Missing you Xiaobao

Dear XB,


Its the 2nd year of your passing, we hope you are good where ever you are.


Missing you lots,

Daddy & Mummy

致:外婆(2014)

Dear Ah Ma,

How are you? Another year has past and its been 15 years since you left us today. I hope you are well with Ah Gong, Da Jiu and my baby who left to join you 2 years ago on the same day.

Sometimes, I would consoled myself that you will take good care of my child whom god decided that is not healthy enough for this world. Please help me to hug him and shower him with loves and kisses kk? I know you will do that without me asking:)

It was an exciting past 1 year, with your favourite grandson Ah Liang tying the knot.  During his wedding, I cannot help but imagine how happy and proud you will be if you are still here. And how you will nag at Ah Ge to quickly find a partner since his younger siblings had surpassed him and got married. Haha Ah Yun and Peiqi got married also in Dec last year and Jun this year respectively. How nice it would be if you are still here. 

You know mummy fulfill 1 of her wishes this May? Ever since your US trip in 1995, mummy had been wishing to go there and take a look. Finally during May, she made the trip with Ah Ge. You should see how excited she is. She even talk about going to the casinos in Vegas collecting the free mugs they gave out. Just like what you did 20yrs ago. Haha. She didn't bring back any mugs in the end. Guess they don't give out free mugs anymore. 

Remember how much things you brought back during your US trip? My 1st pair of Nike shoes and the minnie mouse coin pouch was what you gave me when you can back. I still have the coin pouch in my cupboard. Mummy brought even more from there for us but nothing for herself. Nevertheless, she is happy with making a trip there. 

It's mummy's 60th birthday this year and for the 1st time we have an extra family member to celebrate with her this year:) 1st time we took a family photo after so many years. Hopefully, our family will expand further at her 61st birthday ;)

Ah Ma, I hope you are watching over us from heaven. Hope you will blessed mummy and papa with good health and stay happy. Hope that you will blessed didi and me to expand our family soon and hope that you will bless Ah Ge would be able to a suitable partner and settle down soon. 

I missed you Ah Ma, wait for my updates in 2015.

Loving you always,

Ah Le (your eldest grand daughter).

Auspicious Time

Had to urge to bake recently albeit I play cheat and brought ready made mixture from Betty Crocker but hey it's a start isn't it? Ok, I digress.

So yesterday I woke up feeling excited to start baking. We went for breakfast 1st and when we reached him, Mr Love suddenly announced that he wants to clean the hamster's cage effectively cutting of the usage of our sink. Not that I want to be near it with food preparation.

I tried to sweet talk him into letting me use the kitchen first and he can clean the cage after I am done.

His reply is " Cannot, I got timing 1. If I dun clean now, later I will have no urge to clean le."

Me: "So you mean you have an auspicious time to clean your hamster's cage?"

Mr Love: "Ya!" I got consult 通书 just now, now is a good time.

So I gave in, since I gotta nag like 100times before he  start cleaning the cages.

In the end, it took him 15min to get up from the seat and start moving.

It's nearly 30min later then I got the kitchen back.


Mr Love: 1, Mrs Lee: 0

惜福

Following news of the doomed MH17, I came across 2 articles which left a deep impression in me. 1 is an account from 1 of the ground staff in Amsterdam airport who recall the various events and people she met right up to before the plane took off.

It makes me wonder, had the plane reached its destination safely would this staff still try so hard to remember all these events? These would after all be a day's of work, nothing out of the ordinary. Its 1 of the many planes that the ground staff help to send off in the airport in a day.

We are often like that aren't we? Taking things for granted. Not remembering or appreciating a lot of things or events that we deem insignificant until something happen and we realised these are never insignificant to start with. Its always true when people say we will start to treasure when we lose something.

298 persons got sacrificed because of selfish reasons of certain people and they were not even part of the countries that are involved. 80 young lives were lost even before they have a chance to excel in life. 6 family were wiped out and there will not be any descendants to be able to tell the legacy of their forefathers in future. Life of the hundreds if not thousands surviving family members, relatives and friends would not be the same again knowing that their love one have been killed in the most senseless way ever.

