More damages and bye bye Taipei..........

I am back! Quite sad to leave Taipei so soon especially when I did not managed to go alot of places (eg. Taipei 101, more night markets etc). But well, I'm sure to come back again, and hopefully this time for holidays and not work......... I simply love the weather there, a cool 17 degrees. After 2 days, I am still trying to get used to the hot and humid weather in Singapore.......

Pic that I took while going to the airport.......

Yummy steak...... It's only NTD300 and it comes with free flow salads, drinks and desserts!

红烧牛肉面 (in tomato base), yummy!!!

西门町！

California Fitness at Xi Men Ding

My 2nd try of oyster omelette (without sauce)

6 flavours donuts from Mister donuts

An pan donut!

Pirated Tokidoki bag and pouch from Shilin Night Market

Greetings from Taipei

I finally arrived in Taipei yesterday evening at around 5pm and for a moment it really felt weird to be alone in a foreign country. For starters, I hardly travel and here I am, all alone in foreign land for work. I was even blur as to where do I go after landing and I just follow where most people are walking to.

A driver was arranged to pick me up from the airport and now I know why is the charges at NTD1,300. He came and pick me up in suit and a black Mercedes. Haha. The driver, Mr Huang is a friendly guy who recommended what are the nice food to eat in Taipei, and strongly recommend that I go to Shilin Night Market to take a look. The journey from airport at 桃园 to Taipei is a quick 45 minutes since traffic has been quite smooth. Throughout the journey, I can see alot of agricultural land for rice and lots of mountains. Mr Huang mentioned that 2/3 of Taiwan is made up of mountains!

Settled down in hotel and after surfing the TV channels for about 30 minutes, it's time to head out and meet V and her fren M for dinner and shopping at Shilin Night Market. It's time to take the 捷运. Their train system is simple to follow just like in Singapore, good!

Sheraton Hotel Taipei is only few minutes walk away from the nearest station...........

We headed to Shilin Night Market with 'FOOD' in mind. I wanted to try the fried chicken chop, oyster mee suan, oyster omelette and 臭豆腐 (it really taste very good!!!!!). And on top of that, I also tried duck's tongue (sweet and chewy), 甜不辣 (flour like cake that is sweet and spicy), 汤包 (similar to xiao long bao), 粉圆 (beancurd with bubbles in bubble tea), fried mushrooms (yummy and crispy!) and some shaved ice with fruits and milk. Food is fantastic!!!

Enjoying our oyster omelette and mee suan!

汤包

Oyster omelette with sauce (I still prefer our local ones!)

Oyster mee suan!

The huge toilet that I have!

Taipei!!! Here I come!

Hahahahahahaha, finally got my 1st ever overseas business trip coming. I just feel so excited about it. Will be flying to Taipei this Sunday for 4 days and will be coming back on Thursday night. I don't think I will have much time to shop though (considering that I am there to settle some issues and at the same time, i don't have much money spare for shopping). But still, I would think it is a good experience.

V: See you at Taipei on Sun!!!!

Sunday has been our usual 'Stay At Home Movie' day since we found a video rental store at Clementi recently and the movie for this Sunday was 'The Passion of The Christ'. I have wanted to watch this show in full for sometime (the last time I caught drips and draps of this show was last Easter and it was showed on HBO or Star Movies) and surprisingly, BC said that he want to watch this show too!!!! That's it, we are renting this! Hahaha.

The Passion of The Christ is a film about the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life. The film opens in the Garden of Olives (Gethsemane) where Jesus has gone to pray after the Last Supper. Jesus resists Satan’s temptations. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, Jesus is arrested and taken back to within the city walls of Jerusalem where the leaders of the Pharisees confront him with accusations of blasphemy and his trial results in a condemnation to death.

Jesus is brought before Pilate, the Roman Governor of Palestine, who listens to the accusations leveled at him by the Pharisees. Realizing he is confronting a political conflict, Pilate defers to King Herod in the matter. Herod returns Jesus to Pilate who gives the crowd a choice between Jesus and the criminal Barabbas. The crowd chooses to have Barabbas set free and to condemn Jesus.

Jesus is handed over to the Roman soldiers and flagellated. Unrecognizable now, he is brought back before Pilate, who presents him to the crowd as if to say “is this not enough?” It is not. Pilate washes his hands of the entire dilemma, ordering his men to do as the crowd wishes.

