We went to Hsinchu for tour this week. There was only three of us - Siau Fen from Hsinchu Forest Office, Yean Yee from Hualien Forest Office and me from Luodong Forest Office.
由於網路不太方便使用，功課沒做足，我們就匆匆跳上“台灣好行”，到處去亂逛。
We did not do enough hoemwork due to the inconvenient of using the internet. We ended up to wander around by using Taiwan worthy tour package.
獅頭山
北埔
Beipu
因為北埔老街沿途風景很吸引我們的眼球，竟然在這裡玩起來。三個人來瘋~
The scenery in Beipu Old Street is very nice and we started to play crazily. XD
北埔老街客家菜也很不錯喲~ 價廉物美~
Hakka meal in Beipu Old Street is nice and cheap too!
We were lost in Zhu Bei. We went by foot to look for the direction and we found this river with a scene as in the Japanese Cartoon "Chibi Maruko Chan".
迷路也不忘拍照。
Although we lost and we got no idea where we are, we still enjoy taking photos.
快樂時光飛逝。珍惜當下，把握機會，實現屬於自己的夢想！
The happy moment passed very fast. We should appreciate what we are having now, seize the opportunity and work hard to reach the star sky high!
It’s been 1 month and 4 days since I set my feet on Taiwan. By far
I haven’t had to face with any big difficulties except for the barrier of
different languages. My friend, Cuong once told me he found Taiwan so familiar to Vietnam so he just felt like home
here. I couldn’t agree more. On this entry, I would like to show you guys some
similarities between Taiwanese and Vietnamese
street food, which I take the most interest in. Oh
yummy~ I feel hungry by now. Oops, back to the main topic then (_ _”)
1. Mantou
Taiwan
and Vietnam
both have mantou. In Vietnam,
we’ve 2 most common types of mantou including: “banh bao chay” (mantou with
nothing inside) anhd “banh bao nhan thit” (mantou with an egg, mushroom, pork
inside). I can easily find the same version of “banh bao chay” in Taiwan but in
different shape while Taiwanese “banh bao nhan thit” is a little bit different
with only pork inside despite the same shape as Vietnamese one. I’m sorry if I
make you guys feel headache because of talking in both English and Vietnamese
Vietnamese and Taiwanese "meat-free mantou"
Vietnamese mantou with pork and egg inside. Taiwanese one doesn't have egg
2. Noodles
Normally we have noodles with
chicken or beef but I think pork is used much more often here. We also share the
same shapes and sizes of noodles: big and flat noodles (we call “pho” in
Vietnamese”), round and small noodles (we call it “bun” in Vietnamese), yellow
round small noodles (“my” in Vietnamese”). Now let’s have a look!
Big and flat noodles
Round and small noodles
Yellow round small noodles
And this is how these different types of noodles mix with other ingredients!
Warning: People feeling hungry right now would better come back and have a look later! ^^
Vietnamese - Taiwanese
Vietnamese - Taiwanese
Vietnamese - Taiwanese
I was amazed when I saw this in Taiwan too. We call it "moc" in Vietnamese, which is an "edible ball" made of pork. There are 2 more types in Taiwan namely fish ball and beef ball. How fun! ^^
Vietnamese people use fungus, mushroom and shrimp to make dumplings while dumplings made in
Taiwan include green onion and pork.
I think I better end this entry
here because I can’t help myself thinking about food now. Office time anyway!
We’ll have further discussion about Taiwanese and Vietnamese food very soon.
Stay hungry for the next posts haha. Thanks! Bye!
Welcome to The People On The Mountain's house. This place was built like the house of the wood cutter on Taipingshan in the olden days. I am in-charging of being narrator at 3pm. I had been worrying about this for the whole day.
威風凌凌地掛上麥克風，心臟卻撲通撲通地亂跳。我緊張起來會腦袋一片空白，然後語無倫次啊！
I know I look good when I put on the microphone but the truth is that I am shivering inside. I will get blank everytime when I am nervous. I have to overcome the butterfly in my stomach!!
"This is the combination of living room and kitchen of the people living on the mountain. The temperature on Taipingshan is relatively low, the workers will gather at this area with their family members to warm themselves and to chit chatting."
