2 month2 without posts. It means either my life's boring, or super exciting such that I have no time to blog about it .
The last post was on food for Voices. I cooked for them a 2nd time on 27/7, and cut my finger while chopping chicken! =( The menu this time round was super chinese, and traditional. We had Winnie, Angela, Yanjia, Miaoru, Darren and Haoran around for dinner.
- Claypot Rice with loads of lap cheong and mushrooms, and salted fish =)
- Braised Pork Belly (Joel's special sauce)
- Braised and Baked Soy Sauce Chicken
- Sweet and Sour Fish
- Herbal Soup
- Stir-fried cabbage
- White fungus with Pear (desserts)
I liked how my sauces turned out. But as all Chinese sauces, they have to be kept at least overnight before the flavour will all seep out. If only I had cooked a day before, the food would be much better!
Next up, Taiwan! I went to TW with Winnie, Angela and Yanjia on 10/7 to 18/7. We combed Gao Xiong, Tai Zhong and Tai Pei over the 8 day period free and easy! Somehow, I am missing TW. I never missed a country I visited before and I wonder what am I missing. The food is not good, things not that nice.. Hmmm, my only take would be that it's easy to adapt there; with us knowing Mandarin and Hokkien.
10/7
We met at Changi Airport Terminal 1 at about 530pm and checked in. Their parents all came, and I went alone. So, I "met" the parents, and being the only guy, and the oldest among them, I had to like "take care" of them according to the parents. Haha.. =)
After checking in, we went over to T3 to get Popeye's before going over to our gate to board the plane. We were the LAST people to board the plane. As soon as we stepped in, they closed the door! It was so paiseh! Nevertheless, we did not cause any flight delays etc.
Plane left at about 730, and reached KaoShiung at about midnight.
There was transport arranged for us, and we were brought to our hotel. The streets seemed a little quiet on a Saturday night, then again, it was past midnight.
After checking-into China Trust hotel, we rushed out to visit liu he ye shi in which imo, had the best oyster omelette of all the places we went to. It has the famous Papaya milk shake which had celebrities signing all over it's signboard. It was a pretty small 夜市 though. Finished it, before going back to the hotel to end the day.
11/7:
We woke up late, or rather, the girls were late! =) And we all went down for the breakfast at 9:55am which would end at 10am. We had to dish the food out and put it on our tables. Despite it being a rushed thing, the food was not too bad, and the spread was rather good. I would consider this hotel the next time I come back to KS. Good service, good food, good roooms, good prices!
We went over to Cijin Island after breakfast, and it was @#$%$$@!#!@ HOT HOT HOT!! Sweated like nobody's business la! We couldn't take the walking and even rented a 4-person-cycle to cycle around the island and explore the place. Nth much there except for some temples, and beach. It was quite packed on the Sunday.
After Cijin Island, we went to 新倔江购物商圈. It is quite a big place to shop. There were many many shops around, and the girls bought quite a bit. They took about an hour plus in ONE shop. As much patience as I have and as much as I can shop for ladies stuff, I got bored after awhile and decided to roam myself. Got myself a couple of clothings in the next stalls. We had a break at a Japanese restaurant after shopping before we went to Rui Feng Ye Shi.
This ye shi is super super big. One of the biggest and most extensive ye shi i went to. Besides the food and clothings, there were games, and pets etc! Many many things. As usual, it was a Sun, and it was horribly packed!
11/7 is coincidentally the world cup final. We planned to watch it at some pub, but got too tired after the long day and decided to watch it in our hotel. Yanjia came over to my room to watch and it was fun with her supporting Holland, and me Spain, which eventually won! =)
12/7:
The girls were damn late! I went down at 945am to dish food and stuff like the day before. Grrrrr! We went to check-out and took the gao tie to Tai Zhong. The gao tie was surprisingly comfortable and fast. All of us almost overslept our stop in it!
At Tai Zhong, we changed our min su at the last min, and had to spend some time at a super atas 5 star hotel surfing around for a min su closer to the city area. We ended up with Tomato. It was horrible, and more like a hostel. It was beside Feng Jia University perhaps that's why. And I see students around too.