This is a scary, nonsensical incident where innocent are killed and deprived of their future. Yet, no one is matured enough to come out and claim responsibility. How nice. I wonder how they would fall asleep at night knowing that they have blood of these 298 innocent folks on their hand? Or they are used to taking lives of the innocent? I dunno. 

The other article outlines the events of the victims right up to the day they board the doomed flight. So many of them with so many stories. Some are just returning home from work, others are going to their much waited holiday, some are returning to celebrate Hari Raya Puasa. They are all different individuals with stories to tell but yet they shared 1 common point, that is they all perished on the flight.

Early conclusion from experts stated the victims were knocked out 3s after the missile hit the plane and did not suffer much during their last moments. I certainly hope so for this would be the good news of all the bad news, they didn't suffer during their last moments.

One mother wrote that she hope her son would be nearer to god since he died 33,000 feet in the air and hopefully he would reach heaven faster with the head start. This comment itself was heart breaking. To console yourself about the worst and trying to see something good about it.

We all woke up to a different world the morning after the incident with many having their life changed forever with this incident. Seriously how many of us really did take a moment to reflect on life?

We still go through our daily routines, sometimes too busy even to stop and reflect on how fortunate we are not to be affected this.

Appreciate what you have now and feel blessed for you never know when all these will be gone. Love yourself and your family. These are the most important things in life.

My heart goes out to those who lose their love ones in this incident. I hoped they will be able to find closure as time goes by, may the souls of the dead be rest and peaceful. Hope that justice can be served though it is gonna take a long time. R.I.P MH17. May there be no more of such tragedy. 

Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节-Shihlin Night Market(士林夜市）

We went back to hotel to finish check in process and then make our way to Shihlin night Market. Actually Park City Luzhou is nearer to Shihlin night market as compared to if we stayed in Xinmenting since the transfer station for Luzhou Line is 2 stops away from Jiantan station.

Shihlin Night market is a must go for us whenever we are in Taipei. Not so much on the apparels but the food offered here.

Went straight to the underground food court when we reached and Mr Love suggested to eat teppanyaki chicken chop noodles.

Menu

Cutleries

There are a few stalls here selling the same food and settled randomly for 1 stall since we are famished . Ordered 1 chicken chop and 1 pork chop noodles.

Pork chop noodles

This is 1 of our favourite food when in Taipei since this dish is cheap and delicious. In Singapore, a similar dish will set you back by at least SGD12-13 bucks while the version here in Taipei is nearly half of what it cost back home. How not to stuff ourselves silly with the food?

Chicken chop noodles

Still not full after noodles, we went in search of other food. Most of the food found here are not found in the places visited in the past 2days and Mr Love is craving for all these food.

So, we went in search for sausages, a must eat in Taiwan for us and didn't manage to eat much in Hsinchu and central Taiwan. Past by the stall we went to last year and decide to forgo it since it's pretty expensive. The sausages were not selling by per stick, instead the vendor will cut it into smaller pieces and charge by weight of the meat.

Spoiled for choices

Waiting for our order

Came across a random sausage stall and decided to order 1 portion here. It only costs NT35 and it's also cut into smaller pieces with garlic added along. Mr Love welcome the garlic while I was put off by it. Regardless of buying from a random stall, the sausage tastes as good.

The portion of sausage

We then stood in front of the 大饼包小饼 stall discussing whether to give it another try since it didn't leave a good impression for us when we tried during a previous trip. But for no apparent reason, Mr Love just feel like eating it today.

The lady vending the stall told us that hers is the original stall in Shinlin while all others are replica. Dunno how true, but chose to buy the peanuts version from her.

大饼包小饼

Different versions to chose from

The version we got from this stall was slightly different from the one we brought in the old Shihlin night market. A biscuit with peanuts filling was crushed and then wrapped in a popiah like skin before being served. Peanuts filling have a sweet taste while the biscuit's crust have a salty taste, therefore it gave this snack a mix between sweet and salted. I must admit, it tastes much better than the previous version. Plus, the lady heated up the popiah skin and thus we ate it hot.

