Taiwan Trip - Part V

First day of 2011, it didn't particularly feel like new years day. It was just business as usual, all the stores were open and people were doing their regular everyday stuff.

Started the morning out at 85°C. They are known for their baked goodies at affordable prices. They also have this Sea Salt Coffee. It's quite interesting because you expect it to be salty, and well, it is, but when you order it, they ask you how sweet you would like it to be. So it is actually sweet with a bit of saltiness.

Yummy Cakes...


Seats outside.

Taiwan Trip - Part IV

December 31, last day of 2010, I was busy trying out some outfits all afternoon for a photo shoot in a couple days. My friend from Vancouver just happened to be in Taiwan for her Christmas break as well. This was the first time we met up in Taiwan, it was pretty cool. Before the nights ended, dinner was a must before she headed home that night. It was windy and cold outside that we didn't want to spend time picking places to eat, so we just went into a random restaurant close by. We looked through the menu and they had a couple vegetarian dishes on there and that was good enough for us.

Taiwan Trip - Part III continued

After a nice long break at Starbucks, it was time to get ready to visit the Pavilion of Dreams. To visit this exhibition, you have to first line up for tickets and then go at the given time shown on your ticket.

Inside - giant mechanical flower

Taiwan Trip - Part III

Got up super early again this day, but not to exercise, but to catch the high speed rail heading north to Taipei. We were meeting up with relatives/friends who we haven't seen in a while that were also back in Taiwan visiting. We decided to meet up at the Taipei International Flora Expo.

High Speed Rail

Taiwan Trip - Part II

Second day in Taiwan, we got up bright and early. Since we knew we would be jet lagged and up early, we thought we should go run off some of the extra calories we took in yesterday. It turned out to be the first and only day we worked out.

I live close by the National Museum of Natural Science(NMNS). There is a large road leading to the museum with nice pedestrian walk space and trees along the way. Even though it's busy with lots of traffic on both sides of the islands, it's always filled with people exercising in the mornings and evenings. We decided to jog along it to the NMNS and back.

Pedestrian Walk


Park and Green House by NMNS






Path towards NMNS

Taiwan Trip - Part I

I have been in Taiwan for a week now but have not had time until now to really sit down and organize pictures and start writing my first trip post. I've been eating pretty much non-stop since I landed :P I can't help it, there's just too much good vegetarian food in Taiwan.

There's going to be quite a few blurry pictures from my trip since cellphone is still the easiest way for me to take pictures without drawing too much attention. I'm pretty shy :P I just want to apologize for them in advance and also some of the translations on food names. Translated names are always confusing and more than one way to say it. Let me know if you would like to know where a restaurant is or what the name of the food is in Chinese.

YVR - left van at midnight on EVA airways




TPE - arrived in Taipei at five in the morning

Simply Thai

Friend who works in Yaletown recently discovered this new Thai place by his work and he would not stop talking about having it too often, which made me craved for Thai really bad. I even googled up Thai restaurants downtown and to my surprise, there aren't that many and I've been to almost all of them already. So finally I said we'll be having Thai food for lunch and that's that.

Sitar

It's funny how it's always so difficult to pick a place for lunch at work. Even if everyone's easy on what to eat, it is still a challenge everyday. This day is pretty much like any other one, we tried picking a place to eat on our way to meet up with a friend at Gastown and we managed to agree to go for Indian food at Sitar.

Goldies

Last minute decision to join another group of coworkers for lunch, all I heard was 'pizza, let's go' and we were off. The whole time walking there on Pender Street I was thinking that we were going to go to one of the cheap pizza places for a quick bite. After we passed by a couple of them, I started to wonder where we were heading, then we stopped in front of Goldies.

Nuba (Hastings)

If I recall correctly, Nuba was on the other side of Hastings Street when it first started. I remember going there a few times maybe a couple years ago. This time, when I was about to head back to where it was, my friends stopped me and said, "Where are you going? It's right in front of you. Sure you've been there before?"

So this is where it is.
It's down in the basement.

Pearl Castle (Richmond Centre)

It was another girls' day out. We decided on having lunch at Richmond Center's Pearl Castle.

Hon's Wun Tun House (Robson)

It's been a while since I last visited Hon's on Robson Street.

Ricky's (Dunsmuir)

I don't remember how we decided on having Ricky's for lunch that day, but it is just right across the street from my work, on Beatty Street and Dunsmuir Street.

Well Tea Downtown

I've been going to Well Tea for lunch for quite a few times already, I just haven't had the time to write about it yet. Located next to BCIT downtown campus, this is the Well Tea downtown location.

Kamei Royale

Last time I was here at Kamei Royale, it was still under renovation. It's good to be back and see how nice it has become :)

East Fusion Food

My first time back eating at Tinseltown since I started working. I remember there used to be a Chinese fusion restaurant upstairs called Wild Ginger. I'm not sure when it was closed but we used to go there all the time for goodbye lunches as there always seemed to be someone leaving the company every week. The food was not too bad and it was really cheap but we eventually had to stop going because people got tired of the food there. So when I got back, they told me Wild Ginger is no longer there but there's a new on the ground level called East Fusion Food. My friend who just started working in Gastown wanted to meet up for lunch so we decided to just go there for a try.

A show or movie was filming inside Tinseltown that day. The Christmas set was amazing. When I walked in I thought they were doing the Christmas decoration already.

Veggie Tacoyaki - 1st try

My tacoyaki pan arrived a couple weeks ago. I wanted to test it out as soon as I had time to put my hands on it. XD

Tacoyaki Pan.


Brush and Pick

Atithi

The online group coupons have become very popular recently. I got a WagJag deal for Atithi a while ago, 10 dollars for 20 dollars. To dine-in, it's only valid from Sunday to Thursday but it's good for pick up seven days a week, so I decided to just get a pick up.