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nice.
After talking about it, it sounded really good, so I made some mala bacon.
Their laziji looks homemade, and is a different spice mix than the mala I commented with, but they're similar dishes. Afaik, this mala packet is a new product from Daiso.
That said, if you find this packet there, you'll be able to pan-fry a very similar dish. Cut up some chicken breast, fry it up with a little oil, right before the chicken is finished, empty half or the entire packet into the pan, turn off the heat, stir everything for 20 seconds or so, good to go.
Nice, China does chili right. I'm going back to China in a couple weeks to visit my friends and don't tell them but a not small part of me visiting is because of the food and specifically the 麻辣.
Oh actually I'm having some 麻辣油now, found it in daiso today.
I made that stuff a ton backpacking across Japan, it means one square unless it's supposed to serve four people.
I usually used 1 to 2 squares each meal for myself, feel free to add a first cube, mix it in, then add more until you get to your desired consistency.
If it's just you and a single meal, all 8 pieces is probably going to be too much.
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It isn't dumb to feel overwhelmed, though many people regret the things they didn't do.
The "overwhelming" part of travel is usually of our own making, while the valuable part of traveling is simply living in a new world.
Don't plan any activities, don't rent a car. Watch movies, sleep all day in your comfortable apartment and then visit the markets or cafes when you're hungry.
Just by being somewhere new, you'll be learning and living; I tell everybody who asks me about traveling that travel should be slow and easy and as comfortable as you want, especially in the beginning.
Vietnam is a solid pick: the people are incredibly kind and you get to eat pho every day.
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If you're already thinking about the excitement of a new country, China or Taiwan is the way to go. If you go to Japan again, you'll be wondering about the new country you didn't choose half the time.
China's mountains are amazing , their cities are fun, the food is still my favorite after 30 countries, the transportation across the entire country is very convenient and cheap, you can buy the newest electronics at rock-bottom prices, the celebrations and community activities are fun, my Chinese friends are the only people I've met traveling who I still stay in regular contact with, the street food the foooood.
I have four episodes dedicated to my favorite chinese foods, you should go to China and get the food.
It's going to feel a lot different(and louder) than Japan since there's still basically zero non-Chinese people living in China, so everyone will be confused about your presence and there won't be much English, but if you plan your stays ahead and check the transportation(I can help you with that if you like, I lived in China for over 6 years), you'll be good to go.
you'll have to use alternative apps, Didi is their rideshare app, for example, but it has an English version that's easy to sign up for and works just as easy as uber/grab/whatever you're familiar with and of course it's china so everything including taxis will be dirt cheap.
I also love Taiwan, and if you want a more relaxed new adventure, that's a great place, it's a much quieter and more organized version of China and they still use the traditional characters, which is cool to see. Taiwan is definitely worth visiting as well, but it will feel a lot like Japan and you probably won't be surprised and confused every twenty minutes like you will be in China.
Oh, and the island sea-goddess pilgrimage in Taiwan will begin mid April, looks like the 17th this year, so there will be a lot of fairs and things going on leading up to and during that time. They walk around the island visiting different temples to honor Mazu, the resident sea goddess.
Ooh, and Taiwan has amaaaazing vegetarian buddhist food, that should be mentioned.
Okay! Reach out if you like, have fun!
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Thanks, I'm flattered! Feel free to do so at the next opportunity, I'll be there ready to not shut up about travel, haha.
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heyo, I've been traveling for ~15 years now, been to ~30 countries so far and it continues to be extremely rewarding and fuuuun.
I've had travel partners now and then, though I prefer solo traveling for the absolute wide-open "guess I'll go walk toward that mountain in the distance for 4 hours" and "guess I'll try 8 gelato flavors today" type of freedom that is very difficult to attain traveling with others.
I'm traveling solo in Matsuyama, Japan right now. Today I decided on a whim to take a train to Imabari, hung out at a temple, found my favorite yuzu ponzu sauce at a grocery store, spent a couple hours at a public bath, practiced some Japanese, stopped at a random yakitori restaurant on the way back, talked in terrible Japanese with the staff who were very kind and gave me a free shirt I'm wearing now! Pictures of the amazing food here.
I love solo traveling so much I keep doing it and talking about it, nothing else really compares for me. it's certainly worth looking into and If you have any specific questions or concerns, I and the travel community are here as resources for anyone interested, so feel free to reach out. Apartments, healthcare, jobs, transportation, budgeting, whatever, I'm happy to talk.
