1 hr by teacher, how long will I take?

The teacher painted the 'fen lan' (i.e the pleats) in an hour. I wonder how long will I take. It might be 3 or 4 hours for me get the same result. Gosh. This painting really is a big project. And I'm gonna miss one session. I will have a lot of work to catch up when I come back. Phiuh.

Christmas season

Christmas is in couple days. However, I completely don't feel the 'festive' that I felt in the States. Right now, it just felt like another holiday. I guess that's what happen in this country.

My new clay kettle

Last Saturday I finally received my replacement clay kettle. I have started to use it now. I will not heat it without water anymore. I hope I can use this kettle until I'm old :p I know it's a long time. But still.

4th painting is starting

This fourth painting is a project. The teacher is hoping we can finish in 12 class sessions. I haven't even started the tracing. It's 3 times bigger than the previous paintings. Hopefully I can cope well. This is painted by my teacher.

Hanging man art

Last Friday, my friends and I went to Yingge Ceramics Museum to just check out the area and the museum. The museum is displaying Spanish art now. This was one of the interesting art there. Hanging man in his house or maybe in his office. Is the society really that stressed out to commit suicide?

Flower arrangement in cks memorial hall

Last Monday I brought my friends to Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall in Taipei. We saw flower arrangement gallery. I love this arrangement so much. It's simple and elegant.

Tea comparison in tea class

I was browsing my iPhone pictures and realized I had my tea class pictures. I blogged about being tea drunk last month. So, in class we drank tea in the competition style. 3 mg of tea leaves brew in 150 cc of hot water for 5 minutes. Then the tea soup drained to bowls for students to try and analyze. We only drank one spoonful (Chinese spoon type) per tea type and yet we still were drunk. So, don't underestimate the power of tea :p

Ice flora expo

Last weekend my husband and I went to the Taipei ice flora expo. At first I thought it was an ice skating rink, but I was wrong. Anyhow, it was just carved ice. Pretty nice. Cold, so it's a nice change during this hot autumn. We only spent about 20 minutes in there. It was already too cold for us :p
Anyway, here is the link if you are interested. www.iceflora.com.tw

Painted insect by my teacher

That was painted earlier this afternoon during class. If you looked at the body, you can see fine lines all over it. I wish I can paint and draw lines as fine as those.

Tea drunk

I have just attended my tea class and I am tea drunk now. We tested almost 30 different types of tea in one day. We started drinking from around 11 am to about 4 pm. I wonder how those testers can survive. Gosh.....

My Clay Kettle Exploded

I just bought a new clay kettle exactly last Saturday in Yingge. Tonight, I was extremely stupid. I was thinking maybe I could eliminate the bad odor by heating it empty. So I rinse the kettle with water then put it on the gas stove and cranked up the fire without the lid on. In seconds, I could see the water evaporating outside the body of the kettle. Then, I saw that the top part of the kettle still wet but not very sure. So, I switched on the light above the stove and suddenly BOOM. It exploded to pieces right in front of me. The pieces were all over my kitchen. My left ear was unable to hear for a few seconds. I was fortunate not to have any injury. However, I lost my very first clay kettle. It's really sad. I haven't even taken pictures and it's now in pieces. I am extremely sad and stupid.

My Second Chinese Painting

This is finally my second Chinese painting...

Tao Ban Wu

Yesterday, I received a 50% discount coupon for two at Tao Ban Wu in Hsinchu. I didn't know what to expect from this restaurant. My husband and I went there without knowing anything. When we got to the building, we were confused because the first floor had nothing except a small area of empty lobby and then stairs. So we went to the second floor and was impressed by the real lobby. It was nice and welcoming.

We had to make reservation to get the seats. When I checked out the menu, it was actually a fix course for NT 499 + 10% service charge. They have some selections on the appetizer, soup, main course, dessert, and drinks. We took sometime to decide because it's in Chinese and very limited pictures of the dishes for our reference. Anyhow, they did not have the vegetarian option in that menu. So we ordered based on the menu given. After we were almost ordering the dessert, the waitress said the vegetarian option was another menu. I didn't know why I didn't ask earlier. Anyhow, it's just way too complicated to check out the vegetarian menu again. I was not interested in the vegetarian menu because in Taiwan, most of the normal (non-vegetarian) restaurants had less appetizing vegetarian food. I might as well get the non - vegetarian dishes with the least amount of meat or fish. Besides, my husband would finish my meat or fish.

