Travellogue Taiwan: Taichung

Breakfast service was getting worse by the day. Or at least it felt so to me. Or maybe I was just grumpy from the lack of sleep.

On this day, we headed towards Freeway 1, then onwards to Freeway 3 and then Freeway 6, which was officially opened 2 days before. From the bus, I noticed that most of their rivers were stone rivers. I guess it is natural as they have many marble cliffs in the region. Paddy fields lined the freeways as the green boxes stretch from one side to the other of the freeway.

Interspersing the paddy would be other crops such as yam. I rubbed my eyes when I saw a patch of oil palm trees! It was easy to tell that the locals livelihood came from their fields and orchards - there was an abundance of sugarcane, maize, starfruit, dragonfruit, mango and penang, as well as the occasional grape.

Weaving through tall penang trees brought us to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village.

We arrived just in the nick of time to catch a cultural performance whereby the performers danced, sang and used bamboo as percussion instruments.

Instead of riding the cable car up to the top of the hill, we took the train. We were glad we chose not to walk up as we realised how steep it was while walking down.

In my opinion, I thought they did a pretty good job with educating the public about the traditional lifestyle of the aborigines of Taiwan. They had houses with real people doing real stuff in them, not just fake puppets.

As there was an amusement park situated within Formosan, Alicia and I decided to have a go at the rides. Uncle and Aunty Ding were great sports as well, as we managed to persuade them to join us on the roller-coaster. We thought Aunty Ding would scream loudly but who knew it was us who were screaming at the top of our lungs! When we've had enough of thrills, we walked back out towards the front. Aunty Ding was telling us that we should visit the garden across the road. I was not really attracted but walked in there with Alicia anyway and lo and behold, it was the place where Romantic Princess (Taiwanese idol drama starring Angela Zhang and Wu Chun) was filmed! Imagine how ecstatic I was...

From a hill, we moved on to a lake. Sun Moon Lake, to me, was nothing special. Perhaps I did not feel it's natural beauty due to my perception that it was being overdeveloped. Or maybe it was because I was feeling nauseous from the windy ride. Even after climbing up to the highest part of Wenwu Temple, I was thinking: Hm, ok la.

I did, however, take plenty of snapshots of the temple...

We made a short stopover at a peacock park. Apparently, the peacocks we saw came from just a pair of peacocks that were presented to the Taiwanese government by our Malaysian government. I'd have to say that they totally put our peacocks to shame! Just look at them!

Lunch was had at a small restaurant nearby, after which we were brought to Mao Wang Yeh's house. I had no idea that this 'house' was where Royal Jelly was sold. I was not paying much attention as the giddiness was really kicking in at that moment. Nicholas and Shirley was so kind - they offered me motion-sickness pills, which had me sleeping on the bus all the way to Kaohsiung.

As we arrived Kaohsiung ahead of schedule, we visited the Spring and Autumn Pavilions.

According to superstition, you are to walk into the dragon's mouth before exiting from the tiger's.

We then headed to Dream for dinner.

If you ask me, Dream looked like the shopping complex where Why Why Love was filmed. Regret not taking more photos of the place. But I did go to the top to ride on the ferris wheel...

On this night, I checked into room 3018 of Citizen Hotel with yet another full stomach.

Travellogue Taiwan: Taipei & Taichung

Morning call was loud and clear. I even thought it was a real phone call - I picked it up. I hopped out of bed, prepared myself for the day and took a picture of the view from my room window:

Ah, so the body of water on the right side of the frame gave our hotel it's name. Also, let me show you our mode of transport for the entire trip - this trusty bus with not so trusty seats:

First stop for the day:

It was undergoing renovations and we did not have enough time to explore the building up-close.

Surrounding this building is a park. In one part of the park, there were elderly folk having a jolly good time singing, exercising and enjoying each others' company. Furnished with beautiful trees, I was wondering what it was that was leaping from branch to branch. Oh, squirrel! So cute! I noticed they have rounder faces here compared to the squirrels we have at home, which have sharper faces.

Sitting on the other end of the park yet sharing the same compound is this building below. Okay, this pic is a little off-angled but I thought I'd point out that this is actually a performance theatre. Haha, you thought it was a temple, didn't you?

We took a group photo at the entrance of the theatre and I paid NT$200 for it although it was costly and wholly a money-making plot! Haha, because I thought I looked good in the photo!

