One of the benefits of getting ready to leave Taiwan is being treated to lots of going-away dinners. :) This evening I was eating with 2 Taiwanese friends and when I finished they asked if I wanted cake. "No, I'm full," but I told them I wanted to come back some other time to get... and I showed them a picture of the chocolate fondue on the menu.

They thought it looked like the most disgusting thing ever- it turned out because the fondue pot really does look like a hot pot pot, and the idea of cooking meat and veggies in chocolate is, well, disgusting. I explained that you put fruit and cake in it. (The picture was really small!) They said, won't it be to sweet? I said, sure it's sweet, but you share with your friends, it's OK. I said maybe I would invite people after our meeting on Friday night. "No, you have to eat it in the afternoon!" they said. "If you eat it at night you'll get fat." Hmmm...

Later we got on the subject of drinking ice water, always controversial. I said that in the heat of the summer, if I'm out and about for too long I have to take some time to go in air-conditioning and drink water. "But not ice water!" they said. "Yes," I said. I told them my old Taiwan bodies are different than American bodies thing, and they seemed to buy it, but later the one told me, very seriously, "If you're going to drink cold water, you really have to be careful. Please, be careful."

So no cold water and no chocolate at night. 2 things I won't miss about Taiwan.