the day has finally arrived! I'm picking up my mom and dad at the taoyuan international airport. I'm really excited to show them around Taiwan and to share with them some of my experiences and friends I have made.
my postings here will probably be cut back a lot since typing on this smart phone keyboard is painfully slow :)
oh! my parents flight just arrived according to the big screen. ciao!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Ung....mango poison?
Well last night was a bit unpleasant. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I had to throw up. And my feelings were confirmed by me actually throwing up around 5am. gaaah. Though actually I felt much better afterwards (was glad it happened cause I could actually get some sleep).
When I told Johan in the morning he asked what I ate, and I said mostly mango the whole day. And he thinks that's probably the reason. It's not uncommon to have that type of symptom if you eat a large amount of ripe mango. I had never heard of this! Well now that's a lesson to anyone who reads this blog :P Don't overdose on the mango!
When I told Johan in the morning he asked what I ate, and I said mostly mango the whole day. And he thinks that's probably the reason. It's not uncommon to have that type of symptom if you eat a large amount of ripe mango. I had never heard of this! Well now that's a lesson to anyone who reads this blog :P Don't overdose on the mango!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Ocha Gohan
Last night Johan, Rebecca, and I went out to diner with Earl and David, two of Johan's friends. We went to a Japanese place by Rebecca's work and it turned out to have great food.
My favorite dish was a fancier version of a comfort food I eat at home or at Eliza's. Sipping the green tea soaked in the rice with salmon on top felt like I was being teleported back to Eliza's dining room table on one of those cold nights where the hot tea and salty fish really warm you up like a salad can't :P
My favorite dish was a fancier version of a comfort food I eat at home or at Eliza's. Sipping the green tea soaked in the rice with salmon on top felt like I was being teleported back to Eliza's dining room table on one of those cold nights where the hot tea and salty fish really warm you up like a salad can't :P
Huge mango
Keeping with the constant theme of large fruits here, check out this mango! I had some straight up for desert, and then blended some for a mango milkshake. I still have about half the mango left :D
Mr. Brown Coffee
After looking at the logo again, I think maybe the reason it feels racist to me is because the guy looks like he probably owned slaves back in the day. Yea? No? Crazy?
Off to the airport in 24 hours!
Wow! I can't believe I'm going to pick up my parents at the airport in 24 hours. In some ways my time here as felt a lot longer than 2 months yet I can't believe I'm already seeing my parents tomorrow.
I'm super excited and can't wait to start our Taiwan/Japan vacation together! :D See you tomorrow mom and dad!
I'm super excited and can't wait to start our Taiwan/Japan vacation together! :D See you tomorrow mom and dad!
New talent
Met with 2 of Niki's friends the other day at Taipei Main Station. One a programmer and the other an artist. Both are very skilled :)
We met the programmer at Mr. Brows Coffee (which for some reason I find the title racist... maybe because it has this hefty yuppy white guy in a white suit giving the thumbs up as the logo). The programmer we had met before in Xinzhou (I'm probably totally butchering the spelling of that place. But it's Niki's hometown) and the artist I had never met, but Johan had met once before briefly.
Anyways we met with the programmer and explained our work that we wanted to have done and I talked to him about some code stuff etc. It was quite fun talking to someone else about our projects and seeing their interest in working with us. After a good 1.5 hr meeting the programmer left and Johan and I had some time to kill before meeting the artist so we went to a Ramen restaurant across the hall for diner.
7:30 rolled around sooner than later and we were back across the hall at Mr.Brows Coffee for our second meeting. I had seen his work before on the internet and he was definitely high caliber. He conducted himself very professionally and after discussing the project details he left and we are currently waiting for a quote from him.
The day doesn't sound like much but it was a great day and a step in the right direction for the business :)
We met the programmer at Mr. Brows Coffee (which for some reason I find the title racist... maybe because it has this hefty yuppy white guy in a white suit giving the thumbs up as the logo). The programmer we had met before in Xinzhou (I'm probably totally butchering the spelling of that place. But it's Niki's hometown) and the artist I had never met, but Johan had met once before briefly.