Next stop of the day was the Fisherman's Wharf at Danshui. The only bell this rang was S.H.E.'s concert held here in appreciation of their fans. Haha, funny how it didn't form the impression of a fish market! When we alighted the bus, Uncle Ding asked the local tour guide: Can I go to my office now? Everyone had a bewildered look on their faces. He chuckled and asked as he was passing me, "You want to go? I allow you to use my office for free." Ah, then I understood. Office = toilet.

Here's me standing solitary at the Lovers' Bridge. So sad. Couples who walk this bridge together are supposed to have a relationship that lasts.

From the wharf (where action was no where to be seen), we moved on to Danshui Old Road.

Danshui Old Road is famous for food. Well, most places in Taiwan would be famous for food anyways so armed with the info I retrieved from Wikipedia, we started our food hunt. Along the way, there was another familiar sight:

Tian Ren Tea Cafe! Yup, yup! Why do I get so excited seeing them? I seriously don't know. Perhaps it gives me the feeling of wow, this is where it came from...

And so, our search for Danshui's famous A-Gei (what is it anyway?!?) continued. Apparently, the last shop on the right of Zhenli Street is THE shop to go to. We spent a good deal of time locating Zhenli Street, totally separating ourselves from the group. By the time we found the bl**dy shop, we were sweating and extremely hungry! When we saw what they were serving, we thought to ourselves: this was what we searched high and low for? Gosh!

We ordered one to try (I mean, we were there so might as well) and even added a bowl of famous fishballs. The A-Gei we order was of the lowest level of spiciness (we didn't want to show off how well we could take chilli...)

And then, we dug into our food and surprise, surprise, the A-Gei wasn't just a plain looking tofu swimming in clear soup and chilli sauce, it had noodles in it! After savouring it, we thought it wasn't too bad, really. I also enjoyed the fishballs - juicy and chewy.

Along the way back towards our meeting point, we stopped at Grandma's Iron Egg Shop to buy some.

Alicia wanted to try the tall ice-cream and I wanted to try their famous sour plum juice. Verdict: ice-cream was tasteless while the juice was full of the sweetish-sour flavour! I loved it! Anyone of you going there soon would have to try the juice.

Mongolian barbeque was on our lunch menu. I wasn't too keen on the meat so I had mostly greens and fruits. Venue was in town so we headed back into Taipei city. Having filled our stomaches, our next stop was the Taipei 101.

I was so excited as I had wanted to ascend the tower! In the end, only three of us from the group decided to head up to the top while the rest opted to window-shop the a very KLCC-like shopping complex downstairs. The view from up there:

The 101 has

And these were thoughtful in a cute way because you could post postcards or letters from the 'post office in the sky'.. hehe..

I would have done so if I actually remembered to bring my purse up with me! From there, we walked up two flights of stairs to reach the outdoor deck. I am unable to recall if it was the 89th floor or the 91st floor but we were pretty close to the top:

When we set foot on solid ground again, it was time for us to bid adieu to Taipei. By the time we arrived in Taichung, it was nightfall. After a long journey on an uncomfortable seat that called for a headrest pillow, soaking in the Chilinfong Hot Spring was music to our ears.

We tried nearly every pool there was! Yes, quite suagu, eh? The first pool we went in was incredibly cold! I was expecting it to be lukewarm.. so yes, the facial expression of both Alicia and I were hilarious. The pool next to it was warmer. Much warmer, in fact. Then, Nicholas came over to tell us that he just got out of a seriously hot pool. Okay, how seriously hot is seriously hot? We went over to try and gosh, it was SERIOUSLY hot!

After having relaxed our muscles and calmed our senses, it was time for some chow. Supposedly famous restaurant, Five Cent Driftwood House had a unique set-up, which made you feel like you were in a cave.

Interior and exterior designs were unique. Well, let you be the judges of the place:

You'd think that the guide would allow you to rest after a hearty Chinese dinner and not to mention a long bus-ride. Well, think again. We were ferried to an area situated right in front of the Fengjia University, apparently popular with Malaysian students. Yes, we were brought to Fengjia Night Market, famous for a delicacy called the 'Big Sausage Wrap Small Sausage'. Looking at the long queue at the stall (can you even see where the stall is?), we decided to give it a try.

And wait we did!

While standing in the queue, Alicia went off to buy more food and drinks for us to nibble while waiting. While I wasn't big on the tidbits, I enjoyed the pearl milk tea. The stall she bought from used fresh milk hence my satisfaction in drinking it. So to all other pearl tea sellers out there: use fresh milk!

