Sorry Haven't Posted For A While

Haven't posted for a while! Hahaha... having too much fun here! :-D

Ate a lot of new food, tried a lot of new things, visited new places, and met a lot of people these past few days...

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NEW FOOD:
- Evan's burger: beefiest burger I've tasted in Taiwan so far.
- Hongkong restaurants in Zhongxiao-Dunhua: tastes like Chinese food back home...yum!
- Pizza Hut: Japanese Teppanyaki Pizza is weird and sweet.
- Burger King or 漢堡王: Tried their buy one take one thingies with classmates. Cheap food!
- mini siopao's and misua from Shida night market 師大夜市.

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EVENTS:
- Visited "Filipino-town" here in Taipei and hoarded Filipino chips (piatos, tempura, oishi, etc).
- Michelle cooked Filipino food (sinigang, pancit, adobo) for us. I helped chop veggies!
- Gatecrashed Heidi's classmate's party... Culture shock! Didn't know what to do at this social setting. hahahaha!
- Went to the gym: it's cheap here!!! CHEAP!!!
- Went to 九份 (jiufen): awesome traditional Chinese/Japanese looking place! Want to have my prenup shots done here! :-D
- Helped Michelle move 搬家!
- New haircut - which sucks a bit. Jamie said he was stunned. Hahaha!
- Went to a Fahrenheit Concert (飛輪海的演唱會) and cried tears of joy. 很感動吧! :-P

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NEW PEOPLE:
- Met Heidi's classmates and friends. :-)
- Met my 阿姨 and 姨丈 from the States! Love them!
- Met Jen's friends (Joy and Mae), went with them to 九份.
- Met Heidi's family!
- Met a friend's "friend" - let's leave it at that. ;-D

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We're having our mock-TOP tests this week, and the workload is much much lighter. 所以可以輕輕鬆松一點。。。 :-D

Just this Monday, I had an oral examination... It was so much fun because the exam is computer-based, they have set questions that they ask the examinees and they record our answers and will check them on a later date. The result comes out on December 15, 2009. Good thing the score won't affect our grades! :-D

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WEIRD EXAM ANSWER

I also had a chapter exam last Monday, and I probably won't forget this composition I did. We basically need to use up the grammar points to answer some questions.

For one of the items, the question was "昨天我打電話給你時﹐你為什麼沒空跟我說話?你那個時候在忙什麼?" (roughly translates as: "I called you up yesterday and you didn't have time to talk, what were you busy with?").

My answer using the grammar points was "真的不好意思﹐你打電話的時候我正要去廁所﹐大便就快出來了﹐所以沒辦法跟你說些話。" (which translates to: "Very sorry, I was about to go to the bathroom when you called; My poop was about to go out, that's why I wasn't able to talk to you.")

Then I added a "對不起!不好的題目。" ("sorry! bad topic!) apology for my teacher. hahahaha! Got that item right though - no deductions for grossness! :-D

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Tomorrow, we will have our typing/composition exam. Then we have a listening exam on Thursday... Looking forward to the coming days!!!!! ^____^

Six Days of Food and Exercise

After Hamy left for Manila, my days have been filled with more eating and exercise. :-D


Last Thursday, Heidi was telling us how we should start exploring more eating options. We've become fond of the normal eating places here in Shida Night Market that we don't experiment and try others anymore. According to Heidi, we've only eaten at 24 different places in the month that we've been in Taiwan.

In order to diversify and add to the list, we decided to have lunch at a place that we've never had lunch before. We call it the "spicy place" because everything on the menu has the word 辣 or spicy in it. The thing is, you can order them non-spicy - like non-spicy spicy noodles. Hahaha... Anyway, it was a nice discovery because it was good and cheap food - just how the locals like 'em.

After eating, I felt sleepy so I left everyone to do their bit and went home to sleep the whole afternoon away. At around dinner time, Michelle, Heidz and Jamie came to my place to raid me! Hahahaha. They brought a mahjong set and some mantou rolls for dinner. We played bad mahjong then moved to 1-2-3-Pass (and write on loser's arms). Neung played with us for a few rounds then left. After she left, the game went wild! Jamie and Michelle are forever having these United States vs. England matches so when Michelle got to write her love for US in Jamie's arm, Jamie was so pissed. Jamie wasn't able to get his revenge because we didn't have enough time to play. Hahaha! It was good fun to watch them show their distaste for each other's countries (even though they actually really like the other's country).