We then decided to go up to the apparels section since were pretty full with all the food. I managed to locate the accessories stall that I came across when we were here last year. The stall offers tons of accessories made with Swarovski crystal at affordable prices.

The funny thing is the lady boss recognized that the pair of earring I was wearing was brought from her stall. Haha Make things easier for me to bargain. Hehe.

Told her that I came back specially to look for her stall hoping to buy more accessories back home. She promised to give me discounts and told me to take my time choosing while she keep her eyes on the neighbouring countries tourists whom she said will try to handpick some items without paying.

You know, I am well known for speed shopping no thanks to the limited patience of Mr Love. So within like 10 mins, I picked out 4 pairs of earrings and 2 necklaces.

The earrings sold here are priced tiered. Meaning to say the more crystal used, the more expensive it is(of course). Lowest tier is NT100 which is less than SGD5. I usually aimed for the earrings in this tier.

Love this find to bits- NTD100 only

I would also check out the other price tier earrings but only managed to choose 1 pair since the NTD 100 tier have enough choices for me. Haha  The vendor was nice enough to round down the price for the 2nd tier pricing earring for me.

Male & female clothings

I fell in love with a necklace that comes with a snow flake pendant- 1 of my favourite symbols to buy besides crown and musical notes. To top it off, it has a clear center part which will take colour of your clothing. How cool is that?

The lady boss gave a good discount and charged this for NTD400 without me bargaining much. Less than SGD20!! I nearly break into a victory dance there and then. Love it when I managed to snag a great deal. Can go back to office and show off my cheapo accessories which many complained that they didn't managed to find while in Taiwan. Well, look hard enough and you will be able to:)

My favourite find of all-NTD400

Out of a sudden a great downpour came and we were struck. The rain was too heavy for us to walk to the open air part of the apparels section. Mr Love decided to go down to the food section again before we call it a night.

We settled for 1 of the many stalls that offers what is similar to the Singapore version of zi char there. Am amazed at our eating abilities. Since we proceed to order what would be a full dinner course back home and this is only part of what we ate tonight. 

Menu

We did not like Taiwanese version of oyster omelette as they would pour a gravy over the crispy omelette making it soggy. Mr Love however was in a good mood today and he decided to order 1 portion to share. I cheated and ate the part without gravy and declared that I had enough of this dish already. Muhahah

Taiwanese Oyster omelette

Then we ordered a cuttlefish thick soup (花枝羹）which is my favourite dish in Taiwan. The version here was not as nice as some other I ate before. Although it added in pretty thick cuttlefish but many bamboo shoots were added and the soup has a strong taste of it. Don't like.

花枝羹

Mr Love was on a roll with stinky tofu (臭豆腐） and order 1 portion of it. The 1 we had at Zhongli Night Market did not give him tummyache and he took the plunge and order it once more here. Anyways, there are medications in my backpack. No fear.

The 1 here is pretty nice too though I like the spicy sauce from Zhongli Night market better. We didn't eat much of the veggies that comes with it, just attacked the tofu.

Stinky tofu

The final bill here came up to less than SGD 10 bucks but we were too full to move from the seats.
Decided to call it a day here and proceed to take train back to our hotel. I think we both piled on at least a kg here after tonight's feasting. No fear, all of them will be gone after tomorrow's activity. Or so I hope. Hehe.

After thoughts

Was hooked on watching 슈퍼맨이 돌아왔다(Superman is back) and managed to watch the 1st 16 episodes within these few days.

Many a time, I would end up crying at some part of the show. Watching how the dad handles the kids and grew closer with them trudges my heartstrings.

Like the twin's dad who cried after his twins were rushed to the ER after excessive crying. It was so heartbreaking to see the twins cried so hard and it was equally heartbreaking to see a full grown up man crying in the middle of the night while thinking back the day's events.

Or like how the innocent Haru shouted into the sky to her grandpa telling him she missed him. Her dad was so moved by her that you can literally see him fighting back his tears. Since I was watching the show at home, I have the luxury of letting my tears flow freely.

I am not a cry baby to start with but I was really moved by the show.

