10 days trip to Taiwan

Finally I’m back from Taiwan! I was getting bored with the hawker food there on my last few days there. Too much of anything is indeed not good. I spent most my days in Taipei. Some of the places that I like in Taiwan are, Ye Liu Geology Park, Alisan, Mei Nong Hakka Village, A Mei Cultural Village, Feng Jia Night Market, Longshan Temple, Fisherman’s Port, Dan Sui Old Street, Eslite Bookstore 诚品书局 and Ximenting.

In short, I will say that Taiwan is a shopping paradise for girls. Quality goods are selling at a cheaper price in Taiwan.

During my visit there, it was approaching winter. Most of the clothes that they’re selling are mostly thick and long sleeves, the “free” size there is a bit too big for a timid person like me. Thus, I only manage to get a few blouses. The clothes there are very fashionable; too bad it’s not suitable to wear in Malaysia as it’s too thick for the hot weather here. The Taiwanese are all very well-dressed. Everyone walking on the streets looks like they are a movie star.

The hawker food in Taiwan ranged from around 30 to 40 TWD. Currently, 100 TWD is around RM9.25. The portion is very big, it’s better to buy 1 and share out with friends. I especially like the “mee suah” at Ximenting. The bubble milk tea there is cheaper and nicer as well. For 40 TWD, you can get an extremely large cup, enough for 2 person. There’s a lot of small coffee shops in Taiwan, the coffee, milk tea, drinks and dessert that they’re selling are much cheaper compared to Starbucks (there’s a lot of Starbucks outlets there, do not worry if you miss Starbucks in Malaysia). A great place for those who wish to hang out for some chatting.

Personally, I like to collect small, light and nicely design umbrellas. Those kind of umbrellas are relatively cheap in Taiwan and even cheaper than in China. I bought 2 fancy, good quality, small and light umbrellas at 350 TWD. 1 umbrella is around RM19. Currently in Malaysia, for such an umbrella, you definitely won’t be able to get it at RM19. Perhaps you may get it at at least RM40.

Alisan is a very nice place to visit – fresh air, nice scenery, and many weird trees which reminded me fairy tale stories. But the journey up is a very long and scary one as the road is extremely narrow. I would say that drivers’ skill there is extremely good. They can drive on such roads even without any street lights and there’re hardly any cars or houses around the area.

Transport around Taipei is very convenient. You can take the MRT around easily. Taxi charges is by meter and very expensive. Minimum payment is 70 TWD. If you want to go to places like Taipei 101 and Mei Li Hua, you can take MRT and then take the FREE shuttle bus as you get off from the MRT station. There are signboards at the MRT station there indicating which exit and bas you should take.

The bas and MRT station here very much reminded me of those in Korea.

Good points of bas service in Taiwan:
- Got indicator (where is the current location, they’re about to make a turn or break). We can easily know where we are without asking the driver.
- Only 7 TWD per ride.

Good points of MRT service in Taiwan:
- There’s a gate forbidding passengers who are waiting for the train to go over the safety zone.
- At peak stations like Taipei Station, there are personnel around to direct the passengers when the train is full.
- There’s escalators and lift at all MRT stations.

But, I did prefer the MRT station design in Korea. You can easily differentiate the stations by the design itself as all of them are different.

There are many night markets in Taiwan. If you want to buy cheap stuff, night market is the place. The cheapest night market that I come across so far is Feng Jia Night Market 逢甲夜市. This night market is named after the university located beside the market, Feng Jia University. The things there are cheaper as they’re targeting mainly students. As the things there are cheap, it attracted a huge crowd, including tourist like me. It very much reminded me of the streets near Busan National University in Busan. Things there are cheap and nice! Things that is cheap in Taiwan: towel, variety of socks, soft toys, necklace and other accessories, umbrellas, bags.

There’s a lot of unique snack food in Taiwan, one of the popular ones is “mua chee”. A bit different from those in Malaysia, it comes in a variety of flavor – green tea, peanuts, yam, chee ma and so on.

