Thelnie Blogs » taiwan http://thelnie.com/blog Sun, 20 Nov 2011 08:06:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Taiwan Day 8: Teppan http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/06/05/taiwan-day-8-teppan/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/06/05/taiwan-day-8-teppan/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:50:16 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=861 Met up with my aunt for some teppan action. At this point, as you can tell, I was getting pretty guilty with food. Later this day I bought some new Nike running shoes that are compatible with the Nike+ thingy. I’ve only uploaded two runs so far but I plan on using it more often.

The lobster was moving its legs while being cooked but I’m pretty sure it’s just muscle/joint reflex stuff going on there. Pumpkin soup is sooo yummy.

The first picture is of street food! Rice noodle bowl. Also, they have Costco in Taiwan. The last picture is of this huge flat bread packaged like money. Yum!

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/06/05/taiwan-day-8-teppan/feed/ 0 Street food Teppanyaki menu Salad Teppan station Pumpkin soup French Onion Soup Lamb Lamb Lobster Lobster Costco Japanese flat bread Taiwan Day 7: Family time means food too http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/22/taiwan-day-8-family-time-means-food-too/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/22/taiwan-day-8-family-time-means-food-too/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 13:17:42 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=832 Yes, lots and lots of food. At this point, I was feeling reeeeally heavy and fat. Every day, lunch and dinner, heavy stuff. If a little starving African kid went on the food tour I was on, he might have died by now.

This day my aunt on my dad’s side and her husband came over to our house to sit around and we later went to 8 Orders (Ba Dian). Their menu contains just eight different entree sets. Mmm Japanese food! Miso soup is refillable. The best part is that these entrees are only 200 NT each. That’s roughly a little less than 7 bucks. Cheap!

Then we drove around Dan Shui.

Finally, we met up with my uncle on my dad’s side, and his family. I haven’t met my cousin Danny in a long time. I don’t meet my dad’s side of the family very often, actually. They’re in Taiwan or Australia, not really in California though. I know my mom’s side a whole lot better. We ate at this restaurant in Dan Shui that is the only restaurant my uncle will go to. He has cancer so he trusts this restaurant to be light and delicious. Emphasis on the light.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/22/taiwan-day-8-family-time-means-food-too/feed/ 0 8 Order restaurant 8 Order restaurant Unagi Smoked Salmon Bowl Grilled Salmon Tempura View to the Dan Shui river Steamed Lemon Fish Woked Edamame Candied Sweet Potato cubes Eggplant Braised Pork Bittermelon with salted duck egg I forgot what soup this was, but it looks good Taiwan Day 6: Food and 101 http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/21/taiwan-day-6-food-and-101/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/21/taiwan-day-6-food-and-101/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 02:52:29 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=829 I went to the dermatologist this day. I have these little milia seeds in my skin that don’t seem to ever go away. After painful lasering carbon powder on my skin (think tiny explosions), my face was all red.

And then we walked to Taipei 101 building, yay! With my red splotchy face……yaaaay!

We went to eat lunch at this restaurant that had birds in their cages hung around the place. The atmosphere was really light and asiany. Lots of….asian artifacts placed around.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/21/taiwan-day-6-food-and-101/feed/ 0 lunch restaurant with birds tomato shabu shabu base! mmm tomato mixed combo for my dad some kind of fish...in sauce... fruit, ice cream, red bean soup money tickets electric bikes you can rent around 101 for easy travel. smart! 101! dinner at the food court downstairs Taiwan Day 5: Family food http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/07/taiwan-day-5-family-food/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/07/taiwan-day-5-family-food/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 08:22:57 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=825 Day 5! Big family dinner. Everyone came out, except for one of my aunts’ husbands and one cousin, who is in the compulsory army right now. The food was yummy. My little cousin, Karen, was a pretty good girl, but still very lively. My other younger cousin, Stina, who is a few years younger than me, wanted me to go to her university to go to the night market there, but I had told my older cousin, Nathan, that I would go watch his soccer game. It’s the kind of thing I usually do.

