Mid-autumn Festival 2015 in Kaohsiung

I’ve been to Kaohsiung lots of times before because there was a time around 2 years ago that T was there for 8 months on a business trip. I’d go down south to visit him since I was still in grad school and I had more time during the week (only had to go to uni maybe 2-3 times a week).

Over the years, I’ve been to most (if not all?) of Kaohsiung’s tourist spots that whenever I go there, I don’t know where to go anymore. Last time, there was a list that came out about some of the new spots in Kaohsiung, and we checked those out too.Anyway, going back to this weekend, I spent a total of 5 days there. I got there at around 2AM on Sept. 26. T fetched me from the bus stop and we went home to sleep. When we woke up, we had lunch with his family, and then we got ready to go the apparently recently opened cinema called MLD cinema.

Since we had time to kill, we went to my favorite snowflake ice place in Kaohsiung, 海之冰. It’s beside the ferry port that takes you to Cijin Island. I ordered the mango snowflake ice because it was in season. Yummy! I think it’s better shared though, so make sure you go with friends if you want to try it.

The four of us (T, his brother, his sister, and I) were choosing between Hotel Transylvania 2 and Everest and in the end, we decided to watch the former. It was a really cute and fun movie. Since the tickets T bought had consumable food, we ordered okonomiyaki, takoyaki, and some drinks. Yum!

After the movie, we bought a couple of the breads that the cinema was selling. Ended up getting the tuna one, the chocolate one, and the blueberry one. They were pretty expensive though. We went to Dream Mall to ride the ferris wheel since we hadn’t done that yet and we had 2 free tickets so we just split the fee amongst ourselves. Walked around the mall and then headed home.

The next day, it was Mid-Autumn Festival so we were going to have a barbecue in their garage. The “tradition” here in Taiwan is that you have barbecue while staring at the moon. Apparently, it’s on that day that the moon is at its brightest or roundest. Since that was still hours away, we decided to go out in the afternoon. We went to Sizihwan Bay beside the Sun yat Sen University to walk along the coastline (?). I’d been missing the ocean and I wanted to go, and that’s why I told T that we should go there.

On the way home, we passed by this large open field where a lot of people were flying kites and just enjoying the soft breeze. We decided to stop for a bit to do a little people watching. We stood there and watched both kids and adult alike fly kites, have a picnic, and blow bubbles. It felt nice. We also walked around to take pictures with the giant sculptures that were in the area. I especially liked the giant suitcase. We also went inside this little crafts store, which at that time had a poetry reading event going on. Too bad we had to go home because it was almost close to dinnertime and so we couldn’t attend the event.

I find it tiring and a hassle to barbecue at home especially when only using small grills. It takes a long time to fire up the coals and to maintain the fire. You have to continuously fan the coals and keep adding kindling (?). Then, you also have to change the foils every so often. After a long time, we finally got the 2 grills going and we started grilling the meat. Long story short, we spent the night just eating, drinking, grilling, and listening to music. When everyone was full, we cleaned up and went back inside the house to play mahjong. I won! Teehee.

I was supposed to go back to Taipei on the 28th, but due to the typhoon, the high speed rail closed operations after 2pm. I didn’t wanna have to leave so early to go wait in line with sooo many people that were also northbound so I decided to just message my manager saying I would probably be out of the office on Tuesday morning, or I’d take the night bus if they didn’t cancel those.

T and I had lunch at this food chain in the south called 丹丹漢堡 because it’s been a while since we’ve been there. They only have branches in the south (mostly Kaohsiung and Tainan, I think). I’ve written about this before, see here.

I ordered the pork burger paired with the meat tendon soup and milk tea. I reserved space for dessert since we were going to this cafe that I had found on Instagram a couple of days back. I was looking at hashtags to see if there were any new places we could go to, and I saw Caffaina Coffee Gallery 咖啡那. What drew me in was the souffle (because I don’t remember if I’d ever had it) and the interiors (it seemed like such a cozy/communal place).

Our original plan was to go to the Fine Arts Museum before going to the cafe, but since it was raining, we decided to go directly to the cafe after lunch. I ordered the almond latte and the classic souffle. I’ll write a separate entry about this. Suffice to say that they were good and I really liked the place. After spending maybe an hour or so at Caffaina, we decided to go back home and to wait for the announcement regarding work suspension. Bus services also announced suspension by 6PM, and what do you know, the bus that T was supposed to take was scheduled at 6PM so it was canceled as well. The four of us played mahjong to pass time. There was an announcement of half-day work suspension, but eventually, the government announced a full day suspension. Woohoo!

