Ben (from the Philippines) and Joe (from the UK) took me to dinner tonight. They're two of the technical writers that I'd be working with all the time.
I was on the fork situation this time and didn't embarrass myself too much with the chopsticks. The guys both used them without problems, but to be fair, they've both been in Taiwan for years and years... Joe actually speaks Chinese well enough to argue with his landlord about the rent! :-)
For dinner, I had really delicious fried chicken (this will be one of my staples, for sure), white rice with some soy sauce, and the broad flat noodles (in Seattle they call them hand-shaved noodles; I'll have to find out what they're really called, but they're probably twice as broad as fettuccine) with bok choy. Not exactly health food, and I find it so odd that you're not ALLOWED to get food from the cold salad bar and from the hot buffet bar. Shouldn't EVERYONE eat a little salad?
Another thing that seems really odd to me about the cafeteria is that NOBODY has a drink with their meal. There are no facilities to even get a glass of water in the caff, never mind tea or soda. Most people do get soup (miso only, unless you go to the noodle bar station) but that's salty too, not cool and refreshing. I really expected that some kind of tea would be completely standard, like it is in Chinese restaurants in the States, but I guess it just isn't. I'll pay attention to beverage options as I dine in restaurants to see if this is common or not.
People also eat a lot less than the average American does. I totally expected that and with my nerves and the fact that I was trying to eat dinner at 2 in the morning stomach-time, had no problem eating less than I might otherwise.
UTENSIL(s): chopsticks from cafeteria (terrible technique), plastic fork from Starbucks
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