Sometimes, it would make me wonder how nice it would be if our baby is born and Mr Love is able to do all the things the dad had done with their kids in the show. Watching him grow up and making memories along the way. How nice it would be.

Perhaps it is near to the 2th anniversary of death of Xiaobao and it makes me more vulnerable while watching this show.

Regardless of what, I love watching this show and the tears and laughter it have brought to me.

I look forward to the day where we can have a child of our own to create the various memories like the parents did in this show.

Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节-Houtong Cat village(侯硐猫村）

 The new place were are going today is called Houtong (侯硐） where a cat village is located. This station is located along the Yilan line or Pingsi line though I think most of the express trains to Yilan would not stop at this station but still there are some which does.

Anyways, I have been planning to come here for the longest time but didn't manage to squeeze in the packed itinerary previously. This time round since Shifen was left out, we have the time to explore this new place.

Mr Love have no idea that what is in store here since I didn't brief him much hehe.

We got off the train at 3plus and it was drizzling. The rain is kinda irritating, not too heavy but not too light to forgo the umbrella.

Was so happie when I saw this sign

Houtong was previously a mining town but as the trade declines, all it left here are the abandon mining infrastructures until the cats here gave the town's tourism a boost.

We exited from the left of the station and came face to face with the station's mascot black nose (黑鼻） who had passed away in 2010. This is 1 of the 4 "heavenly kings" in Houtong and was so poprlar that after death they built it's figurine here as remembrance.

Opposite the mascot is a souvenir shop where you can buy all sorts of cats or Taiwan railway related stuff.

The station mascot-Black nose

Signs

Not knowing where to go and thought that we are in cat village already, we stepped out of the station main hall. Saw a provision shop and went to buy some cat food. It was priced at NT120 for 4 packs. Quite a good deal I suppose.

Old school veggie vendor

Because of the rain, we ducked into a pasteries shop that sells mining biscuits. It was biscuits filled with either black sesame or peanuts representing coal and gold, 2 things that were used to mine here.

Since we had brought dawn cakes and other pasteries in Taichung, we didn't want buy much here. Instead, I brought the 1 each of the 2 flavours to try out. The lady boss was nice enough to let us try nearly everything available here. The cheesecake they made was super nice and affordable too. I was given a discount voucher for some cafe down the street as I made my payment.

We continued our tour in this small town and there was some small eateries right outside the train station. Didn't try it though since we were not that hungry. Stood there to observe the few cats there are running about under the shelter from the rain. Mr Love told me that cats didn't like water and hence I decided that it was safe for me to stand in the rain to hide from the cats.

Eating it's lunch

There are really alot of cats here and it freaks me out a bit especially they are not afraid of strangers cause I am afraid of them!!

We came to a mining museum and went in to hide from the rain and cats. Haha

But guess what? I found a cat all curled up by the window, sleeping peacefully. Seriously I wanna cry already. There is no where here that are safe from the cats. And to think my initial plan is to hide here and ask Mr Love to go outside and feed the cats. Haha

Taking a lazy nap

The lady working here told us that this is not the cat village of Houtong, this is the old mining town where you can explore and see the old mining structures. But since it is raining, she advises us not to and instead just go see the cats haha. Turns out the cat village is on the right side of the station where there is an overhead bridge linking the village to the station. We thank her for the information and move out from the museum.

So happy even though its only a figurine

My coffee craving kicks in by this time (15:45) and we decided to go check out the cafe of the discount voucher.

Its located along the street as you exit left from the station. A cafe with sweet pink settings, I like!

The cafe was pretty quiet when we went in and the lady was nice enough to leave us on our own while we check out the cakes on display. I decided that I wanna have a cuppa here and the cakes and so we settled down and made our orders.

Loving the pink settings

I simply love the decoration of this cafe, all pinkish and the cute looking cakes, my kind of dream cafe that I wanna owned. Hahah.

Seriously had a hard time deciding what to eat. The discount voucher entitles us to 10% of the purchases but prices here are consider quite reasonable as compared to Singapore standards. So we ordered a coffee each and cakes.