Jamie's arm with "我愛美國,很好的地方" written on it (Taken by Michelle):


Friday was the day before our beach day so we spent most of the day planning for the beach trip. We ate at the hotpot place for lunch (with Michelle, Eli, Hanni, and Wayne), bought some swimming, volleyball, and tennis stuff; then headed for the Shida Tennis Courts to play my first tennis game in Taiwan. I still and will always suck at tennis, but i really do enjoy playing it for some reason. I was playing with Jamie for a bit before we got tired of picking up the balls (more than hitting them).

I did walling for a bit while the others played volleyball (I'm scared of being hit by volleyballs!). One other person was walling beside me, and he asked me if I wanted to play with him. Of course!!! 當然啊!!! So we played while the others were playing volleyball. I found out later that the guy's name is 生活 or something that sounds like that. I hope to play with him again next time - he's the only one who can catch and return by bad shots so far. :-D

Jamie, Michelle and I went to try a new place for dinner and ended up discovering Jamie's new favorite place which served Thai-Malaysian food. We had some coconut milk beef, sweet vinegar chicken and pineapple fried rice. We talked the night away, until the restaurant started closing the lights to shoo off the loitering customers.


Saturday is Fulong Beach day which I am gonna reserve for a different blog entry. Just because it was the most fun and unique experience in my stay here in Taiwan (so far). :-D


Sunday was spent for resting our aching bodies from all the sports and activities that we were doing. We still couldn't part from each other though; Heidz, Michelle, Jamie and I met up with each other to eat dinner together. We finally had Japanese thanks to Neung's help. :-D


Monday is another sleep day for me. We had a chapter test and an oral examination in class, then we (Jen, Mike, Michelle, and I) ate roast duck and asado for lunch. After that, I slept the whole afternoon away until Michelle called me up to meet everyone for dinner. We went back to Jamie's Thai-Malaysian place to introduce Jen and Heidz to the good food.


Today Tuesday, we ate the cheap 小龍包 place for lunch with a bunch of peeps from class and extended friends. Michelle went home to sleep, then Jen and I spent the early afternoon chatting and cleaning my room. The five of us (Michelle, Heidz, Jen, Jamie, me) met up at the oval for a run. The weather was so nice for running! I had a very nice and easy 10 laps. Jamie thought I was not tired enough though so he asked me to run another fast lap which I did in around 2 or 3 mins (400km). Not bad, I think. :-D

We met up with Michelle's friend, Dan. Then we ate at a place that served Mexican food. The food reminded me of "Hola!" burritos from the Philippines. :-D


Tomorrow is Wednesday and I might finally be able to try Evan's Burger (50% off on their burgers every Wednesday). :-D

Hamy-day and Other Days

So yeah, Hamy finally visited me here after more than a month of not seeing each other. I'm still gonna do my usual rundown of activities since I want to remember them in the future, so please bear with me. Hehehe...


Thursday was the day before Hamy arrives. The only thing I remembered was that it was the first time I was able to try sibut (chinese medicinal soup) and that it was my first full 10-lap run since I came here in Taiwan (due to Jamie's encouragement).


Hamy arrived on Friday and we were able to meet each other at around 4pm that day (I brought him fried dumplings which he absolutely loved). Jen waited with me just to be able to meet him, then she had to go home. We had dinner with Heidi, Jamie, and Michelle. Hamy was finally able to meet my Taiwan friends. Oh, and we ate at the Goon's chou fan place for dinner. Weirdly enough, he was also able to meet all my housemates that day. This isn't usual, I usually don't get to see all my housemates in one day!


Saturday was our foodie and lucky day (It was also Taiwan's Mid-Autumn Festival). I had breakfast with Hamy in the hotel, since he got two free breakfast stubs from his room. We wasted the rest of the morning doing my laundry and talking. For lunch, I took him to DinTaiFung to try the famous xiaolongbao. We had to wait for around 45-60 mins before we can get into the place so we went to a roast duck place nearby and shared a plate of mixed roasted meat (duck, pork, chicken). When we got back to DinTaiFung, we ordered two orders of xiaolongbao.

