Taipei, Taiwan (May 11th - 15th, 2009)

I had a wonderful couple of days in Taipei, exploring a new country. It was a wonderful experience and I can't wait to go back. I had all of these huge expectations about what it would be like to go there for the first time and how I wanted to experience it, and I don't know if it went how I'd planned, but I loved it.
Most of the time in Taiwan was spent with family, spending time with relatives, getting to know them better and see how they live and meet relatives that I never had the chance to meet previously. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt there, even if the culture is very different what I experienced growing up, but I guess that's family for you.
To say that the trip was a life-changing experience makes it sound like it was a super-huge deal and while it definitely had a big impact on my life, as I said, it just felt so comfortable that I don't think a huge definition of what the trip meant to me seems right. It confirmed to me that if able, people should travel and see as much of the world as possible. Be exposed to different experiences, people, cultures, sights, sounds, smells, etc. I also think it's so important for people to learn about their roots. You have the chance to understand your family and even yourself. I can't even put into world how much of an impact this trip made and how much I hope to use this experience in my career and life.

Anyway, onto Taipei:

I had my first teppanyaki experience. It wasn't a very dramatic version, but I did enjoy the banter and watching the action. The food, of course tasted amazing.







I had to go to the Taipei Zoo to see the pandas. I thought that I was being smart by arriving as soon as they opened to beat the
crowds. I think it was actually worse because there was a bottleneck of groups arriving at the same time and everyone rushed to get a timed ticket and the constant stream of people entering the panda area made the experience very rushed and not as enjoyable as I would have
liked. Kids were still in school so I was surrounded by school groups, but it was kind of nice to see them out and about. As I said, the panda exhibit was incredibly busy and we weren't allowed to stand and watch the pandas in action, we had to keep moving along, which was terribly annoying. I'd never experienced anything like that at a zoo before. I like that in one of the pictures, there's a visitor who's dressed up as a panda with a panda hat.
Each toilet had a curious sign, and I just happened to take a picture of this particular one. I only read basic Chinese characters, so I don't know exactly what this sign is saying, but the English is very bizarre. Is it encouraging a bowel movement, telling me I have the option of doing so? What's the deal?


School children everywhere. A little rambunctious in certain exhibits, definitely not using their indoor voices, but in other ways very well behaved. It was a hot, hot, hot day and groups were taking advantage of any shady area that they could find.



I thought that this was kinda interesting. A sign that said how many people were in the zoo area. I'm not really sure how they figured that out though. It wasn't a turnstile situation on the way in, more like an open doorway that groups of people could enter at the same time. Same thing for leaving the zoo. I really don't know how they could have kept track of the number of visitors.

The metro in Taipei was quite nice. It seemed quite orderly with people
waiting in a line in designated areas. Some of the stations looked extremely well-kept and many stations had attendants watching for safety and making sure that people were in the trains before they signaled to close the door. I guess these plastic gates were for additional safety, and not all stations had them.



A couple shots of the National Theatre and Concert Hall. I loved the bright, bold colours and the stereotypical architecture of the building. Beautiful.


The National Theatre and Concert Hall are opposite to each other in a big square and are identical to each other. At the end of the square is the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which was equally as imposing and magnificent. It's the building you see next.

This is the view from the top of the stairs at the CKS Memorial Hall. You can see the National Theatre on the left and the National Concert Hall on the right.

There are two guards in the CKS Memorial Hall. On the hour, there is a changing of the guards, which is quite the display. In addition to the marching back and forth similar to most of the other changing of the guards that I've seen, there's as also a display with spinning of rifles and tossing
them in the air and neat tricks. It goes on for a pretty good length of time and I would highly recommend going to watch the changing of the guards if you get a chance. This picture also gives you an idea of just how large the statue is in the hall and in this picutre, the guard looks tiny!
I thought the roof of the hall was very beautiful.









This is Taipei 101. A massive shopping mall at the base, office space on certain floors and a change for tourists to ride up to the
top and get a panoramic view of the city below. It was a very hazy day, and I was disappointed that I couldn't see the CKS Memorial Hall and other buildings that I'd
seen earlier walking around the city. You can see the there is a lot of green in the city and surrounding areas and you can compare this to the view from the KL Tower here.
Taipei 101 boasts the speed of its elevator. Someone who cares can tell me if this is fast or not, because it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on me.



