Leslie Eats Where She Craps

This weekend I ate Sichuan-style hot pot out of a ceramic toilet bowl.

More Pictures: Modern Toilet, the restaurant

It went down at Modern Toilet, a restaurant franchise with a bathroom theme. To eat or to pee? Its website proclaims. And no, none of the patrons looked older than 32.

James and I dined with Panda and B, whom we'd never met. Panda and I became familiar through our blogs (read her telling of it here). She and her husband live outside Taipei, but were traveling to the big city for the day, so we decided to get together.

"I'm sure they'll be nice! They're from the Midwest!" I reassured James on our way to meet them.

On the other hand, I'd watched plenty To Catch a Predator. And I knew if these people offered lemonade and candy to lure us down some dark alley - Chris Hansen would not be able to save us.

But our new friends didn't disappoint (they even sounded like they were from the Midwest!). James and I haven't met many people and we've met only a few Americans. So it was refreshing to sit down with a couple who understood the importance of college football and giant margaritas at the favored Mexican joint. I can't take that kind of common ground for granted here.

As for Modern Toilet, well, that's best explained in pictures:

We paid twice the price for bland food. S'ok. We were there for the atmosphere.

Taking a sip from my commemorative urinal, mine for $30NT ($1 U.S.)!

New Friends

Shaved ice came on a dish shaped like the squat toilets I use in the subway.

I left my signature in the sink basin below the glass table top.

Girl throwing up gang signs at the end of the table? We don't know her.

During dinner we talked about the strange habit some people have here of asking to take pictures with us white folks. There are too many of us around to be very novel, especially in Taipei. And what does one do with such a picture? Stick it in the family album: "And look, there were some honkeys we saw there too..." Maybe it's a national inside joke. I really don't know.

Anyway, B was telling us how odd it was the other day when a stranger plopped her toddler on his lap and whipped out a camera when the girls at the table beside us asked to take pictures with them. So I asked them to take one on my camera too - proof I am so fabulous strangers want my picture.