For those who forget to pack in some of their things, fear not, 7-11 shops are almost everywhere and open 24 hours to serve you with all your needs. They are selling a variety of goods, from food, umbrellas and other stuff. You can get almost anything there. The size of the 7-11 shops there vary, some maybe as small as a normal shop, some maybe as big as a drive-in fast food outlet in Malaysia. The food packaging there is very nice. There’re selling a variety of coffee in 7-11, very much reminded me of the convenience shop in Korea.

I will keep you guys updated with more info on the interesting places in Taiwan in my next post.

Meanwhile, here’s some photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157603141047523/

Leaving to Vacation Soon...

Dear Readers,

I'll be away to Taiwan for a vacation soon. This is strictly a self-sponsored trip and for 10 days! Thus, I am now very "pokkai". I'm currently very busy packing and completing my work. Hence, I may not be available to answer any of your chatting invitations. But, fear not, I'll be back soon.

Regards,
Your Beloved Blogger.

FY08 Q3 Birthday Celebration~

This quarter, we held our team’s birthday celebration at Kampachi, a Japanese restaurant in Equatorial Hotel. As its location implies, this is a expensive restaurant. We had our lunch there and the attendance was almost 100%. Unlike usual celebrations, this time, everyone got a goodie bag of Tupperware goodies. *Sob sob* a few of my team members will be leaving us after this quarter. Could the goodies be a farewell gift?

For photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

Temporary Tour Guide

A few weeks ago, during the festive holiday, I became a temporary tour guide for my friend Christoph who visited Penang. It was his first time in Malaysia. He said that he's more interested food. So, I brought him to several "hotspots" for some local delicacies. He's surprisingly a small eater!

We visited several tourist attractions where I haven't been there for perhaps about 10 years ago. I always refuse to bring my local friends to Penang Hill because I feel that there's nothing much to see there. But, my recent visit there makes me change my mind. We arrived there at 8am in the morning. There weren't many people and the air was fresh and cooling as we arrived at the top station by cable car. I like the view of the clouds and mist. To my surprise, there's a canopy walk there, of course at the price of RM5 per pax if you want to try out. It was very scary especially when the "bridge" is shaking!

During this period, I had visited the butterfly farm and the Lantern Fest at Autocity, Butterworth as well.

You can find some of the photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

Enjoy!

Lantern Festival

At my age, lantern festival is no longer about “tanglung” and free food. In my office, there are lanterns, but we do not light it (for safety purpose). We have celebrations, but we do it during daytime. Although the fun is not the same anymore, it’s another day of celebration. This year, we had a short celebration again in the cafeteria.

Ups and Downs

Today, super duper early in the morning, I received mails, not of compliments but complains. Later on, I found out that it was due to my mistake. Even, my director came over and asked me about it - this is something new. I feel sorry for my boss for letting her to answer so many calls regarding the issue. I guess this is part of the downs of life. The whole day I was trying to make myself "move on" as there were many pending tasks to do. I am glad that I have supporters and friends who are there to brighten up my day.

Recently, I received a shocking news from Sylvia. Aizura aka Yuya will be engaging this October and her wedding ceremony will be in January next year. She'll be the first among my coursemates to get married! Congratulations girl! Please help to spread good news if you happen to know someone who knows her.

Tired

Recently I was very exhausted. I guess many people are tense up as well. My JLPT exam is approaching yet I feel that I am not putting in enough effort on this. I am feeling a bit guilty for myself. However, after a tiring work during the day, I would prefer to enjoy myself with anime or drama series rather than revising. This kind of mix feeling, is it a signal that I am getting lazy?

Team Dinner @ G Hotel

To keep things short, yesterday night we have our team dinner at a new hotel in Gurney Drive - G Hotel. Before this there have been forward mails spreading around about the buffet of this hotel. Its dessert is especially tempting (outlooks).

Overall the food is eatable. Not much choice on the food. A lot of dessert was served. The food taste is so-so. Some are better though, but yet to reach my definition of “delicious”.

