I love capturing photos of plants, food and non-living things because I always believe, although they are not human, but they do have their own expression and emotion yet to be read and appreciated.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Taiwan Trip - Accommodation (Pt. 1)

This will be quite lengthy, but juicy... :p


Accommodation is a very very important concern when you are going to a place which you never been, I mean, very rare that a person will travel to another "whole new world" without pre-confirm a hotel or at least a shelter, right?

So were we! A very kind friend's friend, Eva (a Taiwanese) offer a place to keep all of us when we were in Taipei. She has 2 apartments, both very near to 101 tower, just that one of the apartment is not fully furnished, there's only 1 big king size bed in a room, so some of us has to bring sleeping bag. Well I'm not a camp person, so, I do not has one, in my mind I'm actually planning something else, but I need to take few things into consideration: cannot be too far from my mates because we are travel in group, it's always good that we can stay together when I do not has my own transport to meet up with them and silly me forgot to call my telco to put my line roaming, so communication with my girls is another problem.

Our trip is a 7d 6n trip. Where did I spent my 6 nights? This is my first trip where I need to nomed every night.

1st night - Qiao Li (Ladies) Sauna.
1 of our friend, Joanne, she is very familiar with Taipei, because she goes Taipei every years, and sometimes she need to travel alone and she will stay in this kind of sauna. Because she is going to overnight there, so, me and another friend just tagged along.

This is a very interesting place... where should I start? If you ever been to Japan or Korea, this might not be something strange, but for me, this is my 1st time experience. It's very affordable, NTD500 for 12 hours. Believe me, 12 hours is more than enough, because rest comfortably and enjoy the hotel fascilities are not our objectives of the trip.

We reached there about 11pm, Joanne signed a scrub + massage package with them, I followed, I signed myself only the scrub. But we were very very full after the Ma La steamboat (all you can eat) dinner, so, I asked the lady to do my scrub early next morning.

When we entered, a lady (I think the average age of all the worker, ladies of course, is around 45) passed us a plastic bag to keep our shoes, then we were led to our lockers. Each of us were given a big towel, yes, from the locker onwards, you need to strip off everything already. For an old-fashion minded like me, it's ahem...

Then we walked downstairs, where all fascilities are there, 3 pools with different temp, 13˚C, 29˚C and 43˚C, a steam room, a sauna, about 18 shower cubicles with no doors or curtain and a scrub area with curtain.

Well, when we shower, we tried not to peep others, and I tried to shower as fast as I can and put on my towel. hahaha, then we all went to the sauna, with our towels on. Gosh, you will never never imagine what we saw in the room. There's one TV on the wall, but not everyone was watching, an old lady (quite plum and flabby) was applying slimming cream, yes naked in front of everybody, then started her regime (hitting and pinching her fat), then another middle age lady, covering her face with small towel, naked too but body quite hot, was doing yoga inside, one younger lady, naked too, is doing exercise, side lying on the bench, moving her leg up and down... I think Jo is quite used to it, but me and another friend exchange a sight and we decided to concentrate on the TV.

After sauna, we were suppose to cool our body temp down by soaking in the 13˚C pool, but I wasn't really ready to be naked in front of everybody, so, I shower again and proceed to a room where we can get the bathrobe (Japanese type) and get to the sleeping area.

When we came out from the shower area, there is a dressing area with lotion, comb, blower, big mirror and chairs, further in is a canteen and the sleeping rooms are after the canteen. Each sleeping room has 2 layers, bottom layers is sleeping capsules, with bed, comforter and curtain; the upper area is furnished with sleeping couches. I'm afraid of cold, so, I chose the capsule...

It's so comfortable, way beyond my expectation, I had a wonderful rest that night.

The next day, I woke up at 8am for my scrub. At first the lady wasn't very happy with me, because if I do my scrub the night before, she would has a better rest and can off from work at 6am. She asked me to soak myself in the pool for 20 minutes then sit in the steam room for 10 minutes, I never did this kind of scrub before, and I soaked myself in a wrong pool, should be in 43˚C, instead of 29˚C, I was shivering in the pool, then I lied on the bed with my towel on, and the lady raising her voice, one finger pointing at my towel, "what's the towel doing on your body?" Luckily it was very early where nobody was there yet, or I will be in deep deep shit of embarassment. She pulled my towel away (felt like being rapped, :( hehe) and started scrubing with a sponge, nothing else...


She was complaining why I did that in odd hour, complaining why my body was so cold (because I was in wrong pool)... then I said, "sorry, I'm not Taiwanese, I don't understand your hokkien". Wow, you never expected that the lady's mood can change so fast, she became so friendly, although the scrubing was still very rough, every now and then, she will pour hot water to keep my body warm enough for the scrub, and each time when she poured, I got a shock. You can never felt asleep or relax with this kind of scrub.

She started chatting with me, explaining the procedure, showing the dirt that she scrub out of my body (I never know I was that dirty, I scrub myself every fortnight), she even gave me discount!!! For me and my friend.

After scrub, I can feel my skin was like a newborn, very smooth and silky... So, don't look down on this traditional scrubing. The scrub costed NTD500, with the discount voucher that she gave me, my room stay was only NTD180, in total, NTD680 for a good rest and effective scrub. Wohoo...


