Tuesday, December 15, 2009
HelllloO~~~~ Ok this is gona be shorter than my previous post. I gotta go bathe and sleep early! Start work at 6.45am in the morning! Actually I love morning shifts, I get to end work early too! :)
So, since my last update, I've....
1. Met my brother at the airport and picked up a 20kg suitcase from him (which contained all my MUST-HAVES) such as instant noodles, fried rice condiments, LKK chilli sauce... blah blah FOOD basically.
2. Met family friend Paul who works at Microsoft (so cool!) and had lunch with his gf @ downtown BOKA restaurant...not bad! They're servings are really HUGE.
3. Walked almost the entire Seattle downtown in an afternoon!!! Well, it's not THAT big, just a lot of uphill and downhills...tiring!
4. Started work on today, Monday and met almost everyone in the hotel. They're sooooo nice and friendly! And! my FO manager is really young too! :) 還真的滿帥的！哈哈~ Actually, so are all my other friendly colleagues, they're a bunch of young hard working people!
5. Got my US number! Thanks to bro who bought the prepaid card for me!
6. Ate dinner at PF Chang's and it was great!!! Not that cheap though, 2 people we ate about 40 USD. Oh well, it's Henry's last night in Seattle, and I will miss him!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST! Lovely brother gave me a COACH xmas edition clutch!!! AWESOME!!! You're the best bro! :) Just don't pinch me so much ok? haha
oh yea, i'll be moving out of the hotel soon so when i get my keys to my apartment i'll update u all on the address!
Cheers and take care all!
Amanda
So, since my last update, I've....
1. Met my brother at the airport and picked up a 20kg suitcase from him (which contained all my MUST-HAVES) such as instant noodles, fried rice condiments, LKK chilli sauce... blah blah FOOD basically.
2. Met family friend Paul who works at Microsoft (so cool!) and had lunch with his gf @ downtown BOKA restaurant...not bad! They're servings are really HUGE.
3. Walked almost the entire Seattle downtown in an afternoon!!! Well, it's not THAT big, just a lot of uphill and downhills...tiring!
4. Started work on today, Monday and met almost everyone in the hotel. They're sooooo nice and friendly! And! my FO manager is really young too! :) 還真的滿帥的！哈哈~ Actually, so are all my other friendly colleagues, they're a bunch of young hard working people!
5. Got my US number! Thanks to bro who bought the prepaid card for me!
6. Ate dinner at PF Chang's and it was great!!! Not that cheap though, 2 people we ate about 40 USD. Oh well, it's Henry's last night in Seattle, and I will miss him!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST! Lovely brother gave me a COACH xmas edition clutch!!! AWESOME!!! You're the best bro! :) Just don't pinch me so much ok? haha
oh yea, i'll be moving out of the hotel soon so when i get my keys to my apartment i'll update u all on the address!
Cheers and take care all!
Amanda
Vuitton pen, 12/15/2009 01:49:00 PM.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Vuitton's blabberings of the day:
How should I start this.
I'm tired from the plane journey. From SG - Taipei things were ok. I was kinda bored on the first night. Luckily Scott was able to take off and accompany me go shopping! Yes, we went to the usual places, Ximending, Shilin Night market. Luckily Scott mentioned that there was a place in Wanli for people to paraglide and I was totally excited over it, thinking that I could finally have a chance to paraglide! (since I didn't get to do it in Swiss)
So, while day 2 was spent with Scott and later in the evening my grandparents treated both Scott and I to a TRULY SUMPTUOUS meal at MITSUI Japanese Restaurant. I've never been to such a high class japanese restaurant much less have a 8-course meal which lasted 3 hours! We had....
1. Sashimi platter (ok i didn't have this but i had simmered fresh abalone while Scott & my grandfather had sashimi coz i didn't dare to eat sashimi... so stupid yea?)
2. Fresh Japanese Snow Crab Salad (is it snow crab? Anyway the crab meat was huge and juicy and sweet! Heavenly~
3. Fish liver with Japanese ponzu sauce
4. Freshly fried Ebi Tempura using Live Prawn (hence the entire body could be eaten... the head was especially delicious!)
4. Salt-roasted Crab (AWESOME)... must add a dash of lemon juice!
5. Salt-roasted Fish (EVEN MORE AWESOME!) For those who know me well, you know I hate eating fish. However, this fish is Exceptional! I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It has almost no fish bones, no fishy taste, it was tender and flavorful because they used premium japanese sea salt!
