellectual exchanges, common interests and local news that could have global relevancy.

Being well remunerated for their experience, skills and knowledge they move from countries to countries while staying connected. They often live in self-contained family cell of 2 to 4 individuals. They follow opportunities without any of mental and financial burden of mortgages, car loans or pets. Atheists or philosophical with few fixed traditions or with religions that are either very personal (portable) or for which centers of worship exists everywhere, they move around freely. To prosper, they favor tolerance and political neutrality but seek discussions and exchanges of views as a way to experience the world. Their closets are full of clothes and styles varying not only through time but through cultures. They are suspicious and critical of nationalisms and borders, politicians hostile to immigrants (legal or not) although they'll also often develop an exaggerated and paradoxical sense of how good the home country is through many comparisons.

There are downsides of course. Unable to own profitably houses, they rent, moving around constantly and having very little motivation to customize their nest to make it welcoming.

Keeping in touch with friends is difficult and it is hard to create additional interconnections in their global social circle to strengthen it. They often isolate themselves to their small and tightly wound family cell outside work connections.

When not staying long enough, they only skim cultures without any real depth and often forget large chunk of cultural knowledge if they move too quickly. They are generally blind to the majority of the country, living in the very special and exceptional metropolis of each where life often has no relationship with the "countryside" where real power is often held.

Often assaulted by waves of differences and working at assimilating the basic cultural necessities, they often miss on grabbing deeper opportunities.

Various taxation, working visas and regulatory systems make moving around painful.

Some ideas to work around the issues faced by the modern nomad:

• standing invitation to family and friends to serve as a forward base for tourism expeditions;
• renting fully furnished and equipped apartments (beyond even current standards) to provide an "home sweet home" without having to sacrifice comforts;
• participation in sports activities popular worldwide (association football aka soccer);
• self-expectation of continuous language and cultural acquisition;
• move often and aggressively outside the boundaries of the metropolis;
• acquire a good understanding of local history for at least the last 100 years;
• share your growing understanding of local culture online;
• add alerts or subscriptions to local news sites for the current and past cities you've lived in;
• keep notes of the opportunities as you discover them;
• open yourself to opportunities to socialize with all social stratas and castes;
• stay off the beaten path;
• get to know locally popular artists and culture (and hopefully learn to like some!);
• keep "bookmarks" on cultural artifacts that you like (movies, songs, books);
• stay more than a year in your host country (3 years?).

Interesting researchable questions:

• What countries have the largest net inflow and outflow of migrants?
• What % of GDP is contributed by migrants (organized by length of stay)?
• What attracts migrants? Can being the "world's university" and center of business startups be the main economic driver for a country?
• Can migrants replace low birth rate in western societies?
• How do countries integrate new migrants well?
• What's the top inflow that a country can realistically support without creating inter-cultural tensions?
• What country grants the most work visa per capita?
• What further parallels can be made with past nomadic groups?
• Are nomadic groups cyclical? Are they only possible currently because of the American empire?
• What are the consequences of the differences between economic and political refugees and highly skilled / rich migrants?
• All other things equals, what are the compensation benefits or knowing 1, 2, 3 languages?

Travel tips

Buy a good carry on, certified by an airline for cabin use. It should have good, large wheels (rollerblade type), a solid handle and many pockets with high quality metal zippers.

Attach a colorful piece of clothing on your luggage to make it easy to identify when you do the luggage claim.

Always bring a pen. For some weird reason, some places such as the US customs in Montreal's PET airport never have any pen.

Always check in online 24 hours before the flight. You may save money (discounts on checked in luggage), time (use of the self checkin terminal) and also a good safety net since the airline knows you'll be online.

Bring snacks; airlines are increasingly skimpy on food.

Make sure to fill out all the necessary forms before you get to customs.

Layer comfortable clothing so you can put and remove items as ambient temperature changes.

Make a checklist and keep updating it as you think of things to bring days before actually packing.

Travel lightly: figure out clothes that can be combined on your trip.

Bring moisturing cream to get around the dry air in the plane cabin,

Don't hesitate to remove your shoes to make yourself confortable.

Essentials: toothbrush, toothpaste, floss! Medication too of course.

