Shifen waterfall is just one of many that can be found around Taiwan. We only made it to this waterfall on this trip, but I’m sure we’ll be back to visit the other parts of Taiwan. It takes a bit of work to figure out which trains to take, because there was a transfer on our trip, and it was a 2 hour ride in a packed train (we left Taipei around 11AM), so we were famished by the time we arrived. The first thing we did was get a bite to eat from the vendors that line the railroad tracks at Shifen. Here’s a pancake with chives and I think there was egg:



Pork in steamed bun (must must must have this), from a stall right next to the station:



Please keep in mind that this location is a tourist trap. Notice the dots in the image above, those dots are not a dirty spot on your monitor., These are paper lanterns that were released into the sky by Shifen visitors, who write their hopes and dreams on the paper lantern. The lanterns fly up over the river, then land in the river when the fire making them rise up is extinguished. I didn’t like this concept, too environmentally damaging. There were a few scavengers on the river shore, picking up the dead hopes and dreams lanterns. One even landed right on the train station platform, still in flames, but it didn’t cause much damage because an attendant came by to fix it.

Beautiful waterfall, good food, busy atmosphere, I will not be back to this spot in Taiwan.

Here are more photos of the train routes:

s

Pink dragonfruit?!

Other people might say chicken or rooster, but phoenix just sounds so much more magical. This year is supposed to be a good one for Dragons, and I tried to start it off busy, just the way I like it.

Friday night, had what could be considered a small Lunar New Year party in my Basement, and we didn’t split until way past midnight.

Next morning was all for family time. Breakfast with mother at Duo Tian, then went to my aunt’s for lunch with about half the relatives, including two 3 year old boys and a 1.5 month old baby. We were just pulling out the mah jong table when H reminded me that we had agreed to go to this Fresh St. Market lions dance organized in conjunction with Taione, who imports fruits directly from Taiwan (get it? Taione… Taiwan… ha).

Two different types of wax apples above. Black pearl on the left, which is absolutely delicious. Crisp, sweet, juiciness in each bite. Almost like a Japanese pear, with a different flavor. I think I might be addicted to these now.

There’s still a lot to learn about these weirdly shaped fruits..  Abe, one of the directors at Taione, had actually spent about a week with the farmers in Taiwan, to fully immerse himself in their culture and learn how these fruits are grown. He had grown up in Vancouver, along with Lawrence, the CEO of Taione, and upon returning to Vancouver, he was inspired to team up with a group of his friends to start this Taiwanese fruit trading business. After almost 5 years, they’ve been able to introduce these exotic fruits into the daily lives of Canadians.

H and I also met with one of the managers of Fresh St. Market, Kent, who chooses the produce for the stores. He supported the diversity that these exotic fruits brought to his stores, and it was interesting to learn from him that a lot more local produce was being produced these days, with a spike in younger farmers. It brought me back to just last summer, working at the VFM. Anyways, these fruits might look weird (the wax apple looks a bit like a suction cup from a tentacle, and the dragonfruit looks like something from a scifi movie), but they’re sweet, juicy, absolutely gorgeous in photos. Looking forward to seeing more from Taione and Fresh St. Market!

After spending time with my family, it was time for us to spend time with H’s family. We had dinner at Sun Bo Kong, and celebrated with a fancy schmany cake from Fauborg:

Words cannot describe how perfect this cake was… Strawberry flavored jelly and just the right level of sweetness. I think I liked this better than the chocolate one I had on my birthday, mainly because it tasted more tart and not so sweet. 



Sometimes, when things seem to finally be going smoothly, another pothole forms and we crash right into it. Just gotta be more flexible.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change - Stephen Hawking

For example, I forgot to turn on my wifi at home for a day, watched Youtube, and now, I have only 0.87GB left of data for the next 3 weeks. Help.

Happy lunar new year.

This was the last weekend before H and I went to Hong Kong/Taiwan, so we had to have a meal together with his folks. We went to a Northern style Chinese restaurant in Richmond, called Northern Style Chinese Restaurant ( lol ):

The food is not bad, rather oily and full of MSG/salt, so don’t expect anything healthy. We had the leek scrable eggs, one of the fried noodles, a onion pan fried pancake, and another… Chinese fried dough thing. We also had dumplings with parsley: 

The food was cheap, which is always a plus. Horribly slow service, and I suspect if you speak only English, they’ll ignore you forever. The thing to order next time would be the tomato scramble egg and perhaps more dumplings.



This year started with so much hope, and it’s been fun, but I’m pretty burnt out now, really looking forward to the end. I had to take the day off today from the headache. Even had to go to a doctor to get meds to dampen the pain.. I haven’t felt this 9 out of 10 type of pain that brings tears to my eyes in a while.

