Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!

Wishing everyone good health and prosperity in the year of the snake! :)

And ... A Last Minute Trim Before Chinese New Year

Overheard - Kids Say the Darnest Things

DD (5 years old): Mummy, is Papa older than Grandma and Grandpa?
Me: :O

I was pretty much speechless while DS started exclaiming, "Of course not lah!", and proceeded to tell DD the ages of the grandparents compared to Papa's age.

Interesting Kids' Snacks Found So Far

Look what I found at the supermarkets! Chocolate Cheerios at Jason's Marketplace at Taipei 101! If DD saw that, I don't think I could have gotten out of that supermarket without the chocolate Cheerios! I've not seen this item sold in Singapore yet.

At CitySuper, a supermarket chain in Hong Kong which carries a good amount of imported products as well, I found Panda Pocky sticks and Oreos which are soft like a sandwich, rather than crunchy like a cookie. How interesting!

We Made it to Taichung too!

25 Nov 2012
We visited more places in Taiwan on Sunday, 25th Nov, than on an average month during the 6 months spent in Taipei in 2008. Hehe. We attempted to go up Taipei 101, then lunched at Din Tai Fung before making a quick trip to Jason's Marketplace, also at Taipei 101. Jason's Marketplace is not unlike the Marketplace chain of supermarkets in Singapore, which sells lots of imported products.

We then headed to Taipei Main Station to catch the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Taichung. It took us about 50 minutes to get to Taichung, which is roughly 140km from Taipei. We spent over 1.5 hours in Taichung, having a bite at McDonald's in Taichung station, before taking the HSR back to Taipei.

Thankfully, DD took a nap during the train ride back to Taipei, which allowed us to head straight to Shilin night market from Taipei Main Station. If she didn't, we'll have had to head back towards our hotel for a quick dinner before putting the kids to bed.

Isn't it amazing the places we visited, all in one day? I truly felt like a tourist that day! :)

DD's Favorite Christmas Tree

Look at the color of this Christmas tree outside Uni-Hankyu department store, which is right beside our hotel in Taipei. It's pink! This is the biggest pink Christmas tree I've ever seen! Naturally, DD loves it, since pink is one of her favorite colors! ;)

P.S. If you are wondering why there's no one taking pictures beside the tree, it's because it was raining. If you'll remember, it rained 5 out of the 6 days we were in Taipei. Thank goodness for these shopping malls which are either connected to, or just across the road from the hotel. At least I managed some retail therapy! :)

Taipei 101…again :)

25 Nov 2012
DS couldn't remember his trip up Taipei 101 when he was 3 years old, and was really keen to visit it again. We decided to go on Sunday, the only sunny day out of the 6 days that we spent in Taipei. Guess what? Every tourist in Taipei probably had the same idea too!

We were there at 11am, but the waiting time to go up to the observatory at the top of Taipei 101 was over an hour. That's not even including the time queuing up to get the tickets. Not being patient enough to stand in a queue for too long, we headed over to Din Tai Fung for an early lunch instead. Taipei 101 will have to wait for the next time we visit Taipei again!

Here are two pictures of Taipei 101, one taken during the day and one taken at night.

Din Tai Fung

25 Nov 2012
We made it to Din Tai Fung at Taipei 101. We were advised by well-meaning friends to reach there before 11am, which we did, and got a table immediately. After 11am, when the restaurant opens, there would be long queues of people waiting to get a table. This restaurant comes highly recommended as a "must-try" in Taipei and is apparently quite different from the Din Tai Fung chain of restaurants in Singapore.

We ordered 4 different types of dumplings, beef brisket noodles, some appetizers, drunken chicken and fried rice for the kids.

In terms of variety, there are definitely many more dishes on the menu compared to Din Tai Fung in Singapore. I would say that the quality is definitely better too. Having said that, I would say that I didn't taste a huge difference between the dumplings made in Singapore and those here. A small difference in quality, yes, but not a big one.

Nonetheless, we had a good meal at Din Tai Fung and would eat there again if we visit Taipei 101.

