Pizza Hut and Pandas

Ordering Pizza Hut Online

A traditional Tuesday night meal in Wellington was often Hell’s Pizza. Why Tuesday? Because on Tuesdays if you ordered online home delivery was free. (Never mind that the closest Hell’s Pizza was a 2 minute walk down the hill.)

Here in Taipei you can order Pizza Hut online, but you have to do it in Mandarin. So far, I have therefore only ordered over the phone (my closest store’s English being good enough and my Mandarin being good enough to have a pretty accurate meeting of the minds). Today however, throwing off the shackles of low carbing for an evening of pizza, I decided to give online ordering a try.

Here is my basic step by step for non Mandarin speakers on how to order Pizza Hut Online in Mandarin in Taiwan. Go to http://www1.pizzahut.com.tw/eorder/step1.asp. The page will come up looking something like this:



1. Select home delivery or take out

The first orange box with the text “請登入會員，即可帶出你預設的聯絡資料，進行訂購作業” states that for already registered users, they can click the first button (to bring up their information). Carry on down to the second orange box which reads “第一次訂購的朋友，也可以填寫下面的資料直接進行訂購流程” (essentially, first time friends proceed from here).

Immediately underneath are two options, the first “外帶” which is what you click on for store pick-up, and the second “外送” which is for home delivery. I am assuming you are selecting the latter option.

2. Complete your delivery address

Following on below are boxes to select and write in your address. The first box is which city you live in, so if you are in Taipei City the correct option “台北市” will automatically have been selected.

The second box is which area of the city you live in. For this you will need to know the mandarin characters for your area, such as 中山 for Zhongshan, 大安 for Da-an, or 士林 for Shilin. Select your area from the drop down box.

In the third box, write your street name in Mandarin. If you do not know the characters for your street name, this could be tricky. I have one slightly complicated method described at the end of this step.

In the fourth box, select from the pull-down options which section of the road you live on (段 or “duan4” is Mandarin for road section). On the second address line, fill in your lane (巷 or “xiang4”), alley (弄 or “long4”), street number (號 or “hao4”), street sub-number/letter (之 or “zhi1”), floor (樓 or “lou2”) and room/apartment number/letter (室 or “shi4”) as appropriate in the relevant boxes.

2.1 Learn how to type your address in Mandarin

First, you will need to know the pin yin sound of your city street (tones not necessary). Go to Google maps and look up your area of the city to see what the Mandarin symbols for your street look like. Then go to http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html. Select to search by pin yin, then one syllable at a time search the list of characters for the sound of your road’s name to find the correct one. Finally, copy paste the symbols into a notepad file so you will never need to repeat the search. Usually the word “lu4” or 路 is used for “road”.

3. Fill in your other contact details

Click on the button at the end of the second address line to bring up your closest store and its contact details.

Ignore the next box down labeled Hot 點卡卡號 (“dian4ka3ka3hao4”) as it is a friend referral scheme.

In the box labeled 姓名(“xing4ming2”) type in your name, and in the box labeled E-mail – well I think you get the picture.

In the box labeled 電話 (“dian4hua4”) fill in your telephone number. The area code for Taipei will be pre-selected. The 分 機 (“fen1ji1”) box is for your phone extension if you have one.

Alternatively, enter your cell phone number in the third box labeled 手機 (“shou3ji1”).

Finally click on the red button with the arrow. Before you do so though, you may want to know what the small print underneath is saying:

4. Pretend to read the small print (then read this very rough translation)

1. The store will call to confirm roughly within 15 minutes (credit card over phone not accepted), if you don’t receive a call please call the store to confirm they have received the order.
2. Stores will try to deliver within the expected time.
3. If picking up, at time of collection you will need to provide your name and telephone number.
4. Minimum delivery order is NTD300, below that a service charge will apply.
5. When using credit cards, order changes will need to be paid in cash and coupons may not be used (this translation is verging on a guess).

5. Time to check out the menu



Moving onto the Step 2 screen, the cluster of seven brightly coloured boxes bring up different menu options in the drop down boxes. This is where is starts to get tricky for non Mandarin speakers.

Until such time as I can be bothered translating out the whole Pizza Hut menu, the best thing to do is to open up the Pizza Hut website in another window. On the Mandarin version of the site, look at the Menu, use the pictures to see what appeals, and then find the correct characters in the drop down menus on your order page.

For example, I take a look at the afternoon tea menu 下午茶 “xia wu cai” and like the look of the shrimp and pineapple foldover:



I see that the characters are 明太子鮮, so back on the order page, I select the green下午茶 box, find the correct symbols (in this case in the second pull down box) and add two to my order.



6. Completing the order

After selecting the big red button to continue on to Step 3, you will be greeted by a page looking something like this:



First, check your order carefully. Then use the drop down boxes to select your preferred delivery time.

In the next box down, with the sentence above reading “1.現金交易時若持有優惠券，請於備註欄中註明（信用卡刷卡不能使用其他優惠券）”, write down the details of any coupons you wish to use (remember, if using a credit card they don’t accept any coupons”, or any other special instructions.

The final box at the bottom is a place for businesses to add some sort of a uniform tax code if required.

Finally, there are two buttons for continuing on. From what I can understand, if you intend to pay in cash, select the button on the left. If you intend to use a credit card, use the button to the right. (I have not selected the latter of these options so don’t know what will follow).

A small pop-up box in Mandarin will appear noting the time of the order, and you will then be directed back to the first order page. At this point you should check your email to see that the Order has gone in.

7. Enjoying the fruits of your labour

If your local store is as awesomely fast as mine is, you won’t be receiving a phone call within 15 minutes because your pizza will arrive at about the 17 minute mark. You’ll receive some packages that look like this:



At this point, you should open the boxes and consume the contents. Pro tip: Cheese stuffed crust is yum.

Panda-monium

Taipei Zoo is a nice escape from the city; cheap, convenient by MRT, park-like and suitable for all ages. First time visitors may be surprised by the breadth of the collection and the on the whole well-set up enclosures. (See http://english.taipei.gov.tw/zoo/index.jsp for further general information.)

As all and sundry know, the Zoo recently become the home to two panda bears (this blog is non-political so no political comments please). Using the excuse of a Kiwi visitor, earlier this week we set off to check out these iconic animals (in Mandarin, 熊貓 or “xiong2mao1”). When you enter the zoo, you will be given a little ticket with a time to enter the viewing area to help crowd control. The actual enclosure is on the left hand side of the park beyond the first train-car station.

Their reputation for cuddlyness and cuteness is well deserved. For the most part, they seemed oblivious to their stardom, content to snack and play around their enclosure. Here are some video clips and photos of the dynamic duo:











While you’re at the Zoo, don’t forget to check out some of the other more unusual animals, such as the penguin house:



the multitude of monkeys, apes, gorillas, orangutans and chimps (who were especially friendly, coming up and tapping on the glass to get our attention):



and the insectorium where you can walk around in rooms full of butterflies such as this pair of pretty ladies:



Keep an eye out for this pretty lady too, who followed us from one end of the enclosure to the other. Have you ever met a giraffe that you didn’t like? Neither have I.



Pro tip: Go at opening as the animals will be livelier as the temperature will still be cooler, and the animals will probably be still getting fed, like this herd of hippos:



Addendum on ICLP:

In response to visitor comments, I was considering posting on my experiences so far at ICLP. As I am attending for specific learning objectives which are not applicable to usual students, on reflection I feel it would be inappropriate to attempt any sort of assessment, particularly as I have not studied Mandarin previously and therefore do not have a baseline to compare it to. Best of luck to those applying for the next intake, hope to see you there in the next academic year.