It had been raining so the field was muddy and had puddles in some bare spots of grass so everyone got pretty dirty. The other team wasn’t much of a competition and my cousin’s team had beat them before and this game was a rematch. Not much of a rematch @_@.

Then, after going back to Nathan’s house and cleaning up, we, my parents, and his parents took a bus for about 15 minutes to go to some awesome place to eat….sometimes great, but it was closed because it was a sunday! So we went to a nearby noodle house to eat. It wasn’t so bad. I took these with my camcorder, and I realize now that I can’t take pictures up too close with it @_@.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/07/taiwan-day-5-family-food/feed/ 0 On the MRT On the Taipei City bus! Out the window Family Dinner I didn't get this picture in time but it's your standard cold cut appetizer dish. Jelly fish and thinly sliced meats. Stuffed shitake mushrooms with white fungusy stuff and baby bok choy. Seafood veggie soup I don't know what fish this is. Oily rice in leaf. Soooo yummy, Chicken Abalone mushroom. Nathan playing soccer. Tofu and preserved duck egg Beef noodle soup Pig ear and tofu Beef noodle soup Wonton noodle soup Drink and dessert menu. My favorite, Lemon Aiyu jelly ice slush! All gone! Taiwan Day 3 and 4: Food http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/05/taiwan-day-2-and-3/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/05/taiwan-day-2-and-3/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 04:02:19 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=819 Day 2 wasn’t much. We ended up going into the mountains again to eat at the same chicken restaurant with a different set of people because it was soooo good that we had to share this restaurant. We ended up ordering something new though. It’s kind of like hearts of palm, and you peel the outer layer, and dip the fleshy soft part in soy sauce and eat it. It was reeeally good. Kind of bamboo-like.

Then, my eye surgery was at 6:30 and that took about an hour and half of prep (pills to calm me down, more info and what to expect) and eye’s hurting, I quickly went home and my dad bought a sammich for me and I knocked myself out in bed without taking a shower or brushing my teeth. It was pretty bad. See my eye surgery post!

Day 3!

The morning after the surgery was much better and I went out to eat with my parents are family friends. The restaurant was called “I Love My Home.” and it was french cuisine. It was pretty good. Full courses with dessert and everything. Some of the pictures didn’t upload because they are more than 2mb and I’m too lazy to upload them all. But you get the gist. Then we went back to our house and hung out for a bit before going back out to eat at all you can eat hot pot! for only 198 NT! That’s…about 6 bucks. A lot of the all you can eat here is 198 now. The meats and other ingredients like fishballs come in the escalator above and you can just take the dishes. Other ingredients, like veggies, you have to walk over to the section to get it. They had a big drink section, and desserts, popcorn, chocolate fountain, and assorted toast you spread yourself.

Yes, Taiwan has a lot to do with food.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/05/05/taiwan-day-2-and-3/feed/ 0 Cheese and Pate! Seafood Pasta Seafood Soup Cheesecake All you can eat hot pot Ice cream! Other buffet items Chocolate covered cherry tomatoes Taiwan Day 2 http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/26/taiwan-day-2/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/26/taiwan-day-2/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:19:52 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=814 On my second full day, my parents and my aunt and cousin, Nathan, took a trip to Yang Ming Mountain to eat some really good chicken. Omg it was good. I don’t usually like chicken. It’s such a common flavor. Everything can taste like chicken. But the chicken here taste soooo good. I don’t know what they feed them but it’s amazing. We had this taro stuff too that was sooooo good. I’m so glad that I like eating taro now when I used to dislike it. Food is so much more fun to eat when you’re less picky. Currently, I’m working on liking bitter melon and assorted beans. Then I think I’ll be done (insects and other exotic animals aside).

Then we went to Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist school for monks to drum? The place didn’t look overbearing at all and was quiet peaceful. None of that, swooping roofs, red and gold dragons or colorful sculptures. It was really modern, sleek, and minimal.

The Center was inaugurated on October 21, 2005. The buildings in the Center were designed in harmony with contours of the mountain, with brown, gray, and white as their main color, reflecting a humanistic spirit while merging with nature, and featuring a simple and moderate architectural style, making the whole environment and the complex itself a means of teaching.

