A guided tour in taipei city
I joined a guided tour in taipei city recently...
It was bases on social and cultural aspects
We walked in Daan park to watch locals in the park...and what they do...such as foot massage...
We also walked on this street, with many churches and mosques...
...omg, so local people praying..or something...
Another local church...tais and people from indonesia dont consider catholic people to be christian...thats interesting...
We continued in these Daan blocks and watched japanese buildings...
and this old tea house...
...omg, an olf market...they had allot of plastic stuff...
and some coloured hello kitty...
...this street is "famous fo food"...and this restaurant claimed tey had the best beef noodles in town...
I dropped by Zhangmen for some local beer...
And the tour continued to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall...and watched the architechture...
Kai was a guide...my old friend from NCTU...
We also watched the guards at the memorial hall...
I ended with a ximen visit...
Am interview and some all you can eat
I iontervied a taiwanese for some open data information recently...
Taiwan was number 1 on the open data shart..but lost its prime place for australia...
I also had some nice fat noodles...
...with sweet n sour sauce...its a dish i eat allot nowadays..
I also passed by an all you can eat BBQ...
allot of meat..
...and free refil of beer...
I ended the day by a 7-11 visit...it was nice...
A visit to Texas roadhouse
I went to a restaurant called Texas Roadhouse recently in xinyi district...however there was a queue so a quick visit to Zhangmen beer was was done...
The Texas roadhosue is near W hotel...
It is the same as in dongmen...
But i didnt recognize all the beer flavours...
...they have an interesting business model...making them very competitive, the open new beer stores all over taiwan currently...(frenchise the stores)...
It was a nice view over xinyi...
After some 20 minutes...Texas Roadhouse called...and it was time to eat there...
...it was free refill of peanuts...and bread...
I asked the staff to recommend me something...i had some random steak...
...omg the peanut bucket was almost empty...time for refill...
They had "hand cut steaks"...i wonder what is so special about that...
They also had local beer...thats nice too...(draft beer)...
...after the roadhouse visit a short visit to ximen was made...
I got to try some chocolate smoothies...
I also tried a new place, with some old classmates of mine...
We tried differnt dishes...
..and special chocolate drinks...
...2017 continues...
Hongludi hiking trail
I went for a hike recently in the southern parts of taipei
Omg...a roof elephant...
There are many trails in the southern part of taipei...acctually trails eveywhere in taiwan...just hard to know how ot find them, since not much are in english, nor do many tais like to hike (in comparison to the huge population)...
...another elephant...
First city view...it was very hot this day...
Some small path..but not our path..
The hike had allot of stairs...
And it was a "temple trail" so we passed by many temples...some were selling things...
Thuis cute munk had problems counting, so the customers had to help her to calcualte the final price...
Most locals didnt eat or drink the things anyway...they donated it to the gods...
omg...a door as in the hobbit town...
A trail map...
"Yuantong Temple Hongludi Hiking Trail Guide Map"
...also many cats were walking around...
Once in a while there were some signs...
...we also passed by some graveyards...they also had elephants....
It was a peaceful landscape...
Once in a while it reminded me of the Sanxia trails, or Shidong trails, with allot of clifs and wires...
Many squirrels ere jumping around in the trees too...
After some hour we arroved to the peak...if it was sunny, we would see the whole taipei from here...
302m above sea level...
Not far to the city...
However...warning signs for slippery surface near the temples...
Another temple view over the cloudy city...
And some cute cat scupture...
...and some japanese house...like in jiufen area...
...omg, a person with a Saab, treating it very special...
After another 5-10 minutes I was back in civilsation and the hectic taiwan traffic...
And some random night market...2017 continues...
Another day in brunei
Another day in brunei...
A saturday...so things are open today...
"Nasi lemak"...a traditional dish...
A normal restaurant: Pic of the sultan...
...i also had some local drink...green..
...and some food that tasted like indonesian food...
I also went to look for a geocache...
...it was an area with hiking capabilites...
Interesting view over parts of the city...
...some locals also enjoyed the hike (and yes, i found the cache)...
...intersting...is this a G or a 6?...hard to know at the first...
...since "ground floor" is a "G"...
I later found that the G looked differently...
A brunei person weights 68kilos...
Omg..they ask for "single" ladies for sales business...
