Merry Xmas!

So although it is not a public holiday here, I think this Christmas means more to me than the last year's.
First, I had a great morning spent with Do, Although it is still the night before Xmas there in Montreal. We had a great time playing Diablo II and just telling each other how much we wish to be together on Xmas.

Then I had to give a presentation of my previous work in the group meeting. During the meeting they played Christmas music through the speaker! I think it's because it was lunch time too. So maybe here Christmas is rated and celebrated similar to Halloween in Canada; got the decoration but no holiday.

I think my presentation went well. Some of the students are interested in my work, and it is always good to know that your work is somewhat meaningful. Then I had the treat of candies from the secretary. Yum!! :D

Wishing all of you the very Merry Christmas! Tell me how you spent yours!

Shilin Night Market

Shilin night market is the biggest night market in Taipei. A few shot of the crowd shows you this!
All kinds of stall (mostly food and clothing) are open on the street next to the shops; like this one: a hairdresser called "Mafia".. (trust that they won't cut your ear too?)


Of course the food part is great. See this swimming big prawn in a tank? Yum yum! But not all is good. I tried this pork-medicine soup, which is supposedly good for health. "It makes you strong", my colleague said. But it does taste like chinese medicine, the ones that I used to take when I was a kid! Euuuch!!!
After swallowing the pork medicine as fast as I could, I need some fresh sweet fruit which can be eaten with their special sweet-sourish salt.

And for those who like the previous rabbit picture, here are more of rabbits!! Enjoy! :D

Danshui

Danshui is a 40 minutes ride on MRT, north of Taipei. First stop, of course, food! As my colleague said it "delicious food". What's here? beautiful waterfront scenery and of course more markets!
I went there with my colleague, 崇欽, who has been a very good host. He showed me around and explain to me the various Taiwanese food and culture. I tried many kinds of food, including: red bean soup (which was warm and sweet), various little free miscellaneous things which I'm not quite sure what, glutinous cake and lastly yam fried balls (this is very 'delicious' and very addictive)

Walking around the market, I found these cute rabbits game machine. We tried.. but didn't succeed. I think they cheated because both time we got the rabbit, but the mechanical hands decided to drop it just before reaching the hole.. Rip off!!!

We then took a ferry ride to this bridge. I think the English name was Valentine Bridge (I don't know what's the Chinese name of it).
And before we got back to the city, we were blessed to see this beautiful sunset over the Danshui river! Now, doesn't that want to make you jump on the next plane and visit me? hihihi...

Taipei Computer Expo

So here is how it looked in the Taipei Computer Expo. Full of people (read: guys) surrounding showgirls in stage giving up free stuff.. like bags.

I like this 2nd picture.. it shows the 'action'. It's quite entertaining watching grown men trying to catch free bags in the air :p

And here are some of the beauties.. unfortunately I didn't have the courage to ask them to look at my camera. I should! I promise next time I will try. But don't worry, some of them actually looked better from behind :p

And here they are, the glorious stalls! What a fun day resulting in an 8 CAD mouse and a new USB flash drive :)

National Palace Museum

This place is huge! It contains the display of ceramics, jade, and various bronze collections from goodness knows when (very old)! I went here with my housemate last week after the brunch on Shihding with Tony and Macy. Yes, I do need to start working a bit and thus cannot be a tourist all the time, going around Taipei and taking pictures! However, I will try my best to keep this blog updated with all the photos of cool places I have been.
Relatively easy to get here and around by public transport. MRT to Shilin station and taking the short bus will take you straight in front of this museum. An entry of NT160 will get you inside and also the park next door. Beautiful around sunset :)

Shopping..!

Taiwan.. a place too dangerous for the thin walleted!
Yes, because there are so many things here...
There aren't many of "made in Taiwan" stuff, but there are a lot more of imported stuff here than in Montreal / Australia. Cute things from Japan, expensive things from US and super expensive things from Europe!
And look at this shoe heaven... I'm rather glad that I left my shoes in Montreal. I will have a reason to buy another pair here! hihihi. ok, maybe not now.. maybe till I have my first paycheck.

But prices aren't cheap, unless you buy stuff from the night market; And those cheap stuff normally are cheap quality too. Well the girls do shop a lot here, they dress very well. The guys? hihi.. like in any other country.. T-shirt rocks!

Shihding Saturday

So, last saturday I went with my long time australian buddy Tony, his girlfriend Macy and my housemate Daniel up to a mountain area Shihding (about 30 minutes east of Taipei) to grab some brunch. The cool thing? We went with Tony's convertible BMW whom as the photo beside shows.. not for the faint hearted! I like this picture, it was taken in one of the tunnel.
Then we went and have our brunch under this little tent. The place is famous for meeting of bikers and sports car enthusiast on weekend mornings. The brunch was good. I had a croissant with ham, salad and corn inside! (yes chinese style croissant). The price was quite expensive, but I guess it's the view that we paid for.
Here me and Tony post in front of one of the bikes and then in front of Tony's super car :p
And the last photo is one of the nice view we had during the ride (and one of the nicest un-blurred photo I took considering Tony's mad driving speed!!)
Oh and PS: I've been using Picasa + blogger.. and it has serious problems of uploading pictures and formatting. I'm thinking perhaps I should just link my picasa album to the blog entries rather than uploading here. I only got 50% of my upload quota left!