Flow For Fire: Taiwan

I love bananas. So much so that I spent several months trying to invent the ultimate banana case. The existing plastic ones are too bulky and impractical. I wanted to create a case that could cater to each individual banana’s length, width, and degree of curvature. It would defend the fruit from any bag-mates that might bruise this wonderful snack. And, the case would collapse for easy-storage after each use.

I spoke with Harvard professors of engineering about potential materials, and brainstormed with Katherine Groesbeck, an artist and design guru, outside of Theo’s chocolate in Seattle. The momentum fizzled after a great comedy sketch about banana cases by David Letterman, but maybe I’ll return to this venture later. In the meantime, I kicked off my travels in Taiwan, a small island nation off the southeast coast of China.

Looking at the myriad of hostel options, I wasn’t sure how to decide. Hostelworld, a great site for booking hostels, had a plethora of information to consider: location, price, ratings, number of ratings, etc. Then I found it: the Banana Hostel. Its description read, “if you’re a bananaholic, this is the place for you.”

That settled it. I booked a room for 4 nights and it was one of the best hostels I have ever stayed in. There were complementary bananas 24/7, banana bread on the weekends, wonderful staff, an extremely convenient location and curtains around the dorm beds that provide privacy when you need it. I highly recommend this place for any Taipei bound travelers. Here's some photos:

Tai chi in 2/28 Memorial Park

Dumplings from the world famous Din Tai Fung

All gone!

Awesome buns being cooked on the side of barrel ovens at Shilin Night Market

Watching this night market game was one of the funniest moments of my trip. Contestants are given a sledgehammer to try and smash water balloons as they come flying out of a slide. It is difficult to time and the whole crowd would be like “oh! too early! too late!” every time someone missed. As I laughed with the collective , I was thinking, “who invented this??”