Like to swim? Bring your bathing suit - you never know when your hotel will have a pool or a sauna.

Check EVERY pocket for liquids in your backpack and carry on before going through security.

Review visas and passport expiry date weeks before leaving. Renew passport so it is never less than 6 months before leaving.

Have currencies (or even better, credit cards) for both your origin and destination.

Make sure you have sufficient cash in your bank account. Make sure your debit card has a NIP of more digits (ATM in some countries have a limit of 4 digits) and setup automated payments for all accounts.

If you buy plane tickets months in advance, buy insurance for unexpected cancellation. Preferrably buy plane tickets in a window of 30 to 14 days before departure.

Packing your pieces of clothing in rolls instead of flat is more efficient and leads to better packing.

Make sure any bottle of liquids that could accidentally open or break are in an hermetic plastic bag.

Stick fragile objects in a box placed in a luggage for extra protection.

Squeamish? Bring a bottle of anti-bacterial hand cleaner.

Comfortable, slip on leather shoes that look both nice and can be used to walk anywhere. Don't skimp on both time and money to find the ideal pair of shoes. Personal prefence is for Ecco, but try them all!

Don't forget to bring a book or a magazine: it will make transit and waiting lines not as painful. Consider getting an ebook (such as a kindle).

Don't forget to charge all your electronic devices and spare batteries. Pack the various chargers and adapters.

Read up on the Wikipedia entry for your destination to make sure you don't miss out on anything.

A smartphone with wifi is increasingly useful as a portable mini computer to make reservations on the road.

A bottle opener can be useful but make sure it ends up in the checked in luggage.

Small first aid kit just in case.

Sunscreen is a must in sunny destination. Get the highest SPF possible.

Clean up your wallet and remove anything you won't need before leaving.

Keep all your passport number, credit cards, emergency phones online (suggest Google Docs).

Keep your addressbook (on your phone?) updated with your friends and family addresses so you can send them postcard.

SFO airport taxis are a ripoff

"This is America, you need to give 15% tip" said the Black & White checker taxi driver as we got off the taxi. Sorry buddy, I don't think America is about government enforced monopolies, stifling free competition and ripping off customers. Although maybe unmitigated greed probably is part of the American ethos and certainly this new immigrant learned that lesson fast.

Not only did he want us to pay cash (or face a 10% hike) but he was charging us 150% the metered fare as allowed by the monopoly on taxis at the airport - which came up to 91$ (plus a 6$ tip we gave him)! 91$ is a third as expensive as the 678 miles plane ride we had just taken! Oh yeah, and thanks for pointing out the surcharge once we had left the airport.

Unbelievably expensive for a 25.2 miles (40km) taxi ride home and absolutely unacceptable when compared to decent public transportation (usually less than 10$) available in every metropolis we've been to outside of North America that brings us almost door to door quickly.

In this area, they have trouble maintaining weekend service for the single train line...

Every experience with the taxis waiting in line at the SFO airport has been horrible. They know nothing about the area (you have to provide them step-by-step instructions), their taxi are poorly maintained, they love chatting on the phone and they don't really want to help you get your luggage in and out their crappy car.

You're better to stick with the unsanctioned drivers: at least they are polite, friendly, helpful and their cars don't suck. Or find a driver that you like and call him when you get off the plane...

Public transportation in Seattle

Public transportation is unreliable and coverage is spotty. Every morning I took the 26 or 28 to get from 7th (1 block from the hotel) to 34st and Fremont. Whatever time was on the schedule didn't matter it seems as every buses made its way at random times. It seems I never was able to wait less than 15mn for a bus...

They also have a surcharge during rush hour... It's small but why? Isn't it better to have more people taking public transportation?

In addition, the bus lines "transform" into other bus lines which can be confusing especially if bus drivers don't call it out.

On the plus side, the downtown area is in a free zone and the clientele is diversified which makes for a nicer experience.

In comparison, San Francisco buses smell like piss with many passengers who haven't showered for weeks. No one that can scrape enough money for a car would be caught dead in a bus in Silicon Valley.

We are very far from Munich and London where "regular" people take the bus...