I went to visit Chungshan Hall. The smell was quite strong. You know, the rotten egg smell. The hall is built over a volcanic crater and there are hot springs nearby as well. It was neat to see the old pictures of the hall and this
room is where they did lots of votes. Something interesting about the chairs is that the legs can be adjusted for height so that although the ground is slanted, you don't feel like you're going to fall off the chair.



The ceiling of one of the hallways in the hall was painted with bright colours. The designs and colours used reminded me of the Peranakan stuff that I saw in Singapore.


A great view from the top floor of the hall:
Next tourist stop was the National Palace Museum. At all of these tourist stops, they have stamps that you can use as little souvenirs. I don't think that I'd used stamps in a long time. You know, the old-school, ink-pad, stamps. The museum wasn't as large as I was expecting (although it was quite large) and I enjoyed looking around (although much of it wasn't
super interesting to me), but there were a couple stand out artifacts. First, the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects and secondly, the Meat-shaped Stone. Actually, it was the meat-shaped stone which really caught my eye. It just looked so real! I was quite disappointed that there wasn't a copy of the painting: Along the River During the Qingming Festival. It was too much of a tease that they has a digital version of the painting on display telling you a little bit about the painting, but honestly, too much of tease. I wanted to see the real deal!










This is the Grand Hotel. It is quite grand. I was thinking of getting something at their bakery, but I didn't want the burden of carrying it around, so I decided against it. Next time. And I suppose next time, I could also try staying at this hotel and see just how fancy it is.

Another shot of the metro:


Okay, so I do love to eat. And I love dumplings. On a couple recommendations, and even after eating there in Singapore, I sought out a Din Tai Fung. Yum, yum, yum, yum, YUM! Soupy dumplings = tasty!


On the way to my first Taiwanese night market, I snap this shot of a massive intersection. Lots of young people out and about, going to the market and just being social beings. You can also see in this picture that this particular crosswalk is a scramble like we have here in the city at Yonge-Dundas. SCRAMBLE!


It may be touristy, but I had to go to the Shilin night market. It was the most amazing thing and I thoroughly enjoyed the experienced. It's just a huge grid of food vendors. It's neat to see, smell and taste.

I'm proud to say that I tried stinky tofu, and it was quite stinky. I didn't like it one bit. Apparently the fried version that I had is less stinky than the braised version, so I can't even imagine how bag it would be. The smell is absolutely atrocious. The taste was vaguely bearable, although unpleasant, but the smell, oh man.
This is a drink vendor who has bubble tea (brings me back to high-school) and also a drink that I don't know what it's called in English. It looks like jello and is made from rubbing grains in water. I swear, that's what you do. So you basically drink the jello - I guess you have to break up the piece a bit first. It's quite refreshing in the summer and has cooling properties.
This stall had the longest line, by far. It was a big slab of fried chicken. I'm sure that the food was good, but I think a large reason that people liked it was that it was good value for the money. It did look yummy.


The night market doesn't only have food. It's actually a huge area where streets and alleys have stalls set up selling anything and everything. Of course there was the stereotypical replicas and couterfeit as well and more food stalls, restaurant, stalls for clothing and knick-nacks. It was a huge area and I could have walked the market for hours. It would have been a good chance to people watch and even pick up some interesting souvenirs and definitely have a chance to practice my bartering. It was amusing to see
the stalls that would quickly disappear when the cops came around. They literally disappeared into the alleys and they would reappear out of thin air when the coast was clear. I didn't get a picture of it, but in some stalls, there was a set up with very small, one foot by one foot cubicles that vendors could rent out. I guess for someone who doesn't want to pay a lot of rent, it's the best situation, but it was funny to see such a set up - almost like an oversized vending machine.