On my last day in Kaohsiung, T and I had lunch at a nearby self-service restaurant 自助餐廳 (?). There’s a lot of cafeteria style restaurants around Taiwan where prices are cheaper, and it’s usually priced based on weight or on the amount of food that you put on your plate. After that, we went to the electronics street because T wanted to check out some speakers and headphones. Then, we went home and started to pack.

When I got back to Taipei, I waited a bit for Roxane because she also came from Kaohsiung and we reached Taipei almost around the same time. I got my previous ticket reimbursed while waiting for her. The next day, it was back to work! It was also the last day of September. Time really goes by so fast. Can’t keep reiterating that sentiment enough. That’s it – Kaohsiung trip, over!

August 14-16, 2015

On Friday, Tiff and N left and went back to Japan. I had to go back to work that day since I didn’t really have any more leaves/overtime hours to convert to leaves. I’m saving up the rest of my hours for December, since I really want to go home then.

It was a pretty busy day at work catching up with emails and whatnots. I don’t really remember much of that day anymore since it’s already been more than a week. I just remember being busy that day, but also being happy because it was the last day of the work week. I didn’t work overtime that day because it was my parents’ last night in Taipei.

I left the office on time, and was picked up by T to go to Goku’s house. We had sour tamarind soup (sinigang) for dinner, which is this Filipino dish that is my forever comfort food. It will always be my favorite food, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of having it. I had two bowls that night, just as I usually do. I even took some home to eat the next day.

Parents had to leave for the airport after dinner despite their flight being not until past 11PM because Goku’s friend were bringing them to the airport and that was his only available time. When my parents left, T and I stayed for a while longer, and then we also went home.

On Saturday, my friend invited me to an outdoor concert because she had extra tickets. Being the kind of person that I am, I was actually too lazy to leave the house and I was thinking of bailing out on her. However, we invited T’s brother to come along with us and he was up for it so the three of us eventually got out of the house to meet up with my friend.

I’m glad I decided to attend the event because it was a new experience for me. It was my first time joining a concert (and an outdoor one at that!) in Taiwan, and my first time attending one with T. The event was sponsored by Agnes B. (Sport B.) and MTV and it was held in Huashan Cultural and Creative Park. Even if I didn’t know the singers, I realized that there were 2 more well-known singers who had 3 songs that I’ve heard before. Woo! I had a lot of fun just sitting on the grass drinking our drinks  (good thing we bought drinks before we went inside the venue) and listening to the songs.

After the concert, we headed to a nearby McDonald’s because it was still open. We hadn’t had dinner yet and we were very hungry. We spent some time there eating and getting to know each other (more of them though, because they were meeting for the first time. My friend and I talked and caught up with each other since we hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

We stayed at home on Sunday because we don’t really like to go out. However, at night, we went to Carrefour. We bought some stuff such as a small foldable ironing board because I have some clothes that get really wrinkly and need ironing, and at the same time, I can also iron T’s clothes.

It was late but I was hungry again, so we also bought sushi! Hihihi. I was surprised because T usually doesn’t  give in to my requests of buying sushi especially late at night (after we’d already eaten dinner) since it’s mostly rice. Yummy! Met up with Richelle at their place to pick up some stuff I had left the previous day, and then headed home to prepare for Monday work. Yet another week!

Come and go, July

We’re already in the last few days of July. Can you believe that? The second half of July has been pretty eventful as well.

One of my (very few) Taiwanese friends came back from her 4-month internship in Germany, so we met up with our other American friend for lunch at Yiamas Greek Taverna. I’d been craving Greeka Kouzina’s (a Greek restaurant in the Philippines) fig arugula salad and thought that maybe Yiamas’ roka salata would satisfy my craving but I was completely wrong. So disappointing. T ordered the moussaka, and it was good but it was overpriced. The roka salata was expensive as well. Oh well, at least I’ve crossed that restaurant off my list and I know not to go back there anymore. I also received a hand cream from Germany. Aww, thank you!