After checking-in, we went over to yi zhong jie to shop and eat. Ok, we ate first cuz we were super hungry. The steams guo tie kinda thing we had was pretty good! And the 黑糖奶茶！！The pearls were made up of the 黑糖 and glutinous rice flour I think. Memorable drink! This is when we started to split up while shopping. Instead of the 4 of us following together, Winnie and Angela shopped, and Yanjia and I shopped. *winks at yj, we know each other's impt sizes! Grrrrr =D
Next up, we went to International Arts Street aiming to find some interesting things to eat and see. Turn out quite a disapointment cuz there wasn't anything much! The place was like an extended holland village cum haji lane. I tried the 永和油条. HORRIBLE! PUI! We had dinner at some chinese restaurant. Rather cheap and quite good food. The mixed veg and specialty pig's trotters were good.
Seeing that the night was still young, we walked along feng jia ye shi, which was near our min su, until everything closed.
13/7:
Woke up really early at 8am to make our way to LeoFoo Amusement Park, and met a really nice tour guide who helped us purchase our tickets and ensure that we were safe and sound and playing the stuff smoothly before he went on to do his own stuff. VERY VERY NICE!
We started out with the dry park. The rides were NOT scary. There were mild. I hate the pirate ship cuz they had this automatic bar thing which presses onto your thighs. My thighs were damn pain after that. I spent half the time bitching about the bar. =) Not an interesting place. The wet park was more interesting. But we din really play cuz of personal reasons from the girls side. But we had to be in swim wear and the cap too. In the end, we just explored a bit and made our way back to the min su to wash up before making out way to 自由路 to try out the Tai Yang Bing and stuffs there. Settled on 阿明山, and bought damn a lot! =)
After getting the tai yang bing, we saw this really really cheap foorwear shop just across the road and went to buy some things. It's these kind of ulu places out of the tourisy spots that have the best stuff! Haha!
The remaining part of the day was at feng jia ye shi. Nth worth recalling really except for this braised duck neck thingy. Very very tasty!! The marinade got right into the tender meat which fell off the bones easily! I bought some giant guavas that were really sweet too. Guavas are high in fibre and aids digestion. Oh! Some random Taiwanese guy approached Winnie and Angela and asked them to buy things from him. They acted like they did not know Mandarin, and spoke in English. =) Recalls how Weiquan and Franco was talking to this guy in Clarke Quay who tried to sell them stuffs. Haha!
14/7:
We took a cab ride all the way to Tai Pei from our minsu, and checked into the hotel. Pretty decent hotel from the outside. It was rather small and only had like 8 rooms per level. Room however, we pretty big and comfortable. They provided a water dispenser in the room which was very convenient.
After putting out stuff down, we cabbed down to Wu Fen Pu. It's like some wholesale area. Cheap cheap clothings! We went for a short lunch at this 8 gong zai place near wu fen pu. We had their cold dishes such as seasoned chicken feet, pig trotter, duck etc, and their specialty soup. The stuff were flavourful and quite tasty! Healthy hearbal soup to freshen us up from the lack of sleep the past few days! The boss actually said that me and Angela were together...... Grrrr!
Shopped and shopped and shopped separately once again, and there was this peanut shavings with ice cream wrapped in popiah skin. It was quite good. But I thought it was largely due to the fresh peanut shavings. All the peanut shavings we get in Singapore are factory made, and they lose lots of their natural fragrance! =( We went across the street to Rao He Ye Shi, which I had not much recollection of, except that we stopped over at this Hu Xu Zhang Lu Rou Fan place which Darren recommended. We were so disappointed with the food though. It was more of a franchise than a really nice and popular place for a meal. Expected Boon Tong Kee, gave us Ajisen. =(
15/7:
Winnie and Angela were lazy, and so me and Yanjia woke up early to try the hotel breakfast, which was not too bad, but very very limited and cooked by one Aunty, and went on to visit Yang Ming Shan!
