My Taiwanese Life

Things I’ll miss from Taiwan:Taipei 101 In two days I go...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 21:03:00 -0400

Things I’ll miss from Taiwan:

Taipei 101

In two days I go travel around Korean for ten days and that is the end of my Taiwan trip, I’ll have one afternoon on the 19th in Taipei and then off to London. I’m still not really sure how this is all going to feel. Right now I’m looking forward to Korea, but I know I’m going to really miss Taiwan.

Vietnamese Street Food

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:45:21 -0400

Vietnamese Street Food

Halong Bay, 2012

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:38:45 -0400

Halong Bay, 2012

Bun cha. This was my lunch today, sitting on a little blue...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:35:31 -0400

Bun cha. This was my lunch today, sitting on a little blue plastic chair and surrounding by Vietnamese men, the summer heat pressing down on my shoulders and the sizzle of the grill behind me. I am in love with Vietnamese street food.

At Taoyuan airport waiting for my flight to Hanoi!

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:41:37 -0400

At Taoyuan airport waiting for my flight to Hanoi!

I never ended up finding time to write about Mulan Motel shortly...

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 02:27:13 -0400

I never ended up finding time to write about Mulan Motel shortly after we went. The boyfriend and I decided to splash out on his first day in Taipei and stayed at the “love motel”: Mulan Motel. Now, while love motel sounds incredibly sleazy (and the garage entrance to the hotel does make you feel a bit like a spy), Taiwan has somehow managed to make a few of their love motels into boutique hotels.

We chose the Cloud Dance Suite and I have to say the whole experience was ridiculously fun. The rooms are very spacious and the attention to detail is very good. I had one complaint with the room which was one of my sheets had a cigarette burn in it, but the rest of the room was wonderful. It felt like walking into your own private jungle in our room. There are buttons everywhere for music played in different parts of the room and different types of lighting. There was a large bathtub with jacuzzi and a rain shower! Discovering that was very funny.

There is also a TV with lots of movies to choose from (though there were 6 pages of Hollywood Movies to choose from and 12 pages of porn. I guess it is still a love hotel!). Then there is also room service, which is great! We ordered some beef noodles and dumplings and they arrived quickly. The best part of it is that there is a special “room service” room attached to your room so that they don’t disturb you at all, and when the food arrives it is placed on a tray on a table and a light comes on in your room telling you that it is there.

Included in the price of the room is breakfast, you head down to get your breakfast coupon and then go up to the breakfast area which is filled with bird cages of all different colours. It’s a typical chinese breakfast of rice porridge where you add to it hotpot style, you also get a drink included with it.

Overall a very fun experience and good value for money!

tea break at VVG Bon Bon. Cherry and balsamic vinegar soda,...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 10:46:27 -0400

tea break at VVG Bon Bon. Cherry and balsamic vinegar soda, cucumber and lime smoothie, chocolate orange cupcake and “picnic” sandwich.

Yangmingshan mountain, Mt Datun Peak and Qingmingtian (with...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:48:57 -0400

Yangmingshan mountain, Mt Datun Peak and Qingmingtian (with water buffalos).

It was an absolutely beautiful sunny day to take a little trip out of Taipei City, I went with my sister and her boyfriend who were visiting, you take a bus from Shilin MRT stop to Yangmingshan where there is a little shuttle bus (108) that takes you around Yangmingshan mountain, pretty much filled to the brim with hardcore little old ladies about to hike around.

Completely different air from Taipei and gloriously breezy given the blistering summer sun. Managed to get sunburnt and exhausted, but totally, totally worth it.

This is one of those bizarre concoctions that just works. Taro...

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:59:33 -0400

This is one of those bizarre concoctions that just works. Taro ice cream, shaved caramelised peanuts and coriander wrapped in a pancake. Bought for a measly 35NTD and enjoyed immensely. I can’t believe I haven’t tried them before!

A day of lanterns, bridges and railway tracks.My sister came to...

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 11:51:05 -0400

A day of lanterns, bridges and railway tracks.

My sister came to visit me this past week, so I’ve been touring around again. It was really wonderful to be able to spend some time with her as well as being able to take her around this city that has been my home for the past few months. Her and her boyfriend also helped me discover some new parts of Taiwan that I hadn’t been to before.

I’d heard of the lantern festival through many guide books, multiple chinese lessons and those lists of “must see” things. Unfortunately I am never there at the right time. The Lantern festival happens 15 days after Chinese New Year, and I can imagine is a beautiful sight to see people setting off lanterns all in unison into the night sky. I can also imagine it would be quite crowded seeing as the day we went (weekend and totally out of season), there were still a fair number of tourists.

There is a line of towns that run along a railroad track. It used to be a track for coal mining during the Japanese occupation but has now been turned into a tourist attraction with a tiny train chugging along the tracks, people running out of its way as the railroad tracks run directly through the villages. In between trains people happily snap photos, set off lanterns and pose dramatically.

It’s a wonderful day trip: delicious food (pancake with caramelised peanut & ice cream included. That deserves its own blog post), a trip to the waterfalls, using a brush to write (not so) elegantly on a lantern before setting it off and watching it float over the village was a definite highlight. It felt oddly satisfying to know that your wishes had made it to the higher atmosphere.

We had a wonderful day there, and it felt a bit like going back in time as you walked through the main road alley, houses crowding either side, sausages roasting and lantern sellers by the tracks, the sun beating down on the old railway station. I would love to come back for a Lantern Festival in the future even if only to try live through a similar scene as that from ‘Tangled’, the disney movie. I’m hoping someday I’ll get the opportunity.