W Taipei

We decided to stay at W Taipei. It's a hotel that's 10 minutes away from Taipei 101, right next door to Uni-Hankyu departmental store (much like Takashimaya with a food court and other food stalls in the basement), Eslite (an entire building that's a bookshop), above the City Hall MTR station, and right next to the Xinyi shopping district, which stretches for kilometers both above and underground. There's another shopping centre opposite the hotel with a small supermarket in it, but I don't know what it is called in English.

In the picture below, is this the bed in our hotel room?

No! It's the "sofa" at the lift lobby which brings us up to the rooms. W Taipei has quite an interesting layout. The concierge is on Level 1 (ground level), but the reception and the lifts that bring us up to our rooms is on Level 10. The swimming pool, which is open only during the warmer months, is also on Level 10, just beside the lobby bar.

Cathay Pacific

22 Nov 2012
Something really struck me about Cathay Pacific. Below are pictures of the plastic cutlery for the regular meals and child's meals. I don't know if this is true for all Cathay flights, but on both sectors travelled today (SIN-HKG and HKG-TPE), the cutlery were plastic! How environmentally unfriendly! I'm sure these cutlery will not be washed and re-used by Cathay, but tossed away after one use. :( I certainly hope they are at least recycled.

Taipei, here we come!

22 Nov 2012
Finally, school is out for Casey and we are on our way to Taipei. After spending 5 days in Taipei, we head to Hong Kong. :) DH will be speaking at a conference in Taipei, and doing a poster presentation at a conference in Hong Kong.

This is also the first time that I'm traveling on Cathay Pacific. Cathay flies direct from Taipei to Hong Kong, so it's much cheaper to fly via Cathay on all sectors. Unfortunately, Cathay doesn't fly direct from Singapore to Taipei, we have to transit in Hong Kong first, before heading on to Taipei.

Below are some pictures taken at Changi Airport and some in the airplane. There's a picture of DD trying to show us the wart on her toe, which is going to drop off soon after it was burnt off a few weeks back.

Unboxing my iPhone 5!

We were very lucky to have been able to get onto Apple's website on the day pre-orders for the iPhone 5 started, and our iPhone 5 arrived on 21 Sep, the day it was released. Yep, buying it online is much more comfortable than having to camp overnight outside an authorized Apple retailer just to get it on the release day. So, just for fun, here's the unboxing of my iPhone 5. :)

Here it is! Arrived just after noon on 21st September.

The iPhone 5 box well-protected by the thick postage box.

And I'm getting closer to seeing what the iPhone 5 looks like in real life!

Here it is! I wonder which Foxconn employee left these finger prints on my screen?!?

The EarPods that come with the iPhone 5 are supposedly made according to the "geometry of the ear". I haven't tried it yet, but I think it looks really painful! So I'll pass and stick to my good ol' wired earbuds or Jawbone bluetooth instead.

Mini-Master Chess Players?

DS and DD seem to have taken an interest in chess recently. I have no clue how to play the game, so I think they know more about chess than me at this point in time!

DS and DD playing the game very seriously.

Of course, DD couldn't resist the opportunity to give me one of her funny poses for the camera.

Shinji by Kanesaka

This is where we had lunch for our 10th wedding anniversary. Shinji by Kanesaka is located at Raffles Hotel. Shinji Kanesaka is a 2-star Michelin chef and he chose Singapore to open his first restaurant outside of Japan.

We would highly recommend this restaurant. Unfortunately, after eating "real" sushi and sashimi here, I don't think we'll find Sushi Tei* or Sakae Sushi* as enjoyable anymore!

*Sushi Tei and Sakae Sushi are well-known franchised Japanese restaurants in Singapore which have sushi trains (also known as conveyor belt sushi).

Here is where we sat. Right in front of the chef where we can see him work to prepare our food and chat with him at the same time.

With two very sharp knives in front of the chef, we reminded ourselves to keep any negative comments about the food to ourselves. Hehe. Luckily, we enjoyed every dish tremendously and didn't have to hold our tongue at all. :P

Chef Shunsuke Yoshizawa at work. We were really impressed by how quietly and quickly he worked to get our food ready, and at the same time keeping his working area clean and tidy.

Picture taken before the meal. If it was taken after, our abdomen will be noticeably larger!