Anyways we met with the programmer and explained our work that we wanted to have done and I talked to him about some code stuff etc. It was quite fun talking to someone else about our projects and seeing their interest in working with us. After a good 1.5 hr meeting the programmer left and Johan and I had some time to kill before meeting the artist so we went to a Ramen restaurant across the hall for diner.
7:30 rolled around sooner than later and we were back across the hall at Mr.Brows Coffee for our second meeting. I had seen his work before on the internet and he was definitely high caliber. He conducted himself very professionally and after discussing the project details he left and we are currently waiting for a quote from him.
The day doesn't sound like much but it was a great day and a step in the right direction for the business :)
Monday, September 20, 2010
Typhoon Day
The Fainabi Typhoon was making landfall on Taiwan today so there were plenty of warnings on the news about being careful and to watch for flooding caused by torrential rain. Luckily for us, the typhoon passed by the southern part of Taiwan and we were not affected very much. It was really windy when we went out, but other than that not really anything different.
Ali, Niki, and I went to Taoyuan to get some ingredients for buritto diner and we went to this restaurant called Tonkatsu which served, you guessed it, Tonkatsu! For those who are not familiar with japanese food, tonkatsu is breaded and fried pork with an asian bbq sauce on top.
Ali and Niki ordered the original, and I ordered a tonkatsu that had cheese inside. It was a pretty good deal. The meals were around $6.25 but the portions were large. It came with unlimited rice, miso soup, 2 side dishes (we had soft tofu in sesame sauce and some bamboo shoot thing I think), a cabbage salad, and a drink. The actual tonkatsu comes without sauce, and at each table there is a sweet or spicy sauce you can choose to put on top. Good value and tasty lunch!
After lunch we made our way through the busy Carrefour grocery store. Because of the moon festival there was a lot of marinated bbq meat on display to buy. We managed to buy most of food we needed for the buritto except they did not have salsa so we had to go to a different store later.
In the middle of picking up the salsa at the second store we decided that we'd go to Ali's parents house and I'd cook burrito's for them for diner. I was a bit nervous but I was glad to do something for them considering they have done SOOO much for me and I was happy that I was able to give back in my tiny buritto way.
What then proceeded was a very nice evening of cooking, stories, english lessons, and chinese lessons! I even learned how to "kill" a palmelo.
Also embarassingly I was learning the word "lao ban" which means store owner, but I said "lao bao" by accident which I found out means "pimp" :P
Thank you my chinese masters for the wonderful evening!
Ali, Niki, and I went to Taoyuan to get some ingredients for buritto diner and we went to this restaurant called Tonkatsu which served, you guessed it, Tonkatsu! For those who are not familiar with japanese food, tonkatsu is breaded and fried pork with an asian bbq sauce on top.
Ali and Niki ordered the original, and I ordered a tonkatsu that had cheese inside. It was a pretty good deal. The meals were around $6.25 but the portions were large. It came with unlimited rice, miso soup, 2 side dishes (we had soft tofu in sesame sauce and some bamboo shoot thing I think), a cabbage salad, and a drink. The actual tonkatsu comes without sauce, and at each table there is a sweet or spicy sauce you can choose to put on top. Good value and tasty lunch!
After lunch we made our way through the busy Carrefour grocery store. Because of the moon festival there was a lot of marinated bbq meat on display to buy. We managed to buy most of food we needed for the buritto except they did not have salsa so we had to go to a different store later.
In the middle of picking up the salsa at the second store we decided that we'd go to Ali's parents house and I'd cook burrito's for them for diner. I was a bit nervous but I was glad to do something for them considering they have done SOOO much for me and I was happy that I was able to give back in my tiny buritto way.
What then proceeded was a very nice evening of cooking, stories, english lessons, and chinese lessons! I even learned how to "kill" a palmelo.