There is this gorgeous, little cafe filled with japanese books,...

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 14:21:55 -0400

There is this gorgeous, little cafe filled with japanese books, wooden tables and soft music serving delicious japanese food and freshly ground coffee that I have fallen a little bit in love with. I was feeling down one morning and needed to get myself out of the house, explore a bit of Taipei to remind me why it is that I love living abroad, so after a quick google search I came across the name of: Cafe Megane. When I read there was an onigiri set I was sold and set out on my bicycle to find it.

Most cafes in Taipei open at 12. A fact I still find utterly bizarre, it seems that Taipei citizens are all night owls since these cafes stay open until very late, usually between 12-2. I arrived just when it was opening and so had my pick of seats, it began to fill up a bit more around 1pm. By this time I had ordered my lunch and an iced matcha latte. Both very good! The flavours in the onigiri set were perfectly balanced, and with an onigiri of your choosing you also get the one of the day. My two were salmon onigiri and an okra onigiri.

I spent two and a half hours studying and relaxing and would definitely go back again. Lovely atmosphere, great food and free wifi.

mid9dreamer answered your question: Puppy love! Yoda is getting bigger and it breaks… there...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:31:02 -0400

mid9dreamer answered your question: Puppy love! Yoda is getting bigger and it breaks… there...

Puppy love! Yoda is getting bigger and it breaks out hearts to...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 06:27:03 -0400

Puppy love! Yoda is getting bigger and it breaks out hearts to see he doesn’t fit in his teeny bed anymore. He’s also getting much, much cheekier. Still spending most of my life staring at him and watching him sleep. I feel like a complete creeper, but he’s just so damn cute.

oh and p.s booked my flights to Vietnam. I’ll be going there for a week! Any suggestions?

Attended a cooking course in Taipei to learn some basics for...

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:36:00 -0400

Attended a cooking course in Taipei to learn some basics for Taiwanese cooking, it was mainly a course in creating the different kinds of sauces as well as building the layers of flavour in the sauce and how to compliment it with the type of food you’re eating. Wonderfully simple and delicious, and most importantly: memorable and applicable to everyday eating. To top it all off it was really good fun, sitting and chatting with the lovely owner Jodie. She was so friendly and her apartment is all warm colours, delicious aromas and laughing. It was a little expensive to want to have a repeat experience, but it was totally worth it for the one time.

link: Jodie’s Kitchen

Taichung.Had a wonderful weekend in Taichung with friends, the...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 07:08:38 -0400

Taichung.

Had a wonderful weekend in Taichung with friends, the weather was beautiful and the feeling of Taichung is completely different from that of Taipei, much slower and countryside-y. Went to two great cafes: Robot Cafe and one filled with boardgames where we spent a few hours in friendly competitiveness playing this great game called: Dixit. Had delicious night market food, and also went around Tunghai University. It has a gorgeous, massive campus with its own dairy farm! So we had milk popsicles (how american, but seem to have forgotten the british way to say it) and wandered around the lake there. We also spent a morning at Taichung Fine Arts Museum before getting the high speed rail back to Taipei. It only takes 50 minutes! It’s amazing. All in all a really lovely time with eating enough food to make me feel like I was going to explode. So obviously a very successful weekend trip!

Had a wonderful past two weeks of holiday with the boyfriend, we...

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 21:47:39 -0400

Had a wonderful past two weeks of holiday with the boyfriend, we went to Formosa Fun Park to have fun on slides and lazy rivers, went round Taroko Gorge, hiked around Maokong and spent a wonderful 4 days in Penghu. The highlight of which, aside from being able to see old friends and spend time with them, was having our own little scooter and the freedom to explore the island. Since I am slightly retarded with scooters, he drove me around. It felt very movie-like. Penghu is a beautiful island and exploring it by scooter is really the best way. It was such a pity it rained the last day we were there so our scootering was cut short! But it’s been a really wonderful two weeks.

Left the boyfriend at the airport last night, so rather sad but am cheering myself up by watching Yoda being adorable and today is the first day of my summer semester!

Currently at songshan airport in Taipei waiting for my flight to...

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:24:10 -0400

Currently at songshan airport in Taipei waiting for my flight to Penghu. Spent the weekend in Hualian where we wandered around Taroko gorge, in the rain with mist rising up in the mountains, then went river tracing for the morning where we bravely jumped off rocks and fought currents before getting the train back to Taipei, where I learn’t how to play a Taiwanese card game. Now looking forward to 4 days on the island with the boyfriend and seeing some old friends!

the boyfriend is visiting so I’m just out and about...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:45:05 -0400

the boyfriend is visiting so I’m just out and about exploring Taiwan! Been to Beitou, Bali and Maokong Gondola and Formosa fun coast! So instead of Taiwan things here are more pictures of my ridiculously cute puppy: yoda.

Photo

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:15:00 -0400

Please welcome the newest member of our family. My new roommate...

Tue, 29 May 2012 10:12:01 -0400

Please welcome the newest member of our family. My new roommate who is staying in Taipei far longer than I am has decided to get a puppy. So, by flatmate extension, I get to have this adorable bundle of joy in my life. He’s currently two months old, insanely cute and enjoys playing and sleeping. He’s a french bulldog puppy and while before I used to never really like the smushed faces, I’ve grown to love them quite a bit. I mean, just look at that little face!