In addition, in effort to realize environmental protection, ecological construction methods were adopted in constructing the buildings, so as to show respect to, preserve, and protect life and natural resources.

This was taken by someone else. Pictures aren’t allow inside the building.

The picture doesn’t do the place justice. There is a glass window behind the statue that you can look through to see the running water on the wall behind it. There is also a pool of water running around her.

Regardless of religion, it’s a really calming place and the design is really nice.

I bought this awesome mug from the gift shop.

The sillhouette is filled with silver foil and lines eminate from him. Totally my favorite cup now.

Later we went to Black Store, a restaurant my brother keeps raving about. It was good. But I felt so guilty in the end. Which is just about every night now for the past 4 days I’ve been here.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/26/taiwan-day-2/feed/ 0 dharma drum mountain oh my buddha mug Chicken Taro Flowers Volcano Dharma Drum Mountain Main Gate Pool Front View from the mountain Lotus Bell Tea and Coffee Shop Tea and Coffee Shop Brook Brook Lotus Bell Park Another diety A beach Black Store Black Store Black Store Taiwan Day 0! http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/taiwan-day-0/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/taiwan-day-0/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:40:32 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=807 I love flying in planes. I’m a flying kind of girl. I’ve wanted to be an airflight attendant from the first time I flew on an airplane.

This time, I got to fly first class on EVA airlines. Wooooo.

Overall, the trip was pretty decadent. There were sooo many good movies to watch too! They had The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I’ve been telling my mom to watch but she never seems to want to sit down and watch it. From what we’ve told her, she thinks she needs to be totally relaxed and able to concentrate to watch it. And she thinks it’ll affect her a lot. So, she didn’t even watch it on the plane. I watched K-20, the new movie with Takeshi Kaneshiro, Bedtime Stories (it wasn’t veeerry good but enjoyable enough), and Suspect X, a Japanese film will suspense! Suspect X was pretty good, but it wasn’t like I expected. It was more than just a “is he going to figure out the murder?” It was pretty sad. What I got from it at the end is “Smart people just need a little love too sometimes!” Not like I didn’t know that, but that’s what the moral of the movie is, I think. That or “Don’t think you’re too smart to cover up a murder because your former classmate might be interested in the case and figure it out but you don’t even care at that point because you think you’ve fufilled your life’s purpose already”

K-20 was droolworthy for Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Matsu Takako. I’ve liked Matsu Takako from the dorama Hero, alongside Kimura Takuya. Omg that series was soooo good. A mystery every episode! Prosecution! Defense! And a little cute romance. That’s also when I started to really like Kimura Takuya…but…he is getting a little old <: ( Still good looking. Actually I didn’t add him to my top 5 on facebook though…it’s hard to find a good picture of him honestly <: /. Anyway, the movie was alright. The art style is kind of Casshern, with the muted colors and all, but not as hard to understand as Casshern. It’s childish adventure comedy.

The free vanity kit was nice. L’occitane lotion and lip balm. ^_^

Click on the picture to see the captions!

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/taiwan-day-0/feed/ 1 Snacks First Class First Class Appetizer First Class Salad First Class Main Course First Class Dessert First Class Midnight Snack First Class Breakfast First Class Breakfast First Class Breakfast First Class I can see clearly now the rain has gone http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/i-can-see-clearly-now-the-rain-has-gone/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/i-can-see-clearly-now-the-rain-has-gone/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:08:13 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=804 I haven’t posted this, but I’m in Taiwan right now. Pictures will come soon. I’ve been just way busy with the food, family, and friends frenzy that always happens when I visit. (Alliteration!)

One of the things I came here for was to get laser eye surgery. My dad got it done a couple months ago and said it was so good that he encouraged me to get it done too. Not only is it cheap in Taiwan, but the guy that did it is famous for it. It’s around 1,500 US dollars for both eyes.

My first day there I just did a bunch of tests for eye curvature, and presciption. My eyes were a lot worse than I thought! Around 890 on both eyes. Those are….asian…eye numbers. I think they use a different scale or something. They also checked the thickness cornea (a little thicker than normal) and how well my eyes tear up (more than normal).