We took the MRT to Jian Tan station before changing to a bus to bring us there. When we reached the place, we hiked up about 1.2km to the visitors' centre only to realise that we had to go all the way back down to take their internal shuttle bus to this Xiao You Keng place to see the nice scenery. The air was cool when we finally reached there! Rather high up, nice scenery, cool air. =) There was a lot of smelly Sulphur though, and we saw lots of them sprouting out from holes in the ground. We wanted to climb up to the top which was about 1.5km from where we were, but did not due to a lack of time. =( But it was a nice experience up the mountain for the scenery! I actually like trekking and hiking up to see nice scenery. Perhaps army cultivated this with me! But i so do not like hiking and trekking with all the signal sets and rifle and sbo! Grrrrrrrrrrr
We took as bus back down and stopped by to grab this mini butter cake things at Jian Tan Mrt station. It was the best we had in TW! Some commercial things just tasted good! Like Koi Bubble Tea =)
Next, we met up with Angela and Winnie at Taipei City Hall to visit the Taiwan Storyland! Took 23872198412 photos there! It reminded me of Shanghai Toy Museum, only that it was much bigger and had all the vintage Chinese stuff other than just toys! And amazingly, the lu rou fan at this place was the best of all those that we tried in Taiwan. It was good enough for us to get two bowls instead of 1 to share among the 4 of us. 4 is a really good number to go travelling with. Just nice for amusements ride, cab rides, food to share! We shared everything there and were able to try a lot more stuff. I recall myself wasting a lot of food in HK cuz I was basically just trying the food, and threw the remaining away.
We went back to Xi Men Ding after that for Winnie and Angela to visit their Luan Jian place to do up their hair. While they were doing their hair, gluttony Yanjia and myself went around looking for food to try. First up was "Ah Zhong Mian Xian", which was basically their oyster mee sua with intestines. I am not a noodle kind of person and did not find that it was very good. Yanjia liked it though, but I thought that it was just because she was too hungry. 2nd, some duck bee hoon at some random shop. We went in cuz we saw lots of people in it. The duck and bee hoon was not too bad and had quite a bit of flavour in them. I liked the bee hoon cuz there wasn't any of the plastic bee hoon taste, and it was cooked just nice such that it was not nua. The duck was a little salty though, but matched the bee hoon quite well. It was however super expensive! We just ordered without asking for the price, which is so typical me. =( 3rd was just sweet potato balls. Trying it the 3rd time and it was the better ones. It had more sweetness in it whereas the rest were just plain sweet potato flour. 4th was "Lao Tian __ Lu Wei". There was a very very long queue outside, and being Singaporeans, long queue means must try. I bought the duck wing and tau kua. NOT GOOD AT ALL! Very normal. Singapore's You Ji, which imo sells sucky duck rice, sells better flavoured tau kua and duck!
Following the eating spree, we visited this large temple situated in the middle of Xi Men Ding, and 赌鬼 Yanjia bought her Taiwan toto. We met up with Winnie and Angela who were very very happy with their hair and visited (ye shi) which was supposedly famous for its food.
Fantastic food I wouldn't say, but amazingly I could recall quite a bit from this ye shi.
1) yan su pork soft bone ribs. (GOOD! Better than those yan su ji la! It was rather ex, but I know pork soft bones are expensive itself. Yan su chicken uses the chest meat which is super cheap. Pay for what we get =) )
2) Mutton ribs soup. (I prefer our Singapore ones. The mutton were overcooked and dried out, but luckily, all its flavour got into the soup!)
3) Lu Rou Fan from THREE different stalls. (All were horrid. The worst was a stall using lean minced meat with spring onion to make its lu rou. I cook better lu rou than them!)
4) Duck Blood Soup. (Did not like it. It had a very gelatinous feel, probably due to large amounts of gelatin put in. And the taste was odd. The spicy soup broth it was cooked in was rather unique. Sweet sour taste with a variety of spices. Layers in your mouth!)
5) Oyster omelette (So-so)
6) Mixed fruits ice. (So-so)
7) Dried meat with almonds. Something like a crispy bak kua thingy. Winnie and I bought some back home to Singapore cuz it was rather unique and tasted quite good as well.
8) Some biscuit buns with black pepper meat filling. (Did not like it, but there was a long queue. Angela liked it though. I thought the meat fillings had too much black pepper, and it reminded me of western black pepper pie. The crust was too starchy too.)
After I recalled this, I realised how much Yanjia and I ate on this day. It was DAMN A LOT!!