"Secret"

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues for a movie titled “Secret” by Jay Chou. This film is also directed by him. Initially, I didn’t plan to go for this movie. After hearing good comments and recommendations from my other colleagues, I decided to give it a try. The beginning of the story is rather plain and the paste is quite slow. There’s some twist and turn in the story. What I like most about the movie is the piano playing and the school uniforms. I like the design of the music room as well, very classic.

Overall, I won’t say that it’s an extremely good movie but worth watching.

Short Trip to KL

Last weekend I took a short trip to KL. It was a sudden decision make up by my crazy mind because I wanted to see fireworks! Long long time ago, I do not like fireworks. This is because there will be a huge crowd rushing to the same place, looking at the firework for 5-10 minutes. The firework wasn’t impressing at all, at least for a primary school kid like me back then. However, this has changed after an unanticipated firework during Bon Odori back in 2000. The firework was so beautiful. It was alive! However, the firework during MIFC is even nicer! I am really glad that I made an effort to go there. I really enjoy the 20 minutes firework display by the lake side in Putrajaya. Last year, when I saw Yushu’s pictures taken in Korea on the fireworks, I really feel like flying there immediately and join them with the display. Well, looks like I don’t need to do so anymore in the future as I can see them in Malaysia as well :)

During this short trip, I met up with several old friends. It’s really great to catch up with them and *update* myself. Each and every one of us is taking different paths now. But, they are all very interesting.

MIFC - Fireworks Competition

The fireworks competition is now on from August 18-September 2. Nations from Australia, Japan, Italy and Malaysia will be competing for the Merdeka trophy. Venue: PICC (Putrajaya International Convention Center).

From the photos posted in the forums, it's really really beautiful! How I wish I can fly there now! How I wish I could have a high-end camera for all these photo shooting...

Here is the schedule of the competition:
http://www.mifc.com.my/test/mc/information.html

Here are some links with photos:
http://www.photomalaysia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30835
http://www.photomalaysia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30940
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/mifc/

Thanks!

Thanks for those who have been supporting me for my speech contest:
- My dear couch for the contest - Kelly/Gan-san. Thanks for spending your time to rehearse with me. It has helped me a lot.
- Kevin and PJiuan for the support.
- Pateriku-san for leaving comment at my blog.
- and those names not mention here.

It's great to have friends like you all. I really miss those times back in MMU!

The Sad Rice Cooker

Today, I attempted my first public speech contest - Japanese Speech Contest, Penang preliminary. I was quite confident that I will do well for this contest. However, things didn't turn out to be the way that I expected. I was quite disappointed when the MC announced that I won the 4th prize. Anyway, I brought home with 3 presents - a non-functionable calculator and mousepad combo, a Japanese conversation book and a Panasonic rice cooker.

My mum has always wanted to buy a new rice cooker, a more advance one since our current rice cooker is rather "old". However, since it's still functionable, we didn't buy a new one as replacement. Finally, it's time to change to a new rice cooker, with non-stick features and a special holder to steam food. For me, this is a sad rice cooker. It reminded me that I have got the 4th prize and fail to get into the finalist.

Anyway, I feel that I should join the next competition. Hopefully, I do not get another rice cooker the next time. Somehow, rice cooker now has a new meaning for me - rice cooker = failure.

Muka Head

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues for an expedition to Muka Head! It was a rather tiring journey but it's adventurous! It's great to see the monkeys and little crabs by the beach. I like the cool breeze, it's so refreshing... I sprained my ankle a bit *ouch* but thank god it's nothing serious :) My mother warned me not to go the night before as I was not feeling well, but I am glad that I make it there. It's another great experience with friends!

Here are some of the photos taken:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/

I have included photos of some of the yummy dishes taken the appreciation dinner at Kirishima, a Japanese food restaurant in Cititel Hotel, Penang.

July Events

Recently I have been rather busy. You may wonder, “busy with what?” - friends’ birthdays, attending events and meetings, meeting old friends and going for trip. Events are such as MATTA fair, recycling programme, Bon Odori and farewell.