I made an appointment to get my eyes lasered in two days time, which is yesterday. I became increasingly nervous about it. My biggest concern is that I’m a reeeally curious person and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep looking at one spot, or not move my eye. You know when you’re staring at a spot, but you can kind of see the area around it…if I become aware of the area around it, I’m not really looking in that direction right? That kind of stuff.

I had to take some pills…like anti-biotics? I wanted to know exactly what they were, but she just told me to swallow them. One of the pills was to calm me down. They changed me into a scrub gown and cloth slippers and led me into the room next to the operation room. She told me not to be frightened by the machine sounds. I could also hear the screams of the patient. Kidding.

The nurse gave me a teddy bear to hold onto and placed a blanket over me as I slide onto the table. The nurse put this huge sticker onto my face, kind of like a facial mask, but a sticker, and they taped my right eyelids open, and use a wire eye opener thingy to stretch me eye open. That kind of hurt because I have tiny eyes! After squirting different kinds of liquid in my face, she told me to stare at the green light while the doctor did unknown things. I think the scariest part, was the part where the machine cuts the flap. It doesn’t hurt, but you can totally feel the initial cut of the flap as the machine passed over my eye. That’s the blindness part becuase it becomes black and I can’t see. Which made me reeeally nervous because I could no longer focus on the green light, but I had to pretend I was focusing on something and while I was freaking out trying to focus, I worried that  I wasn’t focused and that my eyeball would be rolling all over the place. Then I could tell that the doctor fliped the flap over, and the nurse sprayed more stuff into my eye.

The lights went out and the green light turned reddish orange, in the shape of a starburst. The first split second as the laser starts startled me, because you can feel it, but it’s not painful, just sudden. A slight numbing feeling. Honestly, the sounds of the machine are scarier than the actual procedure, and fear depends on how big your imagination is.

I tried not to think about lasers cutting my eye, focused on the center of the ever sparkling starburst, and held tightly to teddy, my new best friend.

I also had to remind myself to breathe.

After the right eye, they did the same for my left, and then it was over! The actual surgery took about 5 minutes. They led me to a sitting room, where other girls who had it done sat to relax, and one of the girls kept wiping away tears. She asked me if I was crying and I said, “no…” but I thought “at least not yet…” She looked kind of freaked that something had gone wrong because she couldn’t keep crying, and that her eyes really hurt. About 3 minutes later, I understood what she meant. My eyes become more and more irritated. I didn’t really cry, but it was really annoying and it hurt to open my eyes. My dad had to lead me around to the MRT (metro rapid transit) and sat in stabbing pain for the next 45 minutes to get home.

I went to sleep right away (I didn’t know you could sleep while in pain) and the next morning, today, I am perfectly well. I have to wear these eyeshields when I go out to protect my eyes against wind and other elements. This also means that I don’t have to wash my hair myself anymore! I’m getting my hair done at the salon > < Squeeee. I love getting my hair washed in Taiwan because it’s sooo cheap and totally pampering. Not only do you get your scalp massaged, but they blow and style your hair and give you a neck and shoulder massage, all for around 6 US dollars. I would totally skip a meal in the states for something like this.

Anyhow, that’s it! My eye surgery story.

]]> http://thelnie.com/blog/2009/04/25/i-can-see-clearly-now-the-rain-has-gone/feed/ 2 Remembering…Computer Expo in Taiwan http://thelnie.com/blog/2008/11/01/rememberingcomputer-expo-in-taiwan/ http://thelnie.com/blog/2008/11/01/rememberingcomputer-expo-in-taiwan/#comments Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:13:33 +0000 Thelnie http://thelnie.com/blog/?p=411 When I go to Taiwan in the summer, I look forward to the computer expo in Taipei. They usually have Intel there, which presents WoW. This video was from 2005. I dug it up. It’s pretty lols. My favorite part is the gnome kids.

At this time, Taiwan hadn’t gotten WoW yet, so they didn’t really know how to play it. I was actually able to sign onto my US account from there too. Epeeeen. And I got to embarrass the guys there by teaching them how to play. kekekeke.

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