Paul and Hanano Kura

11/7/09 After rehearsal I joined friend H and K for a dinner at Paul on the Jenai Circle. What a lovely spot! The bistro faces the most recognized street corner in Taipei City. However noisy it is out there, the moment we stepped into Paul, it is as if we entered a small corner in Montmartre. The ambiance of the restuarant is serene and relaxing. The aroma of freshly baked baguettes and palmier fill the air. I felt like I was in a fluff for a while.

H and K and I made a reservation. Everything looked delicious and decidedly French bistro. We wanted to try it all and had to go through a complicated process of selection by elimination. We finally decided on a roast beef sandwich dish, a salad with smoke salmon, and a french appetizer platter.

Every bite was delicious and the meal was very satisfying! This was the first time K and I met, and we talked as if we were old friends. Not only are we about the same age, she has been in Taipei for 10 years, and spent a few years in California prior to coming to Taipei. Before then, she was in her native Japan. We have many things in common indeed! It's nice to meet someone with similar background and likings.

After the meal in Paul, H had to go home and K and I decided to find another place for a drink. We ended up at the Hamano Kura, that would be "the Wine Cellar of Flower" in English. This is a trendy sake bar where one can enjoy sake cocktails, various kinds of sake, and great sushi. We decided on Otokoyama, which is a sake with an umph. Over the sake we talked some more until it was passed the metro operation hours. Therefore we had to take taxis home. For safety reasons we called taxis over the phone (despite the fact that they are everywhere if you want to hail one) and two showed up very quickly. As soon as we were going to step into the taxi, the Hama no Kura person rushed on out of the sake bar to tell us that they got our tab wrong--instead of paying for a carafe, we paid for a whole bottle!!! Thank goodness they are honest.

The Taiheiyo Heiwa Toastmasters Japanese Club in Taipei

11/07/09: Today I get to do my first "ice breaker" speech in Japanese at my Toastmasters Club. I thought I was not going to be nervous but for whatever reason I was on pins and needles all the way until I went OFF the stage!! And it was only a short speech! I think the nerve came from lack of practice...I wonder how preachers like Billy Graham and Joel Osteen, or great orators like Obama and Kennedy get to speak without stage freight.

This is such a nice bunch of people and my speech received great response. In order not to make my self-introduction so boring and routined just like every one else's, I decided to quickly go through my basic data, and then move on to a quiz, including questions like what food do I not like, what sports am I not good at, which island have I not gone to, etc. It was a relief to hear laughters coming from the audience.

I am glad to say I'm liking my Toastmasters Club. Seems like I'll be able to make some good new friends there besides reaping other great side benefits such as polishing my public speaking skills and communication skills.

The Taipei Zoo

11/08/09 Yesterday there was a company-wide outing to the Taipei Zoo. Got up early and went to the 7 to buy breakfast. "The Seven" is how people call Seven-Elevens here, and the food selection is astounding. I shall have to write about that some other time.

Anyway I went to the 7 to buy breakfast and then waited on Chungshan N. for my cherubic coworker H to come and pick me up. His car came and as expected, the entire car is filled with people and McDonald bags. Ha! We had a huge breakfast match in the car, and but 20 min later we arrived at the Zoo.

The last time and the only time I went to the current Taipei Zoo was when it first opened 20-some years ago...it was very huge but barren at the time. It's nice to see the park is all filled with lush plants and trees now.

Before entering the zoo, we walked pass the new Taipei City Children's Entertainment Park. I can't wait to bring my nieces and nephew here when they come to Taipei. We also walked passed the recently built but quickly defunct Mao-Kung Cable Car. This was indeed a good idea, but it was a pity that the City Government missed the construction survey, causing the Cable Car to become a dangerous structure only shortly after its completion. Even so, The Wen-Shan area is still rich in touristic resources.

We first signed in and fetched our souvenirs for today's participation of the Zoo outing. Then, we darted towards the latest attraction inside the park--the Panda Colony. We got the timed ticket to the Panda Hall, lined up, and slowly approached the pandas. The pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan came from Sichuang. They were given to the Taipei Zoo last year. I have not seen them because thousands of visitors crowd this part of the Zoo every day then. Now that the panda craze is over by a little bit, I can see the panda in relative ease without too much pain. They were very cute! Tuan Tuan was sitting on the ground eating bamboo, while Tuan Tuan was hiding behind the playground set in the "room", scratching her behind...HA~

We then went up the slope and met up with more coworkers. The entire park was swamped with people I know and recognize; it's great to see their kids, too.

