More on Taiwan

Some of the food we ate while we were at Ali-san: apparently the cabbage grown on the mountain is quite famous, and it really is delicous! They also served us these bamboo sticks. At first when they came, me and my sister didn't know what they were for--

They're called zhu-tong fan, it's rice stuffed into a bamboo stick, and steamed to eat! Here is my mom demonstrating:

They have a lot of bamboo forests there, and the main kind of bamboo that grows on that mountain is called "Meng-zhong zhu" or Bamboo from a dream. Because there was a legend that there was a son whose mother really liked eating bamboo shoots, and one night he dreamed that she was very sick. And he found that his mother really was sick she wanted to eat bamboo shoots. But it was winter time, so none were growing. So the son cried and then the bamboo grew! This type of bamboo is known for growing bamboo shoots in the winter time. (also the same type that make up the forest in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

And one of the stops we made along our trails was to find a special type of bamboo called "Shi-fang zhu" or Four-sided bamboo; you might be able to read the sign at the bottom of the picture. You can't really tell from far away, but the bamboo is really four sided!! we felt it with our own hands!

Here's an upclose picture of a cross section:

Some other cool sights-
Here are some tree roots. What do you think it looks like? reminds me of Princess Mononoke...

This is a vegetable called "Fu-sou gua" or Holding-hands melon.

Another picture from sunset--

Yay Taiwan!! (me and Tiff)

I'm still in Taiwan!

Some more pictures!
At the High Speed Rail Station (it's super fast!! goes 200+ miles per hour, and Taipei to Taichung in exactly 1 hour!) Here is a sign that was at the station, where cars pick up passengers:

Here is my dad, mom and uncle at a local Tainan restaurant-

After visiting my uncle in Tainan, we went to Ali-san, the most famous mountain in Taiwan! Here's a picture I took on the bus on the way up the mountain:

One of the famous points of Ali-san is the little train that was built to transport lumber from the top of the mountain. We took it to the top of the mountain! Here's a picture of the train:

There was a landslide along the mountain, and this is what it looks like now, does the shape resemble anything familiar?

Me hugging a tree that is 1000+ years old!

They had monkeys there!! hehehe, they were so cute. There were a bunch of them along the road~

Sunset at Ali-san. It's famous for being above the clouds, and when they're thick, it forms a cloud sea.

Merry Christmas from Taiwan!

Hi from Taiwan!
Here are some pictures!

Of course at the market! I thought this was a good representation. SOO much food!


This is from walking downtown:

On the subway, so convienent!!


Now some pictures of food:
At a coffeeshop that we went to - this was Tiffany's cake:
A good day is expeched to begin!

We went to a pretty fancy Japanese restaurant with one of my dad's college friends.
This is fish with pumpkin sauce and pumpkin seeds, and that black thing was a cookie.

This is the biggest piece of shrimp i've ever seenn (and eaten!)


And lastly, just want to wish everyone a merry christmas! They don't really celebrate christmas here, but at every subway station they have these christmas themed blow up dolls, so I kept having Tiffany take a picture with them:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I'm in Taiwan!

I will try to take some pictures and up load them when i can!
of delicious food (and other stuff too!)

Buenos Aires, day 4

Monday: First, we went to La Boca to see a neighborhood of colorful houses called Caminito. It's a pretty big tourist attraction, so there are a bunch of vendors down (here there were a lot of paintings).

The houses are colorful because when there was a large immigration boom in Buenos Aires in the late 1800's a lot of Italians moved to this area, especially those from Genoa. They came from a city by a port, just as la Boca is along the coast of the Rio de la Plata as well. So they continued one of their traditions which was painting their houses with the left over paint from the shipyard. That's what makes the neighborhood so colorful. This town took it even further and they even started building entire homes out of materials from the shipyard!

Empenadas for lunch! Here is a true picture of what mine looked like :D Yumm! And the Pepsi from the glass bottle.

Ed & Julia

the t(h)eresas
Then we took a walk in the park, just playing around, posing with the statues~


And went to the Japanese garden (largest one outside of Japan!)

Then we headed down to the Rio de la Plata (finally!). You can see the city of Buenos Aires in the distance (right above my head). As a mentioned before it is the widest river or estuary (right where the river is about to meet the ocean) in the world - at least the part where the river meets Buenos Aires. Here's an image of it from wiki:

So even on a clear day you can't see uruguay, I think where Buenos Aires is, it's on the order of the width of lake erie (~ 40 miles wide)!