The pain will go away (has gone away) and things will change again, I'm sure.

It feels like we're in the Brentwood area more frequently now, after moving away. We went back to the Amazing Brentwood to explore the food court with a few other friends, and we all ended up ordering from Chef Hung: 

Fish cakes: 

Fried chicken:

Braised pork on rice: 

Not bad for food court! Obviously not the same as actually braised pork on rice in Taiwan, but this really hit the spot.

I have been feeling so drained ever since the day of four coffees, but even so, I was determined to get things done the other day. We had her one year shots that day, and by the time we got home, I was ready to collapse on the ground. There was no time for that though. I had to put baby S down for a nap, catch up on work, get ingredients for dinner, and start actually prepping dinner (thank goodness H can cook and I don't have to do it all). 

I was determined to make this lemon chicken orzo soup, but was also missing a few ingredients, including orzo. Who knew orzo was such a rare ingredient around this part of town?

 

I tried to support local and walked with baby S to a few different local grocery stores, spent about an hour and a half trying to find the stupid orzo, and eventually drove over to Whole Foods. I guess it was meant to be though, because I had been on the hunt for eucalyptus clippings for a while, and they finally had it in stock.  I'll go where the universe takes me.

This weekend, I had to remind myself that having a child means moving at a slower pace. It's not just that it takes time to get baby S ready to do simple things, but it also uses up a lot of energy to convince her to go along with our plans (diaper changes have become a bit of a wrestling match lately),

Some people might also say that I could use my time more efficiently. 

Maybe we still have piles of boxes left to unpack, and we can't close our closet doors because bags of clothing from our move are spilling out. Maybe the weeds on our front lawn are growing prolifically, because we'd rather push a button to remove a patch of weeds on Animal Crossing instead of doing the actual manual labor. Maybe I'd rather spend an hour and a half walking to different local grocery stores with my baby in her baby carrier instead of driving, because it's hilarious to watch her reactions to the things we see on the street. 

Here’s our 2nd meal of braised meat on rice for this trip:



We ordered an egg to go with it this time, because the meat juices and the perfectly marinated egg with the runny egg yolk go so well together. This place had just 1 lady running the show. Here’s her shop sign:



Come by here, in the Dongmen Market, if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s got a very hole in the wall feel.

Then, we went for a post breakfast snack of xiao long bao at Su Hang, as recommended by a Taiwanese coworker:



There was a short wait to get a table, during which we watched the xiao long bao’s get wrapped up and steamed. Overall, the service was good enough, but the food was just OK, didn’t really stand out. Then again, we came here half full already.

Finally, we walked over to my coffee shop:



I gotta work on the presentation a bit, there’s no latte art!



Just kidding, it’s not my coffee shop. It’s a coffee shop chain called Louisa Coffee that seems to be quite popular in Taipei.

What would the world be like if we were brave enough to believe in our own ability? Like my ability to eat everything.

There were only a handful of meals we’d have in this city, and we had TWO here at Yong He 永和豆漿大王:

Here’s their order menu. Many options!


Here are their happy workers:


If I died, and somebody wanted to bring me back to life, they just need to bring me some of Yong He’s hot salted soy milk with egg. It’s just the right amount of salty, with soft liquidy egg (I’m sure it’s cooked and safe to eat though, because we didn’t get sick). They put a bit of the Chinese donut in it so there’s something to chew. I could eat it forever. This is one of the things I’d come back to Taipei for.

Then, we went to Beitou to go for a relaxing dip in sulphurous hot spring water, because both of us were feeling the hours of walking. Dropping in at around 1PM at the Grand View Resort, we were able to get a last minute appointment for a private room, which looked like this:



Super relaxing. They have really good wooden buckets here to pour water on your back or what not. We were relaxed and to keep walking after the 90 minute soak.

One of the meals we had with D&T were at Lamesa Filipino Kitchen:



Lamesa means table, so the full name means… table filipino kitchen? Anyways. They served some pretty tasty food with romantic lighting, moody ambiance. We had this coconut fried polenta as a garnish for their fish (above, the polenta is that rectangular prism supporting the fish), and I fell in love with the restaurant then. I wish we could’ve just ordered that on its own.



We also had this pork (above), and it was just OK. Chinese pork siu yok is better, just because it’s oiler and juicier. We ended the meal with the ube dessert at the top of the page, which was quite refreshing.