I didn't realize this was such a vast ground. The old zoo near northern part of the city moved to the current site in 1986. The current zoo is said to be the largest zoo in Southest Asia. After seeing the panda and hanging out at the Hippo Plaza eateries, we made our way up the tropical forrest walkway and meandered up to see the koalas. The koalas were at ease sleeping, chewing on eucalyptus leaves, and playing among the branches, respectively. They were very cute and much smaller than I expected--this was my first time seeing koalas, come to think of it!!

The Taipei Zoo was much more fun than I thought it would be--next time I come here I want to go up to the nearby and famous Mao-Kong Hill to have some Chinese tea also.

Thus Began the Whirlwind City Tour...

1/30/09 After getting back to the hotel, friend B already woke up. We went down to the hotel restaurant to the inclusive breakfast buffet. I was expecting nothing spectacular, and to my amazement, the hotel cafe was not just a cafe. It was the banquet room of the hotel converted into the breakfast buffet room. The buffet was in grand style also. There were at least 10 different food stations. Anything that one can think of--Chinese style breakfast items, Japanese and Korean style breakfast items, Western style breakfast items, coffee of different kinds, tea of different kinds, salad bar, pastry shop, and the list goes on. We ended up having this completely luxurious meal in this atrium banquet hall. That's Kaohsiung right there, everything is uh, bigger and better!! It would make my brother-in-law Jim, a son of Kaohsiung, very proud!!

After the breakfast, we checked out of the hotel. I quite liked the stay and would definitely recommend the hotel to anyone visting Kaohsiung. Upon checking out, Friend B got in touch with her friend Sophie, who moved with her family from Taipei to Kaohsiung some years ago. Sophie said she would come and get us, and spend some time with us. We didn't purchase the return leg of High Speed Railway ticket in advance, but we thought the trip would be but a few hours. How wrong we were. Little did we know we were about to go on THE day trip of Kaohsiung.

Sophie, her boyfriend P and his daughter Z arrived in this very nice SUV. That's another thing--one hardly sees an SUV in Taipei; the roads are narrower, and the cars are smaller. However, in the South of Taiwan, it seems every other car is an SUV. After happy exchanges of greetings, we hopped into the SUV and off we started the tour around Kaohsiung.

The first stop of the tour was the Fisherman's Wharf. Kaohsiung is a port city. In fact the Port of Kaohsiung is the largest port in Taiwan and to date the Port is still one of the largest in East Asia. Along the harbour there's the Fisherman's Wharf, which is a long strip of nice waterfront cafes. We took pictures and walked about. Here I saw some bicycles (which I don't yet know how to ride...) for public use. This is a new thing here in Taiwan but Taiwan boasts one of the world's highest density of cyclists, and it seems everyone on the island rides a bicycle. More and more there are free bicycles all around the island especially at major scenic spots available for public use. I have never seen it before and am glad to see such good ideas taking off in Taiwan.

The Love River

1/30/09 Every famous city is associated with a famous river, it seems. When one thinks of Rome, it is the Tiber River; Paris is not Paris without the Seine. Kaohsiung has its river, too--it is the Love River.

The Love River used to be very extremely polluted during the 70s and 80s, with raw sewage and industrial wastewater flowing directly into the river (yiew.) Today it is one of the most successful examples of pollution reversal, with more than a dozen species of fish swimming happily (or they seem so...) in the Love River.

I woke up quite early despite the beer consumption the previous night. For my morning walk, I decided to walk to and along the Love River.

As I obtained the map and checked direction with the front desk, the gentleman was very surprised I would walk it. He advised that the preferred way to travel in Kaohsiung is by motorcycle or scooter. Since I had no access to either and can operate neither, I thanked him and embarked on my journey on foot.

Just a short 10 minutes down the road I came across the Central Park of Kaohsiung. I must say it is of no particular significance to me, since I do see a lot more nice city parks either in Taipei or elsewhere in the world. I later learned that the Park is most beautiful at night and is known as the Light Corridor of Kaohsiung City, since the Park is nicely illuminated at night. I suppose that makes up for its...so-so-ness during the day.