Also embarassingly I was learning the word "lao ban" which means store owner, but I said "lao bao" by accident which I found out means "pimp" :P
Thank you my chinese masters for the wonderful evening!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Lunar Festival BBQ + Taipei Lounge/Club
Wooah I haven't gotten home past 4am in a long time, which is the time we stepped in the door last night. I had a great evening and here's what happened:
Around 5:30pm Rebecca, Johan, and I left for Taipei County for a bbq at Rebecca's appartment close to Banciao. The drive took about 40min because the traffic was a bit backed up in spots, and it was raining. Sometimes the rain would come down so hard it was hard to see through the windsheild! The first storm of the rainy season ranked at typhoon level is slated to hit Taiwan tonight so it was to be expected.
Rebecca and I practiced our english throughout most of the ride. I know the language is difficult for her but I really appreciate her efforts. She is definitely improving.
Ok! So after circling the block trying to find parking for 5 minutes we stepped out of the car and headed towards the courtyard built between Rebecca's two apartment buildings. Thankfully it had stopped raining. We could hear a female karaoke singer belting off a chinese song as we approached. There were lots of people bustling around with steam and smoke rising up from tarp covered areas.
My expectations for tonight were we were going to go to a bbq in Rebecca's house with a few of her friend, but what we ended up going to was a full on traditional moon festival BBQ! (also known as mid-autumn festival)
This coming wednesday is the official moon festival, but the bbq is held on the weekend before the festival if it lands on a weekday. All over Taiwan families will hold outdoor bbqs out infront of their houses to celebrate!
The bbq at Rebecca's was definitely not a "bbq" in the north american sense. They had a big karaoke machine with kids and adults singing many different chinese songs. The sound was turned up so loud that it could be heard thoughout the whole courtyard, and even up in the upper floors of the apartment. Rebecca's mom asked if I wanted to sing karaoke so I said sure! I went over to the binders of chinese songs and out of the literally thousands of chinese songs there were 2 pages at the back with english songs. Or at least english named songs(some songs were named "flower" or "sukiyaka" so I'm not even sure if they were really english songs). Out of the 2 pages I only recognized 2 song titles: "five hundred miles" and "let it be". I didn't want to sing a slow song so I picked "five hundred miles". I was a bit nervous but meh I like singing so I knew it would be fun.
Noooooow this story would have a much better ending if I acutally got to go and sing the song but it never came up! Lol or maybe it got skipped cause they person controlling the machine didn't know the song. So I never got to sing my song lol but I though the story was worth telling ;P
Beside the karaoke station they had a prize raffle for the kids. Between each karaoke song, the MC would pull numbers from a plastic container and some kid or adult would run up to grab their prize.
Okay now onto the best part. The food! Omg there must have been 30+ different asian bbq dishes of which I hadn't tried many before.
We were given plastic kiddie chairs and sat around newspaper covered coffee tables that were covered in an assortment of different dishes. So many different smells were coming from the steaming food and the smell of charcoal bbqs would waft our way whenever the wind started blowing.
The eating area was covered with tarps strung out between the buildings and there were open lights hung from the make-shift roof powered by extension cords. It would rain itermittently so the tarps would keep everyone dry. At times it would rain lightly and it was a pleasant sensation to sit out in the rain eating and at other times the rain would come down so hard and fat that it would start filling the roof tarps so quickly that one of the guys kept having to go around and lifting the tarp with an umbrella to drain it and stop it from collapsing. The temperature must have been close to 30 degrees so it was still really hot and humid out despite being late in the evening.
I was introduced to Rebecca's family and some of her neighbours. One of the neighbours was this older extrovert guy who we nick named DeNiro. He kept feeding me his homemade sweet red chinese wine. It was quite strong and he served it from what looked like a white Jerry Can. We must have "gum bay"'ed (cheers) at least 20 times during the evening. By the end he was pretty drunk and kept trying to pour beer into my glass even though it was already filled to the brim. nice guy though :P He was well proud of himself and telling his friends that him and I were communicating the whole night despite not speaking the same language :) "Cheers" and wine are pretty universal I think ;D
Johan and Rebecca had gone upstairs to help clean but they told me to just stay outside so I was by myself for a while drinking this sour lemon tea drink. I saw a group of people bbqing corn on a grill so I went over to ask them if I could take a picture. Fortunately one of the girls spoke english! Well only a little english but enough for us to have a 10-15min convo :) It's always fun meeting someone new here who can speak english.