Okay, so now back to that funny sausage thingy. Verdict: not worth the queue time. It basically was just a piece of Chinese wax sausage wrapped in a layer of glutinous rice. Wah, super jelak I tell you.... lemang with rendang is WAY better. But hey, at least we tried it.

By the time we got to Royal International Hotel at 11:00pm, we were literally drop dead tired. I don't know how I still managed to stay up to watch an entertainment program.

Travellogue Taiwan: Taipei

My China Airlines flight for Taipei left KLIA in the afternoon. Having not flown in an airlines other than MAS for 12 years made me skeptical of the quality of service and plane maintenance. My worries were for naught as I found the aircraft to be new with comfortable seats.

It was a five-hour flight so I opted to watch one of the longer movies available - Australia. Watching it made me miss the Australian accent I've been listening to for the past five years. Having Googled China Airlines' history, I began to worry about the landing of our flight (their record has several big accidents that led to everyone on-board the plane to have perished in crash-lands).Yikes! Again, I was relieved when the plane reached solid ground with ease.

By the time we managed to clear immigration, our local tour leader, a Mr. Anthony Ku was waiting for us in arrivals. As we stepped out of the terminal, I was confused - there was a layer of something in the air. Was it mist or was it haze?

Now, Mr. Ku is an experienced tour leader, with 15 years under his belt. Before this, he worked in at a television station, which meant that he is well-connected with all that happens around him, from politics to entertainment gossip. He also explained to us how the expiry date of foodstuff is labeled: the present year minus 1911. So if we see something like best before 1998, do not fret, it's still edible. Haha..

The tour manager from Reliance, Alicia, on the other hand, was a young girl who hails from JB. Believe it or not, she is younger than I am by three years.

After the hour-long bus ride, we arrived at Taipei Riverview Hotel.

I checked into room 1123, put my luggage down and off I went again. My first night in Taiwan must not be spent in my hotel room doing nothing! First stop: Ximending!

Ximending reminded me of Petaling Street, just a cleaner and more happening version of it.

There certainly were bigger crowds, more colour and sound, more 'professional buskers' and more junctions for you to turn off! Gosh!

My first try of the trip: bitter gourd juice with honey.

Verdict: not too bad, surprisingly! Alicia tried too but she could not overcome her phobia of bitterness...

We also tried the famous meesua down a different lane.

Called Ah-Chyung Mien Sien, the queue was long and there were many people standing around the shop tucking in the delicious bowlful.

Some other things we tried was something that looked like roti canai, but much fatter and not to mention fattening.

It comes with all sorts of additional flavours and the vendors have a tough time trying to balance their selling and running away from enforcement officers. Life is tough, eh?

And, there was this:

Easyway!

We were very impressed with the small things they do to help Mother Nature. Something like this...

... could help with lots. They seriously do re-collect everything, re-sort them and re-cycle! Incredibly good impression of their recycling campaign.

After checking out the shops around Ximending, we decided to call it a night and headed back for the hotel, which was just down the road. We needed our rest. Our day was to start at 6:30a.m. the next day...

Qing Ming 2009

It was super hard having to drag myself out of bed at half past five in the morning. I guess jet lag takes some time to be rid off when you're 'old'. KL is a breeze when there's no traffic in the wee hours of the morning.

The scenery that morning made me realise how much I miss driving down the Karak Highway at 6:00am. The lush greenery and the mysterious mist that garnished the rainforest made me imagine busloads of tourists stopping to get their perfect postcard angle. What they find extraordinary, we drive past without thinking twice.

The drive also made me realise that I've not experienced Qing Ming for quite some time. I've missed a total of 5 Qing Mings in a row!

Uncle Fatt, Samuel and Samantha were there waiting for us. As the maintenance of the cemetery had improved over the years (for a measly RM10 annually), we've stopped bringing our tools to hack tree branches and to cut grass. The place was clean and there were additional parking lots for vehicles.

When we arrived at Gong Tai (grandpa's dad)'s grave, we saw that Suk Po (Grandaunt) had been there before us. If we had been slightly earlier, we could have caught them for a chat. Suk Po left for Gong Tai a box of roast pork with rice! Haha! The same went for Po Tai (grandpa's mum)'s grave. Love the attention paid to ensuring they eat well even after death.

But what I loved more was what I observed: the people around me. Families of different generations, from all walks of life, observe this sacred day. Why is this day sacred? It does not hold any religious significance. Instead, the cultural importance of filial piety and respect shines through. It is the one day in the entire year whereby family members from far and near come together to say hi to those before them. It is to say thank you for all the hard work and perseverance and for bringing us into this world. It is to let them know that we have not forgotten them and neither shall we forget our place in this world.

