One of the Best Things in Life – Friends

Had the most wonderful dinner with my Secondary school mates. The last time we met was at Cheryl’s wedding. Cheryl is back from London for a week. Since the last meet up didn’t happen, Jaccy was quick to gather us before Cheryl leaves again.

The only sad thing is that John, Stephen, Mynn couldn’t turn up. 😦 Can’t wait to see them again.

Jaccy recommended a Korean restaurant, Kho Kho Nara, for its famous fried chicken. Located at the dark and quiet alley of Tras Street :). Overall, I like the food and ambience. Good for long hours of chitchatting as we were seated in cubicles.

The fried chicken is nice. Jaccy ordered the small fried chicken in original, garlic and sweet. *Yummy*

This is good too. Is some noodles with squids and we got to mix it before eating.

Another dish that is pretty spicy. Added the Korean instant noodles with rice cakes. I ate mouths after mouths. Especially superb when the noodles are totally soaked with the Kimchi soup.

The whole night was pretty much on chitchatting. From schools days to current and the ways to educate our children. Was really funny at our different educating styles.

From left to right: Cheryl, myself, Jaccy, Debbie

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Outfit of the Day

EverydayShopper Lacy Top – will be launching in the new collection

TheVelvetDolls Chic Porter High Waisted Shorts

Taiwan Trip 2010 Day 2

Day 2 was a long day. The fun started with a drizzle at 九份 (ChiuFen). Totally in love with the old fashion building. I remembered the last time I stepped on this place with Jonathan in 2005, it was drizzling as well. 🙂 ChiuFen is well known for some local dishes such as Taro and Sweet Potato Ball. Both sides of the small alley are packed with stalls selling local food. One of them was the 姜母茶. 

How could auntie and mum give it a miss? 🙂 They spotted the orangy packing tea recommended by dearest cousin, Christina. 🙂

What is 姜母茶? It’s basically made up of ginger, some red dates, black sugar hardened into pieces. Then mix with water to make it into a drink. I like the taste of it and always boiled it for a while more for the ginger taste to be stronger.  Said to be good for cold days and to remove wind. 🙂

Oh… then one of their local food caught my eyes. Could see the queue building and without thinking further, I joined in the queue. It’s actually shaved sugar peanut accompanied by ice cream wrapped in popiah skin. The best I have tried for the whole of taiwan trip. We couldn’t resist and went to queue for second helping.

While taking pictures of each other… auntie went to get the taro and sweet potato balls.

Daddy decided to explore the balcony of the shop… A magnificient view awaited us. Glad that he asked me out to take pictures. 🙂

Check out the way daddy enjoyed his popiah ice cream with the magnificient view behind him. 🙂

Back to the main shop, the taro and potato balls waited for us. 🙂 It’s always nice to have a bowl of hot dessert on cold weather. Moreover, it’s drizzling. 🙂

The 2nd destination was to the 深坑豆腐街 (SanKeng Tofu Street). Both sides of the streets are lined up with stores selling the famous beancurd. We didn’t have any of the beancurd since our tummy just packed with the popiah ice cream and taro.

It was nice just walking along the street and looking at the type of food sold.

LOL managed to captured a picture of my dearest family. 🙂

We then moved on to our 3rd destination of the day, the 莺歌陶瓷老街 (YingKo Ceramics Street). I am totally overwhelmed by the amount of ceramics. From household to decorations, you name it, they have it. IMPRESSED!!!!

Did not buy anything as it’s too heavy to bring home. So the only thing we brought home are the pictures for remembrance. 🙂

We then departed from the place and proceeded to destination 4, 逢甲夜市 (Feng Jia Night Market). The place is great for low priced clothes and delicious snacks. One of the best night market I been to throughout the trip. Managed to grab nice food and pretty shoes. 🙂

Totally in love with this prawny stick.  While waiting for the sticks of prawns to get ready, auntie bought stewed chicken feet from the next stall. Both are good but I still prefer the prawns *not because I am lazy*. 🙂

While walking… spotted a shop selling helmets. Most of the people in taiwan travel by motorcycles. The helmets are super duper cute. Almost bought one Thomas helmet back for Kaiden.

Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty… Decided to try their tea since Taiwan is well-known for bubble tea. Yucks… one of the worst milk tea I tasted. Nevertheless, I still finished it.

To make up for my bad tea day, I decided to have this and no more road side tea stall. 🙂

Yea to KOI and checked out how excited sis and I were. Finally a good cup of tea.

