Taipei banquet

On the last night of the conference, which was also the last night of my week in Taipei, we were treated to a multi-course banquet in a private room at an incredibly luxurious restaurant called Victoria.  Enduring the ridicule of my table-mates ("are you one of those people I read about who documents every second of their lives?"), I got pictures of all but the appetizer course, which I now present here for your delight and amusement.

This is the menu.  I've added some numeric labels which will be of help to us later on.

It's too bad that I didn't think to get a picture of our appetizer plate, which was probably the most interesting thing served to us, as it included a slice of pressed mullet roe.

For the rest, though, you can enjoy the banquet in the same sequence that I did:

So-called because it smells so good that a vegetarian monk would leap over the abbey walls to get at it.

They brought it to the table like this only to show it off; then they took it away and rolled it up for us.

As this banquet attests, the organizers of this conference had plenty of money to throw around.  They made up all these posters, banners, and name tags.  The conference papers were bound in a high-quality volume with water-resistant covers.

They had everyone's names and affiliations in both Chinese and English, for example this conference attendee (who graciously allowed me to use his sign here).

There's a nice outdoor courtyard (it's raining, of course) in the center of the Humanities Building where the conference was held.