Its been a while…..

It really has been a while..but so many things have happened since the last time I posted. Some of which I am not ready to share, cos some part of me is still trying to come to terms with the events of the past month.  so instead I shall share on something that has helped with cope with the difficult times of the past few months…..Drama…(what else??)

I must say I am grateful for this show cos in the days when I badly needed some distractions, it was there to make me laugh, and filled my mind with other things than what was happening.  So …here it is :)

School Season has started!

Yeap, it has been a while since the last post. I was just reading through it, and realised that it has been more than 2 months since I wrote about Taiwan. I have been on another trip since…but that would be saved for another post, as I don’t have the pictures from the trip to post! :P It was a very eventful trip…well worth a whole post just on it.

Jan and Feb 2010 has just been so busy. School term started and the whole family was on a steep learning curve about the Singapore Education System with Daniel’s entry into formal education – Primary 1. S & I spent the first 2 days of school camped out at D’s school, but he seems really ok, and was getting along quite well with the other boys in his class. Eve was even better, and got on well with everyone, and enjoyed being in “ Kor Kor’s school” even though D is not there anymore. The best part of school for Eve would be snack time & the bus ride home :)

Both seems to be taking to school pretty well, but I am not very good with it still. I am struggling to keep up with the homework that D has been assigned to!! I feel stress….I realised that I can come up with strategies to teach students, but have trouble trying to get D to learn Chinese! :P I wish I would get him interested in the language which I think is a richer language that English ( not that I am great at it myself…but have started to read some short Chinese internet novel :))

So if you have any good suggestions for teaching young kids Chinese…pls let me know!

Taiwan Up –Part II

(4) Night Markets

How can anyone go to Taiwan and NOT go to a night market?  It is like the highlight of my trips to Taiwan.  It is usually crowded and there are lots of good food and cheap clothes on sale.  I had plan to visit at least 3 different night markets, but I only got around to visit 2 but they were good enough :)  I went to Shilin (士林) Market which is next to Bi Tan (碧潭) MRT station.  You can’t really miss it as there are many signs, and besides, you can just follow the crowd! :))

Just some of the food we ate ( clockwise –”Chicken-chop-that- is-bigger-than-your-face”, bao thingy which is cooked in tandoori style..and the famous “Shua Bing”…shave ice with red bean)

We went to Miao Kou (庙口)at Keelung (基隆) as well…. You have to walk about 5 mins from the Train Station to get there.  We didn’t really know where it was, but decided to follow the crowd..and guess what? We found it!

And also Dan Shui (淡水) Old street ( which is right outside Dan Shui MRT station)

Most people come here for the Iron Egg (铁蛋) which is preserved eggs sold in vacuum packs and the 5 inches tall ice-cream.  I did take the ice-cream as it was quite cold the night we were there….

(4）Food…and great service!
We ate at restaurants twice in all our days there, and I must say, both were excellent!!

On the first night, we tried Fei Tian Hotpot at Ximending.  We are so glad we found the place thanks to the recommendations of forummers from Hardwarezone.com.sg!  (西门大奶店, 台北市汉中街 155 号Tel: 02-23886768 or 西门二奶店 台北市西宁南路32 号 Tel: 02-23708787) . It cost less than NT500 which is about S$23.  It has free flow of food – meat, prawns, crabs, osyters, scallops, hagen daz ice cream, drinks and even beer…..

   

On our last night there we went to原烧.  It is a table BBQ place which has excellent service and great food.  The set dinner cost about S$23 as well.  It came with appetisers, soup, dessert, meat, hotpot rice & tea.  We were SO full by the time we finished.  It did give us the energy to stand for the next 4 hours at the New Year’s Eve concert though!

 

(5) New Year’s Eve Concert

It was CROWDED.  There were 500,000 people at the concert but you really didn’t feel the squeeze.  I guess people there just know how to deal with crowds!  There was no pushing and shoving as you would expect at a concert like that…just nudges to get closer to the stage.  As S is tall, he actually saw the entertainers on stage…short me had to jump a bit to see them..

 

Taiwan Up – Part I

We finally went on our holiday! !

S and I have been planning for a short holiday just for the two of us, but that proved to be quite difficult due to his work commitments.  We finally did it one week after our trip to Perth with the family.  This trip to Taiwan is the first time in 2 years that we are spending time together as a couple for more than 1 day! We were really looking forward to it. :)

It was a 6 day trip starting from 27 Dec and ending on 1 Jan 10 so that we can catch the New Year Eve concert in Taipei. :)) For me, this was a trip that can only be “experienced”.  Unlike my other trips where I would buy lots of things home, I hardly spend the money that I had changed..for one, food & drinks were fairly cheap in Taiwan, especially if you went to the night markets, and transportation was also very reasonable…I spend NT52 (about S$2) for a day pass on one of the historical train lines.  So how do I share my experience with you….perhaps through the “highlights” of my trip :)

(1) Where to stay?

