Missing Taiwan

I feel like updating my blog but my phone is soo slow loading the photos onto my blog (I blame the Internet). So I randomly selected a post from my draft to complete. I have lots of posts like these in my drafts. Sometimes I end up choosing too many photos, or I end up being too long-winded (like now), and the draft just never sees daylight or eyes or other people. You know what I mean.

So this is a Taiwan post. This was from Sept 2012 when I went with mum and Winnie. We wanted to go to Din Tai Fung - the famous xiao long bao shop in Taipei.



Try not to go during lunch or dinner time. We went during lunch. There were a lot of tourists and locals. You see the number 31 on the top left? Yah, have to take a number and queue up.



That guy looks so unglam. Haha F his life.

Anyway, I think we were number 85 or something. So, we went to the book store next door to waste time. You get to look at the menu and choose your dishes first while waiting outside. So when you go in, your food gets served very fast. Quite good actually. Saves waiting time.

Camwhore while waiting.

This is the famous beef noodles soup! It tastes as good as it looks! Hot slurpy soup. Soo good.

Even the fried rice looks good too right? Every morsel or rice covered in egg. And lots of prawns. Good stuff. 

But everyone comes to Din Tai Fung for this: Xiao Long Bao. The famous bao. I love it. If you never had this before, be careful cos each of this is filled with piping hot soup and meat. Careful you don't burn your tongue. Normally I would bite a tiny hole in the side and wait for the soup to fill my whole spoon (should have taken a photo) and then finish the whole thing.

Winnie likes to put the whole thing in her mouth and pop it. She described it as an a mouthful of orgasmic explosion (something like that - i made it up). Hahaha.

Must order. Must have. Must try. Must eat.

We actually have this in Malaysia and Singapore too. Only tried the HK and Taiwan only. Never tried the Malaysia one.

I am randomly choosing photos as I go along now. 

This was at one the underground station - their stations have long winding roads filled with shops - very nice to do shop around (quite cheap stuff).

After you get tired of shopping, you can stop and get cheap massages. I remember this was one of the best massages ever!!

Win hates massages (something wrong with her), so she walked around while mum and I enjoyed ourselves. Heheh. :) This was in full view of the public btw. Not in a tiny room or anything.

This was taken in a club. Don't remember the name. Le awesome cousin brought us clubbing, with our mums. Clubbing in Taiwan is soo expensive lah. On one night, she brought us out for beers. The bill came to 4,000++ Taiwan dollar. About RM 400. Seriously mind boggling. Can drink Macallan like that. Or maybe we all drank too much. Or chose the more expensive ones. Don't know lah. I wrote about it more below.

Took photo of these shots cos the waiter broke 2 beer bottles in front of us (on the counter), and he immediately apologized, wiped down the table and mixed us these free shots. Awesome much?! It wasn't even our beer. It didn't even make us wet or dirty. Nada. Seriously good service.

If only Kch pubs like that too eh? Keep dreaming mi.

Does it still count as OOTD if its a year later?  

Don't remember if I posted this before. Oh well. Taipei 101 in the background. This was before clubbing.

Typical 7-11 food that I love. I gotta say this again. If only Kuching's 7-11's are like this!! Arghh. Quit whining mi. We have good stuff too. We have kolo mee, laksa, kam pua, chicken rice.... meh meh meh and meh. I just want their fully stocked 7-11's and Family Marts.

 So convenient. They have everything. I used to think Taiwan's convenient stores are awesome. That was before I went to Japan. Japan's kick Taiwan's ass. And everyone kick Kuching's ass. Ok I stop. :)

That sandwich costs about RM 4.90. Not bad la..look at that huge piece of meat. Thicker than the bread ok. And they have sushi! Anyway. We go to the convenience store almost every day for breakfast and/or supper or snack time.

I don't like this duck..don't know why I posted this picture. It tastes good but I'm not really a duck person. This was at some unassuming shop at Ximending too. Next.

Self explanatory store at Ximending.

Our aunt brought us to sing karaoke one afternoon. In Taiwan, you have to go on stage to sing karaoke. Not just in public. But on stage!

My mum and her sis working it. Hahaa obviously my aunt is more daring. She's a natural. She has more practice. According to her, she goes karaoke very often with her friends.

