Jasons Market at Taipei 101

I just got back from Jason's Market at Taipei 101.  I had no plans today and instead of sitting at home all day on my computer I thought I should get out.

Damien has been telling me about this Jason's Market where they have a lot of more "western" style food and import foods (cheese, dairy, sliced meats, etc).  Taipei 101 is only a 8km ride from my house so I ventured out and got there in half an hour or so.  It was cloudy, but not too hot (yay!).

Jason's was easy to find.  The bottom floor of the Taipei 101 mall is a large underground food court and at one corner is the market.  I ventured in and was extremely happy with their selection!  Avocados (not yet at Carrefour), a whole variety of imported cheeses, yogurt, salt & vinegar chips (so happy becuase these are not available anywhere else I've seen.  Even Costco.  Unfortunately no Ketchup flavor.  Sorry Johan), an assortment of non-asian spices including chili powder (been trying to find this everywhere), and tortilla chips and shells!  The salami was pretty pricey at $7-10 per pack (probably the same pack would cost $4 back in Vancouver).  The cheese was moderately priced.  Only slightly more expensive than back home.  Yogurt was disappointingly expensive.  They had large 1 litre containers but they were about $7-10.  gaah.  I'm used to paying $4 for the luxury yogurt at home. haha.  They had some 4 packs of yogurt for $3 so I bought 2 with some granola.

Another nice thing about Jason's is that they have tons of free samples going around.  I must have circled around the cheese samples a few times enough to look suspicious.  Pair that with the wine samples at the other side of the store and I'm a happy camper.

I left after an hour of browsing and snacking with about $40 worth of food.  Definitely more expensive than usual but maybe just because I'm getting used to cheaper Taiwan prices at the Carrefour grocery store.  Before I headed back home I thought I'd grab lunch in the food court.  Slightly outside of Jasons is an Indian Food place.  A nice alternative to the usual asian food court food.  The butter chicken was $8 (expensive!) but I was feeling like I deserved it so I ordered one up.  It came with a nice milk chai tea, salad, naan, and soup.  The curry was pretty good but not as good as the stuff in Surrey (although I could see the cook in the back was Indian).

Once finished the curry I made my way back up and outside.  It was raining.  crap.  The Jason's bags were paper and I had a half hour bike through traffic to get home.  It wasn't torrential rain so I hopped onto my bike and started home.  The first 5 minutes I got pretty drenched but after that the rain eased up.  It's a pretty big rush biking in traffic here in Taipei.  Usually at a light, there's easily 30-40 scooters all in a big clump waiting for the light; with me in the middle.  When the light turns green, the roar of the scooters is deafening and I can keep up with them well enough so that I'm going the same speed.  Makes it much easier to navigate traffic when I'm able to maintain the same speed.  Oh by the way I bought a bike helmet earlier this week (thought you might like to know that mom/dad).

I arrived home and jumped straight in the shower.  Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No.2 was playing in Jason's and I absolutely love the song so I had nice cold shower while unwinding to Chopin.

And now I think I'll indulge myself with some yogurt and granola...!