Cupcakes, puffs, tiramisus

More cupcakes

Turns out, there are cats here too!! These 2 are reared by the owner and customers can play with them as they sipped coffee here. I nearly fainted. There is really no where to hide from the cats in this town. Imagine's Mr Love's joy when he saw the cats, imagine my fear too. I just want have my tea break in peace and it is not happening.

Immediately try to get friendly with the cats

And forgot about his wife

Still happy with the cats

He took out the cat food we brought earlier and start to feed the cats. Since there are no other customers, he had the all the attention from the cats. I as sitting at the furthest table that I could find in the cafe. Was super bored and and decide to take photos of him playing with the cats and start posting on FB on how happy he is and how scared I am. Hurhur.

The coffee and cakes came and he was not even interested in the food. So I digged in happily while he played and kept the cats away from me.

Our orders

The cats got tired and start to look lazy

The owner then took out some kitty toys and lent to Mr Love for him to play with the cats. Oh man, I wanted to jump out of the cafe when the cats jumped.

Then I forbid Mr Love to come near my table since the cats followed him and wanted a bite of our cakes.

The cats look away after food ran out

We spent 30min here while Mr Love played with the kitties and me hiding in 1 corner savouring my coffee and cake. Decided to move on to the real cat village as the rain had subside by now.

Only dare to pose with the cakes not cats

Station mascot-Black nose

We made our way back to the train station where an overhead bridge will bring us to the cat village. Even on the bridge there are cats roaming about. While I am not as afraid of cats as dogs, still I will jump if any of time attempts to come close.

The bridge which leads to cat village

Some rules to follow or caution

The cat village is actaully a residential area therefore from articles I read earlier we are told not to cause to much disturbances to the residents normal daily life.

Cats are abundant here but most of them belongs to the residents here and therefore are pretty well behave.

Map of the village

The rain got bigger when we entered the village and there was nothing in sight to see, no cats, no shop, no attractions. Still we walked a bit as Mr Love was determine not to give up after travelling all the way here.

We came to a shelter and found serveral cats hiding from the rain here. One of the bigger size ones nearly pounced onto me as she saw me holding on to a bag that she deemed to food. I jumped a mile and quickly hid the bag into Mr Love's backpack. Haha It was food alright but not theirs.

The big fat cat that nearly pounced onto me

Mr Love then happily took out the remaining cat food and start feeding the cats. They were wary of us at first but gradually warmed up to Mr Love and came for the food. I wanted to cry as there was at least 7 to 8 of them here.

Miss Fatty cat eating

View from the shelter

Can 1 have a pice of the food? asks the black kitty

Taking 1 discreetly

Meow!

While Mr Love busied himself with the cats, I walked around the neighbourhood in the rain hoping to hide from the cats who don't fancy water. Hahah

Further down the street from the shelter, I came across a home that have a makeshift gift shop outside that sells handmade stuff. There were quite a few cats here that the owner rear and she told me most of the cats hiding in the shelter belongs to her. Haha

Posing with Little tiger girl

The fatty cat who nearly pounced on me belongs to her too and its name is called 小虎妹(Little tiger girl) and she is the Alpha female of the group.

Thirsty from all the eating

Long way down to dunno where

Houtong train station

Mr Love was so engrossed with the feeding that he didn't even go anywhere besides the shelter in this village. Its partly due to the rain too and time as we are aiming to take the 17:18train back to Taipei, there isn't much time left for us to roam around.

While Mr Love was feeding the cats, I was chatting with the lady boss of the home gift shop and brought some handicrafts here from her.

When she learnt that we are going back to the train station, she passed some cat food to Mr Love and asked him to help feed the cats on the bridge, they belong to her too.

I was amazed by the number of cats she have and also her love for them. She will feed the cats accordingly to their likes. Some will eat dried pellets, some only eat canned food others will request for fresh meat.

Its dinner time!

While on the platform

This station accepts the use of easy card and therefore can tap in/out here without queuing up for tickets.

Since we did not manage to venture much in the cat village, I am sure Mr Love will request for a re-visit the next time we are in Taipei. Hopefully it will not be a rainy day the next day and we will get to see more of the village :)