Surviving Taipei

Keelung and Yehliu, a past memory

2009-11-27T12:26:00.007+08:00

So now that I have left Taiwan, I actually miss it.
I miss the food (most importantly)! How good, how cheap!
The market stalls' food, especially the snow ice. Argh, can't them them anywhere else!
I also miss the easy of buying jeans that fit my size.
I miss the efficient health system they have. Both for medical and dental.

I miss the landscape, I miss the people. Looking back, I got great photos from Taiwan. Some even didn't have the chance to be uploaded here. I will, slowly.

First let's start with Keelung and Yehliu Geopark. You can drive, or take one of the tour buses. There are day long and 1/2 day long trips. It's quite cheap, 1000NT to go to both with a minibus shared around 10 people, and accompanied by an English speaking tourguide. Certainly worth the visit!

We went pass the Keelung harber and our first stop was the Jhongjheng Park (first photo here), then we proceed to Yehliu geopark to see the rock formations. Most famous one is the Queen's Head. It looks huge in the photos, but it actually quite tiny, probably only around 3m high. Pick a day where it's not so touristy, because otherwise you really have to line up around 15 minutes to take pictures with the queen only, and this is not good because you probably only have 30-40 minutes total at the park.

If you like landscape photography, definitely a must!

Bridges

2009-06-16T23:51:00.002+08:00

So, looking for some spot to take pictures around Taiwan?

These are a few pictures of bridges in Taipei. The first three is of Rainbow bridge. The red coloured bridge connects the Neihu and Songshan district. It's called rainbow because it looks like one and at night time they put rainbow coloured ligts around it (have yet the chance to take a photo of the night time. Must not forget tripods!)

It i a fun wavy bridge, you can see it from the bottom view.

The last photo is a picture of Dazhi Bridge at Dajia Riverside Park. It connects Neihu and Dazhi district. Very pretty at sunset. You will see the bridge being illuminated by the sun rays.. while the sun itself will go down just near the Grand taipei hotel.

Creativity and curiousity

2009-05-13T18:23:00.005+08:00

In the everly increasing world of overvalued money, overvalued power, I am blessed to find glimpses of creativity and curiosity around me.

Of course, to survive in such a big city like Taipei (with the population of 10 million people in the metropolitan area), one does not have many choices but to be creative to survive.

These are a few that are appreciated. Only a few that was captured by the lens.

The first is a photo of kids. Kids, always curious and always easily mesmerized are wonderful reminders to appreciate creativity.

The 2nd picture is about a guy who make this glass like caramelized figures. This is the first time and only time I saw something like this. It definitely requires skills. I love the fact that he involved the kids to help the creation process by letting them blowing in to the caramelized tubes while he shape the heated sugar to various shapes.

The third and fourth pictures is showing a painter in process of painting a portrait picture of his selected random people from the crowd. He finished the entire picture in about 5 minutes. He was jumping, running like a mad fella while occasionally put a stroke or two down on the black canvas. When he finishes he always wipe out the canvases and draw a new one.

Ah creativity, I hope she never fails to visit us.

More of Taiwanese food!

2009-03-09T00:36:00.002+08:00

With my boyfriend Dominic who is currently visiting me here in Taipei, I had a great time trying out more of Taiwanese food. Such as this one, instant food bought from Family Mart. Lots of tofu and meat product. Meat product, you said? Yes!
And this is the glimpse of meat product from the local market. Pig hoofs. Dead chicken and fish head. See how yummy those are? :p

Yilan

2009-02-18T00:52:00.002+08:00

The excursion of the winter school was to go to the National Center for Traditional Arts (NCFTA). The first photo was taken of a group of KungFu students performing their 'art'.
This one is a temple for students to pray before their exams
Amongst the many arts they display is this glass art. Since it is the year of the Ox, seems like Ox is everywhere!
Also charcoal figures with gold accents. Very nice! I've never seen this thing before.
And of course it wasn't complete with a shallow dof picture of a row of colorful wooden tops One of the cute moments :) More photos in picasa (just ask me the link)

4th Winter School, Jiaosi

2009-02-18T00:49:00.003+08:00

decoration: underline;">So this is how it looks like when a bunch of physicist get together and talk entanglement and superconductivity for 4 days. It was an interesting gathering at Tamkang University, Lanyang campus. The campus is on top of a mountain, serenely isolated from everything else. Quite an architectural work!

Obvious from the photo that it was attended by many local Taiwanese students and a few international speakers. I learned quite a few interesting stuff, including not to get sick during conference!