One of my counterparts has decided to move on to another position in my company. He was a loud person and we used to talk about the way he talked and his behavior. However, after he leaves, I sort of miss the times when he makes a lot of noise. It kills the silence and tension here. Whenever I moved to a new cubicle, I will feel that something is missing - voices of people surrounding me, their phone conversations and their laughter. Last time, I used to complain about an Indian fellow sitting near my cube. He always talks loudly. Every single word he said, we were able to hear it clearly. The situation got worse after office hours as his volume increased. But now, I would like to thank this “speaker phone” for his noisiness. Without his “voice”, it would be very quiet and scary in the office if I staying back for extra work.

During MATTA fair, I registered for a trip to Taiwan in November with my colleagues and some friends. Hopefully everything turns out well. A short trip to MATTA fair turns out to be a lengthy one. We had gone thru almost each and every booth. I predicated that we can go home at around lunch time, but it ended up to be supper time instead. My mum was calling my handphone for more than 10 times. As it was quite noisy in the stadium, I didn’t notice the calls at all. Or perhaps, I was too excited over the brochures and handouts. I was extremely hungry as I reached home, but it seemed that I had lost the appetite to eat as it was already more than 10pm.

It’s great to meet up friends once in a while. Recently, I met up with my lecturer and 2 secondary school friends. I have never gone out with my lecturer for a tea before that. After graduating, I got this “push” to meet up my lecturers. Dr Andrew was back in Penang for a few days, a de-tour for his business trip in Singapore. It was a small gathering between Khai, Wee How, Dr Andrew and I. Wee How turned out unexpectedly and that was the first time I talked to him even though we were course mates. Sir treated us the drinks in Starbucks and it was the first time I ordered Hot Chocolate Caramel. I grew to love this drink very much and was looking forward for another cup of hot choco in Starbucks soon!

Unpredictable weather

The weather now is really unpredictable. It’s raining in Penang almost everyday when the weather is supposed to be hot and sunny. Today it’s raining again and the rain is very heavy. From the glass in my office, I can see the trees moving from one way to another in a fast and heavy movements.

For those who are not in Malaysia, 端午节 is falls on tomorrow. It’s a season of Chinese dumplings and dragon boats.

Yummy Food #1

Here's some of the yummy food in my recommendation list, of course it's mainly based on the restaurants in Penang:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600389899953/

Tasik Temenggor

2 weeks ago, I had a family trip to Tasik Temenggor in Perak. It was a last minute trip. As Tasik Temenggor is not a well-known tourist spot and my parents scared to be cheated by the marketing agent of the resort, we decided to check out the place first. We got to know about the place as they had setup a booth during the Floral Fest in Botanical Gardens, Penang. Tasik Temenggor is one of the few places popular for fishing fresh water fish. It is an extremely huge lake located in the mountains with many islands inside of it. It is the main source of water for many rivers in Perak.

Before we departed, we had decided that if the resort does not exist, then it will be a free and easy trip. It turned out that the resort does exist and we even met the owner of the resort. We loaded our belongings into the speed boat and headed towards the resort.

We took the 3 Days 2 Nights package. The resort is very new, around 8 months old. Many of the chalets are still under renovation. They are not very luxurious but decent. There’s only a few person in the crew and all of them are multitasking. Some of the highlights of this resort is:
- Water basketball
- Nice scenery (sunrise, sunset, moonlight)
- Steamboat dinner while the weather is cold
- Free flow of instant coffee and tea

Activities:
- Water sports (basketball, canoeing, swimming)
- Jungle trekking
- Visiting the orang asli village
- Fishing
- Water drifting (provided if the water is good)

Unless the usual islands trips, everything here is very relaxing. There is no rush between trips. If you do not want to do activities, you can lay around by the lake and do some reading, play card games and/or mahjong or watch TV (astro installed with some channels).