"The wood cutter did not rest two days a week like us. They only off during Chinese New Year, Mooncake Festival and Dumpling Festival. There was also another festival where they will get an off of seven days which was during the Sport Festival. One of the sport games they had was carrying a heavy sandbag of 30kg to 50kg and ran up a long staircase. This shows that the wood cutter in the olden days had good stamina and very fit. "
This blog is for my Hsinchu friends. They made my Wednesday!
I don’t want to write much as Joyyi had posted a pretty long entry about this
and I think that she and I share lots of special feelings after the trip to
Lalashan. Anyway I’m writing this to send my most sincere thanks to Hsinchu
team including teachers and friends for your incredible hospitability and
careful preparation to welcome all of us. I really enjoyed the time talking
with Cuong in Vietnamese after a while we use English and sometimes Chinese
everyday. I’m happy to see that he’s doing fine there, enjoying his Vietnamese
dramas downloaded in Hsinchu. Haha. I also loved the time walking on a short
trail in Lalashan with other teachers and friends, tasting the red fruit there
and practicing Chinese and Korean together. And I feel like I had a great
chance to get to know more about the Ukelele guy haha (He had allowed me to
call him this way hehe). His passion and skillfulness for Ukelele is just so
amazing. I wish to have some Ukelele lessons with him someday. I’m also madly
in love with Hsinchu team’s presents, the photo frames are all so cute and I
can see your spending lots of time making this special decorative for all of
us. When I got in your dorm, the very first thing that impressed me was the
photo frame on the standing cabinet so it was so amazing to know that I can own
one. You know what? All of us don’t bring the frames back to dorm but leave
them on desks at the office so that we can see those sweet beautiful frames
everyday. ^^ Thank you all again! I can’t wait to see you guys again in our
Luodong office in August!
Beautiful as paradise (taken at Lalashan visitor center)
Lalashan Exhibition Hall
This is such a cute welcome poster at their dorm
This photo frame is for me. I like it so bad!
I received the photo frame from her. Thanksssss a lot!
Time to practice Ukelele together!! hehe
Joyyi took some short videos of our practice. Here is the melody of "Happy Birthday to you". Enjoy!!
This shop is located in one of the street in Luodong Night Market. It was named as Fu Fa. I had been controlling myself on shopping but I failed this time in Fu Fa. ==
噢不~是糖果色系~太可愛了啊~ 哪個顏色比較好？
These are my favourite kind of colours! Which one is the best?
好啦，這兩雙鞋子哪雙比較好看？是左邊馬來西亞Fipper，還是右邊的台灣富發牌？
Well, which of these two is nicer? Malaysia Fipper on the left or Taiwan Fu Fa brand on the right?
購物欲，除了芒果，沒有女生能控制得住。
There is no girl who can control her shopping temptation except for Mango.
全部都好喜歡！怎麼辦？
We like all of this! What should we do?
游惇理（設計對白）：好啦好啦！你們幾個慢慢去選，不要來煩我！
Jam : Fine! Fine! You girls can choose any pairs you like but please stay away from me! ><
好~我就買這雙~
Yeah~ I will buy this!
游惇理最後選擇了買這雙！哦~童心未泯~
This is Jam's final decision and he chose this! Oh! What a day!
These days I don’t have much inspiration to write blogs
because it’s been a while since the last time we went on a trail or did
something fun. We go to Forestry Exhibition Hall almost everyday, where we work
with a very nice girl but still I do not enjoy working there at all. What we
have to do is presenting about the work and life of people living on
Taipingshan decades ago. As I don’t speak Chinese, Joyyi and Julie take charge
of the presentation in Chinese while I have to wait for foreign tourists to
perform my English version. Since we worked here, we just saw only one
“potential foreign tourist” passing by but lucky enough for me, he took no
interest in dropping in our Exhibition Hall, where I was almost ready, waiting
for him to show off some knowledge about Taipingshan. Poor me!
A desperate and boring moment of mine working at Forestry Exhibition Hall
This is my closest friend in Forestry Exhibition Hall. She's with me almost every single moment there. She helps me count the number of tourists coming in.