Another adventure was out to Danshui where they have hot springs. There were hotels with springs in the rooms, public springs set up like public swimming pools and even the chance to wade in the public stream and get nice, smooth, skin. I had









the chance to go to a private spring/bath in a hotel and it was too hot for me! I do enjoy hot showers, but this was too much. I couldn't handle the heat and had to take breaks quite often. I could be a little bit of a prude, but I was a little thrown off by the fact that people bathed naked as well. The bath that I went to in Hungary had the option of bathing suits, and I'd say about half of the patrons were wearing bathing suits, but, anyway, it threw me off. The public bath that we walked by was bathing suit mandatory. Danshui was really popular for the Japanese, so these baths and many of the buildings have a Japanese character to them.

Okay, so scooters are everywhere! One of my first memories from Taiwan was driving to the teppanyaki dinner at night, where the sky is so dark, looking out the car window and seeing an army of scooters. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie with an army of black-helmeted folk. I'd never seen anything like that before, and I wasn't scared of what I saw, but it had a weird impact.
I went back to the CKS Memorial and happened to catch the tail end of the lowering of the flag for the day. More rifle coolness and super exact marching. The children watching really enjoyed it, and I was intrigued at the number of people carrying Taiwanese flags.

Another night market. The reason I went to this specific night market was because I wanted to eat snake. Apparently they kill a live snake in front of you, rip off the skin - it's a pretty gruesome deal and then you've got your food. I did see tanks of snakes, but no one seemed to be buying









any nor was anyone eating any. I didn't want to be the only one doing it for fear that maybe it wasn't really a popular thing to do or maybe that the snakes weren't very good or something. Anyway, I didn't eat snake. I'm kinda disappointed, but I suppose there's always next time.
All the night markets are closed up during the day and other vendors come in and turn it into a farmer's market, which of course I love. You can see how temporary these stalls are. And of course I liked the dog just hanging out.

Love markets. Love markets. Ginger, ginger, ginger!!!

More jellies, and a narrow alleyway selling anything and everything.

And on that happy note...that's Taipei!

Yummy peaches

This past Saturday, I bought some Ontario peaches from the market.
I was a little skeptical about them because they were so hard, but I was assured that they would ripen quickly.
I have to learn not to be so cynical. I've never had any bad advice at the market. The strawberry-rhubarb pie was amazing, the asparagus was tasty...so yummy.
Anyway, point is, Ontario peaches are out there and they're very tasty.
And, as always, the market is the best.

The Uniform Project

The Uniform Project. I'm intrigued.

Filling the summertime void

It's not like I have a TV, but I still feel the void that is the summer.
My online sources for noise in the background of my life run a little dry in the summer, so I turn to shows that I probably wouldn't watch otherwise.
I've started watching Big Brother and while waiting for the next episode, I'm getting up to date on the UK version.
It's definitely a show that you don't really need to pay attention to, so, perfect to meet my needs. When I'm wandering around my place, doing odds and ends it's nice to have something on in the background. Big Brother is that show.
BBUK also has nostalgic value as I would watch it in London (and other parts of the UK) just before going to bed. I usually traveled to the UK in the summertime, so it was always on. It was on Channel 4 - the channel that seemed to show lots of trashy and over the top shows.