Discover Taiwan - the treasure island

Here's some links for travel in Taiwan:

Taiwan tourism bureau
Taiwan Map
Taiwan Festivals
Tastes of Taiwan

Transportation
Taiwan Railway Administration - train schedule

Places to visit
Green Island
Taroko National Park
Yushan National Park
Shei-Pa National Park
North Coast & Guanyinshan National Scenic Area
Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area
Maolin National Scenic Area
Siraya National Scenic Area
Orchid Island (Lanyu)
Penghu County
Liji Lunar World
Yehliu Park
Longdong South Ocean Park
Danshuei Old Street
National Palace Museum
Taipei 101

Accommodation recommendation
Accommodations around Hualien and Taroko
Grand Formosa Taroko (Tien-Xian)
Hotel Bayview (Chishingtarn Coast Scenic Area)
Rainbow hotel (Jiben)
Shiacarl B&B - English version coming soon! (Green Island)
Burgary hotel - Chinese (Taipei)

Taiwan May 2009 2 weeks travel Costs for 2 persons

After reading posts about our trip in Taiwan and looking at our nice pictures, I think lots of people are curious to know how much did the trip cost?

Here's the breakdown (Taiwanese dollars, conversion at the end):

Note: we stayed 2 nights at my brother's apartment in Taipei.

The total cost excluding round-trip airfare is US$1725.62 (1901.76$CAD), round trip plane ticket San Fran-Taipei is US$865 per person, so the real total is $3455.62 for 2 persons 2 weeks travel in Taiwan. It is possible to reduce the cost if you travel in low season (probably March-April and October-November), airfare can be 30% to 40% cheaper and if you don't mind staying at cheaper accommodations, you can save another 20% to 30%.

Want to have an unforgettable trip? What are you waiting for? Start planning your trip to Taiwan! ;-)

My Tracks Taiwan

Android My Tracks recorded GPS information for our Taiwan trip:


View Tracks: Taiwan May 2009 in a larger map

Burgary hotel 寶格利時尚旅館, Ximen, Taipei, Taiwan

The Burgary hotel 寶格利時尚旅館 is just next the busy Ximen area on the busy Zhonghua road.

Ximen is ideal for shopping, food an ideal to catch a movie with its numerous movie theaters (we saw Star Trek on a large Imax screen).

The rooms are expensive (3680NT$ or around 120$US), the entrance is unimpressive, the free breakfast is the worse we've had. The bed is so-so, better then the plywood hardness in other hotels, although we would have hoped for better and more sheets.

Where the Burgary really shine is in the bathroom with an enormous bubble bath with colored lighting effect and nice shower with a standard showerhead and a rain type overhead showerhead. Next to the bath is a TV screen.

Overall, a good experience and we would come back for a night or two to be in the happening area.

Olympia bakery, Taipei, Taiwan

Olympia bakery (3 places in Taipei, including one is Ximen) has surprisingly good cream puffs for 30NT$ (1US$) each. They are also very filling so you can't really eat more then one. Another surprise are the dim sum who are tasty and fresh.

Olympia (http://www.olympiafoods.com.tw)

Baiyang trail 白楊步道, Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園, Taiwan

A few minutes walk in the hot sun from the Grand Formosa hotel was the Baiyang trail 白楊步道.

From the start, Min Lin was worried when we had to walk a few hundreds meters in a straight tunnel where the light at the other end was only a dot.

She got more worried when we got to a curved tunnel where we couldn't see the light until we walked to the curve a few meters in.

But she got really worried when we had to walk a few meters in yet another tunnel in total darkness! That last experience was exactly like being blind even with our eyes wide open, the convenient rail our only guide.

Dragging Min Lin through it all was worth it for the sights of the roaring canyon river on one side of a rope bridge (limit 10 persons) and waterfalls on the other. Absolutely gorgeous!

In addition, the trail ends with the water curtain tunnel, where a river flows fed by water leaking abundantly from the ceiling. If you go through, be ready to get wet and watch out for the frogs.

All of this is framed by vegetation covered cliffs, huge boulders at the bottom of the canyon and mountains peaking through the clouds. It is also an easy trail, apart from the scary tunnels. A flashlight is recommend except if you like to have your significant other hold on tight to yourself...