By the time Johan and Rebecca came downstairs it was time for us to leave for the lounge Barcode. At the BBQ 3 friends of Rebecca also joined us to go to the lounge: Kenny, Sharon, and Ellie. I'd already met Sharon a month ago but Kenny and ELlie were new to me. Fortunately they all spoke pretty good english becuase Kenny went to university in California for 6 years, and Sharon and Ellie went to university in London England for 1 year each.
We packed into Kenny's car and headed for Central Taipei. It was a good 20min ride and I was thankful when we got there because with 4 of us packed into the back of the car it wasn't a very comfortable ride. Kenny dropped us off in front of the lounge while he went to find parking. I recognized right away where we were because I could see the Taipei 101 building lit up against the night sky, and the Viewshow theatre right beside the lounge.
We went inside and to my surprise there was no cover charge (bonus!). The place was pretty small, but not too over crowded. There were 2 pool tables, and a long but narrow bar area with little counches and tables. All the couches were full (and you have to pay a ridiculous amount to reserve it. Like $100 - $200). So we just stood at the bar, which ended up being more fun I think because we could dance and move around to talk to different people easier. (ps - pictures of inside Barcode I'm getting from Rebecca when I see her next. I didn't bring my camera inside).
The drinks WERE pretty expensive for Taiwan standards. Johan ordered tequila shots and each shot was $13. wth! We ordered cocktails and martinis after which costed about $11-$15 each.
The DJ was playing great music and that's probably why I had such a great time. I think my favorite song he spun was "Lady" by Tyrese which I haven't heard in years. Seth and I used to cruise around Chilliwack and Abbostford in our highschool days listening to that song :P
So anyways most of the time zipped by between talking and dancing and taking pictures and before we knew it it was 2:30am and time to leave!
Kenny took Sharon home while Ellie, Rebecca, Johan, and I took a cab back to Rebecca's apartment to get the car. By the time we got home it must have been close to 4am and I passed out as soon as I hit the mattress :) Another successful day!
Around 5:30pm Rebecca, Johan, and I left for Taipei County for a bbq at Rebecca's appartment close to Banciao. The drive took about 40min because the traffic was a bit backed up in spots, and it was raining. Sometimes the rain would come down so hard it was hard to see through the windsheild! The first storm of the rainy season ranked at typhoon level is slated to hit Taiwan tonight so it was to be expected.
Rebecca and I practiced our english throughout most of the ride. I know the language is difficult for her but I really appreciate her efforts. She is definitely improving.
 |
| Rebecca's Apartment |
My expectations for tonight were we were going to go to a bbq in Rebecca's house with a few of her friend, but what we ended up going to was a full on traditional moon festival BBQ! (also known as mid-autumn festival)
This coming wednesday is the official moon festival, but the bbq is held on the weekend before the festival if it lands on a weekday. All over Taiwan families will hold outdoor bbqs out infront of their houses to celebrate!
The bbq at Rebecca's was definitely not a "bbq" in the north american sense. They had a big karaoke machine with kids and adults singing many different chinese songs. The sound was turned up so loud that it could be heard thoughout the whole courtyard, and even up in the upper floors of the apartment. Rebecca's mom asked if I wanted to sing karaoke so I said sure! I went over to the binders of chinese songs and out of the literally thousands of chinese songs there were 2 pages at the back with english songs. Or at least english named songs(some songs were named "flower" or "sukiyaka" so I'm not even sure if they were really english songs). Out of the 2 pages I only recognized 2 song titles: "five hundred miles" and "let it be". I didn't want to sing a slow song so I picked "five hundred miles". I was a bit nervous but meh I like singing so I knew it would be fun.