I miss traveling, and it’s only been a week and a half since Sunshine Coast. November will be Hong Kong and Taiwan! If only I had more time and money to travel. I’m already maximizing as much as possible on my measly 15 vacation days, and buying only the essentials to keep me presentable in public. I’ve cut down on the alcohol, the eating out… Can’t cut down on coffee though. How do I travel more, like this guy says we should:

The air in the office makes us dizzy.

Went out for a coffee and some alone time at The Drive Coffee Bar:

This place wasn’t too busy at around noon today, with 2 baristas. They have good strong coffee. I had the iced lavender latte, sat on their little patio, and researched places to go in Taiwan. I liked that it was quiet and peaceful, despite being on a busy street and I will be back to try other coffees (or maybe a beer). 

  

I’m glad I have these hobbies to keep me busy while H is out of town. Here was coffee number 1 from earlier today, and my new baby plants from the Prickly Pear sale:

Plants from Prickly Pear, around $9.
Terrarium from garage sale, $2.
Coffee from Nespresso, around $0.75. Lol.

I’m trying to budget so I can get my drone this month on Amazon Prime Day.

We visited the Shilin night market for dinner on that first day, right after Beitou, and we were greeted by vendors on both sides. Their tactic is to assume you have already agreed to get something from their stall, and they aggressively ask whether you want one or two, small or large… Here’s one of the first braised meat rice dishes that we had from a quieter shop, tucked away at the back of the Shilin night market:



Then, we found the famous fried chicken stall, that actually had a huge line up, so they had no need for a pushy sales person at their stall. Note that the sign says 70NT, which comes to just under $3 CAD:



We also went into the covered market place, which had a food court at the bottom floor, where lots of seafood was lying around, waiting to be eaten. Here’s an egg oyster omelet that they serve with sauce: 

I did a bit of shopping here too. We were exhausted.

PS – Weekends are too short. I’m still scrambling to finish these blog posts about Asia.

To end the 2nd day in Taipei, I ran up the steps of the Elephant Mountain trail, and made it just in time to see the sun setting. It was amazing, but at the same time it wasn’t, because there were 100+ people on that trail, trying to get the best photo, and mosquitoes were eating me alive. This should be expected on a beautiful day with clear skies.

The “hike” and photos took me about 1 hour. I was ready to eat by then, and on the menu, was buffet at INPARADISE. Here’s a compilation of the various food options available:

It’s been a busy week, and I wish I could say time flew by, but… come on 2017, just end already! I’m ready for the changes that 2018 will bring!

I only had coffee twice on this trip, and both times, it was a bit more expensive than Vancouver, but just as good. First coffee shop we went to was Woolloomooloo:



Decent food, friendly service, and newspapers from around the world, lined up on the wall for customers to read. I would come back, if I were homesick, because the food and coffee were very similar to what’s served in Vancouver.



The 2nd place was Rufous Coffee Roasters:


I had high expectations for this place, mainly because I usually expect coffee roasters to really know their stuff and have amazing brew. The photo above was taken in their outdoors seating area, where they had planted cute little succulents and tropicals along their fence. It was pretty much perfect coffee, from the latte art to the amount of caffeine actually extracted into that little cup. H had the pour over, and a sip of that could pull you through 24 hours of no sleep. The server greets as the door opens, helps to find you a seat and then gives you a basket for your belongings. Beware that the place was quite small with limited seating and dim lighting, and the bathroom is a bit tricky because there’s a step to get inside.


Back to present day, it’s December, which means 2 things...

1. Time to start Christmas shopping. FYI, I want all the things from Everlane.
2. Time to start birthday present shopping. My birthday is in a month, and again, I want all the things from Everlane.

The next few days before travelling to Europe will be busy, and we wanted to meet up at least once before I fly. Being busy productive adults, it’s difficult to make time, but we did it. We ended up going to Hou Cai Lei for bubbletea:



This is the brown sugar jelly milk tea, and boy, is it full of brown sugar. The jelly itself is where most of the sweetness comes from, and even at 50% sugar, I think I ordered wrong. If you’re not ready for diabetes, make sure you order it with 0% sugar. Other than that, the milky team is smooth and creamy, and I would definitely come back. It felt like I had just been transported back to Taiwan, from the moment that we saw the sandwich board with the shop's name, all in Chinese.





We got out drinks to go, and didn't stay for too long because there isn't a lot of space inside. The front sitting area had a low coffee table with a few chairs around it, and while it looked like an attractive spot to hang out, the area was a bit messy. This was possibly due to the previous patrons who had just walked outside for a smoke. I do wish people could clean up after themselves.



How do you read the name of this bubble tea shop anyways?

Things are moving fast! The biggest change of the year is in the works, and hopefully, I’ll be able to write about it here in less than a month.