6. BBQ Lamb shoulder (Wow, very very juicy, flavoured with Japanese teriyaki sauce, and no weird smell! Thumbs up!)
7. Seafood steamboat with miso base (Fresh seafood, including crab again! WHOO!!!) you could imagine how wonderfully LIGHT and sweet the soup was! AWESOMEEEEEE
8. Dessert, which was Japanese red bean soup (Zenzai) and a slice of Rockmelon
And don't get me wrong, the portions are NOT SMALL. They serve generous portions and their freshness is uncomparable! No wonder they charge so much! What's more interresting was, when Scott and I took a cab there, the driver didn't know the address we said, but the moment we said "Mitsui japanese restaurant" he was like :"Oh! ok i know already". I bet they must be really famous in Taipei! Thanks Ah gong Ah ma! Hugs and Kisses!!!!
3rd Day - Met Aunt who brought me to have lotsa food like Ba-khi, pig's intestine, then xiao long bao for lunch. Wah, so stuffed I thought I would puke on the bus. Later met Scott at noon to travel to Wanli, about 45 min from Taipei main station, and alighted at the foot of the mountain. The paragliding coach came to pick us up in a VERY VERY lok kok van. BELIEVE me, when i say lok kok, it's SO BAD that while he was driving up the mountain, black smoke was coming out of the engines. I was wondering why it suddenly got so smoggy, and there was this awful burnt smell... awwww i thought the van was gona fall apart!!! but it was really quite funny. haha
Ok. Let's get on to the paragliding part. Hey, I'm all for exciting adrenaline pumping activities. BUT, fun does indeed come with a price. In my case, luckily Scott brought the camera and I didn't so he went first, WHICH WAS GOOD, coz if not he would have taken videos and pictures of me PK-ing and dragged literally by the parachute for 20 metres or so. I fell TWICE. First time, I was already running like crazy but somehow the wind pulled the parachute in the wrong direction (either that or I felt the instructor's weight on me too) so as I was running to take off i felt my knees buckle, and then WHAM! I was sweeping through the grass bushes, mud all over my pants. DARN it!
Second time take off. Seriously, What in the world is wrong? Well, in my case, everything could be wrong. The second time my shoe fell out. YES! My Golden Adidas shoe!! (the left shoe, just in case you're curious) And then the same thing happened - I felt my knees buckle as the weight of the parachute was pressing on me and WHAM! second time launch failure. I stayed immobile with my hands grasping onto the long grass for life as we were already on the steepest part of the slope. My instructor's friends all laughed at our misery and my instructor said: "Wah! you're very lucky ah, pay NT1000 but you get to take off 3 times!" and i was like WTF?! Falling twice is NOT counted as taking off at all! I'd rather take off once and pay 1000NT than fall twice! Anyway, when we finally took off on the 3rd time, I no longer felt scared. Instead, I was just sweaty, badly cut by the grass, (yes, about 20 cuts! Serious! visible ones!) and wanting to get the launch over and DONE WITH!
Oh boy, paragliding is fun! but, it's not as exciting as sky diving or taking a rollercoaster, coz you have an instructor with you and you're seated on the straps so it feels that you're more secured than other activities. Or maybe it's coz my adrenaline was all used up coz I fell flat on my face twice.
Overall, the experience was definitely a memorable one. Not one that I would expect though, but if given a chance, I'd try it again. It only took 2 minutes or less to get to the ground (coz the wind wasn't strong...) but I would definitely wana try it in Swiss!
After paragliding and then shopping for a while again at Ximending, I met my cousin at Shilin while Scott visited his grandparents at Gongguan. I do love girls' time together. It's so fun shopping together, buying crazily, eating... and catching up with one another. I bought so much stuff that night! O_O
OK, so on the last day my uncle and aunt brought me to eat chou tou fu and italian pasta, yu yuan, etc. and it would be so tiring to list down everything! I'm badly deprived of sleep. Why? Continue reading....
So, for my flight from Taipei to Seattle, I was seated next to a Vietnamese elderly couple. I smiled to them, thinking it's nice to be friendly since we're gona be sitting next to one another for the next 11 hours. To my utter horror, the woman who sat next to me (ok, not very elderly, around 50s) stuck her foot right up to the seat infront, in plain sight of me! Worse still, she'd extend her feet to my area and she already has much more space than I do! :(
Then, 4 hours into the flight I felt a sudden nudge. I was asleep and opened my eyes, and found the old man seated inside trying to cross my seat with his leg already on top of mine! OH MY! imagine the horror! At least you could have the courtesy to wake me up and tell me you wana go out, not try to attempt acrobatic tricks when you're already 60 and putting your entire leg on someone else's!!!
Sigh, and every time I was trying to sleep the lady next to me would suddenly extend her legs to my area (hey, she's like 155cm! and I'm like 175cm!) who needs more leg room! YOU tell me!
Oh well, customs at Seattle was soooo tedious. You have to claim your luggage twice! ARGH! Let me explain.