Grand Formosa Taroko Western Restaurant, Taiwan

The decor is wood and a large slab of rock next to which are placed the various salad dish. Two more islands have most of the meat dishes and a chef speciality area. Tucked in a corner the desserts are layed out.

The staff is very accomodating and prompt, offering us good seats and are quick at picking up the steady stream of dishes.

The desserts are all delicious and include a mango mousse, an angel cake, fruitcake and more. There is also some watermelon and if you want to go French style you can get some of the tasty smoked gouda cheese in addition to a Min Lin's favorite, matcha (green tea) ice cream. The chef was nice enough to bring an extra plate of cheese when we scavenged the last piece.

Wait you'll say, what about the main dishes? Sadly, they are all messed up in their own special way with an uniform abuse of pepper in all dishes. The supposedly French style onion soup is an insult to France and even the spaghetti ranks as the worse I've had.

The buffet food is 590NT$ plus a 10% service charge. We recommend stuffing yourself on the afternoon tea (250NT$) and going for some stinky tofu next door for dinner.

Grand Formosa Taroko 天祥晶華度假酒店, Tien-Xiang 天祥, Taiwan

Ma-Lu-Su? ("How are you?" in the language of the Atayal, a local aboriginal mountain tribe)

Nested in the mountains and only reachable by an half hour drive in the sinuous and narrow roads through the tall mountains is the Grand Formosa Taroko hotel 天祥晶華度假酒店.

Years ago, the Japaneses during the occupation were the first to turn the region from a dangerous mountain path hanging dangerously on the cliff of the mountains to a tourists destination.

Now, tour buses of mostly Taiwaneses and mainlanders with a few westerners and Japaneses sprinkled throughout negotiate a not much larger road, stopping to admire the beautiful sights of the high, jungle covered mountains and bare cliffs that drop to the rivers.

Some, like us, stop at the amazingly affordable five stars hotel Grand Formosa Taroko with all the modern facilities in the middle of it all. Two restaurants (one western style buffet and one chinese style), indoor and outdoor (roof) swimming pools, spa facilities and a gamut of entertainment choices (ping pong, billiards, video games, bowling). The dinner buffet looks delicious although expensive even by the standards in North America.

You can get a room with a view on the courtyard or overlooking the river and cliff outside. We switched to the second choice so we could run naked in the room with the windows opened.

At night, huge insects (including an enormous wasp that made it in the room) are attracted to the light and land on our window. A bat profits of this by flying again and again next to our window to eat them.

The rooms are decorated tastefully with some inspirations from the mountain tribes while the friendly employees wear uniforms with slight additions that reminds us of traditional aboriginal tribes.

Amazing, if not slightly nauseating, that this mountainous and remote area went from tribes getting necessities from nature to hydroelectric dams to the comforts found in any large city of the world in the span of less than 75 years with the help of a few generations of murdered natives or exploited labor.

All of this so that I can make a call sitting on the toilet by using the convenient phone handset there or watch HBO while lounging on the bed...

Thank you doesn't seem enough.

The only thing left to do then is to complain about how hard the bed is, how the hotel corridors are smelly and how few towels there are.

S-Wa-Yai Da Da! (goodbye in Atayal)

Hike in mysterious valley, Shakadang trail 砂卡礑步道, Taroko National park 太魯閣國家公園, Taiwan

The staff at the hotel Taroko warmed up to us and we warmed up to them. We were going to leave for the next hotel but they convinced us to try at least one trail, the Shakadang trail 砂卡礑步道.

So after breakfast (fried egg sandwich) we did a 8 km hike through the 1 km tunnel that goes to the "mysterious valley", then following a trail built into one cliff and finally the mostly dried river bed with just enough water for miniature waterfalls and small fishes.

There are a few aboriginal people still living in the valley and they grow a kind of vegetable consumed for its leafs in addition to raising a few chickens.

We then came back to Taroko village and had lunch, mostly gathered from the local 7 Eleven store.

