Chiayi Charm

360 around the gazebo A ride along the dyke road           I had a good day discovering Lantan Lake and a riding place I will go to often. It’s a half hour away and there’s a little bit of a hill towards the end,  relaxing.  Today I was serenaded by someone in the gazebo practicing his saxophone. I would need a while to relax and then did my round of the lake to the sweet spot on the other side, just before and nursing college, to imagine romping on the peninsula and taking a dip. Then. I rode up the steep little hill and back to highway 159 down the long slope into Chiayi city. It was a fine day, despite the 96 o heat. I can't help but feel blessed that I'm being afforded this freedom and health to enjoy the beautiful landscape, swim, bike, and be vaccinated for my trip to America in a few weeks. Plum rains won’t quench Lantan Lake, But typhoons will work it out in this year of drought. Incessant downpours will come so hard and long That we will...

 

            My friend found a job vacancy at Chiayi University for me. It is 38 minutes away by bike, 20 by car. I may apply.  The job starts Feb. 2022 and I must apply before May 14. It is 12 contact hours a week plus I would have university duties and homework and prep time to do.   I’m going through the motions about the Chiayi job application, due May 14; it will be fun to see if Seton Hall can send an official transcript and I can finish the job application and support. It would be hilarious if they choose to interview me. My publications are three poetry books and one of short stories. There’s no place in “experience” for a forty-year veteran high school teacher so I added it. I gave three colleagues from my high school in Brooklyn and one professor from Taiwan  as references. Let's see if they want a 66 year old wise guy like me; they want fresh college meat to grill.        ...

  The pride of Chiayi; TK Food Cubic Pastry; “Taiwan Native Flavor”. The western style tourist oriented campaign; packaging and presentation of the same wheat cracker (unfortunately with palm oil) I got from the old lady on Shanghai Street earlier in the week; in a unique tan paper box with a cartoon of a ah-ma farmer crossing that Bajiang River pedestrian bridge on a bike, a school girl reading a book, and a mail carrier about to fly a paper plane; the peanut butter buckwheat is amazing! I couldn't find the store on GPS though I rode up and down the street. Finally I stopped into a corner restaurant to ask for directions. The owner lady brought me outside and pointed down the street with a 'why would you want to go there' look. I told her the cookies were famous and she shrugged her shoulders.  When I asked if she had made the cookies herself she said yes, and perhaps she did, but the cookies that TK Food turned into a Chiayi landmark treat awe more to packaging and new fl...

Location      Before my friends arrived in Chiayi I was asked what was for dinner.  They picked the Turkish restaurant I had found the week before on my trip to Mt. Martin's Hospital to get vaccinated and a lovely ride around Lantan Lake; the restaurant  popped up on the GPS when I was searching for the way back home.       I met my friends downstairs and we went straight there for a 7:30 reservation, but we didn’t need one; there were plenty of empty tables in the colorful, happy restaurant with painted floors and a surprise on the menu; a rugby-ball-shaped inflated cracker dotted with sesame seed; I acted like I’d seen it before. The Turkish lamb stew and cheese shrimp with lentil and chicken soup with homemade bread, a glass of apple juice. Quite a presentation and tasty without being salty. We loved it!      The owner, a Turkish man married to a Taiwanese with a child playing around  the tables, Taiwan style, have been...