 The karaoke that our aunt brought us to..well, it was safe to say that we were the youngest table there. All the other people were very old. White hair, with walking stick or cute looking hats. So, it was just quite an experience. 

I got dragged up by an aunty to dance

This is a bad photo of the condiments. Photo obviously not taken by me. *cough*winnie*cough*

They eat vegetables while singing karaoke. Hmm okay. Different, but still nice.

Instead of usual beer or whiskey, our aunt suggested we have kaoliang. I have never tried it before, just heard about it. Its a really strong liquor. 

Kaoliang has about 58% alcohol. Normal beer has about 4% - 5% alcohol percentage only per bottle. This small bottle contains 58%. Crazy strong liquor.

We drank it with ice, water and plum. It took 4 of us a few hours to finish one small bottle. Damn strong. 

After karaoke, and we were all happy and buzzing from the kaoliang, we went to have "niu pai" aka beef steak Taiwan style.

They have "niu pai" shops everywhere. Some shops sell mainly these, together with salad, some small dishes, and dessert buffet style. You choose a set meal like below and you can have free flow of the salad, dessert and drinks. The price varies at restaurants but they're not expensive.

This is my beef steak "niu pai" with pasta. They serve it like this: either beef/lamb/chicken (maybe fish too) and a type of pasta, with egg on the side. I miss this!!

Wayy better photo taken by Jerrick. Haih. This is why people pay him to take photos. Hahaha. Incidentally he's in Australia now, to take wedding photos. So popular.

Anyway, remember I said we went beer drinking one night with le awesome cousin and it came to RM 400+?

We didn't drink that much did we? Hmm..it seemed less.

We had finger food too. I forgot about it. 

That's le awesome cousin and Winnie. :) Miss her. She's my mum's sister's daughter = cousin. They live in Taiwan, obviously. We only meet when we go Taiwan or when they come to Kuching. Unlikely these days cos we have jobs and our own families now.

Beer heaven. Spoilt for choice. So many types of beer that we've never seen or heard of. Awesome.

On that awesome note, I bid you adieu.

Night.

Let sleeping dogs lie..

Sometimes just the simplest things in life are enough to make me happy.

A good book and a snoring dog by my feet.

I am re-reading "the girl who played with fire now". Its the second book in the trilogy. Good stuff. If you know me, you would know that I am always reading some book almost everyday.

I read when I eat lunch everyday. Some people prefer movies. Me, I'm definitely a book person. I have a few books lying around in the house now..all half-read. I have "the lake house" in my bedroom now. I was reading Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire during lunch.

Cherrie is sleeping by my feet. Cutest thing ever. She snorts and sighs in her sleep. Once in a while, she shifts and looks at me to make sure I'm still here. 

Last time with ah boi, he would drag his blanket with him when I move from the living room to my laptop. As soon as I turn off the tv, he knows! He wakes up and drags his little blanket between his teeth and plop down on my feet to slewp again.

Gawd I love dogs. They are so loyal and so cute.

Mum's birthday and hot pockets!

Mum's birthday fell on Sept. 4. We all had a quiet simple dinner at home this year. No celebrating in the pub this year. We finally grew up out of it. Heheh.

Mum loves pizza too so we tapau-ed pizza hut for dinner. Mum or eli made mushroom soup (love their version), and some vege dish. Kev tapau-ed some KFC cos he can't live without meat. Meh. Men. 

****

Winnie and I continued our cooking spree. Looked up some interesting recipes online and decided to test it out. Good thing that there are two of us. Oh plus Eli too. So between the three of us, its not as tiring as if there's just one of us. You get what I mean?

We wanted to make pizza hot pockets. It basically looks like curry puff only bigger. Like cornish pasty size. I love cornish pasties btw so I tried to search for the recipe too. 

It requires beef actually, which I don't want to use cos dad doesn't take beef, and we wanted everyone to taste it.

In the end, we came up with this:

Not bad if I may say so. :)

Ahh screw modesty. It tastes freaking yum ok. Hahaa. 

I adapted the recipe from here. Go experiment yourself too. 

Sensoji Temple at Asakusa and some minor updates

So continuing with my Japan updates. 

Our hotel was about a 5 minute (more or less) walk from Tokyo Sky Tree. We were out exploring the area around our hotel and also looking for Sensoji temple at Asakusa. 