A new 'do

I'm still shopping around for the perfect stylist in the city and I'm not sure if I'll ever find one.
While my hair is important, I'm pretty blase about my cuts, figuring that it'll eventually grow out and changing things up every so often has it advantages even if it wasn't what I was expecting at the time.
While in Europe, I only got my hair cut in Paris. It was a thing I started for the fun of it. It's good for a giggle. I went to a different place each time, paid different amounts and ended up with different looks each time. Only once did I not like my cut and only a week later did I find out that it was actually all the rage and that I just wasn't putting enough product in to rock the style. It grew out spendidly though. I should have known...the salon was on the punk side of life. Each time I went to the salon, I told the stylist that they could do whatever they wanted with my hair, but I didn't want a style that needed to be blow-dried or have intense product put in it. I am blessed with nice, straight, shiny hair and really don't want the hassle of doing anything with it in the morning. I'm not good at imagining what looks will match with my face, so I really do leave my hair in the hand of the stylist.
Anyway, now that I'm back in the city, I'm scouting out where to go, being a little weary of how much salons are charging these days. I was willing to pay ridiculous amounts for cuts in Paris, because it was all part of the gig and money spent in Paris is all play money, right?
Before I left for Europe, I'd actually gotten my hair cut at a super luxe salon in the city (a serious splurge before my big adventure) and absolutely hated the cut. It was simple and boring and I couldn't understand what my friends who had recommended me to the stylist were smitten over. I think that's made me a huge skeptic.
Anyway, the point is, it's been a year since I've gotten a haircut and I was really looking forward to change, but not really knowing where to go. I'd scoped out a couple styles, because they always ask what you want, even though, as I said, I really have no clue what to do. I think the thing was that the luxe salon was scared to give me something different as it was my attempt to go shorter, so I ended up with something dull, as opposed to in Paris where they're more daring and really will just run with wherever their imagine takes them, hence my punk style in the summer of '06. North Americans are a little bit more reserved that way. It's harder to go out on a fashion limb on this continent. So, for the play-it-safe stylists in the city, after careful research, I thought intense layers and sideswept bangs would be the way to go.
The problem remained, where to get it done.
In my thriftiness, I looked to salon schools. After going through a couple options, I ended with an appointment this morning at Toni & Guy.
The experience was pleasant enough. I felt serious stress for my assistant (AKA "stylist in-training") and any time her mentor approached, I got nervous for her. It was interesting to watch how the education process works in a different field and find out every single step that goes into the specific cut that I ended up with. The session lasted for just over two hours, so that could be a turn off to some people, but I was just sitting in a chair, afterall. The only catch was that I really didn't have any say in the cut I ended up with. My stylist was learning and perfecting a specific cut and that was that. In preliminary chats with her, it seemed like maybe I would be able to get what I wanted out of the cut, but once in the chair, it was clear that I was getting the cut that was being taught. At this particular salon, the trainees start of with basic cuts and progress to those more abstract, so based on what you want and where you think it falls on the scale, you could probably ask for an assistant at that level. Of course, the trainees know which cuts they're working on, so you could outright ask for that too, which I'm sure I could have, but I was really just dying to get a change (any change), so I was content to go with what was being offered.
I figure with a free haircut, I'm cool with doing almost whatever. That's what I practically did when I was dishing out cash. The stylist had all the say...the only difference is that they could see my face shape first before deciding what to do. I could have potentially ended up with a cut that wasn't meant for my face (although, who's to say one of those stylists in Paris was just cutting without considering who it was for).
I'm looking forward to the next cut. It'll be nice to change up my look more often. My cut isn't the most exciting thing you've ever seen, but it's not hideous. I was hoping for a drastic change as it's been awhile since I've done anything, but, oh well.