Some view of the venice of asia...
And a mosque...near the city...
Arabic and indinesian...
And the sultan...his pis is everywhere..like in buthan, where the king is on a pic, beside buddha...
After a while a boat was borrowed...
This guy offered a cheap ride...just in the near city area...
They had many bridges in the city...
Far away I could see the sultans palace, and once again i was reminded about when my sister told me at age 10 that he just got a new roof made of gold...the richest man on earth...at that time...
...another mosque...
And some other bridge...
And venice...
This house seems to have some special function...
Far away...I could spot another mosque....
Omg...an old house...not much left...it also deminded me of inle lake in myanmar...
"Jeti" might mean bridge...each had a unique number...
And people living here had houses, stores etc nearby...
Some famous bridge...where the pelar top looked like a mosque..or minaret...
This was the school for people living here...and the son of the boat driver went here...
And those houses looked more modern...
And some other important house...
The trip was heading to an end...I took a quick look at the sultans palace once again...
Omg...seems like most stores had day of at fruday lunch...
...even burger king...
I was also looming for Amboyat...and kind of asked every person I found...the burger king people told me that this place might have...
They even gave me a note...but no...they didnt have it...
Burger king had a trash can...no recycling...
They had many Daniel Wellington watches...
I also asked them for amboyat...and they gave me a new location...
Seems like most watches were fake...
Rain was heading in the direction of the city...some people said, around 16 every day it started rain...but im not sure if it was that precise...
I had a mosque walk after this...
It was strange...paying with card...the customer had to follow the staff to a special location in a mall...
...omg...HSBC...my cousin use to work at that bank...cool tha they have a brunei branch...
it wasalittlebit like taiwan...not as extreme with buddles though...but still many...
Watch your step...
...or even some areas were covered in water...
Some mosque had some nice boat outside...as a decoration or something...
A lonely snail crossing the mosque garden...
It was a pretty nice and relaxing place...but many rules here...
Toilet for women...
Is the symbol for femal toilet a lady with a jihab?
...taxi is spelled teksi in the local language...sounds almost like indian...
Some seenic sights...the pic the the most right is a jungle where they have orangutan...that would b fun to see...
A slow walk along the harbor in the city again...many boats asking to give you a ride...
Even on this small river...like water tuktuk
A brunei bus stop...no time table...pretty confusing...
Second time i see the mosque pelar bridge...its towards the ocean...
Omg...police...in a country where alcohol is illegal, i wonder if they have a busy trafic police squad...
The crossing man looks like this...almost like in taiwan
Most signs has arabic and indonesian...or maybe malay...language
...even burger king...
The bus staion close at 18...
...omg, the street pattern looks like taiwan aboriginal pattern...
...nice evening pic of a central mosque...
A symmetric pic of the same mosque...
And night pic of the same moqsue...
Seems like some festival is upcoming...many tents on the empty streets...
Since there are no bars etc...very few people walk around after 18...
I made an attempt to ask for Amboyat at another restaurant, and was recommended to head more north...
I asked some locals when arrived here to this rural market place...and they told me to walk to the other corner of the market...
OMG! "AMBOYAT"...I found it...the slimey thing that was "local"...
I was reading my map of the city...while wiaint for them to prepare the sauce...this city is not made for pedestriants...
I didnt have enough money to buy the fish et to eat it with..so I only got slime and some red sauce...
Other people were having parties here...eating allot of seafood
They had some ope fire...it reminded me of both taiwan and myanmar...
I finally opened the slime box....and the red sauce...
...it was very slimy...from the fluor of a flower...or something...
I put some red sauce at the corner...and ate some with chop sticks...I guess this is not how it suppose to be eaten...but it was more the flavour of the sauce i was interested in...since it was the thing that was unique with this dish...2017 continues...
A visit to Brunei
I made a visit to brunei recently
Leaving in evening
Its a muslim country...they even put muslim rules in the law...such as its illegal fo work on fridays at lunch...due to praying
I wanted local dishes...I had some sweet drinks...that they told me were local
...and some other local dish...
But most things were closed due to praying...or...everything was closed...
Ecept some bus lines...