After your alight from the plane, you head over to immigration counter, where there is a whole bunch of people waiting for their turn. Thankfully I'm holding Canadian passport so I get to queue with the US citizens. Still, it was quite a wait! Then, after i passed through the immigration, I had to go down and collect my luggage, go through customs (they wana make sure you aren't bringing in plants, meat, seeds...) and THEN! you go out, deposit your luggage at the belt OUTSIDE AGAIN! and then take a shuttle train to outside, where you finally collect your lugagge. Poor Joelhey, she waited for 2 hours to pick me up... thanks Joelhey, you've been such a great help!
At the hotel I met a few staff including the front office manager Phllip who assigned me to my double bed room 590 and it's great. We eat for free here and we headed off to the kitchen where he nicely asked the chef to make Joelhey and me each a Turkey club sandwich. Oh my, it was delicious! and HUGE!
Apparently according to joelhey, I'll be working at both the Marriott hotel (near the airport) and the other one in the city, called the Marriott Waterfront (yes, it's next to the sea! whee!) and what's more....you get staff rate if you were to stay over!
usually staff pay 59 USD ++ for ANY MARRIOTT hotel they stay at all over the world. However, due to the recession now, Joelhey says staff only need to pay half of the usual price! YES!!! That means 30 USD for ANY marriott hotel ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! NEW YORK here i come!!! i'm gona stay in as many marriott hotels as i possibly can while i'm here! :)
Ok, I'm tired. I need to bathe and catch a GOOD LONG sleep. Thank you for reading this lengthy post. Hope I've enlightened you on my happenings!
Love,
Amanda
How should I start this.
I'm tired from the plane journey. From SG - Taipei things were ok. I was kinda bored on the first night. Luckily Scott was able to take off and accompany me go shopping! Yes, we went to the usual places, Ximending, Shilin Night market. Luckily Scott mentioned that there was a place in Wanli for people to paraglide and I was totally excited over it, thinking that I could finally have a chance to paraglide! (since I didn't get to do it in Swiss)
So, while day 2 was spent with Scott and later in the evening my grandparents treated both Scott and I to a TRULY SUMPTUOUS meal at MITSUI Japanese Restaurant. I've never been to such a high class japanese restaurant much less have a 8-course meal which lasted 3 hours! We had....
1. Sashimi platter (ok i didn't have this but i had simmered fresh abalone while Scott & my grandfather had sashimi coz i didn't dare to eat sashimi... so stupid yea?)
2. Fresh Japanese Snow Crab Salad (is it snow crab? Anyway the crab meat was huge and juicy and sweet! Heavenly~
3. Fish liver with Japanese ponzu sauce
4. Freshly fried Ebi Tempura using Live Prawn (hence the entire body could be eaten... the head was especially delicious!)
4. Salt-roasted Crab (AWESOME)... must add a dash of lemon juice!
5. Salt-roasted Fish (EVEN MORE AWESOME!) For those who know me well, you know I hate eating fish. However, this fish is Exceptional! I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It has almost no fish bones, no fishy taste, it was tender and flavorful because they used premium japanese sea salt!
6. BBQ Lamb shoulder (Wow, very very juicy, flavoured with Japanese teriyaki sauce, and no weird smell! Thumbs up!)
7. Seafood steamboat with miso base (Fresh seafood, including crab again! WHOO!!!) you could imagine how wonderfully LIGHT and sweet the soup was! AWESOMEEEEEE
8. Dessert, which was Japanese red bean soup (Zenzai) and a slice of Rockmelon
And don't get me wrong, the portions are NOT SMALL. They serve generous portions and their freshness is uncomparable! No wonder they charge so much! What's more interresting was, when Scott and I took a cab there, the driver didn't know the address we said, but the moment we said "Mitsui japanese restaurant" he was like :"Oh! ok i know already". I bet they must be really famous in Taipei! Thanks Ah gong Ah ma! Hugs and Kisses!!!!
3rd Day - Met Aunt who brought me to have lotsa food like Ba-khi, pig's intestine, then xiao long bao for lunch. Wah, so stuffed I thought I would puke on the bus. Later met Scott at noon to travel to Wanli, about 45 min from Taipei main station, and alighted at the foot of the mountain. The paragliding coach came to pick us up in a VERY VERY lok kok van. BELIEVE me, when i say lok kok, it's SO BAD that while he was driving up the mountain, black smoke was coming out of the engines. I was wondering why it suddenly got so smoggy, and there was this awful burnt smell... awwww i thought the van was gona fall apart!!! but it was really quite funny. haha
Ok. Let's get on to the paragliding part. Hey, I'm all for exciting adrenaline pumping activities. BUT, fun does indeed come with a price. In my case, luckily Scott brought the camera and I didn't so he went first, WHICH WAS GOOD, coz if not he would have taken videos and pictures of me PK-ing and dragged literally by the parachute for 20 metres or so. I fell TWICE. First time, I was already running like crazy but somehow the wind pulled the parachute in the wrong direction (either that or I felt the instructor's weight on me too) so as I was running to take off i felt my knees buckle, and then WHAM! I was sweeping through the grass bushes, mud all over my pants. DARN it!