Brain's on holiday

My brain's been on holiday for almost three weeks and I need to somehow find it in me to get back to work.
I gave myself a well-deserved break from work for a week, but since then, I haven't been motivated to return. I do have things that I could and should be doing, but other things have gotten in the way. You know, sleeping, eating, relaxing, sunning, walking and all that kind of thing.
That pinched nerve thingy didn't last long enough to make a difference (thanks for asking, Sarah!). I did end up making it to dance class that night and although my movement was a little limited it felt better for me to get out and attend an amazing class (I know that no one will care, but tonight's class was AMAZING. Our teacher's going away for a month and he definitely left on a high. I love, love, love the class). By the next night, I was pretty much back to 100%. Just a little sore, but true to form, the pinched nerve went away as quickly as it came.
I took a couple days to organize and clean at my parent's place and it's a sham that the strike is going on, as there was lots to be put into the blue box. I'm a self-professed pack rat with the mindset that everything has some sort of sentimental value or that it will have a use in the future so I just had to get into the purging groove. I finally said good bye to many things from my experiences in Europe, time as an undergraduate, teenager and even as an elementary school student. I had kept EVERYTHING and for the most part, it was well organized, but was taking up some serious space.
I convinced myself that I'm a good enough educator that if I ever ended up teaching science or elementary school, I could create my own activities and not rely on the fantastic things that my teachers had done with me. I convinced myself, that I really didn't need my daily homework assignments and notes of how to conjugate Latin verbs. I convinced myself that I didn't need to keep all of the many boarding passes from all of the different flights that I've been on (because the stamps in my passport and the souvenirs that I've bought will remind me of where I've been) and the list goes on.
I did keep a couple special memories from my academic career including childhood artwork and a couple assignments which I knew would be nice to look at in the future. I'll probably have to cut down the pile in the future, but having just purged ~90% of my stuff, I figured I deserved a little leniency.
Some of my belongings were hard to say goodbye to, but I reminded myself that someone out there needs it more than I do. I keep thinking that one day, I'm going to have a freak out and regret getting rid of something, but I'm trying not to think about it.
Anyway, that's what I spent a couple days doing, so I really haven't done any work in quite some time. Unfortunately, there are some deadlines coming up so I do need to get into gear. I know once I get going, I'll be fine - it's just getting going which causes me grief.
I've made an appointment early in the morning in an attempt to get me out and about and ready to work for the rest of the day. It's an appointment that I'll probably end up writing a post about. I've even made my lunch already.
I've been experimenting in the kitchen this past little while. Of course, with my weekly visits to the St. Lawrence Market, there's always an incentive for me to use up the fresh produce and I've recently borrowed a blender-type contraption to mix things up a bit (no pun intended).
I don't have the habit of snacking on pieces of fruit, so the novelty of this blender has increased my number of servings a fruit a day in the form of juices and smoothies. This morning I also used the blender to make pesto sauce and this past weekend I made a potato/carrot/ginger soup. I'll be making another soup this weekend.
Maybe I should go to bed a little earlier today, seeing as how I'll probably have to set my alarm clock for the first time in a while.

Qubit

I just watched the worst game show ever. Qubit. I can't believe that someone took a chance to produce this show.

Slow day

I woke up this morning, with an hour of extra sleep ready to hit the ground running. All of these grand plans, and seemingly on track, until I got up from my desk chair ready to cross the next thing off my list. I am in complete pain.
I think I may have pinched a nerve somewhere near my right shoulder blade. How? By sitting in front of my computer. It was fine before I sat down and now it's not. What the heck.
The pain has been consistently bad and while a couple little things that I've done to try to alleviate this inconvenience have lessened the pain for a few brief moments, it's still there and I feel utterly useless.
I'm praying in the next two hours, it will miraculously get better so that I can go to dance class and feel some sort of accomplishment for the day, but it's not looking good.
This sucks. It really sucks. I've got things to do, places to be and I can't turn my head to the left.
I've wasted the whole day, my patience is wearing thin and of course, I'm in pain.

Vroom vroom

I can hear the race cars practicing for the Honda Indy Toronto.

Wahoo!

I'm going to watch the new Cirque du Soleil show, OVO!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (May 8th - 10th, 2009)

My trip to Asia was too short, but what can you do. I'm sure I will get the chance to go back again.
I was fortunate to go to KL for a weekend with someone who really knows the area. I was a tourist, canoodled with locals and ate not nearly as much food as I wanted. Surprisingly, my stomach has its limits.
I'm just going to get it out of the way - KL also has its share of ridiculous malls. I did, however go into one of the cheaper malls which reminded me of Pacific Mall. It was here that I was tempted to buy a couple pieces of clothing, but the fact that we weren't allowed to try anything on led me to put the stuff down as quickly as I had picked it up. Darn it. I wish I had the
talent of staring at clothing and guessing if it'll fit. The other thing that threw me off (because I'd never encountered it before) was the fact that all of the dresses would have been miniskirts on me, which isn't really my style. I suppose I am a giant by Asian female standards. Too bad, because there
were some really cute pieces. Darn, darn, darn.
In one of the of the nicer malls, there was a Club Monaco store. Knowing that I enjoy their style, my friend told me to go in to marvel at the prices. I think it was at least twice as much as it costs here in Canada. I couldn't believe it! I wonder if people over there think that it's a really chic brand and are willing to shell out the big bucks for the stuff.
I didn't get a picture of it, but the mall food courts are just as ridiculous as their shopping malls. The amount of choice was incredible, the portions were impressive, the presentation and everything was so much more involved than here in North America. I guess everything there is over the top.









