maastricht

I must first apologize that it's difficult to read. i finished laying it out on photoshop before i realized blogspot resizes the stuff i upload, so now it's difficult to read (that or i'm just incompetent, which is highly probable). Hopefully you can still read it, because i'm too lazy to extract everything back onto blogspot... the photos look crummy now =(

Edit: You can view a clearer version here.

By fishii with 2 comments

Fukuoka Day 1

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I was too busy sightseeing and having fun in Fukuoka, so I’ve neglected keeping everyone update. Sorry~ m(_  _)m

So as promised, I’ll post more about sightseeing so that not every post is tagged “food”. Anyway, it seems like no visit to Japan would be complete without visiting a temple. We visited a small (but seemingly very famous) temple called Kushida Shrine. I enjoyed it, because though it lay in the centre of town, it had a very peaceful 

atmosphere. I was tempted to stay for a longer time, it was that attractive, and it made me feel really calm (despite the almost unbearable heat).

I’ll maybe upload more photos when I set up a Picasa account or something, since my flickr is over limit…

Then we headed over to a shopping mall called Canal City, named because it has a small flow of water going through the centre of the mall. I love shopping and all, but this mall might be more of a tourist attraction than a shopping centre to me. That or I didn’t want to shop on my first day in Japan. ^^;; Guilt trip anyone? Anyway, there were cool performances happening, I really enjoyed my time there.

I think I’ve already mentioned dinner for that night. I’m just a little tired from the flight to Amsterdam, I’ll continue catching up another day. Maastricht is a nice place, so hopefully I’ll get to post about it soon. I also apologize for the hideous layouts. XD

By fishii with 1 comment

The Fukuoka Menu

Due to a delay in our flight (with bad weather conditions in both HK where the flight departs and Fukuoka where the flight lands), we didn’t get to our hotel until 10:30PM. Made me super tired and susceptible to Arnold’s cold. I’m now coughing.

It seems that I have neglected posting about the delicious shaved ice I had at XiMen before I left for the airport, so I must include a photo in this post. It’s as attractive visually as it is… taste…wise? Wow, my English…

The menus on the table are almost unbelievable.

Anyway, we started yesterday with a quick lunch at Hakata Station. Nothing like Soba to beat the heat (it’s supposed to help lower body temperature, according to my host family mother).

my brother’s lunch, an original at the restaurant

my inaka soba

For our afternoon snack (we always have those), we visited a super market and grabbed some croquette and milk tea. We also decided to “gaijin smash” it, and ate on the side of a shopping street. It’s not really appropriate if you’re Japanese… But it was fun watching people glance at us from time to time. LOL

In Fukuoka, there are food stalls that set up alongside a river that runs through city centre for dinner. They offer a wide variety of foods and tons of people visit these stalls. However, given the heat that I’m not used to, I decided for the two of us that we were going to hit up a restaurant for some famous Hakata ramen…

Which, by the way, turned out to be delicious. Sometimes I find ramen to be too salty, actually, a lot of times, I find ramen to be too salty, but the place I went to (which unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of…) was great! It was flavourful without being overbearing, and all in all very good for only ¥500 – ¥800 for each menu item.

Sightseeing will go in another post so I don’t have the food tag on every bloody post I make. I also apologize for the poor quality of the photos. Too lazy to take out the dSLR all the time...

By fishii with 1 comment

the last of taipei

Due to a request, I refrained from posting photos of food yesterday because it was “making [people] hungry”, so I didn’t post yesterday! (Actually, I was going to do it at 11:59 last night so I can turn right around and start posting food, but I was too busy watching Top Gear.) Today, however, you fill be flooded with photos of food.

Arnold and I decided to have some desserts (actually, I decided…) so we chose a piece of cake from 3 different bakeries to compare and see which has the best cake.

Anyway, Kobe Atelier’s strawberry shortcake seemed to be the one for us, it was also the most expensive. I think it was NT$80. The third one was so not to our taste that we decided not to take a photo of it (yea, we just forgot).