Hotel Taroko 太魯閣旅店, Taroko village 太魯閣, Taiwan

Taroko village 太魯閣 is the entrance of Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園, but we found that it is a scary and deserted place at night: gangs of 12 years old holding sticks roving at night (we only survived those when we said we were Canadians), mean dogs on leashes that jump at you to push you off the sidewalks, a 7 Eleven kept at freezing temperature and a series of abandoned and probably haunted houses that dot its main street.

The hotel Taroko 太魯閣旅店 staff is unwelcoming this late at night, almost requiring torture to extract tidbits of information while a dog keeps barking menacingly outside.

Our inquiries about using the bicycles are met with veiled threats that we will be run over on the pathless streets of Taroko. We discovered later that this isn't strictly true; there are some bike paths.

We took the most expensive room and ended up with a bed with the firmness of plywood. The shower is so badly designed that the hook to hold the shower head is aligned with and two feets from the sink.

A little sign in the shower warns that we have to let the water run for 5 minutes to get hot water. In actuality, this is more like 15 minutes - I had time enough to brush my teeth and take a full (cold) shower including an hair shampoo before the hot water came on, wasting probably the equivalent of an Olympic size pool. I can assume that the environment won't be an hot issue during the next political elections. Min Lin in the meantime was trying to get the issue resolved with the front desk but only got accusations that we didn't let the water run for long enough...

The restaurant across the street has a good wild (and by wild they mean farm raised) boar dish. However they probably couldn't serve a vegetarian dish if their life depended on it as they gave Min Lin noodles with bits of meat in it.

The next day is a different story. We must admit it is still a good, new, clean hotel well located next to a national park with a view on the nearby river and mountains. And the front desk woman finally cracks a smile while the manager gets up and is actually helpful. Sadly, they still give us misinformation and we end up too early at the visitor center as we were told it opened at 7:30 instead of 8:30.

Départ de Shiacarl 夏卡爾, Green Island, Taiwan

Shiacarl près des montagnes sur l'ile verte attends,
Au large de la côte est de Taiwan dans le vent ,
Pour les petits bateaux de pêche sur l'eau,
Pour les nages parmis poissons colorés et les coraux,
Pour les marches dans les sentiers de randonnées
Pour les baignades dans les eaux thermales salées,
Mais surtout pour l'hospitalité,
De nos hôtes à Shiacarl toujours gaies,
Le savoir de l'ile du grand frère,
Le sourire de la blonde du grand frère,
Et l'attention du petit frère du grand frère,
Nous sers d'un merveilleux pied a terre,
La bouffe est bonne surtout autour du feu de camp,
Pour manger calmars, maïs et poissons volants.

5th day on Green Island, Taiwan

That morning we moved back from the other B&B to Shiacarl, taking our two carry-ons and two backpacks on the scooter for the 1mn ride (they are basically next to each other).

After another delicious breakfast, we went to the "cow head", a rock formation on the north east tip of the island that looks like a cow. I can't say I see it but they've conveniently also added a cow skull to the scenery. There are also remnants there of various abandoned fortifications, although I wonder who built it and why.

We drove back through the town (another shaved ice) back to Shiacarl and I went out for more snorkeling where I got a slight sunburn on my back.

We had lunch in town at the Seaweed Meatball restaurant and the owner (Tino) invited us to come back that night for a neat experience.

So we drove again at 6pm that night. The activity was to walk around the littoral and pick up various form of wildlife: crabs and shellfish. We also saw a big "sea rabbit" that emits a red cloud when disturbed in addition to many sea cucumbers and corals. Pretty neat! We could also see a big thunderstorm over the ocean west of the island but luckily we only got a few drops.

4th day on Green Island

After breakfast at Shiacarl, we went hiking in the ancient across the mountain trail. We saw many lizards taking in the sun in the trail and scurrying into the bushes when we came by, except for two that took an aggressive stance when we were coming down the mountain - probably frustrated at having their sunbathing interrupted all the time. We also saw a deer (a smaller kind then the Sika deer) and a big shiny salamander in addition to many butterflied.