The spirit of Qing Ming; the atmosphere of togetherness. The celebration of life. The respect for the past and the betterment of the future.

A reminder to appreciate what we have and to not lose our heads should we achieve success.

We're in the papers!

Well, it wasn't very obvious but our parents could tell that it's their children's school by looking at the uniform. The news wasn't about us. Our children were 'borrowed' to represent Persatuan Tadika Malaysia (PTM).


Free injections for poor kidney patients

SERDANG: Poor kidney patients receiving haemodialysis treatment at NGO centres can look forward to a better quality of life.

The Government will spend RM12.6mil a year to provide these 2,700 patients with free erythropoeitin (e-poeitin) injections beginning April 1.

“Haemodialysis patients generally have anaemia problems and need the injection to increase their haemoglobin level to help them enjoy a better quality of life,” said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

“Currently, patients at the NGO centres have to pay between RM30 and RM60 per injection or be referred to a government hospital.”

Speaking after launching the World Kidney Day celebration at Serdang Hospital here yesterday, he said the free injection would be for all patients at NGO centres currently receiving the RM50 government subsidy per treatment.
Quality of life: Liow at the launch of the World Kidney Day celebration at Serdang Hospital yesterday.

Haemodialysis patients at government dialysis centres are given up to three e-poeitin injections a week.

Disturbed by the increasing number of patients every year, Liow called on Malaysians to practise a healthy lifestyle as well as go for regular check-ups.

“Every year, about 3,500 new patients require dialysis treatment,” he said. “Currently about 18,000 people are undergoing dialysis treatment.


“High blood pressure, diabetes and obesity can contribute to kidney disease. All three chronic problems are on the rise due to our unhealthy lifestyle and food habits.

“In 2007, 57% of new dialysis patients had diabetes while 7% had high blood pressure.”

Eight more dialysis centres will be set up at hospitals in Pahang, Terengganu, Malacca, Negri Sembilan and Sabah to meet the increasing demand, Liow said.

Life #1

This was taken from my front gate.

Sometimes, we just need to stop and pay attention...

25 random things about moi

I did this in fb and I thought I'd be a nice addition to the blog, too!


1. Most of the friends I have today have gone through 18 years of trials and tribulations with me.

2. Some of the nicknames my friends gave me include Guinea Pig, 'Sai Jing' (as in Small Jing), Papan and CNN.

3. According to close friends, I have not changed one bit since the day they got to know me (especially my hairstyle).

4. Apparently, I sound like a 5-year-old over the phone.

5. I love chocolate, especially when put together with banana or strawberry!

6. I prefer cold over hot weather as I can put on more layers but can only take off so many...

7. I have a terrible temper, one my brother likened to a pot of water that will boil if put on my head when I'm angry.

8. I have been driving my Toyota since the day I received my Ps and I don't think I'd sell it.

9. Oh, and it's manual. Auto cars just don't give me the umph..

10. I'm 100% Hakka.

11. I need my sleep. The only time I don't need it is when there's a drama to watch on YouTube.

12. I'm into music but I'm not musically-inclined.

13. I love dancing but I totally suck at it.

14. I just adore children! Come to my workplace and I'll teach you to love them, too!

15. According to some sources, I have OCD. To me, I think I'm just a clean and tidy person.

16. I am careless with my choice of words and even less so with my facial expressions. I apologise to all whom I may have disheartened.

17. My sense of dressing is plain. Give me t-shirts and denim skirts with sandals anytime!

18. I do not know how to apply make-up. I save lots on cosmetics. HAHA!

19. I am proud of my good sense of direction and my memory - birthdays and landmarks, I'm very good at!

20. I've travelled to a few places on my own - Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Adelaide and Christchurch. Hoping to add Taipei to my list soon.

21. It is difficult being my friend because I'm a difficult person to be with. Therefore, I'm grateful that I have my handful of friends I can fall back on. Thanks, guys!

22. I love to talk! I don't blame people for asking me if I'm okay when I'm quiet.

23. My favourite colour is pink but I somehow end up buying mostly black, blue and white.

24. I've never studied at a Chinese school but ahem, my Chinese is not too bad! Hey, I can read and write also ok?

25. I've been falling sick constantly for the past 6 months. I think I need to go consult a Chinese medicine practitioner now...