Jesus is presented with the cross and is ordered to carry it through the streets of Jerusalem all the way up to Golgotha. On Golgotha, Jesus is nailed to the cross and undergoes his last temptation - the fear that he has been abandoned by his Father. He overcomes his fear, looks at Mary, his Holy Mother, and makes the pronouncement which only she can fully understand, “it is accomplished.” He then dies: “into Thy hands I commend my Spirit.”

At the moment of his death, nature itself overturns.

Extracted from http://www.iconmovies.com.au/passion/

In the scenes whereby Jesus was scourged by the Roman soldiers, I can't help but weeped at this scene. I could not believe that there were such inhumanity previously and not to mention that these soldiers can actually scourged a man to beyond recognition with blood splattered all over the ground. The way they tortured Jesus was simply cruel.......... Thorn crown, constant whipping and the finally crucifixation was really inhumane. I really cannot imagine how someone can go through all these extreme pain and torture. After the show, I realised that I was not the only one who was affected by the show, even BC weeped during the show and we both agreed that the show has such a strong effect on us especially when we are attending RCIA together and whatever that Fr Richards taught in class was shown in the movie.

This is really a good show to watch during the Lent period since we can truly 'feel' what Lord Jesus went through and it reminds us of repentance during this Lent period.

The weekend is finally here and is leaving again...... sob sob....... For working class like us, the weekend is always so short. Sometimes we do not even get to rest enough on these precious 2 days........ Weekends as usual is house cleaning day for us. After which, we decided to head down to Suntec and it was a BIG mistake!!!! It was so crowded with people due to the IT show! My goodness, just trying to walk around is so difficult! Bought some clothings for work and some snacks and we decided to head home at about 3pm. Oh oh, I almost bought this Raoul ladies short sleeve blouse because the fitting is just fantastic. I have never bought any button front blouse as I can never ever find the perfect cutting. But this blouse is just nice..... but too bad for me, they did not have the colour that I wanted and the salesgirl told me that she will call me if they have the colour that I want in other branches and until now, there has been no calls from her...........

After 2 months of no clock in the house, we finally bought it from Ikea. Hahahahaha. Cheap and not too bad looking!


I just bought the following Precious Moment figurine today after H emailed me the pictures 2 days ago. It's just so sweet to see Mike and Debbie lazing around on the sofa with their pets with them..........

恭喜!

Had some good news from an ex-colleague for an upcoming wedding and I'm really happy for this colleague. Hey you! Be happy and positive ok!

It's shaking!!!!!

An earthquake in Sumatra shook the office building today and for a moment I was thinking I was dizzy due to hunger! My table shook for about 5 seconds and I was thinking that my neighbour must have slammed her cupboard too hard that it shook my table. Only when all the fellow colleagues started talking about it then did I know that it was due to an earthquake. I couldn't feel the second tremor again after lunch but there was an announcement made for us to standby for evacuation........... That announcement was made 45 minutes ago and I'm still here...... I think I just have to get back to work.

Ugly Betty

Caught the 1st episode of 'Ugly Betty' and I find it a good show! I guess I should be catching it most of the time starting next Sunday. Looking at what happens to the main lead, Betty in the show, it brings back alot of memories of me when I was in sec school. I have always felt lousy about myself when I was in sec school as I am plump and short. Sad to say, the truth as depicted in the show whereby the ladies with looks and boobs are always the one who get what they want is also true during my sec school days. I still remembered whenever we go for campfire (I was Girl Guides during that time), I will always not go for the refreshment session since that was the time whereby scouts will come by and get number of the guides that they fancy and I always feel exceptionally uncomfortable since the clique I hang around with are quite cute and pretty.

Till now, I still have this problem whereby I feel uncomfortable about myself but I guess I just have to live with it. But for starters, I will definitely start exercising to lose off the pounds!

BC has been attending RCIA class with me and so far he seems to be enjoying himself during the class. Fr Richards' way of teaching does intrigue him in a way and he also agrees with certain things that Fr Richards taught, and I think that's good. He also started attending mass with me (without me asking if he want to come along with me!!!)!

又吃又喝

Gathering at H's place was great as usual. She whipped up alot of food and as usual, 5 ladies and 3 hubbies were yacking away over great food. It is really nice having this gathering once a month as we chat about TV shows, irritating people on the forum as well as people that we know. The great thing about this group of ladies is that everyone is very genuine to each other. I guess this is because we got today with no strings attached and only with the intention of getting to know more friends. Of most, I would also say that our chemistry was great and we can click really well the 1st day we met.

The next gathering will be at my place since they have not been to my place before. I hope it is not too far for them since most of them stayed in the east........