For dinner, I met up with a friend who now lives in Taipei. She brought us to have good beef noodles! I enjoyed it thoroughly. We also went to a café nearby for cake (together, Arnold and I had 5 slices of cake that day). The cakes were all so cute, not to mention they were also delicious. They weren’t that expensive either, averaging about NT$60 for a piece (about $2 CAD). Why can’t Vancouver have this type of a cake store (or more if there is already)?

Yes, I quite like cake and desserts, in case you have forgotten. ^^;;

I also wanted to talk about fandom stuff (yes, totally irrelevant). There’s so muck K-Pop and J-Pop everywhere! There’s a lot of CNBLUE, SHINee, NEWS, ARASHI, KAT-TUN, etc. Large Super Junior posters at 2/5 of all CD/Record stores, and some were so large they span the whole wall (You can insert fangirly flailing here if you could see that happening).

It’s so weird for me to know so many of the songs they play on the streets / in the stores. At the record store I was shopping at yesterday played lots of SUJU. The records store across the street from my hotel was playing CNBLUE’s Bluetory, and I definitely heard SUJU at many other places too. But you’re not actually interested in my fangirling, so that concludes my posting about Taipei.

Next stop, Fukuoka.

By fishii with 1 comment

Jiu Fen

I was going to make a post on this wonderful teahouse in Jiu Fen (九份), about how their service is absolutely stunning, how they teach you how to brew the tea in the perfect way, and how their cheesecake is delicious, but I found a post that's already floating around on the internet! I wouldn't be able to describe it better than them, so I'll just lead you right over to their blog. I'll supplement it slightly with a photo of my own, I guess.

(Sorry, you'll be plagued with my bad photography...)

The teahouse was really traditional in all senses, and it offered a good view if you chose to sit on the balcony... bu tI didn't, so there isn't much I can talk about in terms of the view. However, because Jiu Fen is situated higher up on the mountain, the view is quite captivating, to say the least. You can see layers and layers of mountains melting into the horizon. Picturesque is as close as I can get to describing it.

Another thing that I really enjoyed in this little town...? of Jiu Fen was the taro balls! I have this thing for all things sweet and glutinous (and thus fattening =.=;;) and taro balls are both of those! I went to the one that's supposed to be the "original" called Lai Ah Po Taro Balls (賴阿婆芋圓). It was good, they put lots of ice in it, but the beans make the melted ice sweet and perfect for a hot summer day.

That was pretty much all the exciting food stuff for today? I have nothing much to say, do I? I wanted to mention that Super Junior (yes, again) can be seen quite often, with their large posters at 1/5 of all CD stores here. Arnold reported that he heard the new song on the streets, over the sounds of construction. Too bad I missed it that time. I also really enjoy hearing songs that I know everywhere. It's fun!

Oh did anyone else know that Show Luo is an international mega star? No? I didn't either.

By fishii with No comments

boredom incites stupidity?

I've been really really bored in hong kong, there isn't much that i actually want to do... and i can't really sing k with only myself. so i've been wandering around in different malls, spending way too much time in record stores and book stores.

the excitement only comes during lunch time. and this particular lunch time on Wednesday happened to take place in... *drum roll* agnes b. le pain grille.

it was sort of expensive... you see, i was really bored and i needed something different that i haven't tried before. this is what ended up happening. hence, boredom incites stupidity.

i spent $230 HKD on lunch. that included all of a corn soup, a salad, and a tea. that's my single largest purchase in the whole week. but i guess the food was good and the atmosphere was... cozy, i guess i can say. i enjoyed it. all in all, the quality was worth a lot of money, it's just not something i would generally spend on... haha

This is what it looks like inside... i can almost imagine stepping into a cafe in france and it looking exactly like that. i can't wait to go to paris on my birthday!!! michie, bern, i love you guys for giving in to my request like that. XD

anyway, now i'm in taipei, and i finally got to see my brother after a month and a half!!! we enjoyed an amazing dinner of xiao long bao and dumplings at ding tai feng (鼎泰豐). it has a michelin star too. my brother and i were so busy enjoying the food that we hardly said anything other than "this is absolutely delicious". definitely worth the stop if you see it.

i'm now really tired and feel like i'm on a boat. time to hit the hay!

By fishii with 1 comment