[2/27/06] Hanging out with Kathy and Roxy Junior Cafe
Kathy is here in Taipei learning Mandarin for 3 months at Shida so I went to her school and grabbed lunch with her. Afterwards, I showed her around Ximen Ding and we went shopping hehehe. When we got tired of that we decided to go to Longshan Temple. There was a bunch of lanterns up so I need to get those pictures from Kat. Soo since tomorrow is 2.28 it's an official holiday in Taiwan and we wanted to go to this ice bar but the place got closed down since they don't have a liquor license. How fucking lame is that mannn. Me, Lea, Kat, and Janet met up with Anthony and Jeff then headed over to Roxy Junior Cafe to chill and drink some beers. Jeff is pretty funny and reminds me and Kat of Jimmy Fallon from SNL. Anthony ended up not sucking at pool as he claimed and winning a lot of games actually.
Anthony
and Me chilling next to the pool sign up board |
Kat
and Me at Roxy Junior Cafe ... dude I'm soo freaken white right now
man I need a tan |
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[2/13/06 - 2/16/06] Showing Lena Taipei
Monday - I took Lena to get her hair straighten, which ended up taking 4 and half hours. I got a haircut and some new highlights while I waited for her. At night we went shopping around Gong Guan for a couple hours before heading over to the CKS Memorial for the Lantern Festival.
The
year of the Dog and Taipei 101 in the back |
Pandas
roaming around some flowers |
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Lena
with her newly straighten hair and the festival in the background |
The
CKS front gate |
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Tuesday - Lena wanted to see the Su Ho paper museum so I took her to see that bright and early. The museum of Modern Art of MOCA was closed for the week so we couldn't go there. We hit up Ximen Ding to go do more shopping in the afternoon. Afterwards we hit up my dorm to check on emails and see if anyone was around. Vinnie went with us to go check out 101 then we wandered around Ximen Ding again for 3 more hours. I think I walked a total of 12 hours today. Blahh Lena likes walking waay more than I do.
Fobby
Sticker pictures at Ximen Ding |
Taipei
101 with hearts for V-day |
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Wednesday - We hit up the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and I saw a couple exhibits that I really liked. One was the life of 3 eyes that were in the colors of the Power Puff girls. It was very Japanese looking. It was one of the winners of the 2005 Taipei Art Awards. The artist was Chen Yi-Chieh and the painting was called "The Wednesday of Hua, Mao, Pau". Another artist I really liked was Ho Men-Chuan and she had all these portraits of one girl in different outfits like a housewives, corporate woman, school girl, etc. Her final painting was one of the girls killed all the other girls. Her painting is called " You can only love me". We then went to the Taipei Story House for afternoon tea. At night I took Lena over to Shilin Night Market and let her shop till she got tired. Haha noticing any trend here. Shopping is a big thing in Taipei =P.
Metal
Art in front of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum |
My
apple cake from afternoon tea ... really good |
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Friday - Me and Lena flew down to Kaohsuing Thursday night to hang out with family. My parents went back down there after we finished the Japan tour. My dad took us to the British Consulate building, which is right near the coast and we had afternoon tea while my dad ate real food hehe.
Saturday - We decided that we should go visit Fong Guan Shan which is this temple with tons of Buddha statues. The last time I visited it I was a year old and Lena was 3 years old soo of course I don't remember it at all. It's really pretty tho and the statues are all different.
The
view from the British Consulate |
The
huge Buddha statue in the back with tons of smaller ones in the front |
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Another
view of the smaller Buddhas |
Some
stone carvings of monks |
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Sunday - I start chinese classes on Monday so I had to fly back up to Taipei. The distance between Taipei and Kaohsuing is about the same as SF to LA. So I can either take a 4 hour train ride, drive for 6 hours, or fly for 45 minutes ... of course I'm gonna fly tho flying is about $120 round trip and taking a bus would probably be $36 dollars =P. While my plane was in the air right about to land in Taipei our pilot tells us that we have to fly back to Kaohsuing because the airport isn't allowing any domestic flights to land since it's raining too hard. I had to fly back wait another 45 minutes then catch the night flight back up blahh. At least it was only 3 hours up in the plane total, which isn't bad at all since I just sleep hehe.
Kaohsuing
Airport the domestic lounge area |
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[2/9/06 - 2/11/06] Traveling Around Japan
Thursday - We visited the Imperial Palace saw the outside and took some pictures. Then we headed over to Asakusa where we saw more traditional japanese gifts and ate some of the little red bean cakes. Next we hit up the Meiji Shrine and walked around that area for a little bit before off to Ginza and the Sony Center. We spent the night in Shinjuku and checked out the malls in that area.