16/7:
We took a half day tour to this person's memorial hall, some temple, Zhong Lie Ci, some tourisy souvenir place, as well as the Taipei National Palace Museum, which photography was prohibited. I liked how the tour guide brought us around the museum and explained the artefacts to us. It was really an eye opener. I had never seen those intrinsic works done by ancient Chinese artists live before! The works are really really beautiful. Some took even 3 generations to complete but the end product cannot be matched by anything made by machines nowadays. We made a good choice to take the tour cuz otherwise, we would be just looking at the artefacts without any background knowledge. The pride of China, and Chinese peopl! =)
Next up, we went back to Wu Fen Pu to continue shopping and buying more stuff there before going over to Shilin Night Market, which was a BIG failure. The LONG queue for their world famous yan su chicken was so bad it brought me into a damn bad mood after the first bite. The outer layer was crispy no doubt, but the meal was obviously not thawed and fried frozen! And worse, they use chicken breast meat. Nth in Shilin was actually good. All bad except this Almond peanut bites which all of us brought back to Singapore. The food was damn bad! Worst of all the ye shis! We did not spend much time there cuz we were rushing to watch a show at EZ5 in which Lai Ming Wei was singing for the night.
At EZ5, we were treated to a cultural shock by one of the performers. Su Zi was very entertaining no doubt, but was very open-minded. He made two birthday strangers french on stage, and the guy had to buy everyone a bottle of beer. Angela almost got called up to kiss the guy, and she said she doesn't mind cuz he's handsome =D. Su Zi ended his set with him pulling his pants just below his butt and showing this leopard prints Thong underwear. We had a good night with the entertainment, and Lai Ming Wei was the ya zou. Very wen, but not as entertaining. He was very nice and took photos with everyone after the show. I could tell he was tired, but still managed to smile and pose and talked to everyone. That's the way of an idol!
17/7:
Lazy Winnie and Angela slept in again, and as usual, Yanjia and myself explored. We went to Long Shan Temple. It was the temple of Guan Yin, and it happened that we saw many devotees chanting when we entered. An eye opener cuz I did not see anything like this before. The man-made waterfall at the entrace was damn real too! After walking around the biggest and supposedly nicest and oldest temple in Taipei, we explored the streets, and walked through a market. Their market was rather different from ours. The animal parts were very animal looking still! Like the chicken.. they were all alive, and as we walked, we could hear chickens bring slaughtered. The feathers on the neck and head were not taken out though, and we could see the chicken, as it was chicken. Haha! And the feets were very stiff as they were placed on the trays to be sold. I supposed that was because it was struggling before it was killed and the muscles haven't relaxed yet.
We continued walking and came to this breakfast place with long queue, "周记肉粥店“. Some pork chop with porridge. VERY VERY GOOD! Their specialty pork chops are similar to our curry rice pork chops. It complemented the sauce very well. The porridge was more Teochew style with the rice grain still intact, and the soup which the porridge were cooked in were flavourful. This was the best meal in Taiwan! I always believe that the good food would be at ulu ulu corners in which you have to explore yourself! Next up was visiting Taipei 101. Atas place, nothing much! We did not go up cuz it was expensive. While we were walking back to the MRT, we came by this expo place which had a pets food fair kinda thing. Got duped by this man who sold us some promotional tickets but went in anyway. We saw many many many dogs around. Big, small, long, short, cute, friendly! The dogs in TW could roam about freely and they were very well groomed physically and in their character. They won't bark at you or attack you. The dogs were like young kids who got excited and curious about everything around them! I was plesantly shocked when I happened to turn around, and saw a dog at my eye level giving me a curious look before licking it's own lips! It was exactly like a Singapore food fair, but for dogs mainly. Exercise stuff, insurance, donations, foods, free trials/testers, what have nots. The dogs were trying out the stuff there and if it was good, the owners would buy it. If this happened in Singapore, some aunty would complain saying it's dangerous and dirty and grrrrrrrr! SCREW THESE AUNTIES! Groom the pets well, and they're clean! We saw these 2 artistes at the Expo too, though I have no idea who they are. They were promoting their new film. The girl was very pretty, but very skinny. Before we left, we saw a group of BIG dog owners taking photos with their big dogs! It was sweet! And surprisingly, I dont recall a single bark I heard over there.