A few must haves

2009-02-06T21:59:00.002+08:00

Yes, a stamp of your name! Everybody has one here in Taiwan and it is one of the first thing that the secretary ask me to do when I got here. So here is my chinese name and seal.. it's "Wu Di An" ... which they took from "Dian W. U" haha. Fair enough.

The second thing that would be nice to have is of course bankcards! The green cute one is from the government bank. This is where my salary is deposited. The right card is a visa debit (number has been disguised.. ahahha) that I just applied for today.

Banks here have funny system. First of all, in the electronic age of today.. they still do paperwork and a lot of it! To apply for an account, I first have to go to the security guard at the door, tell him what I want. He will give me a slip of paper with the queue number. Wait for then number, then the banker. Most bank here have one person in each bank that speaks broken English. Consider yourself lucky if you meet that person! Then he will ask you for your passport, your Alien Residence Card, and your stamp, and normally a 1000NTD for first deposit. He then filled in about 20 different forms, log it in 3 different books, stamp it with 4 types of different stamps of dates, and at least 3 other validation stamps. Why not just computerize everything? And while this process is taking place you can see the two supervisors at the back doing next to nothing while the poor tellers working superfast with the million paperworks. Meanwhile you will be served a hot tea in plastic cup or offered some candies. Some consolation! If everything is settled, you will get your bank card and a bank book with the printout of your transaction.. and sometimes the banker have a tiny ruler to ruled out some entries. The card has magnetic stripe and the chip. It is run with different pin number. The whole applying for an account process took about an hour! It was an experience in itself, surely.

Hong kong Chinese New Year Excursion

2009-02-06T21:32:00.003+08:00

My apology for the hiatus, I have just been back from Hong Kong for the Chinese new year. I met my family there, my parents came from Indonesia, me from Taipei.. and we met there. It was a joyful week.

Chinese New Year celebration there is big, with lots of lion dancing, a parade and fireworks. Not to mention the sale!

Of course the downside is that everything was more expensive too. Starting from the flight ticket down to the extra bed in the hotel room.

So here are some pictures from the trip. First, me and the lion .. taken in Langham Hotel Mongkok.. a hotel connected to the big branded shopping centre. It was awfully full of people!

The second picture is of Sogo shopping centre, the stals all in red and pink for the chinese new year, selling all kinds of food; cakes, preserved, cookies and peanuts.

The elegant sculpture is at the venue of stars in Tsim Tsat Shui. It was the tourist centre. We had the chance of staying close to that for 2 nights. It's pretty westernized

This is yours truly and the Hongkong Island skyline. The sky looks that grey for almost the entire trip! We had sunny days only on the last 2 days! It doesn't stop us from taking pictures though.

This is the boat shooting fireworks for the celebration. We saw the fireworks on our comfortable hotel room (and thank goodness for that because down below was jam packed!). But as the results, all my photos are on a blur (because of the window) and also because I don't use the tripod head (forgot to bring it!). Ah well. maybe next time.

And of course, the picture of our special taxi with the many cute things on the dashboard! As you can see the starting price of taxi in Hong Kong is 16 HKD.. and it goes up around 2HKD per kilometre. Not bad hey?

Taiwan Snack

2009-01-23T01:18:00.000+08:00

So finally I gave in to the tempation of Taiwan's snacks. First, is this tiny noodle like snack that is very yummy.
Then there is the pea crackers that is not so yummy. Yes, I got it just out of curiousity
If you want a healthier alternative, these grass cereal that I bought for my mum looks ok.
Or maybe almond with "Hazlnut" powdered drink :p

Puzzle Floor

2009-01-23T01:06:00.001+08:00

Apparently common in Taiwan, puzzle flooring! Made of mouse-pad foam (or a rough-cheap-carpet-like material), these squares are popular for people to line up their floor with. I did with my traso tiles because it's getting too chilly in the winter for my feet! These things are available from the corner shop; 10 tiles of 40cm each for 4 bucks in various colour. Funky hey? Should have got the orange ones .. !

Taiwanese Flag

2009-01-02T20:53:00.000+08:00

In the attempt to stir up a controversy, Daniel had the idea of taking picture with Taiwanese flag and bringing it to China to show his chinese girlfriend. So I follow suit with this picture. It was a rainy day.. and yet we stayed strong and showed our patriotism :p

Merry Xmas!

2008-12-25T16:38:00.000+08:00

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

2008-12-17T23:01:00.006+08:00

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

2008-12-14T14:42:00.008+08:00

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

2008-12-12T00:19:00.001+08:00

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

2008-12-06T21:38:00.000+08:00

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..!

2008-12-03T23:41:00.001+08:00

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

2008-12-01T22:15:00.012+08:00

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!

