We will always be left with a year of challenges

Human's development is really amazing. My daughter is coming to 5 years old soon and some of the improper behavior seems to disappear gradually and naturally.

We used to prompt her to sit down and tuck in together many times during meal time, whether it is at home or eating out. Most of the time, she will just try to take some and left much for us to feed her when we have finished ours. In the past few weeks, we observe that she is able to sit down and finish most of the food before starting to get  naughty again. Hence, it is much more enjoyable now and can engage her better over meal rather than being angry with her for not wanting to eat and finish it.

A the moment, her favourite food is egg, sausages, fried chicken, broccoli, butter, cheese, instant noodle and dessert especially the chocolate favor. And she does not like to have gravy to go with her rice. I always like to say that 5 years old solves the 4 years old challenges. We will always be left with a year of challenges to guide her along the way. Most importantly is to have the patient to live with it for the year long before the challenges are kind of addresses gradually and naturally.

Ha...ha...ha...

Arrival of iPad

It was reported in today's newspaper that Apple announced the availability of iPad in 9 more cities, including Singapore. Finally, it is here for sales from this Friday, 23 July 2010 onwards.

The retail prices area as follow:
For wifi only version - S$728 for 16GB, S$878 for 32GB and S$1,028 for 64GB and
For wifi + 3g version - S$928 for 16GB, S$1,078 for 32GB and S$1,228 for 64GB.

Basically, S$200 more for 3g version. It is a bit more than what I have budgeted for it but cheaper than those availability earlier through parallel import which was selling around S$1,900 per unit.

iPad will be selling through its authorized dealers and not the telcos. However, the telcos will be providing data plan for it. Well, will wait for awhile before buying one to play with it :-)

First time as a Model

Sent my daughter to the Child Care Centre this morning as usual. When we reached, she spotted the centre's brochure with her photo on its frontpage.

She was surprised and happy about it :-) We were more surprise than her. Ha...ha...ha....Come to think of it, this is the first time she poses as a model "commercially". Actually, the photo was taken when the class was having an activity.

<------------ She is smiling brightly here

Very soon, she will be leaving the centre and moving on to a new stage of life as a primary school pupil. ;-)

My top 10

You may aware of a book titled as "1,000 places to see before you die". I am sure everyone will be delighted to visit 1,000 places globally before exiting from the stage. Unfortunately, we all also know that it is not possible :-( The 2nd best possible way is to identify what one's feel is worth visiting / doing and plan out the schedule year after year. My top 10 in the wish list (not in order of preference) at the moment is as follow

- The Silk Road;
- Samba Festival in Brazil;
- Egypt;
- Xi'an;
- Hokkaido;
- Tibet;
- New York;
- Switzerland ;
- Trekking Mt Fuji;
- Safari in South African;

In addition, I will be revisiting some of the countries / places on top of the list above as there is still room for further exploration and engaging in various interesting activities (eg. skiing in South Korea). Resources is, indeed, running short and tight.

I am planning my this year end holiday now. Destination - Melbourne.

Taiwan Trip 2010 - Restaurant 青叶

Quite a number of exciting food in Taiwan can be found along the street and night markets. Hence, we din go to restaurants for most of our meals during the 9 days holiday except two meals, one dinner in 青叶 and one lunch in 鼎泰丰. Both can be considered Taiwan's icon especially the 鼎泰丰 which has ventured out to other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia.

青叶 provides Taiwan Cuisine (ie 台菜 or 台湾料理). It is one of the oldest brand. It also happened that the restaurant was pretty near to where we were staying ie walking distance, that we decided to give it a try. :-)

What did we order for dinner ?

- 九孔 (Abalone, cold dish)
- 乌鱼子 (BBQ fish egg or Mullet Roe)
- 菜莆蛋 (Fried egg with caipu)
- 豆腐 (Bean curd)
- 地瓜粥 (Plain porridge with sweet potato).

What excited us most is the 九孔 and 乌鱼子.