After that, we went back to the hotel room to rest a while before meeting Angela and Winnie at the legendary Modern Toilet Cafe. Average food. Just the novelty as expected though. We then accompanied Angela to her Sexy Diamond before making our way down to Dan Shui. The long trip was worth it. The air was much fresher at Dan Shui, and the food was more seafood orientation too. Perhaps it was because Dan Shui was beside the sea. If we did not have to rush to Shi Da Ye Shi, I would say we could spend more time at Dan Shui. Everything felt fresher at Dan Shui, and I tried their legendary Ah Gei too. Basically Tau Pok with Tang Hoon in some sauce. Nth boomz about it la.. Before we left, Yanjia and myself visiting this Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum located in the middle of the shopping street in Dan Shui. Took lots of photos, and saw some novelty stuff. I really wanted to spend more time at Dan Shui, but as it was our last night, we had to move on to Shi Da Ye Shi.
At Shi Da Ye Shi, we saw many nice clothes. Think haji lane but cheaper and bigger. Haizzz.. I spent too much before and had no more budget for it. I would definitely come here to shop earlier the next time I go to Taipei. As we walked, we came across this Oden kinda thingy that had a long queue. Tried it, and it was good! I guess they were closing soon, and all the flavours from all the meats and veg were in the hot soup! Very very very tasty and flavourful. As there were a lot of people around, I took the wrong plate of order which was mainly vegetarian. We ordered another plate of meaty ones. Tasty too. The noodle absorbed the flavours of the soup base, and the meats and veg exuded natural sweetness!
Ahh.. this concludes our last night in Taiwan.
18/7:
We woke up and rushed to Zhong Shi for Xing Guang Da Dao recording at 9am. Grrr... we had to wait till 11am before it started. Nth much, and everyone looked the same as on TV except that Wei Ru Yun was damn unglam and Yan Yi Ge is fantastic live. I love her musicality. We left the place after the first recording and rushed to the airport to catch our place back home. Spent almost everything we had on the duty free Tu Chan store in the airport, and that concludes our stay in TW>
It was quite a good trip I would say. We covered quite a bit of places at our own pace, and I thought Yanjia makes quite a good travelling and food exploring buddy too. If there's another chance, I'd definitely consider Yanjia in my future travelling plans! =)
Back before TW, there was CAC Orientation camp from 26/7 to 30/7. That was quite a bad experience with the admin people, and the games were not very fun. I missed Ethelonter! CAC Camp had very very bad planning, and everything was very haphazard in my opinion. The worst thing that happened was when Sentosa cut off our electricity cuz they did not apply for permission to use it.....
23/7 to 25/7 was Tioman trip with Almido! It was FUN!!! =) =)
Day 1 was spent travelling on the bus there, plus the ferry. When we reached the resort, it was about 4pm and there wasn't much time to do anything. We ended up exploring the place randomly walking around the beach and having dinner at this place just outside our Bejaya Resort. We, or rather I, ordered damn a lot of food. A LOT A LOT. Our whole table was filled and we couldn't finish some of it. Haha! Cheap though.. what do you expect, it's Msia. Singapore has expensive things! We spent the night sleeping relatively early. Oh the room.. Huiting and Michelle shared a room above us, the 3 guys one room with single bed each, and Shuangying and Tianju shared a double bed. Our room and theirs were linked.
Day 2. We woke up and went for the complimentary breakfast which had quite a large spread. It was like any hotel breakfast in Msia.. same kinda things in Malacca, Genting, KL, Kuatan etc =) After breakfast, we went on our snokelling adventure around Tioman! We rented a boat and a guide who took us around the place. When I first stepped into the water, I felt small stings all over. I think it was either due to the salinity content + jelly fish toxins in the water. It was actually quite irritating, but luckily, my body got used to it after a while and it felt normal. The first stopover was boring, nothing for us to see. The subsequent stops were good! While snorkelling, fishes swam right up to our faces, and it helped that we were feeding them bread! It was a very very beautiful sight! The fishes, corals, sea urchins, jelly fishes, sea slugs and cucumbers! =) I recognized some of the fishes cuz I ate them before =D. This I quote Tianju! Haha! We saw promfrets, grouper, sea bass! Lots and lots of them. The sea urchins had super long spikes too! Different from those short spike ones we usually see. The jelly fishes were small and transparent. We tried to capture one, but I think it did and disintegrated into the water! I sort of recalled how to swim there too! For the first few stops, Terence and Russel had to move me around, and it was very tiring! Haha!