Physics Department NTU

2008-11-28T19:32:00.003+08:00

So this is where I work and spent 1/3 of my day at. The physics department building is the tallest building in NTU. Which helps, because I got lost in the campus quite often. The campus is just huge! People rides bike to one building to the other and perhaps I should too. Considering... considering whether to embarrass myself with my newly acquired amateur biking ability, or perhaps forcing myself to walk (read: exercise) each day.

Notice anything strange about this picture? This little pagoda-like structure in the lake is not connected to the land! The stairs doesn't go anywhere. Yes, the story goes that long time ago in 70s there was a girl who committed suicide and jump to the lake due to unrequited love. Then the university decided to cut the bridge in between!
And of course.. like a typical picture perfect lake: white geese! Here are some geese enjoying the sunset in the lake :)

Taipei MRT

2008-11-25T17:58:00.001+08:00

Taipei MRT is probably one of the cleanest MRT system that I have encountered. To me it has the similar feeling to the Singapore metro. This one is GongGuan Station, the station to my university. Several things to note: it's very clean, and it allow mobile phone signals (unlike Montreal STM). The fees depends on the distance normally around 20-30 NTD each way which is paid through a magnetic card (similar to Montreal STM) for the frequent traveler or a blue plastic single token journey which has to be surrendered at the exit.

I have acquired myself the metro map with all the listing of point of interests for each metro station. I'll see if I can get through all of these an take a picture for your viewing pleasure! :)

PS: And oh, I didn't get stomach ache from yesterday .. hihih. Time to try something else?

The suspect

2008-11-24T20:20:00.001+08:00

So this is the suspect of my stomach ache the other day. And so why did I buy it again? Of course to try and experiment whether this really is the culprit or perhaps rather that I have gotten the anti-bacteria in my stomach to fight it for the 2nd time around!
I will report tomorrow morning! :p

My new flatmate

2008-11-24T09:51:00.002+08:00

Meet Daniel, my flatmate. We went to a restaurant called something something pasta. hihi. I can't remember the name! We went to the Shida night market for dinner. He's a nice fella, currently studying chinese and working in animation. Yet another computer geek in my life!

And the next picture is of course my chosen dinner last night :) Angel hair pasta with XO sauce, $150 but includes tea, soup and all you can eat salad. Most restaurant here gives free ice tea so we don't spend the crazy amount of money in drinks; Which what usually happens in Canada / Australia. There they make the money from selling the overpriced drinks, while here.. i don't know how they make money! Maybe just constant volume of transaction?

My new home

2008-11-24T09:38:00.001+08:00

Meet my room! Finally everything is out of the suitcases and installed properly in its places. The bed is soft... and with no plastic cover underneath! Yeaaah! And I have a little balcony too (which i'm not sure for what, because it's not overlooking anything worth to look... to hang my laundry?!?)
This is the living room. The good thing living with the 2 foreigner is that the house is clutter free! Unlike many asian apartment. Yes, I'm sure you're familiar with your chinese friend's house or your gradma's house if you're asian.
Shower an toilet. Good water pressure, and high enough mount to cater the tall housemate. I've only met one so far and he's very nice. They're both from Uk and it turns out that they were neighbours back in their home country. So I'm in the odd one out in this house!

Daan Park

2008-11-23T20:45:00.004+08:00

We went to Daan Park on Saturday morning. First we bought some 'buffet' meal. Buffet here doesn't carry the same meaning to back in Indonesia / Australia which normally means all you can eat and still pay the same. Here it is all you can take (and afford to pay) in a cartoon box. This, of course I found out later after taking the nicest, biggest looking 1/2 fish on display! NT 120, not such a big damage.
We then walked around the park for hours and find these phone booth. Taiwanese like their 'cute' things. Snoopy and piggy bank.
And of course, the occasional westerner spotting brings smiles. We found this guy amongst kids at rollerblading ring in the park. Check out his 4 wheels rollerblade. I guess you can tell his age from that!
My 18 years old friend Danica, of course, does not now that these pairs doesn't come from the future. She was amazed and thought it was the newest, coolest model of roller blade. I, didn't correct her :D
Lastly, apparently it was a big family celebration that day which includes kids drawing competition. This brings back the old forgotten memory from the girl who used to go to too many drawing competition with his sister! I walked around, check out the picture, pretending to be the jury and the journalist with the camera, finding the 'best' one. Here is one that I thought could win. It has the element of cheerfulness, bright solid Pentel colors; "Kak Alex" style.