First course: Appetizer

Oyster Mushroom: Tasty Sauce

Second Course Option 1

Appetizer: Tomato Salad – love the sauce and the combination with the chocolate colored sauce, it was excellent.

Second Course Option 2
Appetizer: Seafood and fruit salad – this is just as tasty as the tomato salad. 

Third Course Option 1 & 2
Soup: Creamy Asparagus Soup with Seafood and Herbal Chicken Soup - The creamy soup tasted like cream of mushroom soup. It felt rich. The chicken soup was refreshing and not thick at all. Love them both.

Fourth Course Option 1
Rice: Deep Fried Rice Ball - It’s a bit too hard for my taste. The rice tasted ok.

Fourth Course Option 2

Rice: Steamed Rice - The taste was excellent. Love it. I could have more. Love the presentation too.

Intermittent: Mulberry Vinegar Juice - Supposedly the drink would reduce the oily taste from your mouth.

Fifth Course Option 1

Main Dish: Beef Steak with Garlic - We asked for 50% cooked but when it came, the beef was more like 30% cooked. So my husband didn’t really like it. Even though he said the beef was soft.

Fifth Course Option 2

Main Dish: Grilled Pork and Fish - The sea salt was good :P I didn’t eat the pork or the fish. My husband did. He said the pork was tough and he felt like eating ham. As for the fish, it was just ok. We didn’t know what type of fish it was though. In the picture, you can see the pink vegetable. It was pear pickled in some sort of plum alcohol. It was good.

Sixth Course Option 1

Dessert: Tiramisu - It didn’t taste or look like tiramisu at all. It tasted like birthday cake made in Indonesia. So yeah, don’t order this one.

Sixth Course Option 2

Dessert: Cheese Cake top with Ice Cream - One word “Delicious”. 



For drinks, we ordered the Okinawa Brown Sugar Milk Tea and the Chrysanthemum Tea with Medlar and Dates. The milk tea was way too sweet. the Chrysanthemum was good. So you decide. 

Overall this place is worth to go. The ambiance was more towards fine dining. The food was served one after another instead of all at once. This was refreshing after all the Chinese style dining in Taiwan. The service was excellent. We never ran out of tea or the plum juice, empty dishes were cleared up after done, and very friendly. 

Restaurant Name: Tao Ban Wu (陶板屋)

Address: 新竹市北大路338號

Tel: 03-526-5160 (Call to reserve before you go. Normally it’s full)

Open Hours: 11.30 am – 2.30 pm; 5.30 pm – 10 pm

Website: www.taoban.com.tw 



Btw I just found out that they have the English menu online. (http://taoban.com.tw/menu_eng.htm)

Alishan Trip

We finally went to Alishan for vacation. It was very misty when we got there. On the way up, the visibility was about 10 meter.



We went for a walk to check out the food. However, the food was not great there. And I had heartburn since I got there. For the two days trip, I didn't enjoy it as much if I was not having heartburn. Anyhow, the food in the area was a rip off. It was not good either. The instant noodle in 7-11 was much better. The restaurants offered a lot of hot pots though. We were not hot pot fans. So figured what we had to go through.

In the morning, we went to watch the sunrise. However, it was cloudy therefore we were only able to watch the clouds and the mists. It was pretty too.

 

Anyhow, we went downhill and came to one coffee shop/restaurant/motel (Taiwanese called it mingsu). The place was pretty. I think if I ever wanted to go to Alishan again.I will rent a room at this place and just enjoy a relaxing day. This is their website: www.lauya.com

Indonesian Bakmi

It's been a while since we ate Indonesian style of noodle. We have heard of this small store for awhile now However, we only got the chance to try it today. The food was ok. Not as great as the real Indonesian bakmi that you can get in Indonesia.

Name: Toko Indonesia (印尼麵飯食／貨品)
Address: 新竹縣芎林鄉文山路322巷2號 (google map use this: 新竹縣芎林鄉文山路322號 - the store is inside a small alley infront of a Taiwan power company)
Tel: 03-592-4872

Japanese Ramen Address

I have the address for the Japanese Ramen restaurant that I mentioned before.