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Ha, beep boop, acknowledged. Thanks
Not sure how much longer people are going to think I'm crazy for living abroad.
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I like to talk and travel
Haha yeah, every run is context, that's great.
If they didn't feel weird straight off, you should have a very comfortable transition to minimum soles, i was very lucky last month to have a nice barefoot track in my neighborhood, but I'm running in sandals again in Bacolod, which is still fine.
I'm very happy your new shoes are comfortable.
No footwear is do or die, but after personal trial and error it does seem like minimal soles are comfortable and healthy.
Let me know if you have any questions/updates, how your minimum sole experiment continues, I'm curious how things go with other people after my own experience.
Few things going on there. Disappearing a couple generals is pretty par for the course for Xi and it wouldn't be ruffling any feathers if the economy wasn't stumbling, unemployment wasn't crazy high and his covid policy wasn't an unmitigated paying-it-forward disaster.
He's probably asserting authority because he knows he's run out of a lot of runway, and I've read things and listened to people saying that Xi is really at the end of his rope, but being in China myself recently, so educated guess having talked to Chinese people, unless there's a military coup, which seems imprudent and not to the advantage of the military, I don't see Xi being ousted from leadership.
He's changed the constitution so that he can be president for life, released indoctrination pamphlets, but way more importantly on the ground, has dominated trump publicly and repeatedly, which Chinese people love to see, and the technological infrastructure and development of China is so rapidly outpacing the rest of the world due to Xi's directives(400% medical tourism increase in the last 5 years, more than double solar energy installation than the other 199 countries combined every year, 25% of global battery energy grid storage added annually in China alone, BYD destroying Tesla, driverless taxis being commonplace in China, delivery drones, wind farms/turbines) that China already looks progressive, almost futuristic, and has no reason to stop pushing forward.
It's impossible to know, but i think this move will further strengthen his authority that is resting on his political victories on the public stage and that head party and military members won't want to risk removing Xi from power now for fear of losing this opportunity to completely outpace the US in practically every field while trump is fumbling everything scientific, social, and technological while simultaneously destroying almost a century of international goodwill and trust.
Chinese people care a lot about face, and while they aren't domestically happy about covid/economy/unemployment, a lot of them are very happy to be prevailing over the US and for the rest of the world to be witnessing repeated Chinese victories over the US.
2028? Depends on how Xi does. For now, I can't see the advantage to any faction in China removing Xi in the near future and throwing away this golden opportunity trump has handed to them.
Taxes: everybody's hoop.
Which latest consolidation of power? I lived in China for 7 something years.
I use 1440 for news in general, and if I want to confirm or get more context on something, I use a few different sources to piece together the consistent facts.
Moved out of the US, legally stopped paying earned income taxes using the FEIE via physical presence test, an IRS procedure that allows you not to pay taxes if you live outside of the US for 330 or more days out of 365 consecutive days including the day you pay taxes.
Quick reminder that English speakers can retire 30-40 years early if they want to head over to China and teach English for a couple to several years, depending on how many hours you want to work per week. I worked 10 hours a week. That was comfortable for me.
$3-10k USD per month, practically unlimited jobs, no qualifications to start aside from English-speaker, work as much or as little as you like.
For those who wanna skip the business management and other work and get to the not-working part real quick.
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Yea. The path i was on was pretty depressing, so i took a big step off it straight into the forest.
Started traveling didn't stop.
I've known plenty of older travelers and I'm happy to talk to you about traveling if you're interested.
heck yea.
If you like this cooking method at all, the daiso mala flavor is worth trying out since it's a dollar, but this is what you really want and what I usually use for cooking almost everything:
the best part of mala and laziji(op) is the fresh sichuan peppers, which the daiso one does not use; they use roasted sichuan peppers, so it'll be good, but flat overall, no pop and fresh mix of flavors.
Get that block above, and hot diggity dang, it's a layer of beef tallow on top and then a hundred(or like twelve) spices just staaaacked underneath.
same process, fry whatever you want with a little oil, when it's nearly done cut off a chunk of this stuff, throw it in, turn off the heat, stirritup and mind blown. A 1x1 inch section of this hot-pot base block is my shortcut to easy, consistent, amazing flavor.