Pigs' intestines, dumplings, pandas and pangolins

Thursday 4 April was Children's Day, and today is the day you pay respects to your ancestors, and sweep the family tomb ... I'll find out the proper name for this public holiday for next time. Four days' holiday (including the weekend), and I gather that is a big deal here. Office workers and schoolchildren get lucky, but everywhere else, life seems to retail- and restaurant-on.

I've actually been too stuffed to write anything lately. Maybe I've been sinking into a nonchalant piggy kind of heaven, where being so well fed, I lose the urge, will and edge to do anything of any import. Except to just pig out some more. I'm sure that's being a bit unfair on our porcine chums, though.

Tonight, I was very tempted to indulge in that most depraved and excessive of Roman Empire habits. The one of taking an emetic in between courses in order to throw up and carry on eating again. And, yes, I enjoyed eating pigs' larger intestines tonight. Cousin Dennis treated me to a truly astounding gastronomic blow-out today in a newly-discovered restaurant of his that specialises in food from Taiwan. We had a dish from Tainan which sent me to heaven, but with all the myriad of small dishes we had, I can't for the life of me remember what it comprised. It's a brilliant traditional little eatery in Yongchun, in Taipei City. I highly recommend it. Almost everything is homemade. There is such amazingly good quality food when eating out in Taipei - with so much choice - but this place really is a gem.

All I do is Eat, Sleep. Eat more and maybe sleep a bit, then eat more. I'm either about four months preggers, or I'm turning into a mini Giant Panda ... maybe time to hit the hay, or should I say, bamboo?

Talking of pandas, I'm rather looking forward to visiting them in Taipei Zoo. That means two sets of Giant Pandas in the last three months. Edinburgh in January, and now in Taipei. I am quite chuffed, and I hope you are very jealous indeed. I'm looking forward to meeting this particular lovely creature very soon.

Also, I hope to find some Chinese (Sunda) Pangolins. I love 'em. Haven't ever seen a live one, and am very excited. I think, but don't quote me on this, that the team at Taipei Zoo were pioneers in breeding this critically endangered prehistoric species in captivity. They are being hunted to the brink of extinction, as their scales fetch up to about $50 per kilo for Traditional Asian medicine. And in certain restaurants in south east Asia, and the Far East - you will find Pangolin Foetus Soup. Just even thinking about it depletes me of expletives - and you know that really is something.

It's now 01:10. The rain has got much heavier and a thunderstorm has just started. In the last few days, it's rained quite heavily overnight. Sometimes the downpour wakes me up. With the rumble of a thunderstorm, it gives the rain that added excitement, I find. The precipitation for me doesn't seem to be such a damp annoying squib, and the thunderclaps somehow give the rain more meaning ... if that can possibly make sense?

I'm doubting anything much can make sense with the amount of food I've been stuffing myself with. It feels I'm literally full-to-brimming with dumplings-for-brains, these days.

I'd better get some sleep as I'm being picked up and swished away very early to visit my maternal family's ancestral tomb ...

Oo, thunder and lightning. Even better.

Night night from me.

And, night night from Ling Li Xian Sheng (Mandarin for Mister Pangolin, I think ...) 

p.s. I mean, really, how can anyone put pangolin foetuses in soup? Or chop up their body parts for superstitious nonsense? These creatures have been on earth since prehistory. Get a grip, people. Save The Pangolin. We'll be going the same way as them if we are not careful.

p.s. Seeing as I've a pot belly (or should that be pork belly?) now, do you reckon that if I jump up and down a lot, and shake my arms and legs about, I will be able to spread the weight around a bit? I don't much like having these boney sticky-out angular elbows and skinny face. I feel like a grinning skeleton sometimes ...