Below are some of the photos taken:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600378931689/

Perhentian Photos

Hi girls and guys,

I have uploaded my Perhentian Island trip photos. Have a look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157600286203741/

Perhentian Island

May 11, 2007 (Friday) – I departed to Pulau Perhentian with 14 people – my colleagues, and colleagues’ friends. The journey started off with some familiar faces and some strangers. However, we all mixed up well at the end of the trip. The bus departed at 9pm.

May 12, 2007 (Saturday) – We arrived at Jerteh, Terengganu at around 3.30am. Everyone was sleepy and surprised as the bus arrived much early than we expected. The van driver was still sleeping when we called up. We spent around 5 hours at a small shop near the jetty while waiting for the speed boat to Pulau Perhentian. It was a very long wait. At around 9am, we walked to the agent’s office. The speed boat to Pulau Perhentian departed from Kuala Merang at 9.30am. The speed boat was indeed very speedy. I felt wonderful as I rode on the boat; it feels like as if I was riding on a wild house.

The water in Perhentian is cleaner than the ones in Redang, even though the sea color is not as nice as Redang’s. The resort that we stayed was Cocohut. At first, we thought that it was a typo in the quotation and the correct spelling should be “Coconut”. But, Cocohut is the correct. I like the dining place and lobby. It looks a bit like Hawaii style. Our rooms were at the upper level of a 2 storey wooden building. Somehow, I felt that the building is not very solid. Our rooms are either dime or rather dark. There were 2 queen size beds for each bed, regardless of the number of people for each room. It was a better place compared to the resort that I last went in Redang.

The meals here were better too. Food was served according to the group of visitors instead of buffet style. We don’t need “fight” for our share of food. We had a snorkeling trip on the same day, shortly after lunch. As it was the first snorkeling trip, everyone was very excited. We putted on our sun block lotion even before the lunch and put more after lunch!

We went to 3 places for snorkeling. I was “too active” for the first round as I thought that that will be our only place for snorkeling. I used up almost all my energy, without any reservation. I was “half-dead” when reaching the second place. I was very excited to see the gigantic turtles that I swam with all my energy towards it.

Advise: Remember to make sure that you have enough energy for all the trips.

May 13, 2007 (Sunday) – We went to 2 islands for snorkeling – Pulau Rawa and Susu Dara. The second island has a lot of huge rocks and almost near sea level. Thus, it’s very hard to swim around without getting hurt. Things got worse when the waves were strong. After the rocky island, we stopped by at the light house before heading to the fresh water water spring. The sea is very deep at the light house and there are many corals and fish. It was fun jumping from the first level of the light house into the sea! Some of them scream with the all their might while we were waiting in the water.

It was already more than 2pm when we had our lunch. Most of us haven’t even bath. We were all very hungry! 2 of the girls joined another trip before the lunch. They were really too active! We took a nice and long bath after the lunch. Then, it’s photo session! We made a lot of weird and funny poses. It’s enjoyable.

We spent most of our free time playing Uno. Some of the beach boys even show us “magic”. The television in the lobby aka dining area is only available at 9.30pm. One of the guys was having a hard time catching up with his football games.

May 14, 2007 (Monday) – La Hotspring and Lata Tembakah, those are the 2 places that we went to after our Perhentian trip, while waiting for our bus back to Penang at 9pm. Those 2 places are far away from Jerteh, especially La Hotspring which it is located deep inside the jungle. It was named as La Hotsping because it is located in a village called La. It is a natural hotspring.

Before reaching there, we planned to hop into the hotspring and have a nice bath. However, the water was so hot that eventually, we only put our legs into the pond. Even though the hotspring is in then open air, we felt very hot after dipping our legs into hotspring. Our next destination is Lata Tembakah, which is located very near to La Hotspring. The highlight of this place is its waterfall. I was amazed to see such a tall waterfall up close. It’s a really wonderful scene! The place is not well maintained. Even though there’s a few changing rooms, some of the doors cannot be closed and some are too dirty. There’s hardly anyone inside the park. Leaves are all over the place. But, I like the scene of the tall trees, truly a tropical forest.