S and I decided to stay in 2 different hotels in our stay in Taipei.  Our first hotel was next to the Taipei Main station, which was a good place for us as we wanted to venture outside Taipei for the first couple of days.  It was a budget type of hotel (Solove Hotel), located on the 3rd floor of an old building…totally not lux at all…but it was cheap and good. We paid about S$250 for 3 nights stay) The rooms were clean, and it was NOT sleazy at all.  There were guests with their kids in town staying there and it was all non-smoking…which means you didn’t have to smell stale cigarette smoke that sometimes linger in carpets of tourist class hotels.  

For our last 2 nights in Taipei, we picked a boutique hotel near the Xinyi area as it was where to New Year’s Eve Concert was to be held.  We thought it was going to be crowded and didn’t want to be caught up in the jam going home after the concert, and wanted a place where we could walk home from the concert venue.   We picked Le Suite Taipei (Da-an).  It is what a boutique should be! The service was great, and attention to detail was excellent.  It provided hairbands in the bathrooms for ladies! They also provided a mobile phone for you and if you had any needs outside the hotel, they are just a call away.  This is what I call service…

(2) Take a rail trip out..

Taiwan has got a great rail system.  The opening of their MRT has certainly made travel within Taipei really easy.  It never “feels” too crowded the way it does in Singapore or Hong Kong.  I think it is due to the fact that everyone lines up to get into the train.  There is very little pushing to get or out of the train.  Everyone who wants to stand on the escalator would stand on the right side, and those who want to walk, will do so on the left.  No one is left frustrated by the pace of their movement.   This is something that I can really get used to….

Ping Xi (平溪)
S and I took one of 3 historical line out to the northern part of Taiwan.  We first took a train to Ruifang (瑞方), and then move to the next platform for the Ping Xi (平溪) line.  The 1 day ticket cost us NT52 which is about S$2, and it allowed us to hop up and down the train along the 6 stops it has.  Total worth the trip! :)

Da Hua (大华)Train station

ShiFen (十分) Scenic Area ( Clockwise – Rail running through town, bridge to the waterfalls, Eye glass waterfall)

Ping Xi (平溪) where the river runs through the town which is famous for its sky lanterns. So famous that they have it on their drain covers.

End of the line….Qing Tong (菁桐) It has one of the last train station built in Japanese style.  You can actually buy a wooden postcard and have it sent to yourself at the station with its red post box.

(3) Up the hill

After our adventures along the Ping-xi line, we took a bus from Ruifang train station to Jiu Fen (九份) (This time round, we could use of Easi card, so I didn’t have to dig for change for the bus fare!). This lovely town on a hill.  We arrived rather late, and as it was winter, the shops closed quite early.  But we were still able to get some great local food along the old street and later went for some tea at one of their famous tea houses.  Previously, I had only seen this place in the day time, but it takes on different look at night.  There were just lights glittering in the darkness of the hills, and when you look out, you can see the port just below the hills.  I am glad that I was able to take in this sight. 

Well …more updates in the next entry! :)

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Yes...Christmas is around the corner again. And if you have been reading the papers, business have been really good at the stores. The crowds are buying like they have 3 months bonus ( they must not be civil servants like me then....cos I sure can't afford to buy much this year with the conservative bonus we have!). It may be a case of new malls in town, and since there are 4 new malls along Orchard Road this year, it is not difficult to understand the immense surge in shoppers along Orchard Road. I guess this means good news for stores and the economy.

On the other hand, the immense crowds also translated to jams along Orchard Road, lack of parking spaces, long queues at the food joints, and lots of pushing and shoving....which is all quite lousy. And the woes is not in Orchard Road alone. My parents live within walking distance of ION Orchard, it is not unusual that they get a lot more "strange" cars parked along their street around Christmas. However, in recent days, there are many more cars parked along their street then the usual Christmas season, which I can only attribute to the influx of shoppers to the new malls. But what this has resulted in is bad and extremely inconsiderate parking practices. There are cars parked so closed to my parents home entrance that they are unable to drive out of their own gate. And this has happened a couple of times this season.

There are a couple of things that I wonder...if you can afford a car to drive to town, surely you can afford the parking fees right? If you do want free parking, at least be considerate to the people who live along the street. Plus, this is the season of giving and loving, so why not be a little bit more loving to others around it? Ironic isn't it?

Having said that, I must say I was tempted to take a picture of the offending car and putting it up in STOMP! But...this is the season of giving. loving and forgiveness isn't it? So I only put a note to remind the drive to "refrain from parking so close of our home's entrance" ;)