My last food before we left for dinner. Oh, I got to tell you… the mushrooms are really good.

Before leaving FengJia, I was so glad to find DaGeDa, the teleshop to buy a Taiwan simcard. I got a sim card with unlimited data plan for 5 days. Can’t remember the price but was so glad that I could msn with Jonathan while he was in Indonesia, call home to check out my kiddos and watch youtube while on the journey. It’s a really good buy. For those going to taiwan, you can try it.

Out last destination before we retreat back to the hotel was to a very unique restaurant, the 伍角船板 (Five Cent Driftwood House). The architecture is very special. It is a cavernous eatery built without blueprints. Most of the items to build up this place are by driftwood and recycled wooden train tracks. Could not take nice pictures due to the dim lighting. The food is not bad. A place which is more for visual enjoyment. 🙂

A family photo taken by the tour guide to end the day’s trip. Nice picture. 🙂 Totally loves it. 🙂 Tour guide is a photographer lover and is holding the same camera (Canon 7D) as me. Decided to bring along Jon’s camera but yet did not know how to use it wisely. Felt so paiseh when I knew nuts about Jonathan’s camera and he kept talking to me about photography. LOL

Taiwan Trip 2010 Day 1

This is a long overdue post. It was a 7 days/6 nights trip to Taiwan. The trip was supposedly to be a family trip with my parents, siblings, Jonathan and the kiddos. Sad to say… Jonathan was posted overseas and because of that, I “dumped” my kiddos with my in-laws to have my well-deserved break (a self-declared one :)) Andrew and Angie, both are not free due to work. So instead of my own family, the trip was extended to my aunties, the big and the youngest aunties. A good experience for me as this was my first trip out with my aunties.

When we reached Taipei, it was already 4 plus thus only 3 destinations on our itinerary. The first destination was the Fisherman’s Wharf. Supposedly to be a place for lovers because of the Love Bridge. :). It was pretty windy and dark for phototaking. Due to the winter, the sun sets as early as 5 plus.

So windy that daddy and mummy got to hide under the LOVE bridge for the photo. 🙂

The next destination was the 淡水老街 (TamShui Old Street).

Daddy was very excited when he saw the food. Though not very hungry, we decided to try our 1st food which was the red bean “tong luo shao”. The smell attracted us to the stall. As we walked down the street with our “tong luo shao”, we spotted the ‘Jiang Mu Cha”. Couldn’t resist due to the cold. With the “tong luo shao” in one hand and “jiang mu cha” in another…. heavens!!!!!

Anne was happy with the 1st food in Taiwan. 🙂

Besides the food, the shopping also attracted us. The 49 bucks on the cardboard attracted my attention but the pricing is not applicable to all the bags wo. 🙂

Small auntie spotted another good food. We suddenly became food critics. Gave our comments here and there. LOL The squid is definitely good. Too bad that was the first and last time we ate cos we couldn’t find in any other towns.

We departed the place and proceeded to our 3rd destination which was the 士林夜市 (Shihlin Night Market). The time given by the tour guide at Shihlin was short too short. 😦 I think was only about 2 hours for us to have dinner and shopping. We decided to spend our time on food since the time given was too short for shopping.

The first stall we sat down to have the following…. Daddy didn’t really like the fried oyster. We still prefer the Singapore version. Maybe oilier??? LOL I like the beehoon and squid soup though.

The tour guide also recommended the soups to us. So we definitely must try. 🙂 The next stall we sat down, immediately ordered the different herbal soups.

Besides that, I ordered the fried smelly beancurd and the dumpling. On the table are the 麻油鸡 (sesame chicken) and 十全大补汤 (some tonic soup which said to keep the body warm).

Tummy filled up, then we took a slow walk to the other side of ShihLin before we headed back to the bus. First night ended off at TaoYuan. Day 2 will proceed to 台中（Taichung).

Realization

Oh my, I just realised that I have not updated my blog for so long? Ever since Jonathan came back from work and no news about next posting, everyday seems to be busy with the Kiddos and activities.

So many stuffs to update –
1) Family Taiwan trip which was fully sponsored by my dearest dad in December 2010. 🙂

2) CNY gatherings from day 1 to 3

3) Kaitlyn’s birthday celebration

4) My new buys 🙂

5) ES Creations and ES’ new launches which will be happening next and the week after.

Oh gosh…..

How I wish there were more than 24 hours a day.