The first night, we went to Petaling Street. This is what I was hoping to see in Singapore. I was energized by all of the people, the vendors calling out to you and the different kinds of things that they were selling. I've seen my fair share of counterfeit luxury
goods, but I'd never seen fake Tiffany stuff before. They even packaged them in light blue boxes. I had to laugh out loud. Another trend I noticed in Asia was polo shirts by Ralph Lauren. Not that polo shirts are anything new, but I'd never seen the ones with the gigantic logo on the front. I saw so many people wearing them (some fakes amongst them), that I had to ask what was going on. It was explained to me that these particular polos are popular because of the big logo, and well, these people love to flaunt their brand names. Designer malls, logos plastered all over their body...ahh, it's all coming together. I may love designer stuff, but it's not for the name that I love it, its for the style, detailing and quality. This is also where I bought some of the fruit that I sampled.
Our hotel room had a great view. We looked directly at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre, which was perfect for the giddy tourist in me. This is one well lit building. The CN Tower is better now than it was before the lights, but I'm sure that it could be improved upon. We giggled at the fact that there was a shuttle golf cart that took us from the hotel to the KLCC. We did take it a couple times when it was too hot outside, until we found that the doors of the air-conditioner convention centre were open and created a nice little pathway between where we needed to go.
On the ceiling of our room was this little sign telling us where Mecca was. I thought that was really neat. Not really surprising if you think about it, but it's not something that I'd ever seen before, so it made me stop for a second. I wonder if other cultures come to North America and get thrown off by finding a bible in their hotel room.
From atop the KL Tower, I could see the pollution and admire the skyline of the city. I didn't find these shots very interesting until I compared them to similar shots from Taipei 101 (coming up in a later post) and you can really see the different between cities. Let's just say, KL seems pretty grey and dingy.
Outside the KL Tower was a small zoo which mainly had different reptile and amphibians. I had never seen a frog this fat before, so I had to snap
a shot. I would have been interested to see it move. All of the animals had placards stating the species name and where they naturally live. I got a little giggle seeing the raccoons in there. Native to North America. Nice. Another funny moment because over there, raccoons are foreign so it would be interesting to see them in captivity. I wonder which animals we have on display here they would think is so banal that they don't both putting them in zoos.









A couple shots of Merdeka Square. I learned something from this pit stop. Jersey material is really light and bouncy. Sometimes I like taking fun action shots...probably not the best when wearing jersey dresses. It was a good laugh.
Next stop was the Central Market where I went in ready to buy souvenirs and my special purchase of the country. By this point, I was disappointed that I couldn't find anything special in Singapore and vowed not to leave KL without something. Luckily I found what I wanted, engaged in a little bit of bargaining (I never really now how far I can push it, and let's be honest, with the attitude of wanting to buy something, you don't want to push too hard) and left a happy camper. I had kinda wanted to buy a batik sarong, but they turned out pricier than I had expected and instead got something else.
So I try to experience different things when possible. I forget where I'd heard about this, but I never imagined having a chance to try it. My feet were pretty mangled up from wearing bad footwear during the trip, so I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to try it, but the lady told
me it would be fine. Actually, I think that was the least of my concerns. I was terrified about how it would feel having fish basically eat the skin off of my gross feet. Although they bear battle scars of many experiences that I've had in life and usually I'm proud of stuff like that, I'm actually quite embarrassed about the state of my feet. It's also very difficult for me to find footwear which fits and made my mangled feet look presentable. I've also been told that I'm picky, but that's just another opinion. Anyway, in Singapore, I'd seen quick a few different spas out and about and many of them advertised the fish thing. Here, the price seemed right, and I didn't really know when else I'd get a chance to go for it, so with great fear, I paid the steep price of 5 ringits (I jest) and braced myself for what was to come. I kid you not
when I say that it took me 5 minutes to put my feet entirely in the water. This first picture where the fish are blinded by the flash (oops) give you a sense of just how many fish there are. There were two tanks available for feet (there was one for hands too) and this one contained small fish about 4cm in length. Their nibbles were extremely ticklish, which I am not good at dealing with. It was so bad that I started shaking. A LOT. I kept dunking my toes in, and as soon as the fish would swarm, and they really did swarm, I had to pull my feet out. Finally, I started getting used to the sensation, although it did take a lot of effort for me to keep my mind off of what was going on. The passerbyers thought I
was a hoot to watch. For the last couple of minutes, I wanted to try the tank with the bigger fish (10cm). These fish felt more like they were scratching my feet. It was like you could feel their little teeth scraping the dead skin off of your feet. It took awhile for me to get used to them as well. They really pick at every part of your feet, even between your toes. It's funny to see the fish swarm to your feet when you first put them in, but once your feet are a little bit cleaner and especially if someone else puts their more dead skin covered feet into the tank, the fish loose interest in your feet and swarm to the new feet. Did it work? Well, my feet definitely looked a lot cleaner afterwards. My skin glowed and was a little smoother, but by the end of the day, they looked grubby again. That's what you get from wearing flip flops and walking for hours on end. It was a wild experience. One that I would not spend hundreds of dollar on, like they probably charge here in North America for fancy spa treatments, but if I go back, I'll probably try it again. Maybe I'll get used to it a little bit faster and get my full money's worth. Anyway, an experience I won't forget. So neat.
I know this will sound strange, but I got a real kick out of the pedestrian crossing signs. The little green man would walk as a nice leisurely pace when the light first changed to green. As the countdown got closer to zero, the green guy would speed up until by the end he was running as fast as his little pixelated legs would take him. Tee hee.