We didn't walk to Tokyo Sky Tree cos I was feeling tired and cold. And I am the type who must stick to the itinerary. Not must la. But if we decide to go to one place, we should go there. Not go somewhere else. Stick to the plan!

So off we went to Sensoji temple. 

Tadah!

Lucky we went at night too cos there are not so many tourists around taking photos. We went quite late. I don't remember what time now..but it was also really cloudy so we were hurrying along trying to beat the rain. No umbrella and we didn't want to spend money on buying an umbrella that we couldn't bring back (to Kuching).

Btw, we did buy one (in Hakone I think) and left it somewhere (forgot to take when the rain stopped), so we refused to buy another umbrella. Surprise surprise. Costs Y500 I think. RM 16 in case you were wondering.

Huge red lantern. 

This part of town Ueno/Asakusa area is more traditional than Shibuya/Shinjuku. The hotels are cheaper in this area than in Shinjuku/Shibuya area. Initially, I chose to stay here cos its cheaper and also cos I wanted to visit Ueno park, go to Sky Tree, Asakusa etc. 

We changed our hotel to Shinjuku after that. It was a good choice I think. To experience both sides of Tokyo. Also we chose a cheap hotel (RM180) and a more pricey (about RM 600) one. So we got to try both. Btw the Hakone hotel was most pricey at about RM 700. But its also the best one. So no complaints really. 

Moving on. This is the lane leading up to the temple. In the day time, its full of shops selling mostly food and souvenir items. We went back in the day time and all these shops were open. That night, we didn't manage to buy much. Its quite pricey though. Think they hike up the price cos most tourists go there. But its nice to buy souvenirs if you want to pay for it.

They have all those usual Japanese souvenirs like cute bags, magnets, key chains, slippers, and lots of food to sample. 

Some of the food for sale. They pack it nicely in those bags and they tell you that it can last for a week or so etc. Guess they are used to tourists asking whether they can bring it back to their home country. 

Wanted to buy a cute hat for Nathan (nephew) then realized ohhhh its for pets. So I went to ask about dog costumes but Cherrie too fat. No bigger sizes. Poor fatty. She's about 8.2 kg now. Haha very round and very cute.

Just to show how huge the lantern is.

After that we walked around the neighborhood and found ourselves in Freshness Burger again. Just because its THAT good!

They have beer too..so might as well. :D

Lousy photo but take my word for it will ya? Try it if you happen to pass by. In case you're craving for some burger after all that Japanese food.

Found a better photo. Does it not look gooood? Ok I know it doesn't but it is!

***

OK end. 

Btw its my mum's birthday today. 

It was also my wedding anniversary (2 years) yesterday.

P/S: Right now, we (dad, Cs, Win and I) are watching Yi Dai Chong Shi (the chinese name). Its about Ip Man. It sucksss big time. We are all complaining about it and I'm blogging now. Cs is playing with his ipad. Dad fell asleep. But then he always falls asleep (not always but sometimes he does when watching movies. Winnie is complaining out loud but still watching. Heh. Yawn.

I will write a separate post on mum and Cs. Soon I hope. :)

Cannot blame me. I'm a busy girl ok.

Today:

Just came back from work and family members all waiting at the dinner table (except dad). Pressure so we go take our seats and eat immediately. Mum's birthday so they tapau-ed pizza, and kfc. 

After dinner, bring Cherrie for her walk with mum, bro, sis and Cs. 

Go change out of work clothes, brush teeth and wash face.

Go to gym and start exercising for an hour. Let my sweat dry (5 mins cos no time) and shower and wash hair. Do those girly chores (dry hair, moisturizer, lotion etc).

Hurry back and dad is waiting for me to watch tv already. He likes spending time together. Bonding time. Said tv that is playing now. Boring but for now, all three of them are watching. Haha I'm the only one not concentrating.

Later, decide on tomorrow's lunch. And its already 10:07 pm. 

So good night all.

Last weekend..

Helloo..So we finally went out drinking last Saturday night. We went to Loso cafe with a bunch of friends. Its been a while. To say the least. Heh. We are now a bunch of old retirees. 

We went for dinner together at Colugos (Tun Jugah ground floor) first. Weird lah. The last time I went there was lunch with my colleagues. It was fine. No major complains. This time, almost everyone's food (except mine) was lukewarm. Not hot. Not freshly cooked.

Insert vain photo first.