Me, waiting for our turn to come up in DinTaiFung! Things we do for good food...
Hamy's approval face after we finished off the first batch of xiaolongbao. This is the second batch.
Below is a sad me when one of my xiaolongbao's broke and the soup leaked out. So tragic!
After the food trip, we walked aimlessly and found ourselves in ChiangKaiShek Memorial. We explored the place a bit since the weather was so nice and windy for strolling. :-)

There's a mini forest trail behind the memorial hall.
And these are our individual photos since we didn't bother asking other people to take pictures of us.
After ChiangKaiShek, we went to Kenneth and Beth's place (Hamy's High School friends). They were very very very nice and treated us to fried chicken fillet and fried shrooms from 2Peck. We also watched Star Trek on their very large TV. :-D

After the movie, we rushed to meet Kenneth and Beth's FilChi friends. We had kao rou or BBQ at Zandy's place and played pwationgchu which I found out was not being played (and not even known) in Taiwan. I tried to explain the game to my teacher at school, but it ended up sounding like a gambling game. Hahahaha... Anyway, to cut the story short, I met a lot of very nice people (Special mention to Jo, since I instantly liked her. I think people named "Jo" always has a special place in my heart. Naks!). Hamy won chiongguan (NT1200), I won a 4GB Flash Drive among other things. :D

Photo below grabbed from Bernie. Thanks!!!


Sunday was shopping day, Hamy and I had lunch at sliced beef noodle place. Then we went to Guanghua to look for my laptop. I've already found my laptop (Acer Aspire 5738ZG) but I didn't buy it yet because Hamy won't let me use my credit card (because of the lousy exchange rate). Anyway, I'll get my laptop when I have proper liquid NT$. Aside from finding my laptop, we bought an i-river mp3 player (because I lost my player last week Tuesday) and a fuji instax camera. Love!!!
After Guanghua, we headed for Ikea (got a bit lost along the way) and ate at the Ikea restaurant/canteen. The sausage and the salmon were awesome! Next time I go back to Ikea, I'm gonna try their meatballs. :-D

After our dinner, Hamy made me wear his jacket and made me hide my hands in the pockets. When I slipped my hands into the pockets, I felt a weird box shaped thing inside it so I had to take the thing out. Lo and behold, I now have an engagement necklace. ^^ Thanks Hamy, it's awesome!!! ^____^

We shopped around in Ikea, I bought a pillow, a mirror, and a scented candle. Hamy bought pasalubong food. :-D


Monday was Hamy's last day in Taiwan. We ate our last breakfast together (yes, we don't say no to free hotel breakfast food.) then he was off to the airport. I had a normal school day after the Hamy-days. I think I've forgotten what I did this Monday... I think I ate biandang for lunch and hotpot for dinner. It was also a very rainy day - I bought my third umbrella after breaking my first umbrella last week and breaking my second umbrella during the weekend.


Tuesday was my relax day. The rain stopped and the weather was so cool and comfy. Michelle and I had medicinal soup and chao fan for lunch with Eli and Hanni (Japanese and Indonesian classmates). We had to call back-up because we can't finish the food (Eyes bigger than our stomach). Thanks for coming to the rescue Jamie! Hahaha! After lunch, I slept. Hahaha! The weather was too nice!!! For dinner, Jamie, Heidi, Michelle, and I had Viet food and then headed to Shida Road for shaved ice desserts.


Today Wednesday, we tried out a new xiaolongbao place. I think DinTaiFung has a strong competition with this one. I don't remember the name of the place, but I certainly remember how to go back there. Yuuum!!!

I ran 12 laps today, then ate like a pig during dinner at a Korean BBQ place with Wayne, Keryl, their 2 friends, Jen, Heidi, Michelle, and Jamie. Tomorrow is Keryl's birthday (Happy Birthday Keryl!!) so we got her a chocolate cake to celebrate her day. Tomorrow's another cool fall day here in Taipei. I love this weather! :-D

Teacher's Day and Happy Day

Last Monday (September 28, 2009) was teacher's day! To show our teacher how much we loved her (because we do love her), the whole class gave her a bouquet of flowers and treated her to a xiaolongbao lunch!

Here's Diao Lao Shi with her bouquet! Upper left to right: Michelle (US), Me, 茉莉 (Poland), 京林 (Korea), 煌聰 (Vietnam). Lower left to right: 惠理 (Japan), 家美 (Indonesia), 刁老師, 惠敬 (Korea).

Here's another one from behind our building. This was after we finished lunch. :D

After this, Michelle and I met up with Heidi and Jamie then we went to Taipei Main Station to check out the laptops. :-D Gonna buy one this coming weekend! I soo need a new one, the one I'm using now is too small!!

We headed back to Shida and ate dinner at the Goon's fried rice place; bumped into Paolo (my Brazilian roommate) so he had dinner with us. :-)

This was also the day when I was finally able to drop off my film in the cheap dev place recommended by flickr friends. I think I need to have my SLR serviced, its sticky shutter problem is happening more often now!


Tuesday was fairly uneventful save for the stipend's arrival. Yes! I am finally able to pay the last part of my fall semester tuition and pay my rent!