 

T and I tried out this Indonesian restaurant that his Indonesian colleagues frequent, and according to them, it’s the closest authentic restaurant they’ve tried so far. We ordered the chicken curry and the chicken satay. The food’s good and it’s cheap/prices are pretty average. The food reminded me of Singapore though, because it was during my first trip to Singapore that I tried such food.

 

The microwave in our pantry broke down for a couple of days, and so we weren’t able to use it. In those few days, T made me sushi so that I won’t have to heat my food anymore. Aww, so sweet! I’m really super lucky to have such a good and caring boyfriend.

 

We celebrated Goku’s birthday at Ponderosa Steakhouse. Yummy!

This is a character that the company Animax (?) set up at the bus stop where I take the bus home from work. So cute! Originally, it was in the center of the bus stop, but a lot of people were probably taking pictures with it that eventually, it was moved to the side. A sign that warned/told people to pay attention to incoming cars was also placed on the character. Hahaha.

Free cake from my manager!

One of my friends from high school who’s currently working in Singapore came to Taipei for a short vacation, and so we met up with another one of our high school friends who is also based in Taipei for lunch. We ate at this pretty expensive Italian restaurant Solo Pasta whose chef apparently goes to Italy every so often to learn new techniques and dishes and whatnot. The pasta was really delicious, I might say, it’s flavorful and the pasta was cooked really well. However, the size wasn’t that big and so I felt like I wasn’t really satisfied/full. There’s also a minimum consumption fee per person of TWD350. Yikes.

Oh well, at least we were able to try it?

Duck breast pasta

Lemon pie

After lunch, we went to Net because Paul wanted to check out the sales. T and I had to leave after a while though, because I was supposed to go and dye my hair. In the end, I didn’t. It was pretty late and it would take so long to have my hair dyed, so we just went to their company gym and worked out.

There’s this restaurant that we always pass by on our way home from work (whenever T picks me up from work, that is) that I’ve been wanting to try. It’s called Bear Hits Toast, pretty similar in name to one of my favorite restaurants Shark Bites Toast, which was why I thought it was good too. I was wrong. Their food wasn’t anything special.

On the last day of the month, J asked me if I wanted to have KFC for dinner and since I hadn’t had their food in a while, I agreed. I went for their Mexican salsa chicken pita wrap something because I was craving for pita wrap. Heehee. Yuuuuum!

Anyway, I’m going to try this thing wherein I blog every day for the whole month of August. The posts do not have to be meaningful, or long, but I just need to write down something every day. Let’s see how that goes.

[Taipei] Therese Eats: Yiamas Greeka Taverna 亞馬仕希臘餐廳

The first time I went to Yiamas was after the Philippine Independence Day celebration when my friends and I were still hungry and were looking for a place to eat, drink, and sit down since our feet were killing us. Yiamas had already stopped serving food when we got there, so we were left with ordering drinks.

The second time I went to Yiamas was because I had been craving Greeka Kouzina’s (Greek restaurant in the Philippines) fig walnut salad and felt that Yiamas’ roka salata is similar.

I was totally and completely wrong. They are NOT similar. Greeka Kouzina’s salad is soooo much better than Yiamas’. I was really disappointed with Yiamas’ roka salata, to be honest. The serving wasn’t that big (for its price, around 300-320NTD, if I’m not mistaken) and it just wasn’t as delicious.

T ordered the moussaka (which was also around 300+NTD) and it was good. However, I feel that the serving isn’t big so it wasn’t very filling.

They have gyros that are cheaper at around 200NTD an order, but it’s not really big either. My friend ordered that and he seemed all right with it but I wasn’t able to ask him how it was. Oops.

On the bright side, at least I’ve crossed Yiamas off my list of restaurants that I want to try. I’m probably not going back there any time soon because I just feel like it’s overpriced but you can try it out at least once and see for yourself how it is.

Address: 106台北市大安區安和路二段181巷3號 (No. 3, Lane 181, Section 2, Anhe Rd, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106)

Telephone Number: 02 2737 0037

Facebook: Yiamas Greeka Taverna 亞馬仕希臘餐廳

[Taiwan] Therese Eats: Road Runner Burger, Beer, Cafe

This is another restaurant that my cousins and I wanted to try, and this one is located around the Shida area. We met up one Saturday afternoon to go shopping but before that, we decided to have early dinner. Since we didn’t want to eat at Bambi Bambi (our go-to restaurant around the area) because we wanted to try something new, we finally had the opportunity to eat at Road Runner.

