Taiwan Day 1... finally!

Just a bit of an update on my eyes and work before I start on my Taiwan blog. I went to see the eye specialist yesterday and had to endure almost 2 hours of eye tests! My doctor's name is Professor Barrett which I thought was weird when this Mexican looking man started tested my eyesight, I called him Dr. Barrett. After a while, I realised he was just the optometrist. Then he ushered to me another room where I called an Indian man Dr. Barrett, he was also an optometrist of some higher level. I finally met the real Dr. hours later. (-____-)"

Overall, my eye condition could be either due to scarring (not good but fixable) or just normal symptona from operation at such a high degree. He said it was too early to tell, so nothing much to worry about at the moment, just keep an eye on my condition and checkup in another month.

Work is relatively easy and relaxing! My colleagues have been really nice and helpful.Today my colleague asked me ' Diana, are you enjoying work here?' Most of my colleagues are family men and women who call their wives and kids every now and then to coo to them. Very cute. So far so good so fingers crossed.

Ok.... TAIWAN!


Early in the morning after our soyabean drink, we headed to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. For some reason we didn't see the memorial which should have been right in front of the MRT so we ended up taking a long walk instead. It was still a nice walk with old ah peks playing er hu and practising tai qi.


Then we went to the undeground mall at the Taipei Main Station where the shoes were wonderfully cheap. See, Jo gives the thumbs up to the underground mall.


Poor Ah pa was quite bored at the mall, I think he was quite glad when we decided to have Ramen for lunch. This is my Hell Ramen aka Di Yu La Mian which was on promotion and plastered on the walls. I didn't realise Hell meant super duper hot and even asked for Zhong Lak. It was very spicy and I was coughing after a few mouthfuls. The ramens weren't great. Mine had pork blood cubes. But I did discover Nestea Pear Tea which was sooo nice that I drank it every day after that.


We went back to the hotel for a short rest but stopping for more soya bean first. The nice auntie gave us a free vegetable bun which Ah Pa said was nice.



Then it was time for Shilin Night Market!! Food food food. We made the right decision of going ear;y om the evening around 5pm, the market was just starting to open up and most of the night market crowds weren't around. Here's Jo at the start of the market.


More Taiwan sausages!


Spring onion pancake. We tried two different stalls, Ah Pa had a thinner lighter version of the pancake which was nice.


Jo's was thicker, oily but still rather tasty.


More stalls. The famous chicken chop stall was up ahead but I'm not putting up pictures since JO has already blogged about it. But I liked the chicken chop, very unhealthy but still nice once in a while.


Do you recognize the man in the corner? I think we ended up buying a bag of the Ji Dan Gao which tasted like 'Long Koh' only smaller and hollow inside.


I love Taiwan fruits. I think I had a packet of Taiwan pears almost every day, the jambus, stuffed cherry tomatoes etc. were all so sweet and refreshing.


Shilin was getting crowded so we decided to head home. We stopped by for the famous Yang Tao Bing (Starfruit Ice) located at XiMenDing and near our hotel area. I was surprised that the ice tasted more like preserved sour plum drink instead of starfruit.


Jo and I were still hungry after Shilin Market. We dapaoed some Oh Wa Jian (Fried Oyster Pancake) to bring back to the hotel with us. We loved it!


The illegal stalls were also coming out at the main shopping area in XiMenDing. Jo loves sweetcorn so she bought one fo the grilled corn on the oob which were lathered with pork oil and some soy sauce -ish marinate. She really loved this sweet corn and we waited for this stall to come out the following 2 nights.

Ok, more next time! It's Australia Day and I'm going to check out the fireworks. (^__^)Y