Then went for a little bit of shopping and dinner at Bar Milion (a resturant bar that was converted from a 3 story mansion). On our way to dinner we passed by the Obelisk, and took a moment to take some photos. What Ed will do for a good photo opportunity: (he had to lay/crouch on the ground in order to get the whole obelisk~)

Buenos Aires, day 3!

On Sunday we went to the San Telmo Flea Market, which is especially famous for the antiques that they sell there and the street performers that gather. I mostly took pictures of the street performers instead of the market itself.

There was some really fun tango dancing at the market, this is a snap shot from a video I took.

I especially liked listening to the tango bands that were out there. Here is one of them. The play very traditional tango music, but I think its the right size ensemble that sounds really good. There was also a cellist, but for some reason he was sitting sort of away from everyone else, so I could't get him in the photo.

And then there was also -- Ed tried to describe what he had read about - that one of the street performers at the market is a guy who pretends like he's in a hurricane. Let yourself imagine what that might be like for a moment....

And this is what we ran into:

the change poses whenever you give them any money. And sometimes just on a whim to get more laughs.

After walking around the square we went to a nearby cafe for a late lunch. Julia ordered Mate, a special kind of tea that Argentinians like to drink in the afternoon. You put the Mate (the green leaves in the cup to the right) into the silver cup with the silver straw and soak it with some hot water. Then add some sugar and drink it through the special straw which has a filter at the bottom so you don't drink any of the leaves. When we were at the cafe, people kept leaning over to our table to teach Julia how to drink and prepare the Mate. :D

For dinner we went to el Mirasol, a really good restaurant (steak again!). The food all got devoured before I had a chance to take a picture. But this is all of us at the restuarant by the time the desert came out.

After dinner we went to las Canitas (the new place to go in Buenos Aires, though it was not too bustling on Sunday night). First, we walked around and found a little park in the middle of the street and indulged our inner child. Teresa especially enjoyed riding on this swinging oil drum :P She got Annie to get on with her - looks like fun, right?

After that we went to a bar where we ordered a bottle of wine and also a pitcher with fruit and sugar - sort of a makeshift sangria. Can you see the fruit in the wine? It was delicious :D, but we had a little bit of trouble getting to all the fruit, hehe:

Buenos Aires, day 2

I'm a little behind on my posting, but I've got a few minutes now so i'll try to give some updates~ This was day 2 (Saturday).

The next morning I took a short walk around and then when everyone arrived, we had more empanadas for lunch! and then walked down to the recoleta cemetery.

Here's a picture of the cemetery. As I said before, no tombstones, just grandiose mausoleums. And also many stray cats, which was a bit eerie~

A picture of a musician performing in front of the cemetery courtyard.

At night we took a walk in the city, down Santa Fe Av. Teresa said it felt just like NYC. Here's us walking down the street. with Reese Witherspoon...

Here's something I saw in a store window. Future doctor!

At night walking down the 9 de Julio (the widest street in the world), I tried to snap a shot of the obelisk of Buenos Aires. You might barely be able to see it in the distance, but if not don't worry, I got some good shots of it today. Annie says it looks like I risk my life to get that picture!

For dinner, we went to this extremely fancy (probably too much so for us) restaurant for steak. Here's my huge skirt steak...

After dinner we went to Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in the country. Founded in 1858 I believe. It used to be a big hot spot for famous tango dancers. Here are some pictures of the inside, and the last one is one of the outside. Ed and I shared a bottle of Malbec, a special wine of Argentina. Very good! A pretty light wine, and had a nice grape-y aftertaste. Yum!

A short update, on Sunday we went to the San Telmo Flea Market to see some crafts, antiques being sold as well as some cool street performers (traditional tango bands, tango dancers, and some other crazy stuff!). Went out to a really good restaurant (steak again!) and went out to a bar in Canitas (the new place to go in Buenos Aires, though it was not too bustling on Sunday night). On Monday (today) we went to La Boca to see a neighborhood of colorful houses, then grabbed lunch, went to the Japanese garden (largest one outside of Japan!) and to the Rio de la Plata (finally!) then went for a little bit of shopping and dinner at Bar Milion (a resturant bar that was converted from a 3 story mansion).

Okay, Buenos Noches!