When we got there, there were a few occupied tables but there was only one employee. He apologized to us saying that for some reason, all the other employees said that they were going to be late that day. #bestemployeeaward goes to him then! He was also the chef. Wow.

We weren’t in any rush so we sat down at an empty table and looked at the menu. We even told him to take his time and that we were fine waiting.

I ordered the beef avocado burger meal. You can either choose to have fries or a salad and unlimited drink. They have Swiss Miss in their drinks list! I chose the salad because I’m not a big fan of fries.

They give you plastic gloves so that you won’t get your hands dirty. The burger was reallyyyy good, which was made even better by the reasonable (read: not expensive) price.

We also decided to order fried calamari as a side dish. We were choosing between the mozzarella sticks and the fried calamari, and it was a good thing we went for the latter because we eventually got free mozzarella sticks as the restaurant’s way of “making up” for letting us wait. We were really surprised because we didn’t even complain or anything, and we totally understood that the guy was all by himself and he had to take people’s orders, cook their food, and serve their foods until another employee showed up to help him.

After we paid the bill, they gave us a free fortune cookie. It was funny how my fortune was the only one with English. My cousins’ were in Chinese. Hahahaha talk about coincidence. Timely “fortune” too!

Really yummy food and reasonable prices = satisfied customers!

Address: 106台北市大安區羅斯福路三段171號2樓之1 (2nd Floor, No. 171-1 Roosevelt Road Sec. 3, Daan District Taipei City) – near MRT Taipower Building Station exit 3

Telephone Number: 02-23686801

Operating Hours: Weekdays (4PM-12MN), Weekends (11:30AM-12MN)

Facebook page: Road Runner Burger, Beer, Cafe

[Taiwan] Therese Eats: Galette

I found out about this restaurant from my cousin who had previously been there and posted a picture online. I felt like it was such a cool place to go to, so one Saturday afternoon, I told my boyfriend that we should go.

It’s a cafe wherein you can hang out, eat, and assemble jigsaw puzzles. They also have free wifi and they don’t have a time limit (which is both good and bad – good for those who already have seats and bad for those wanting to get a seat) so you can stay there for as long as you like. They also have this promo where they give you free cookies if you finish assembling a 300-pc puzzle.

When we got there, there were no vacant tables, and so we had to wait for around half an hour (maybe?) before we were finally seated. Ended up with this 300-pc Starry Night puzzle because it was the only 300-pc puzzle left. It was sooo hard to assemble because most of the pieces look alike and because the color scheme mostly revolved around different shades of blue and yellow.

We also ordered the quiche and matcha latte, which were yummy. I also like the cup because it’s really pretty. One of the downsides is that our table was a bit small so it was kinda cramped. Had we ordered two drinks/food, then it wouldn’t fit on our table anymore.

After around 5 hours (WHAAAT!), we were finally almost done with the puzzle!!!

Below are the cookies that we got for free. If you have nothing to do and want to spend the entire day out of your house, then you can try going to Galette just to try it out.

Address: 台北市大安區辛亥路一段136號 (No. 136, Sec. 1, Xinhai Road, Daan District, Taipei)

Operating Hours: 11:30AM-10:00PM

Telephone Number: 02 2362 2585

Website: 葛樂蒂咖啡館 Galette Cafe

 

[Taiwan] Therese Eats: Agnes B. Le Pain Grille Cafe

Agnes B. Le Pain Grille Cafe is another place that my cousins and I have always wanted to try but was never able to. One night, after watching Furious 7 with Richelle, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We were supposed to go to Shida night market after that because I wanted to buy some beauty products. However, since it was raining, we decided to stay inside the mall and have coffee/dessert instead. We ended up at Agnes B. L.P.G. Cafe because it was near the restaurant where we had dinner.

We were only supposed to get drinks, but they had a promo where if you ordered anything worth 200NTD or over, you’d get a slice of cake for free. We only had to add 40NTD and we’d get the cake. What the hey, right? I don’t really remember what we had because we were choosing between different drinks that I already forgot what we ended up ordering. It might have been the creme brulee latte and tiramisu latte, but I might be wrong. I also don’t know what the cakes are because there were no labels (or I wasn’t paying enough attention) so we just pointed at what looked yummy. As I’m currently browsing through their website, these could be the Tiramisu 提拉米蘇 and Danielle 奶油甜酒巧克力蛋糕.