A very special pedicure. :)

It's not everyday we're going to find a brother painting the toenails of his little sister! But DS likes painting and DD likes painted nails, so I guess that works out well. :) However, I'm not sure if DS will be repeating this anytime soon because he wasn't very happy with DD's grumbling that he didn't do a very good job! Haha!

10th Anniversary Lunch (Without the kids, of course!) :)

We gave ourselves a treat at Shinji by Kanesaka, a Japanese restaurant at Raffles Hotel by 2-star Michelin chef Shinji Kanesaka. We had the omakase menu, which essentially means that the menu selection is left entirely to the chef. I also interpret it as ingredients that the chef needs to get rid of before they turn bad. :P

For the omakase menu, we had an appetizer, a selection of cooked dishes, sashimi, nigiri and maki sushi, a soup and finally, desert. 

Raw scallop with mustard and tonburi. Tonburi is made from seeds of a shrub called Bassia Scoparia and looks like caviar.

Very lightly grilled barramundi (the flesh is still raw) with deep fried baby crab. These must be the smallest crabs I've ever eaten. See how small the pincers are in comparison to the chopsticks at the side.

Red snapper sashimi

Sea urchin, Japanese yam, ladies finger and seaweed. All raw I think. The different colors made the dish look interesting. We were supposed to mix everything up before eating, and eating this dish was a very unusual experience for the senses because of the differences in texture of the items. The sea urchin was soft and mushy, the minced yam was crunchy and juicy (much like fresh water chestnut), the seaweed was like jelly and the grated ladies finger was, well, like grated ladies finger!

Deep fried Spanish mackerel and minced tuna balls. With grated/minced radish on the side. I think this is the dish that we least liked. The sauce was too salty for our liking, and I don't fancy deep fried meat (or in this case, fish) balls in the first place.

Another really interesting dish. Tuna sashimi, in onion sauce, ginger flower and dried fish flakes.

Flathead fish nigiri sushi

Squid nigiri sushi, with some sea salt and lime. This tasted exquisite! The tinge of salty and sour really enhanced the taste of the otherwise plain tasting squid.

Medium fat tuna nigiri sushi. If you look carefully, you can see the graduation in color of the piece of tuna from darker at the left side to a lighter color at the right side. Fatty tuna is more pink, while the leaner tuna is darker in color.

Fatty tuna nigiri sushi. You can see that this piece of tuna is more pink and lighter in color compared to the previous piece of medium fat tuna. Because this piece of tuna is fatty, you can also see that it is marbled, much like the marbling on a piece of fatty Wagyu beef. According to the chef, there is less fatty parts in a tuna fish, so the fatty parts of the fish is more expensive than the lean parts.

Mackerel nigiri sushi with ground spring onion and ginger. I  know that mackerel fish is known to be "fishy" (although I do like the "fishy" smell and taste of mackerel) but this fish doesn't taste or smell "fishy" at all! According to the chef, for the "fishy" fish, he would soak the fish in a vinegar solution for a short while before it is served. This kills away any "fishy" smells.

Marinated lean tuna nigiri sushi

Shrimp nigiri sushi. I found this very delicious. The shrimps were super fresh and were still slightly firm in texture.

Salmon roe nigiri sushi. We were given a small spoon to eat this. A caucasian lady nearby did not notice the spoon provided for this dish and proceeded to finish it up using her chopsticks. Hehe. We didn't realise what she did until she mentioned it aloud after finishing the dish. At least her chopstick-wielding skills would have improved tremendously after that.

Sea urchin maki sushi

Eel, done in 2 different ways. With sea salt, and with a sweet sauce.

Delicious clear soup. With clams inside. According to the chef, this soup is very good for the liver. After drinking that, the Japanese men can go for their alcohol-binging sessions! Yep, the chef said that. Well, sort of. Haha.

A piece of tamago (egg). According to the chef, this is cooked over charcoal fire and can take up to 2 hours to cook. Must be difficult to cook such a thick layer of egg evenly and without burning the bottom!

Desert! 2 slices of Japanese pear, which was very sweet and juicy, and a scoop of homemade Japanese lime ice cream. This must be the most refreshing ice cream I've eaten in a long time. The lime was not too sour and the ice cream was not too sweet. The ice cream was really refreshing and really finished off the many dishes well.