A new friend

2008-11-22T09:51:00.009+08:00

News flash.. I got my first stomach ache here!!! Woo hooo.. hahaha
Thanks to the Shida night market dumplings.. I think!
So last night I tried something more conservative: pork+fried egg and rice in a restaurant.

Also, Introducing my friend Danica, from Palau! (yes.. go ahead and wiki it if you don't know where it is! I will be quite impressed if you guys know!).
I met her when she visit my current temporary accommodation to rent it. The landlord didn't come on time so I was the one showing her the apartment. She's still 18 years old.. and I don't know if she realize that I'm much more than 18.. hihihi. I do realize that she is 18 though.. from the thing she talked about, the way she talked. It's so different than my friends in Montreal whom are 30+ (Yes, you guys are old! hahaha).

There are a lot of things you can just not talk to an 18 years old. I'm not being condescending but it's true. The way they view the world are so so different. Nevertheless, she's a great girl and I'm friends with her, we ate this awesome dinner at "Jamaica coffee". My meal was 105NTD with free ice tea. It was yummy! We were going to meet up again for lunch Saturday afternoon.

And may I add, drinks here are awesome :D. I am going to try as many drinks possible and documented them for your pleasure :p They each cost about 15-35 NTD.. normally either flavoured tea, flavoured milk, flavoured soy milk or flavoured yoghurt.

Ah, such a flavoured country!

Shida night market

2008-11-20T21:38:00.004+08:00

What a fun way to go for dinner! 30NTD for 5 dumplings and 25NTD for a huge bread.
I had fun walking around the night market, feeling all touristy... checking out the girls ;)
No no.. not for me! hehe.. I have mon cheri!

And it was fun being surrounded by so many locals, finding out bargains, eating el cheapo food,
the joy!

I also went to seal the deal at my new apartment. I'd be sharing it with 2 guys from UK.
I have only met one chap but I think it's going to be great. I don't have to feel awkward not speaking chinese in the house, having laid-back western style without the owner imposing tight rules about having visitors around or any other rules like the one I have in my current temporary apartment.

And no plastic on the mattress! The joy!

Apartment hunting

2008-11-20T02:07:00.002+08:00

One of the difficult thing in settling down is to find a suitable apartment. My current temporary apartment (picture on the side) is quite nice. It's on the 4th level, not too far from university. The streets here are not straight east-west, but they have a cool way of naming. For example my street is a small lane branched from Taishun street.. so it's just Lane number Taishun street. This, of course doesn't help me finding my way back home tonight. I manage to go around the big block for an extra 15 minutes to find my street in the dark evening! Sore feet expected.

Apartment here are quite expensive. Converting it to CAD, it is slightly cheaper than in Montreal, but considering the quality and the space .. almost the same price in Montreal! A shared room (furnished) cost about 400CAD per month. I was looking at another apartment here which is slightly cheaper, on the $350 mark but not that much of a difference. The starting price is expensive.. but for a little bit more, around $600 per month one can get a luxury apartment. So then it is a tough decision! When the case is wanting to save some money for future plane tickets (yes yes :) ), o you look for price, or value?

Similarly for food, the starting point is quite high but then a better meal is not much more expensive. Instant noodle cost $1 CAD (pictured here) and a meal of fresh made dumplings cost $1.50 CAD. Pasta meal at university $4 CAD.
Instant noodle is no longer a worthy money saving option.

It still taste good to me! :D

Taipei, Day 1

2008-11-19T03:42:00.006+08:00

Arriving in Taipei was painless.Surviving, though, is another matter entirely.
First, the 21 hours flight. It was bearable with good food from EVA air and movies like Dark Knight (yes, I finally watch it!). Then the silent taxi ride; Silent because the driver only speaks mandarin and I cannot reply other than 'xiexie'.

The temporary room is quite nice. Relatively expensive $500 NT per night (19 CAD), but it's close enough to the university that I can walk around and get lost in the alleys. Which of course.. I did! And may I add, the obsession of keeping plastic covers on things are overwhelming! Hm.. mattress in covered in plastic.. makes me think I'm sleeping in the shop!

Basic simple needs like food becomes more tricky too. I'm not doing that bad for first day. I manage to order this lunch for $115 NTD (about $4 CAD). It was a beef noodle soup; the most expensive thing in the menu. Yes, the only one that has a picture.

Another yummy stuff that I managed to taste is a green tea yoghurt drink. for $20 NTD from the 7-Eleven. Here is a picture of me with it in my new desk. It is a bare minimum office, without computer, buzzing flourescent light, shared with another postdoc.

All in all, it was a nice day. Homesick is quite bearable, thanks to the new video google, words of love from Do and thinking that it is below zero in Montreal for everybody else there.. hee hee! :D