But still we have some fun together here hehe
Anyway, I think I’ve been complaining too much on this
entry. It’s time for the sunshine to get in this dark world hehe. I’m writing
this to share with you guys about my freaking crazy funny yesterday. It was so awesome that I cannot
wait until the next Tuesday to reminisce about it. After such a long
day working at the Forestry Exhibition Hall, my team called 3JMC went to Mc
Donald for dinner. Discount time at Mc Donald anyway haha. Apart from 5 members
of my team, there was another guy whose English name is Jeremy accompanying us.
We got to know more each other after the Summer Camp and I must admit that he
is a very nice and caring guy. Anyway, let’s get back to our dinner at Mc
Donald. I really enjoyed the time there because I was hungry like crazy and we
had lots of “laughing to death” moments there chit chatting with each other. We
practiced 4 different languages including English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malay
with various topics from my creativeness in making Chinese sentence like “I am
as beautiful as paradise” to serious matter around the world like the severe
tsunami in Japan. We also had some pronunciation competition among different
languages and I must say some sounds in Chinese are really difficult to pronounce.
For example I cannot satisfy my teacher Julie whenever I try to pronounce the
second sound of the word “delicious”. Seriously, I’m afraid that after 2 months
here in Taiwan
striving my utmost to practice Chinese sounds, my mouth may change into a funny
shape. Should I ignore teacher Julie’s enthusiasm then?
One of my Chinese lessons with "teacher Julie" if you wanna have a look
(Source: Julie's blog)
And funny enough, I also taught my Taiwanese friends and
Joyyi some Vietnamese slangs of teenagers. In Vietnamese, when someone tells
you a boring story then you should give him such a comment as “thieu’ muoi’
(lack of salt)”. In another case, if you see someone doing something
unreasonable or stupid that you can find no way to understand then you may use
this expression “bo tay”. My friends practiced like a lot with these 2
expression and I bet they will surprise any Vietnamese using “thieu muoi” and
“bo tay” haha.
Mc Donald in Luodong
After triggering such a noisy atmosphere on the second floor
of Mc Donald, we had to say goodbye to Jeremy and headed to Watson for some
cosmetic things. Watson has sales a lot so sale-loving girls like us couldn’t
help it but spent nearly 45 minutes there. I felt a little sorry for Jam at
first as I thought he would take no interest in discount stuffs but he rapidly
found his own world with cosmetics for men haha. After spending a lot of money
for Watson products and chit chatting with the salesperson, we headed to the
night market for window shopping. It was a hard decision whether we should go
there or not because there was too much temptation of over spending there. But
finally we yielded to our shopaholic desire anyway and I felt sorry for Jam
again because he wanted to get back home but we, the girls just dragged him around
despite his hopeless defense. LOL.
This is one of Joyyi and I's favorite clothes shop
Then Jam got crazy and he kept talking in English even
though everyday he rarely speaks English. I felt weird but thanks god I could
talk with him more haha. Our walk around the night market finished with saying
goodbye to another considerable amount of money as well. We got into a “Made in
Taiwan”
shoes store and found our favorite ones. Julie and Joyyi bought 2 similar pairs
of shoes of different color while I decided to buy a new released pair of
shoes, which I have to wait till the following week for my proper size. I also
bought a super cute pant and fashionable T-shirt for my little niece back home,
which were a little bit expensive but I feel satisfied because finally I could
choose something nice for her.
Made in Taiwan shoes store
Which one to buy X________X
This shoe is cute, isn't it? But not for me anw LOL
When we came back to our dorm, it was almost 10 p.m. I bet
the very first thing when we got in our room was checking how much money was
left after such crazy spending. You can guess how our faces looked like. I
tried to get over my sorrow from finance matters by putting on a mask for a
brighter facial look. Haha. Joyyi was deeply into her passion of watching cartoons haha. I’m
now writing such a long story and thinking back Jam’s stupid body languages
when he wanted to describe a shrimp, wet tissue, tsunami in Japan and some
other crazy things that I forget by now. Goodbye for now! PS: my
Chinese is getting better. Yesterday I could talk with a tourist at Forestry
Exhibition Hall for a few sentences and I felt so so so happy about that. Okay,
bye!