I also went running with Jamie and Heidi (ran 6 laps); then we ate together with Neung (my Thai housemate) at the Goon's fried rice place. Yes, two times in a row - we really like our fried rice! :-D

Remember the time when Jamie beat me twice in chess? Well, we had another manly competition. I was telling him how English people are useless when it comes to spicy food. So he challenged me to a chili sauce eating duel. Who won? The non-English person, of course! Jamie-2; Jac-1. He cried! Tsktsktsk...


Today Wednesday, We had a huge chapter exam and a huge oral exam. Ate at a Vietnamese place for lunch and at a sibut (si-boot) place for dinner. We loitered around the running track while Michelle did 10 laps. I wanna do 10 laps tomorrow too!! :-D

We miss you Jen! Hope you won't be too busy soon! ^__^

My Weekend

Picture below (c/o Jen) from the Hawaiian Party last Friday:


Last Saturday after my TOP mock exam, Heidi, Jen and I met up with Michelle and Jamie in Ximending to catch a movie (The Ugly Truth). We saw Michelle's friend Chris after the movie so he joined us for dinner and talked with us while we were walking around the place.

When I got home, I got a message from Hamy that there's a big storm in Manila and that there's no electricity and water there. I went online and saw a lot of freaky videos (especially of UERM where my mother currently works.) I sent text messages to my parents but did not receive anything so I got a bit worried. Called home, my dad answered and told me that they were all at home and that the flood didn't reach our area. *Whew*

Sunday, Heidi, Jamie and I met for lunch. He headed to Jamie's place to check if he has WiFi using Heidi's laptop. We tried to study there but it was not conducive to study groups. Hahaha! Met up with Jen after a bit, and we decided to study in my place instead.

After a couple of hours (or minutes) of slaving with the books, we decided too take a break and play 1-2-3-Pass. I had some water-based markers in my place, so we used it to draw stuff on the losers' arms. It was havoc!!! Jamie had too much fun writing on people's arms, and he draws and writes like a five year old (very big!). Anyway, he was able to learn to write some Chinese phrases like 我做了第二個-大家不好意思 (I pooped-sorry everyone), 注意-咬人 (warning-I bite), 色浪 (pervert), 你看什麼笨蛋 (what are you looking at stupid?), and 熊貓迷會 (panda fanclub). I'm sure this will be very useful for his Chinese education (yeah, right!).

We met up with Michelle after the game - she had her hair done (red highlights rock!); then we went out to eat dinner at a nearby Thai BBQ place. :-)

Beth called me Sunday night to invite Hamy and me to their dice game. So looking forward to winning anything!! :-D Looking forward to seeing Hamy this Friday!!! ^___^

Haven't Posted in a While

Haven't posted in a while, and that's for good reasons. I've been studying and having fun too much. :-)

Last week Sunday, after Liu Fu Chun, Michelle, Jamie and I met up and shopped around the Gongguan area. We were supposed to go running in the afternoon but then just decided to watch a movie - The Rebound. I was the only one, out of us three, that liked the movie. Jamie, on the other hand, kept complaining about his salty popcorn. Let's just not get into that. Hahaha...

The next day Monday, I brought Jen to Gongguan area again and we also met up with Heidi. Jen bought shoes and running clothes. :-D

Come Tuesday, we went running around the oval. I think I ran 5 rounds and walked a round. :D

Wednesday, I ate xiaolongbao with my classmates for lunch (YUM!!!); and we also went to Chinese singing class where we learned a song each from WangLeeHom and Mayday. We ran around the Shida oval again, then went for some roast duck and asado and lechon. It's so cheap at $85! We also ate some mango, strawberry, kiwi thingy at Ice Monster. :-D

Thursday is cheap day. We ate at the Biandang store for lunch and ate at the Shida dorm canteen for dinner. This was also the day where I lost TWICE (!!) in chess against Jamie.

You see, Jamie pronounces "pawn" in this posh British accent as "pawrn"; we asked him what "porn" sounds liked and he also said "pawrn". The chess bet was that whoever wins in chess will concede to the winner's pronunciation of "pawn". I'm now stuck with pronouncing "pawn" as "pawrn". What's annoying about this blinking rubbish of a guy is that he finds reasons for me to say "pawn".

So he'll be like, "Hey Jac, can you tell Wayne what that small piece in chess in called?"

And I'll say, "Pawrn!"

Oh, joy!