Noooooow this story would have a much better ending if I acutally got to go and sing the song but it never came up! Lol or maybe it got skipped cause they person controlling the machine didn't know the song. So I never got to sing my song lol but I though the story was worth telling ;P
Beside the karaoke station they had a prize raffle for the kids. Between each karaoke song, the MC would pull numbers from a plastic container and some kid or adult would run up to grab their prize.
Okay now onto the best part. The food! Omg there must have been 30+ different asian bbq dishes of which I hadn't tried many before.
We were given plastic kiddie chairs and sat around newspaper covered coffee tables that were covered in an assortment of different dishes. So many different smells were coming from the steaming food and the smell of charcoal bbqs would waft our way whenever the wind started blowing.
The eating area was covered with tarps strung out between the buildings and there were open lights hung from the make-shift roof powered by extension cords. It would rain itermittently so the tarps would keep everyone dry. At times it would rain lightly and it was a pleasant sensation to sit out in the rain eating and at other times the rain would come down so hard and fat that it would start filling the roof tarps so quickly that one of the guys kept having to go around and lifting the tarp with an umbrella to drain it and stop it from collapsing. The temperature must have been close to 30 degrees so it was still really hot and humid out despite being late in the evening.
I was introduced to Rebecca's family and some of her neighbours. One of the neighbours was this older extrovert guy who we nick named DeNiro. He kept feeding me his homemade sweet red chinese wine. It was quite strong and he served it from what looked like a white Jerry Can. We must have "gum bay"'ed (cheers) at least 20 times during the evening. By the end he was pretty drunk and kept trying to pour beer into my glass even though it was already filled to the brim. nice guy though :P He was well proud of himself and telling his friends that him and I were communicating the whole night despite not speaking the same language :) "Cheers" and wine are pretty universal I think ;D
 |
| Me and DeNiro |
Johan and Rebecca had gone upstairs to help clean but they told me to just stay outside so I was by myself for a while drinking this sour lemon tea drink. I saw a group of people bbqing corn on a grill so I went over to ask them if I could take a picture. Fortunately one of the girls spoke english! Well only a little english but enough for us to have a 10-15min convo :) It's always fun meeting someone new here who can speak english.
By the time Johan and Rebecca came downstairs it was time for us to leave for the lounge Barcode. At the BBQ 3 friends of Rebecca also joined us to go to the lounge: Kenny, Sharon, and Ellie. I'd already met Sharon a month ago but Kenny and ELlie were new to me. Fortunately they all spoke pretty good english becuase Kenny went to university in California for 6 years, and Sharon and Ellie went to university in London England for 1 year each.
We packed into Kenny's car and headed for Central Taipei. It was a good 20min ride and I was thankful when we got there because with 4 of us packed into the back of the car it wasn't a very comfortable ride. Kenny dropped us off in front of the lounge while he went to find parking. I recognized right away where we were because I could see the Taipei 101 building lit up against the night sky, and the Viewshow theatre right beside the lounge.
We went inside and to my surprise there was no cover charge (bonus!). The place was pretty small, but not too over crowded. There were 2 pool tables, and a long but narrow bar area with little counches and tables. All the couches were full (and you have to pay a ridiculous amount to reserve it. Like $100 - $200). So we just stood at the bar, which ended up being more fun I think because we could dance and move around to talk to different people easier. (ps - pictures of inside Barcode I'm getting from Rebecca when I see her next. I didn't bring my camera inside).
The drinks WERE pretty expensive for Taiwan standards. Johan ordered tequila shots and each shot was $13. wth! We ordered cocktails and martinis after which costed about $11-$15 each.
The DJ was playing great music and that's probably why I had such a great time. I think my favorite song he spun was "Lady" by Tyrese which I haven't heard in years. Seth and I used to cruise around Chilliwack and Abbostford in our highschool days listening to that song :P
So anyways most of the time zipped by between talking and dancing and taking pictures and before we knew it it was 2:30am and time to leave!
Kenny took Sharon home while Ellie, Rebecca, Johan, and I took a cab back to Rebecca's apartment to get the car. By the time we got home it must have been close to 4am and I passed out as soon as I hit the mattress :) Another successful day!
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