Jo signed a massage + scrub, so, she has a free breaky, and we got to "steal" some food from her plate. Later that morning, we see ladies coming in for facial, reflexology, manicure, padicure... Although the type of business or the business setting is a bit old-fashion, but I would say, it's good enough and it's really a good "runaway/ get away" place for us. :) Next time if you has no idea where to stay? Give this a try, you will never regret.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Taiwan Trip - Food & Beverage

所谓民以食为先,尤其是在华人的地方,饮食一定要先介绍,衣住行嘛。。。就先搁两旁。为了让读者一目了然,也方便自己做记录,我决定先写下摘要,亮红的食品是我认为在台湾不可不吃的几种食品。
F&B is always the highest priority in Chinese society. So, I’m going to start sharing my Taipei traveling diary with what I’ve eaten. Here’s the summary (I need to apology before hand, because most of the food has no proper English name). Highlighted in red are foods that must try!

p/s: I uploaded the summary tables in image form, because I don't know how to draw table in blog, I understand that the wordings are too small to read, please click the picture to enlarge in order to have a better view of them.






(网上搜寻资料Information from internet)

丐帮卤味 Give Me Lu Wei (the restaurant translate the name to be like that)
丐幫魯味的醬汁偏濃稠,跟一般店家直接撈起來裝包的作法不一樣。在口味上面,如果不加辣的話,這個以中藥為湯底的醬汁,風味還頗醇厚,不會太鹹太膩,還會發出中藥藥材的香氣。
The Lu Wei sauce is made of thick soy bean; it is very different from others. If no chilli is added, the default sauce is made of herbal soup; the flavour is quite thick but not too salty. The sauce smell good with all the traditional herb too.



(网上搜寻资料Information from internet)

鼎邊銼 Ding Bian Cuo
師傅把米漿沿著鍋邊淋一圈之後,米漿就會慢慢滾下,這樣一方面有蒸的效果,另一方面則有烤的效果。用這樣的方法做出來的鼎邊銼才會因為兩邊的密度不一樣,所以煮的時候會捲起來唷。除此之外,淋米漿的時候還得控制厚薄程度,因為太薄,米漿會太乾;太厚,口感則會變得生硬。還有鍋子的溫度也必須在做好一片之後,做降溫的動作。鼎邊銼一做好,必須先冷卻,然後剪成一小塊一小塊,最後就等下鍋煮了。
成就一碗好吃的鼎邊銼,配料占有絕對重要的角色。百年吳記的鼎邊銼配料十分豐富,有肉羹、蝦仁羹、金針、香菇、魷魚、小魚乾、竹筍、金鉤蝦、高麗菜、蒜頭酥、芹菜等共十一項,其中肉羹、蝦仁羹,還是店裡工作人員自己做的。
After pouring a thin circular layer of the rice paste on wok, the paste will slowly goes down, by this, the paste is steamed and roasted at the same time. Due to the thickness on both sides are different, so when the paste is cooked, it will roll up. Besides, when pouring the paste, the thickness is crucial, rice paste will be burnt when it is too thin; the rice paste will be hardened if it is too thick. The wok need to cool down before the above process is repeated. When Ding Bian Cuo is done, it needs to be cool down before it can be sliced into small pieces and cook in soup.
In making a bowl of delicious Ding Bian Cuo, the other side ingredients play an important role. 100-year old Wu Ji Ding Bian Cuo put in various side ingredients such as meat paste, prawn paste, eniki mushroom, mushroom, cuttlefish, anchovy, bamboo shoot, prawn, cabbage, fried onion, celery, 11 side ingredients in total, in addition, the meat paste and prawn paste are homemade too.



(网上搜寻资料Information from internet)

龍鳳腿 Dragon Phoenix Leg
長相酷似春捲的龍鳳腿,裡餡包有高麗菜、紅蘿蔔、魚漿和少許碎肉,外頭再裏上一層網紗油,炸後外皮酥脆,裡頭鬆軟富彈性,熱食尤其上口。
It is sausage look-a-like, paste ingredients include cabbage, carrot, and fish paste and mince meat, wrap in a very thin layer of skin which is made of pork lard, then fried to crispy outside and soft inside, best eaten while hot.

三星卜肉Bu Rou
外皮香脆,肉质嫩而不腻的卜肉,是将精选过猪的二层肉及腰内肉切成条状,混合著特制的面糊油炸而成的,因以宜兰腔台语发音为“爆肉”,而后才有“卜肉”之名。
Crispy yet tender meat strip is made of pork, which mixed with rice paste and deep fried.




Monday, August 02, 2010

我喜欢,不我爱

作詞:嚴爵
作曲:嚴爵

我喜歡妳的眼 看著我的眼
我喜歡妳的臉 貼著我的臉

我喜歡妳的手 牽著我的手
我喜歡妳的口 吻著我的口
時間在改變 妳不要改變

因為我很愛妳 不想要妳放棄愛情
尤其這段得來不易
我愛妳 真的是很愛妳 所以想
就這樣繼續愛下去

時間在改變 妳不要改變

因為我很愛妳 不想要妳放棄愛情
尤其這段得來不易
我愛妳 真的是很愛妳 所以想
就這樣繼續愛下去

因為我很愛妳 不想要妳放棄愛情
尤其這段得來不易
我愛妳 真的是很愛妳 所以想
就這樣繼續愛下去

因為我很愛妳 不想要妳放棄愛情
尤其這段得來不易
我愛妳 真的是很愛妳 所以想
就這樣繼續愛下去



听后感:很有感觉的一首歌,像是开着一辆开篷mini cooper,奔驰在沿海公路,迎面吹着海风,跟着电台播放的“我喜欢,不我爱”哼唱,嘴里还有我最爱的野莓子味糖果,逍遥夹带着一丝丝的甜味。。。即使就只是想像,嘴角也会不经意地往上扬哦。。。