We had to checkout from Shiacarl since they did not have a room for us on Saturday night, so we moved to an hotel in the same village. As most buildings in Taiwan, the exterior looks of older buildings is awful but the actual room was nice, although the mattress was a lot firmer than I'm used to. Still, a very good alternative 20% to 30% less expensive than Shiacarl, although you don't get the same personalized experience and there is no breakfast.

Talking about hospitality, our hosts at Shiacarl invited us to BBQ! The food involved is much different than in north America... We had flying fish (salted and whole), sausage, squid, chicken tail, slices of pork, fish soup (I had an entire small fish floating in my bowl) and corn.

That day, we've also tried out the shaved ice downtown which is ice with red beans, tofu, seaweed, condensed milk and a few other ingredients that are very refreshing.

Google on the road

[This is in no way official or approved by my employer].

I'm biased but Google online apps and the HTC/T-Mobile/Google G1 running the Android stack (with Linux OS) have been very useful on this trip. Any wireless access point as provided in most hotels (and even in the Green Island B&B!) turns the G1 in a portable computer.

The qwerty keyboard makes blogging and sending out emails practical at a reasonable speed that would not be possible with an onscreen keyboard. Writing these blog posts to share our trip with you is an activity I like to do while waiting for Min Lin to finish up whatever she is doing or waiting for meals.

I found the best way to blog on the road is to use the blogspot email-to-blog functionality. Using drafts on the Android email clients makes it possible to write my thoughts and observations offline to queue them for sending the next time I have net access.

The pictures taken with the built-in camera are low quality which makes them perfect as a preview to the pics taken with my "real" digicam. Email pics attachments to the email to blog are automatically converted. This is an awesome feature which is actually a lot easier than creating a blog post, transferring pics and uploading them.

Since we did not make reservations ahead, Min Lin researched and made reservations on the road and even paid for rooms on secure sites.

Of course, Google search engine has been useful to look things like "jellyfish sting taiwan" to figure out if I was going to die or not.

Some Android apps are awesomely useful too on a trip. I've fallen in love with My Tracks, which uses the built-in GPS (yes, a real GPS!) to record any kind of travel from hiking to train rides. It provides statistics (such as average speed and moving average speed), elevation profile and of course the recorded path on a map. You can also share the tracks, although that doesn't currently work with the OS version I have installed.

There is also the Sky Map application that uses the GPS, compass and accelerometer to show celestial bodies and constellations names. Hold it up at night with a starry sky in the background and you can finally put a name on those shiny things in the sky!

The future is here and it's useful! I think that there is a lot of potential here.

Third day on Green Island

After going to the hot spring, we slept a little and afterward I went snorkeling. I got in my mind to try picking up some of the plastic trash floating around. When I got to what I thought was a blue piece of plastic, I got a strange burning sensation between my fingers... Jellyfish! My whole right arm was numb. I put some vinegar on it but one of the B&B owner told me that pee was more effective so I tried that in the shower. I was worried it would get worse (some jellyfish are so poisonous that they are deadly) but the pain went away by noon.

We went downtown to get some gas for the scooter and taste the shaved ice. We then went back, had a beer and a while later bit returned to the water for some snorkeling together. Among other things, I saw an impressive lion fish.

After dinner, we went to a special night tour of the island with one of the host. We looked at the stars, a family of Sika deer, brown and green stick insects (the later is a protected specie) and the memorial to the five hundreds political prisoners or so during the Kuomingtang dictatorship.

Our last stop was to get some stinky tofu downtown...

Shiacarl Cafe 夏卡爾, Green Island, Taiwan

The B&B also doubles as a small cafe for serving guests and outside customers. The eating area is nicely decorated with relaxing music and a soothing ocean breeze.

Our hosts and hostess Selena all take turn cooking and luckily for us they also make the best food on the island, although they quite humble about it.

While the downtown is bland or excessively bizarre, their food strike the right balance between original and good taste. Of particular note is the fruit salad that is common to most of her dishes. They are also accommodating of their mixed carnivorous and vegetarian guests, serving versions of both for any dishes to me and Min Lin. the vegetarian version is also not an inferior version of the meat dish, but delicious in its own way.

I love the fact that we don't have to choose the dishes; we just tell them when we want to eat and the dishes are served, a pleasant surprise everytime.