Meiji
Shrine with my parents |
A
cool looking building in Ginza |
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Friday - We went to go see Mt. Fuji. There was snow on the top part of the mountain. It was really freezing and the windy was blowing pretty hard so we didn't end up taking a cable car up to go see Mt. Fuji closer. We ended up arriving in Atami earlier than expected. Atami is were we had a kick ass hotel right off the coast. The lobby floor was the high floor and all the guest rooms were on lower floors. The bottom floor was where the hot springs were. It was kinda weird doing the whole showering thing in front of other girls before sitting in the hot tub but after I got over that it was really relaxing. Most of the people at the hotel were an older crowd and me and my sister were definitely the youngest ones around.
Mt.
Fuji |
The
view out of my hotel room in Atami |
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Saturday - We saw the Otawa Castle and learned a bunch of its history, which I only understood about half of what our tour guide said since she spoke in Mandarin. I had to translate for Lena since she really knows very little. Next we saw the Rainbow Bridge and the Toyota Design Center where my pops checked out the new Lexus IS 350, which might be my future new car =D.
The
side view of Otawa Castle |
A large Buddha at Shrine |
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[2/5/06] Super bowl Party in SF
Brent had a super bowl party at his apartment in SF so Lena brought me along. I met a bunch of people at the party and totally can't remember any of their names anymore haha. There was tons of food like 3 kinds of dip, potato skins with cheese and bacon, and even an ice cream cake at the end. Yeah I totally pigged out and had a couple beers too. Katie was pretty bored with the game so Julie came picked me, Lena, and Katie up to go see Leslie's art show. Leslie makes cute fabric brooches and even sells stuff online now too. Here website is www.feistyelle.com so if you see anything you like you should buy it =D.
Anyway, I won't be updating for a while since I'm gonna be in Japan for 5 days on a tour then heading back to Taiwan chilling for another week before school starts. I'll blog about my Japan experience once I have the time to in Taipei.
Brent
and my older sis Lena |
Leslie
trying to hock her goods |
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[2/3/06] Hanging out in San Jo
I haven't seen Stone the whole time I've been back so we decided that we needed to hang out before I left. I drove down to his crazy ass house in Los Gatos. Mann it's super nice and huge. His house is kinda hard to find but luckily I saw Eunji standing on the corner outside his house. We then went to go pick up his friend Chris and later met up with Tim at the Korean bar. Haha part of the night the conversation sorta turned into Chinese people against Koreans ie Me, Stone, and Tim against Eunji and Chris. Yeah Tim doesn't look Taiwanese either. It's cuz our eyes are too big haha =P. I've come to realize that I have smart ass freaken friends who are going to really good grad schools or law school or med school. Chris went to Duke and apparently the year after him all the incoming freshmen got ipods for free. How cool is that man ... though if I were paying 40 grand a year for nutrition I better be getting something more than just a cheap ass ipod. But yeah back to my point I feel dumb around my friends because they have to be soo goddamn freaken smart =(. I just need to go network more and I'll be good. So I crashed at Stoner's place and it's cute to see what a guy points up on his walls and in his room. He has an Alf stuffed animal and a Garfield clock hehe. Yeah mine room the first thing you notice is I have tons of picture collages up on my walls.
Tim,
Me, and Eunji the Berk Kids |
Stone
and Chris the private school kids ie Princeton and Duke |
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[2/2/06] Errands and Stuff
I'm heading back to Taiwan in like a week so I've been busy just getting shit together around the house. I went shopping with my mom, which I totally love since all the cute clothes I get is for free =D. Plus she tends to wanna buy me clothes that aren't sheer t-shirts, tank tops, or sweatshirts haha. Man did she hate the fact that I wore flip flops everywhere in Berk hehe. Anyway, so I got a really cute black blazer and some silk tank tops that I can wear going out =D. Now I just gotta figure out what to bring to Japan and back to Taiwan hehe.
There are some things I'm gonna miss about home like driving haha. Man it's back to walking 20 minutes to get to McD's when I have a craving for a Big Mac =P, but then again I have tons of yummy Asian food that I can now eat like "di gua qiu" or as I like to tell Kiki "di qiu" which means the earth haha. So wow I really suck at Mandarin again cuz I needed to ask Dennis how to pinyin that crap. I'm gonna die I predict within the first week of school. It's totally gonna suck balls man. Yeah I'm gonna miss my friends of course but there's always aim hehe. I really need to cut down on that addiction. I think this next semester I'm gonna try to go out and meet a bunch of new people that way I can really improve my Mandarin. Haha me and Lea should go find some cute Taiwanese boys date them and make them take us around =P. The only problem with that is the fact that they're aren't that many cute Taiwanese guys grrrr soo eshh whatever.