I have all these wonderful posts ideas for posts lined up for before the end of the year. Alas, I am in turbo-boost Catch Up mode: In less than 10 days, I had the wonderful experience of flying on 6 different airplanes. Not accustomed to being a road warrior, to rapidly adjusting to different time zones, or to packing/unpacking in quick succession, I feel like I am walking through a mist, on unstable ground. Or it could simply be I am walking through crap collected from my trips strewn on the floor in my house since I soon gave up on unpacking. Nevertheless, I do not want to miss my once-a-week WTF Wednesday feature.

(Naturally I am cheating by Backdating this post. Good thing Sarbanes–Oxley Act does not apply to blog posting…)

So here is a composition of random pictures taken at my random WTF moments:

Considering how you call yours a Chinese restaurant, I surely hope one of you are, or at least, the food is...

A question we will still be asking next year, and the next, and the next...

"The Dog and Bentley"

This picture may deserve some explanation: I was enjoying a nice bowl of frozen desert with large dark tapiocas aka “pearls” (which I am completely obsessed with and would gladly tell anybody that I had 6 bowls/cups of those in 2 days when I was in Taipei, on top of everything else I ate) at a sidewalk stand/shop. The shop owner during the day keeps his dog on the sidewalk, as you can see, with a makeshift cardboard-box doghouse. Just as I was admiring the very well-behaved dog, I saw that across the street is a Bentley dealership with a fancy showcase room. I found this an interesting juxtaposition. It says so much about Taipei.

Serisouly. How much do you want to discuss your menstrual cycle?

This is the “Menstrual Care” section at a drug store. I have not “lived” in Taiwan since 1993 and I am intrigued by the resurgence, modernization, and popularity of herbal medicinal health culinary supplement drinks dedicated to menstrual care. This belief has been around for thousands of years, that beauty (read: SLENDER FIGURE, YOUNG-LOOKING, GOOD and PALE SKIN) needs to be cultivated from inside. Not the “inner beauty” crap, y’all. You need to take the herbs. And you need to take care of your menstrual cycles. THAT is what I have been missing for living abroad. Seriously. Mine is all out of whack. Only I did not realize that until I was confronted with shelves of herbal drinks. Nowadays it seems to be OK to openly talk about the “condition”, and though I am far from being a prude, the “openness” caught me off-guard. The WTF yet heart-warming moment came when my nephew, who is only 9 years younger than I am, brought me a case of these drinks, telling me, “These are very effective! My girlfriend takes these. They taste really good, she said, and she does not suffer from menstrual cramps any more. Her skin has also improved a lot. You need to start taking these yourself!”