Some locals just hanging out.







The durian gets its own stall. I didn't see anyone buying any, and I wasn't ready to buy an entire fruit. I also figured that I wasn't allowed to take it into the hotel. Wow, just seeing these pictures makes me remember how they smelled...and tasted.
Around the corner from the durian vendor was a little street that has restaurant after restaurant. I don't even remember if any of them had indoor seating, but we definitely sat at a fold-away table and stools that encroached on the side of the street. By the end of our meal, I think the
seating area took over most of the street - I think it was a tight fit for a car to get through. The more people showed up, the more table and stools that appeared out of nowhere. It was neat. I liked how friendly and informal the atmosphere was. I was eating with locals, so I don't know if I would have had the same experience if I was there on my own, but I don't remember seeing any menus. There were stalls set up between the seating area and the building itself with signs describing foods such as noodles, satays, fried fish, veggies, etc. Plate after plate of really tasty food kept coming out and as each plate arrived,
we paid for it. No need to worry about tipping here, I suppose. Once you were done eating, you just took off. I got to eat some different kinds of foods. More noodles, along with real satay and gado gado. My fellow diners were careful not to order food that was too spicy for fear that I wouldn't be able to stand it. How nice. I can't understand how they eat such spicy food in that heat. I was proud to have tried everything including the spicy things, and I'd like to think that I can handle more spicy food than I could previously. The upsetting thing is that I really do enjoy the taste of spice, but my body disagrees.
Lastly, at the airport, there was a Bulk Barn sort of store. It had gummy candies as well as different dried fruits. It also had free sampling. So,
curious me, decided to try all of the different things that I'd never seen or heard of before. I wasn't being greedy, I merely wanted to try some things that were different. It was a pretty store, probably mostly due to the fact that there were lots of people sampling stuff. I admit, I ate a couple gummies because I was hungry and wanted to remember the taste of cola, but for the most part, I really was just trying different things.
I suppose this needs a little explaining. When I was young, my mom used to get packaged of dried cuttlefish from Taiwan. I loved the stuff. I couldn't get enough of it. So this store had a whole room dedicated to this stuff. The room was not due to the popularity of the stuff, but to enclose its smell. Yes, there were signs telling you to keep the door closed and blah blah blah, but I marched right in and did my fair share of "sampling" inside. So tasty!

Darn it

I just saw a celebrity magazine photo of friggin Audrina Patridge with the Goyard clutch that made me change my mind about the company and really appreciate their work. I did a double take and had to go back to the page to take another look. I'd almost missed it. Darn you The Hills girl, darn you!

There's no way

I'm still in disbelief that all of the figure skating events at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games are sold out. That can't be right. Even the Compulsory Dance.