乌鱼子 is Taiwan local specialty. You eat together with slides of radish and onion to reduce its salty taste due to seasoning and fishy smell. I was quite hesitated to try it as I am very afraid of fishy smell. Hence, I started with a small bite initially. Well, not too bad and it tasted like cheese. ;-)

What is so special about 九孔 is the sauce. It blends with the abalone very well. I was surprised of the abalone size, bigger than I though it would be.

Though the other three dishes were more commonly known, the 菜莆蛋 tasted very nice and professional done. I enjoyed it very much. The porridge itself was also an excellent dish. I can just eat it plainly without the need to order dishes.It was served warmly, not too cold or hot. It was very tasty and well cooked. Simple yet a great dish.

The service was pretty good. Staff was attentive and polite. We ended the dinner with a complimentary dessert, warm green bean soup. Half of the total bill went for the 乌鱼子. Overall, it was much cheaper as compared to eating it locally at 欣叶, another Taiwan's brand but has ventured out. We had a nice, full and enjoyable dinner. Will go again when i next visit Taiwan. There are still a few dishes yet to try it out.

See u again, 青叶

Taiwan Trip 2010 - Shifen

One of the common and interesting places to go when visiting Taiwan is Jiufen (九份). In fact, most of the time, it means Jiufen old street whereby visitors will walk through with many stalls selling different products and accessories.

There is also another interesting place but less commonly considered especially if you are in a tour group. The place is called Shifen (十份). It is located along the Pinxi (平溪）sub-railway trail. Three activities to consider in Shifen: release sky-lantern (天灯）, natural waterfall （十份瀑布）and the small town itself. Though a small town, it is a place with characters: peaceful, simple and naturally beautiful.

The buildings and shops are arranged along the railway track. All activities also happen along the railway track. It's a pretty unique experience. Nobody will dominate it but gracefully co-exist with each other. No fast food chain, no Starbucks and no shopping centre. Just a few coffee shop selling drinks and local food. Simple lifestyle. In addition, the place is clean. No odd smell.

Most visitors will likely to engage in releasing the sky-lantern here. NT$100 each (about S$4.50). you write and draw your best wishes on it before releasing it. Great feeling to see one lantern raising one after another.

Photos will tell you much more about it :-)
Besides Shifen, you can also release sky lantern at the Pinxi station, 2 stations away from Shifen. Accordingly to news reporting, it was very very crowded on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year as many people will travel to Pinxi to release sky lanterns as part of the celebration. I am sure thousands of sky lanterns would have scattered and brightened the sky with marvelous view.

Along the way, we ran into two couples taking their wedding photo around the area. It is, indeed, a very nice and unique place to be considered for it.

Though the signage shows that it takes 22 minutes to walk from the train station to the waterfall, it will likely to take 30 minutes or more per way. It can be quite a challenging walk out in the nature, sweaty. However, the waterfall is worth a view. :-) The only "complaint" that I have is  the need to pay for an entrance fee to see it as it is managed by a private organization.

The visit to Shifen give me a pretty refreshing view of Taiwan as it has much more to offer than just shopping, night markets, street food etc. How to go toShifen ? Take a train from Taipei Main Station to Rueifang (瑞芳）station. Buy a unlimited day ride along the Pinxi line. Shifen is just one of the few stations along the Pinxi line. You can also visit the other stations along the way. The most important thing to look out for is the arriving time of the train as it will be at least an hour of waiting if u miss it. Ha...ha...ha...

What I am looking forward in July 2010

Wow, times is flying fast and we are already started July 2010, the beginning of the second half of the year.

For me, I am looking forward the appearance of iPad locally in July. Ever since I started to use the iPhone, I am sure the iPad is able to meet my expectation. I would like to use it as an educational device for my daughter. The screen is bigger enough to facilitate her learning through games and story books. For example, the crossword or find words game. The game is not so easy to read from an iPhone.

The other beauty of it is using it to read ebook. However, I hope that there will be more Chinese books available as I access more Chinese books nowadays. iPad will also provide a better viewing of photos and movies together with my daughter. Hope that it will be bundle with a good package when it finally launches here.

The only challenge is that moving around with an iPad. It can be a bit bulky. Ha...ha...ha...