I met a chinese guy, who knew about the infrastrucutre in brunei..it kind of sux...buses are very random, and doesnt go to late...he tried to make money of tourist...else he was smuggeling alcohol into the country...
he drove for kind of an expensve fee to a hotel, that was "said to be famous"...
"Empire hotel"
as most things, it was built by the sultan...
...but most things were closed...due to praying
some nice view...
...it was some kind of peninsula...
and some oil plat form out there..which makes the sultan richer...he has like 170 königsegg and several hundred ferrarris...
some random island...
and a beach...
The shore seemed pretty artificiall...
praying hour..the life guard was sleeping...
Far away i could see the fire from the oil platform...
...nice toilet in this "fancy hotel"...
And some nice painting of how it looked like when the first europeans came...not sure if they really were "first"...
...but some 500 years ago...
omg...some very cheap shuttle bus was waiting behind the chinese driver who ripped us off....
its ok...they are everywhere in asia...just need to be aware of it....
some other building..
Sultan owned...according to the chinese...
And some mosque...blue one...like in istanbul...
no information...seems like i could enter...
however, they there were no signs of shoe deposit from the entrance..only from this place...hard to understand the rules...some muslims asked me to leave
It was a nice looking mosque...
next stop some "famous" night market...
pretty empty so far
And heavy rain was approaching
And very colourful drinks....
fortunettely they had fans..but still very smokey of all BBQ...
The chinese gave me 3 suggestions for "ocal food"...i manage to find "nasi lemak":..
rice and sause..and chicken...
more fire...making it even more smokey and foggy in this market...
...some other "local food"...reminded me of indonesian food...
...the sultan makes it easy to buy cars...but its very hard to walk around...
some new zeeland guy picked us up in the rain...and suggested some rain forrest walk...to see orangutang..which would be nice..he also suggested "Amboyat" as a local dish...i need to find that locla dish!
Since its a muslim country...pretty strict...there arent any alcohol to find...just some malt drinks...
Snacks day 1, peanuts, coconut milk, random snax and some malt drink...
A visit to a hongkong restaurant in taipei
I visited a hongkong restaurant in taipei recently
It was near taipei main station, however it was no all you can eat...at this time of the day...
instead I passed by le ble dor in q-square
...and had a honey draft...
...and some cheese sticks..but no ketchup...
...and some other platter...
...later on I passed by the hongkong place again...
...it was said to be fancy...
...it was ok...they had a few dishes...that one could order as much as you wanted...
...the mango soup to the left was nice...
...and spring rolls...
...and baozi...but i think 7-11 baozi is better...not sure why...maybe more "common taste"...to bad they didnt have any sweet n sour sauce...or kalopps which I had in hongkong before...
Wine and tea testing, and some taipei mingling
I went to some tea and wine testing recently
Actually it was tea and rice wine testing...
They had plenty of flavors...
And they explained the differences between some kinds
It was interesting
Later on we got to taste
First some teas...
And then some bartender made some tea drink
It seemed complicated...many ingredients
Many people took pics...
This is the drink recipe
More drinking
This is some company that makes "famous" wine...
Omg...they presented swedish "absolue vodka" as russian...
Then we had more flavoured rice wine...
And more flavours
Shot affter shot
Later on we headed to some football game...we came a littlebit late..it it was ok..
It was where most DJ concerts are in northern taipei....
...and ended at AK12 hamburger in ximen...
A trip to jiufen
I went to jiufen recently
This is a nice part of taiwan...
Watching keelung from distance
They were selling aboriginal keyholders, or alteast holders with aborignals on them...
The most crowded street in jiufen...
And some sea view...
Omg...I wonder what this sign means....
This place was famous I wan told
Many people working here and a long queue...
It was green and contained some vegetable...
More queues..and some scooters driving in the crowd...
And a famous stair...where many people took pics..
And some cave...
This place looks almost like in the anime movie spirited away...
Some dumplings were eaten here...
Later on some noodled were eaten...
And tofu...2017 continues...
Tired of all this religious mumbo jumbo
Locals here often "try" to keep their pavements clean (even if they most often use them as scooter parking)...
I just experienced some local guard who doesnt want bikes to be parked on the pavement...but as long as it comes to religous stuff, such as "burning paper" ovens...they are allowed to block everwhere...so funny logic...
Its often no use to questionise the logic in this XD