Vero ordered a mee hoon soup thing (some Indon dish that I don't know the name of) and it was lukewarm. Mehh. A soup dish that isn't piping hot is not nice. 

My chicken dish was the best. Can tell immediately that its the only thing that's freshly cooked. The fries were left cold. Cs had some butter chicken dish and the sauce was cold. Eww please. 

Anyway. Colugos serves western and some Indonesian dishes. Quite interesting menu actually. Maybe it was just that night. We didn't completely write Colugos off yet. Thinking of giving it another try still. Its still a new restaurant right? Maybe they still need to work out some kinks. Remember, my chicken dish was good. No complaints ok.

That said. Go try lah. You never know. Your experience might be better than mine. :)

After dinner, we went to Loso (the pub). Weird name, I know. Its so hard to tell my other friends the pub name. I sound so cina (which I am, I know). But sounds so weird. We went there at 8 pm. So early. So kiasu. We had nowhere else to go lah.

As per usual, we talked and played card games to while the time away.

We played the drinking game at first. You know, the type where you get everyone to drink more first (to get the buzz going). After that when everyone is a bit full (from dinner and drinks combo), we slow down and play more complicated games.

Winnie taught us this circle of death game which I like. It has quite a few rules so we always have to write it down on a piece of paper. For example:

 1,3,5 = drink yourself. 

2,4,6,8 = others drink.

 7 = toilet pass (without which you cannot go to toilet) Quite fun but no use cos everyone goes to toilet BEFORE we start the game.

10 = category (such as, name the types of beer. The person who runs out first loses). Loser =  drink. 

Examples of category of the night are: name the NBA basketball players. Crystal immediately blurted out RONALDO!! To which all of us laughed like shit. Hahah thank God she saved me.. So I don't have to crack my head thinking of NBA players. I suggested U.S. state names. Hahah what what? I sure win ok. Hahha. When it was Vero's turn, she said: name perfume brands and bra brands. Cs asked for badminton player names. Typical. When it was her turn, Cyrstal answered: Lim Siew Ling!! Which made everyone laugh like shit again. Her name is Lim Siew Ling lah. Crazy girl. When she said Lim....we all thought she was gonna say Lin Dan. Turned out she forgot his name. So she jokingly said out her own name. What else? Ling (another guy) asked for motorbike brands. Sheet me. But luckily we all came out with Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Toshiba. Hahah. Fun right? 

 J = rule of thumb, where the person who gets the Jack has to put his/her thumb on their forehead and everyone has to follow. Slowest person drinks. This is fun cos the person who gets the Jack can do the thumb thing anytime, and as many times as they want until the next Jack comes out. So of course we all make full use of it.

Q = make a rule (such as, I make a rule that says no touching phones starting now. This is quite fun cos everyone must follow that ruleuntil the next Queen comes out. I love making everyone not touching their phones, or not speaking mandarin. I requested everyone speak Malay. Heheh. Some other laws suggest no touching their hair (only applicable to ladies), or no sitting down. 

K = whoever has the last K has to one go the whole glass. And then the game ends when all four Kings come out.

That's it. You can make your own rule. That's the beauty of this game. There are others but I figured these are enough rules for the bunch of us. Play play. Try to play next time ok.

Vero, Crystal and me.

Remember I told you Cs is super lucky? Guess what? He won a lucky draw again!! Jeez. In the beginning of the night, he already pointed out at the prizes and went: oh look! Luck draw. I want that bottle of vodka. That's mine. I'm taking it home. 

Fook me! He won!! He freaking won! Second prize lah but its still that bottle of vodka. Lucky guy. Siew Ling didn't get anything. Heheh.

We didn't stay late that night. After the circle of death above, we played some other games. This time, its the more action punya game la. 

For example, draw cards. Smallest card, that person has to do a dare. I know we sound damn childish. When you're drinking, you're stupid. Whatever.

Anyway. Vero dared me to go up to the front of that red shirt guy in the photo and toss my hair/head seductively. I did it. But when I came back, the whole table (my friends I mean) burst out laughing wtf. Thanks guys. The guy must have thought I was trying to seduce him. Stupid bimbo. Hahah.

Other dares were asking Cs to catwalk in front of everyone or what else I don't remember now.. Just normal stuff.

Anyway. That was our Saturday night. Pretty tame. But all in all, a fun night out.

Bye.