Thursday (or yesterday) was also the day they discovered that we can hang out at our place. My place is the closest to school and is the largest among the three places (Michelle's and Jamie's) near Shida. We spent the whole night playing cards and laughing at sneezing pandas.

Friday (today!) is international students party day! We dressed up in hawaiian or beach clothes (Thanks for lending me your beach dress jen!) and ate filling pica-pica for free. We went back to my place to play some cards. Heidi, Jen, and I forgot how to play 1-2-3-Pass and we wanted to play it because we remembered it to be so much fun. Anyway, I found out how to play it now (thanks Google!) so we can start playing it soon! :-D

I need to sleep soon. Jen, Heidi, and I will be meeting up tomorrow for a TOP mock exam. TOP is the mandarin proficiency exam being used in Taiwan, and we'll need to take the real one as part of the scholarship requirements. :-)

I'm super enjoying my stay here in Taiwan! *Thankful mood*

Costco Buffet and Liu Fu Chun

I'm back with my English blogs! Hahaha, I think it'll take a while before I do another Chinese one. Hahaha! I need to rest my brain. :-P


FRIDAY

Jen, Heidi, and I went to Guanghua Electronic Mall after class, and we met up with Jen's uncle. The place feels like V-Mall. Hehehe. I'm going to take Hamy there when he visits Taiwan. I also saw a Babolat tennis racket there (NT2300) which I wanted to buy. *DROOL*

After Guanghua, we went to Costco (Similar to S&R or Macro) and sampled the many free tastes in the place. Michelle told me that they call that the "Costco Buffet" in the States. Hahaha!

After that, we (Heidi, Jen, myself) met up with Michelle and Jamie and ate dinner at the Jamaican place. We went to a lounge nearby, after dinner. I had my first (and last) taste of Taiwan Beer. I found it better tasting that San Miguel Beer (or SanMig Premium even). We also got to meet one of Michelle's college friend, Chris.



SATURDAY at the Amusement Park

Last Saturday was a very eventful day for me. First, met up with Jamie at MTC so that we can ride the bus together going to Gongguan station. We missed the first bus because Jamie doesn't know how to hail a bus. When we finally got to Gongguan station, we found out that it was actually a walking distance from our place. Waste of time. Hahaha!

Met up with Michelle who was already waiting for a long time, then waited a bit for Jen and Heidi. When we were finally complete, we had some croissants (thanks Jen!) and headed to a random place for lunch. We were already seated on a random resto when we found out that it was a buffet one; everyone wasn't that hungry so we headed to a different Chinese resto nearby.

After lunch, we ambled over to the bus station for Liu Fu Chun. We almost missed the bus! I think if we were 5 seconds late or something, we would have needed to wait for the next bus (which will arrive an hour later).

Anyhoo, the bus ride was almost uneventful. ALMOST! We thought that we have arrived Liu Fu Chun so Jen got off the bus to get our tickets; meanwhile, we remained in our seats to wait for the bus to park. Apparently, the bus was not parking but was just passing through the parking lot of the WRONG place. We realized too late that Jen has been left behind!

We called Jen up to tell her not to buy tickets and to get on a cab to Liu Fu Chun. The bus driver wouldn't go back for our friend. :-P Good thing Jen's such a happy person. No bad moods; just a lot of laughs; and NT$150 less rich!

We got in for NT$399 per person, which was fairly cheap (I think). The we plotted out our trip to make sure that we are able to ride the most exciting rides in the place.

We also met up with Jen's classmate Nini, and Nini's brother and cousin (Abe and Paul, respectively). Nini was the one who originally planned the trip, so we owe the whole Saturday adventure to her. :-)

On our first line, we were also able to meet a very hospitable family. They were very friendly and helpful to us, and we kept on bumping into them in the rides that we took. I think the two daughters had crushes on Jamie, and the parents wanted to marry a daughter off to him. Hahaha!

Here's "帥哥" with his fan club:

The photo below made everyone crack up; little Mandou (from the Taiwanese family) was just staring at the camera, but she suddenly did a peace sign when she heard Jen count to three! Cute!

Here's Nini (left), Jen (right), and xiao didi (bottom):

And here's everyone; the Yeh family, Nini's family, and us! :-D

We hungrily rode the bus back to Taipei and ate at the first decent looking (packed) restaurant that we saw. Turned out to be a very expensive buffet, but we only found out the buffet price after we were already full and sane again. Heidi and Jen treated us to dinner for no reason, and I'm not going to say no to that. :-P

It was a great Saturday; thanks for thinking up this trip, Jen!


PS. Grabbed all the photo's from Jen. Thank you!! :-)