One of the great activities in Taiwan or really any Asian country, is to hop into a convenience store and see what they are selling.
Especially fun is to checking out there their ready-made "meals." They are usually just versions of standard Taiwanese "lunch box" but there are other gems like spaghetti and meatballs that is just noodles with ketchup and cut up hot dog pieces.
It's unfortunate that Taiwan doesn't really have frozen microwavable foods. With everybody being so busy and working long hours, it seems like a no brainer. And I personally miss the wide variety of tasty (in a pinch) albeit extremely unhealthy microwavable meals. But when the only exposure that most Taiwanese have to microwavable food is the "spaghetti" mentioned above, i don't blame them for not wanting more foods of that level.
A true surprise on a recent visit to a convenience store, was this package of "fish egg salad." Or rather the bigger surprise was that nobody nearby seemed to think if horrifying that there is a "meal" for one US dollar that is basically fish eggs and mayonnaise mashed together.
Or am I missing something? Perhaps this is why Taiwanese are so thin. They purposely get stomach viruses from eating things like this.