After walking through the park, I went for another 20 minutes by foot and I arrived at the Love River. It is beautiful ineed, very serene, not too many people walking despite the fact that the paths along the bank is nicely paved. On the other hand there were quite a lot of scooters on the streets --as the hotel staff correctly advised.

I walked along the river and realized there were many people there busy putting some kind of festival together. A closer look revealed that the city and its people are preparing for the upcoming Lantern Festival. It is afterall still the Chinese New Year. The Lantern Festival is the last day of the Chinese New Year, the 15th of the month of January on the Lunar Calendar, and there will be lanterns displayed all the way along the river bank.

While walking, I encountered a middle-aged couple asking for directions from me. I apologetically told them I am not a local, and then during the next 30 seconds of conversation while walking down the road together, we found that we were all "from" California!! What a small world!!

Kaohsiung at Night!!

1/29/09 After dinner we roamed some more and ended up on the top terrace of the mall, which is a pretty good size playground and amusement park and was packed with people. The ferris wheel with completely see through gondolas is all the rage and the line was long beyond my wildest belief, so I decided to skip it.

With the afternoon nap, the walking about, and the long wait to the meal, plus the meal time, plus the shopping afterwards, it was actually very late already. We decided to head back to the hotel.

As if the meal was not satisfying enough, seeing that we were on a trip, indulging ourselves a little bit would not be the end of the day--hey, I survived a 10-day Alaska cruise with regular 6-time-feedings throughout the day, what's one night in Kaohsiung gonna do for me!?

Friend and I decided we needed some BEER. If you get beer here, you need snacks to go with the beer. Our choice of snack for the evening is the down home southern garlic flavored dried tofu curds. While they look very brown and dubius to those who are not from Taiwan, dried tofu curds are bar-none the BEST snack to go with beer. Period. No discussion necessary. If I signed up for the Amazing Race and they feed me this stuff, I would surely beat the others to the million bucks.

At this late hour of the night, thank goodness Taiwan is an island filled to the brim with 24-7 convenient stores at every street corner. We hit the one right near the hotel, and bought the beers and the snacks, and went back to our hotel. Now with refreshments in our hands, we watched TV and chatted late into the night. From our hotel room, we could see the very dramatic and beautiful night view of the city. I know I haven't seen much of Kaohsiung except for one shopping mall, but for some reason I like the fact that I'm taking in the slower southern pace, kicking back, relaxing, and just having a good time. I know somehow we will see KS plenty within the remainder of the weekend...

The Dream Mall

1/29/09 For dinner and entertainment that evening, we decided to head to the Dream Mall.

The Dream Mall is one of the most popular shopping destinations in Kaohsiung. We took a taxi to the Dream Mall, and before even approaching, I discovered that Kaohsiung streets are all wider by a lot compared to Taipei City.

The Dream Mall is HUGE!!! What's more, as soon as I stepped into the lobby atrium, there's the Cold Stone Ice Creamry! What can't you find in Taiwan these days!?!

We were quite hungry and headed for the restaurants within the mall, almost all of which were on the same level. WELL!! We arrived a little bit behind the crowd, and as a result, many restuarants already were fully booked for the night! We found one hot pot+table top grilling restaurant which were still accepting walk-ins, at 45 minutes of wait time. Better than nothing, I suppose. We browsed for 45 minutes and then arrived at the restaurant to be seated.

The restaurant is nicely decorated, with fish tanks atop the dividing walls separating each seating booth. It's kind of an interesting experience cooking and viewing the swimming fishies at the same time.

The meal consists of two parts--a hot pot on my left, and a table top grill to my right. The wait staff started bringing enormous amounts of food to our table. This is Kaohsiung indeed!! Even food portions are larger down south. We had plentiful vegetables and slices of delicious beef. It was a very satisfying meal indeed.

After eating, we continued roaming around and came by a beautiful traditional Taiwanese pastry shop, Yu-Jen-Zai. The pastry shop is famous the island over and originated from my dad's home town in Zhanghua County. Even traditional pastry shops are franchised these days. So it is not strange to see one of their stores here at the Dream Mall. I saw one of my favorite snacks, Mua-Lao, which is this sticky-skinned pastry with foamy insides. The skin is sticky because the crunchy exterior of the pastry is covered with wheat-germ syrup and then coated with either sesame seeds or almond slices. YUM YUM!! Bought some, and moved on to the top floor.