I have a few scrapbook pages from my last trip to China. And in it, I have pictures of me eating and shopping, add to that massages and that’s pretty much all I do in China. We stay at a hotel right next to a five-story shopping center – more like an export center.

Each day, we wake up at around 6 am (damn you, jet lag!), lay in bed, and read or text (me) or play Candy Crush (my addicted mom). Most places don’t open till 10 am or 11 am, so we hang out, go downstairs, and get some fresh pork-filled buns, Chinese donuts, and soy milk.

There is this food court that I can only describe as rows of heaven. Everything is super cheap – about a dollar or two for a bowl of sour and spicy noodle soup or three sticks of grilled chicken, beef, and squid skewers, or boba milk tea or oyster omelet, or about a million other delicious smelling items that mesh together to create an aroma of awesomeness. Vendors selling bottles of fresh (literally made right in front of your eyes) fruit juice, and desserts and more skewers of meat.

Then we shop till we drop. Literally. Aside from the five-story shopping centers, there is a section of the city that is like the fashion district in Downtown LA on hyper speed times 1000. Stores and stores and stores of clothes with loud squawking shopkeepers, practically begging you to come and look in various languages, depending on what they presume your nationality is.

And then, there’s Taiwan.

The first evening we were there, my mom and her friends took me out for my birthday. We went to a very famous, very expensive Japanese restaurant where we proceeded to eat a 10-course meal, followed by 4 desserts, a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” and a full formal farewell in Japanese by the entire kitchen staff. And I decided right then and there that I was never, ever eating again.

So the next night my mom took me to the night market, which they have several on various streets every night. This particular one, though, was all food. Picture a food truck festival without the trucks and without the high prices. Again, about a dollar or two per item. I ate like a true fat kid.

And repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I came home to find that I had not only reached my goal weight, but I had also lost an additional pound on top of that for a total of 5 pounds lost. Best. Diet. Ever.

This is just a fraction of the food photos I took. It was laughable because we would pause before every meal and take pictures…we were in China, and no one batted an eyelash because they were doing the same…