For some reason, I always had this notion that their coffee and dessert were expensive, and that was one of the main reasons we always don’t end up going inside. I found out that day that I was wrong and that they were no different (in price) from Starbucks drinks, or other cafes around Taipei. I liked my drink, and we really enjoyed Danielle. We didn’t like the tiramisu as much. It was a really fun day bonding and chatting with my cousin.

[Taiwan] Therese Eats: Caffe Bene

Since Caffe Bene opened last year (?) in Taipei, I’ve wanted to try it out with my cousins. However, we always end up going to other places, or I was always unavailable whenever they’d go there (happened twice, maybe) so I was never able to go with them. When I went with T to Kaohsiung over the Tomb Sweeping Holiday, we decided to go because there was a branch near the public library where we were at the time.

Since we’d already eaten dinner at home, we decided to get dessert. Got the matcha latte 冰抹茶拿鐵 and the cinnamon caramel honey bread 焦糖肉桂吐司 (because they were out of the garlic and cheese one 香蒜起司). T got regular latte 冰拿鐵 and his brother got the chocolate chip latte 冰巧克力拿鐵.

According to their website, the honey toast alone contains 1022 calories!!! WHAAAT. Good thing we shared it among the three of us (although admittedly, I ate a lot more compared to the two of them HUHUHU). Everything was delicious though, so I regret nothing!

Labor Day Weekend 2015: Banqiao (Top Gun Bowling and Mega City)

Since we had a long weekend (Labor Day weekend), we were supposed to go outside the city. I wanted to go someplace we hadn’t been to before. However, since we were both busy and lazy to plan anything, we ended up just spending time around the city.

On Friday, we went to Banqiao early in the morning to play bowling with T’s friends. The bowling alley has an ongoing promo wherein games/rates are cheaper from midnight until around 8 in the morning, at around 15NTD for a game (10 frames). You can see from the picture below how rates are 50NTD from 8am until 1PM, and increases to 60 and 70NTD as the day passes. They opted for the cheapest ones so we were there before 8am. Zzzzz. It’s been super long since I last played bowling, so I officially suck.

After bowling, T’s friends had to go somewhere else, which I found weird because I thought we’d be spending the day with them, or at the very least that we would all have lunch together. T and I went to Mega City Banqiao mainly to watch Avengers 2. Since the movie wasn’t for a couple of hours (phrase check?), we had lunch at the food court (Food Republic). We bought Indian food from Indian Fans, and I also bought milk tea from Toast Box. I wanted to order the Kaya Toast Set but I was already full by then, so I decided against it. While waiting for the movie, we walked around the mall and hung out at Kingstone (bookstore). After some time, we went to the cinemas and then watched Avengers 2. Pretty good, overall. I wasn’t planning on watching Avengers 2 since I hadn’t watched Avengers 1 (it doesn’t make a difference, I think), and because I wasn’t a big fan but T wanted to watch it so…

We were thinking of either going home for dinner or just eating out when T asked me if I’d eaten at 博多拉麵. He had previously eaten there with his colleagues and he felt that the food was good so he wanted to take me there. I went for the milk/cream (?) soup base because it’s the restaurant’s specialty. The ramen was reallyyy good, and I really liked it! We also ordered some side dishes to go along with the ramen because I wanted to eat more meaaaat.

All in all a good day!

[Taiwan] Therese Eats: 丹丹漢堡

If McDonald’s is the most famous (correct me if I’m wrong) American fast food chain, then it’s 丹丹漢堡 for the south of Taiwan. I hadn’t heard of this place until my boyfriend pointed it out to me on one of my Kaohsiung trips. According to him, the owners of this chain have (so far) no intentions of opening branches in the north of Taiwan. They prefer to keep it to the south, maybe so that people would see it as one reason to visit the south.

The set meal combinations are a bit weird, but they’re all really good. We had the fried chicken, chicken burger, sweet potato fries, misua noodles, Hong Kong-style congee, iced tea, and milk tea. I found this menu online but I’m not sure if the prices are still the same.

Yum!