Second time take off. Seriously, What in the world is wrong? Well, in my case, everything could be wrong. The second time my shoe fell out. YES! My Golden Adidas shoe!! (the left shoe, just in case you're curious) And then the same thing happened - I felt my knees buckle as the weight of the parachute was pressing on me and WHAM! second time launch failure. I stayed immobile with my hands grasping onto the long grass for life as we were already on the steepest part of the slope. My instructor's friends all laughed at our misery and my instructor said: "Wah! you're very lucky ah, pay NT1000 but you get to take off 3 times!" and i was like WTF?! Falling twice is NOT counted as taking off at all! I'd rather take off once and pay 1000NT than fall twice! Anyway, when we finally took off on the 3rd time, I no longer felt scared. Instead, I was just sweaty, badly cut by the grass, (yes, about 20 cuts! Serious! visible ones!) and wanting to get the launch over and DONE WITH!
Oh boy, paragliding is fun! but, it's not as exciting as sky diving or taking a rollercoaster, coz you have an instructor with you and you're seated on the straps so it feels that you're more secured than other activities. Or maybe it's coz my adrenaline was all used up coz I fell flat on my face twice.
Overall, the experience was definitely a memorable one. Not one that I would expect though, but if given a chance, I'd try it again. It only took 2 minutes or less to get to the ground (coz the wind wasn't strong...) but I would definitely wana try it in Swiss!
After paragliding and then shopping for a while again at Ximending, I met my cousin at Shilin while Scott visited his grandparents at Gongguan. I do love girls' time together. It's so fun shopping together, buying crazily, eating... and catching up with one another. I bought so much stuff that night! O_O
OK, so on the last day my uncle and aunt brought me to eat chou tou fu and italian pasta, yu yuan, etc. and it would be so tiring to list down everything! I'm badly deprived of sleep. Why? Continue reading....
So, for my flight from Taipei to Seattle, I was seated next to a Vietnamese elderly couple. I smiled to them, thinking it's nice to be friendly since we're gona be sitting next to one another for the next 11 hours. To my utter horror, the woman who sat next to me (ok, not very elderly, around 50s) stuck her foot right up to the seat infront, in plain sight of me! Worse still, she'd extend her feet to my area and she already has much more space than I do! :(
Then, 4 hours into the flight I felt a sudden nudge. I was asleep and opened my eyes, and found the old man seated inside trying to cross my seat with his leg already on top of mine! OH MY! imagine the horror! At least you could have the courtesy to wake me up and tell me you wana go out, not try to attempt acrobatic tricks when you're already 60 and putting your entire leg on someone else's!!!
Sigh, and every time I was trying to sleep the lady next to me would suddenly extend her legs to my area (hey, she's like 155cm! and I'm like 175cm!) who needs more leg room! YOU tell me!
Oh well, customs at Seattle was soooo tedious. You have to claim your luggage twice! ARGH! Let me explain.
After your alight from the plane, you head over to immigration counter, where there is a whole bunch of people waiting for their turn. Thankfully I'm holding Canadian passport so I get to queue with the US citizens. Still, it was quite a wait! Then, after i passed through the immigration, I had to go down and collect my luggage, go through customs (they wana make sure you aren't bringing in plants, meat, seeds...) and THEN! you go out, deposit your luggage at the belt OUTSIDE AGAIN! and then take a shuttle train to outside, where you finally collect your lugagge. Poor Joelhey, she waited for 2 hours to pick me up... thanks Joelhey, you've been such a great help!
At the hotel I met a few staff including the front office manager Phllip who assigned me to my double bed room 590 and it's great. We eat for free here and we headed off to the kitchen where he nicely asked the chef to make Joelhey and me each a Turkey club sandwich. Oh my, it was delicious! and HUGE!
Apparently according to joelhey, I'll be working at both the Marriott hotel (near the airport) and the other one in the city, called the Marriott Waterfront (yes, it's next to the sea! whee!) and what's more....you get staff rate if you were to stay over!
usually staff pay 59 USD ++ for ANY MARRIOTT hotel they stay at all over the world. However, due to the recession now, Joelhey says staff only need to pay half of the usual price! YES!!! That means 30 USD for ANY marriott hotel ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! NEW YORK here i come!!! i'm gona stay in as many marriott hotels as i possibly can while i'm here! :)
Ok, I'm tired. I need to bathe and catch a GOOD LONG sleep. Thank you for reading this lengthy post. Hope I've enlightened you on my happenings!
Love,
Amanda
Vuitton pen, 12/12/2009 02:07:00 PM.