After the trip, all of us were terribly burnt! I had to apply SK2 on my shoulders and back la! =) And drank lots and lots and lots of water. We saw a rather large monitor lizard running up the staircase into the golf course building though. The staff there were non-chalent about it. I think it was a common sight and they have gotten used to it. Imagine you are doing your business in the toilet and the large lizard pops up behind you. Haha! It'll be a funny sight. They're pretty harmless to humans and only eats small animals. =)
Dinner was at the chinese eating place outside the resort as well. Not too good, but average chinese food. I guess we were all hungry after the snorkelling trip around. I saw that they kept a pet chicken in their backyard, and a cat as following it throughout. Not sure if the cat would do anything to it though, but they were playing a game of cat and mouse =)
After dinner, we nua-ed a bit before catching the 10pm World cup match between South Korea and Uruguay. South Korea put up a good match and fought hard for the draw. A pity Uruguay scored a wonderful goal late in the 2nd half and that took everything out of the Korean. It was a good match and Uruguay gave Germany a good match in the 3rd/4th placing match.
At night before sleeping, the 5 of us squeezed into the room to talk. Terence, despite having his head DIRECTLY under a lamp, could still sleep and not talk. He's a pig. Haha! Somehow, the "shuang ying guo lai~" and the lure of not trekking the next day drew shuang ying sleeping with me on the bed for a while. Haha! =D Nice sacrifice for the trek, thought it sadly rained the next day.
Day 3. We had plans to go trekking up the mountains! BUT BUT! It rained =( So we went for breakfast and nua-ed before making our way back to Singapore.
That's the end of Tioman. I can't rmb what I did from June till the 23/7 except ShuangYing's 21st bday party at the PA Chalet. I guess there was nothing much except nua-ing around. Grrrr.. How time wasting!
Now to something more recent! 3/8! Voices peeps celebrated Winnie's bday! Her bday was on 31/7 but we celebrated it later. I was PD for it. Haha! Ok, so early in the morning, I woke up and rushed off to Ritz Carlton to get the lengendary Mango Mousse Cake before going over to Mandarin Orchard to place the cake, and present 2(The microphone and Audio Interface) there. At the same time, arrange surprise with the fnb manager of Triple 3, and the Concierge. Following that, I went to get two slices of Guanaja cake from Rive Gauche to bring to Settlers'. At Settlers, I spoke to them and they had a game which had a card which could make Winnie close her eyes. So while her eyes are closed, Darren, Haoran, Ben, Angela and myself set the cake and present 1 on the table before she opened her eyes and we sang the bday song for her. Present 1 was a bottle of scented dried flowers and a piece of cardboard with WINNIE pasted on it. Hand made by myself the day before. Very very last min and I almost couldnt find the necessary materials from Daiso,Spotlight and Giant.
Just as she thought the surprises were over, we went over to Triple 3 which was having a 1 for 1 promotion with DBS/POSB cards for dinner, which Ming Ming, Miao Ru, Kee Onn and Marcus joined. Dinner was quite good with quality ingredients! After we finished the dinner, the manager brought out the cake and the card for Winnie to collect her present from the Concierge, and all of us sang the bday song once again. I did not know that Winnie would be embarrassed when people sing bday songs for her, especially loud in public. Haha! Something to take note of in future. The cake was good, and worth the money! Everyone liked it fortunately! Next up, she collected her present, and we went over to Scape to open it. She and Miaoru unglammed themselves when they played with the foam balls in the box like little girls. Hahaha! =) I was glad the day turned up smoothly.
That's all for the updates. This is a really long post and I took like more than 3 hours over two days to complete it. Nevertheless, an update to my life, in which I can read up in future and recall those fun things I did before. =) Happy Reading!