Name: Da Hai (大海豚骨拉麵)
Address: 新竹市錦華街10巷19號
Phone: 03-542-7698

Open Hours:
Monday - Friday: 11 am - 2 pm; 5 pm - 9 pm
Saturday - Sunday: 11 am - 9 pm

If you google map the address, you should be able to see some reviews too.

Japanese Ramen

The ramen in this Japanese restaurant is good. They only sell Japanese ramen and some side dishes. I love their ramen so much. I don't have the address right now. I will update soon.

Bat Craft for the Kids

My friend's children were extremely happy since they were able to ask for candies in their dad's office / company. It's the company's Kindergarten and I heard they walked for almost one hour.

Originally, we planned to carve pumpkins in the afternoon. However, I didn't know that yellow pumpkin like those in the States was really hard to find here. So, I had to look for other things to do online. Actually, I didn't have to but I liked to do something too. It's Halloween. :) Therefore, I searched online for some craft. I found this Clothes-pin bat on Disney's website.

Here is the link. http://familyfun.go.com/halloween/halloween-crafts/halloween-decorations/clip-on-bats-665015/

The website didn't have the template at all. I had to make one myself. It's pretty simple. I attached my template here. If you wanted a smaller or bigger bat, you could draw one yourself. 

Materials:

Cardboard for template
Black Craft paper

Scissors

Glue / Double Side tape

Pinch-style clothespins

Googly Eyes / Yellow or Red Paper

Instructions:

1. For each bat, cut an extended-wings shape from black craft paper using the template.
2. Next, cut out an oblong body with pointed ears and feet, and glue it onto the wings.
3. Add round, beady eyes cut from yellow or red paper / googly eyes. 
4. Then glue / tape a clothespin to the back of the bat, and it's ready to hang on a curtain.

Scary McD Hamburger

McDonald Hamburger

My husband found this article online about McD Hamburger after a news we heard couple days or maybe a week ago. There were some people who kept their burger at home and it lasted for weeks, months, and based on this article years.

http://www.naturalnews.com/030074_Happy_Meal_decompose.html

After reading this article, will you still want to eat the burger? It's all chemical. How will those chemical affect your health and body? That is very scary.

Lunch and Tea Time before Halloween weekend

Today, I went to have lunch with the moms. We have three new moms with us today. We were just having lunch and chat until tea time. The kids were just playing at the play structure and have fun.

After lunch, I prepared some activity for the kids. Originally, our group was thinking of making a mask and just wore the costume for Halloween Weekday Party. However, one of the mom (the leader of the gang) went to UK for vacation, the party was canceled. So, I improvised. I checked online for this ghost lollipop craft. Basically a very simple activity for the kids to have fun.

This morning before we went for lunch, I thought we could still wear the costume and made the ghost lollipop. However, the new moms didn't know about this plan, so we have to accommodate them and just stick to the ghost lollipop activity. The kids had fun and we might have another real Halloween party this coming Friday. We might carve Jack-O-Lantern for real. I am not sure if it would happen. Let's hope so...

If you are interested in the simple ghost lollipop, here are the instructions and the link. (http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/lollipop_ghost_craft.htm)

You will need:
White tissue paper (we used facial tissues)
Lollipop
Fine-point black pen (or small black stickers)
Double sided tape

Instructions:
Cut a 12cm square of tissue paper.
Put a small piece of sticky tape around the lolly stick and remove the backing (this is quite fiddly so adult help may be needed).
Fold the tissue around the lollipop and press down so it sticks to the tape.
Use black pen to draw on a face (be careful as the ink will spread). Alternatively, make your face out of stickers.

I did some changes to the instructions.

1. Instead of cutting tissue paper, I used the whole piece of Kleenex. Fold them twice to form a small square and make sure the folded lines were visible. When I opened the folded Kleenex, I had a target point in the middle of the Kleenex where the top of lollipop would go.
2. Put a small piece of sticky double side tape on top of the lollipop and whole round of tape around the side of the lollipop.
3. Peel off the backing of the double side tape. (Taking out the backing of the double side tape was a bit troublesome for the younger kids, so the moms had to join in)
3. Turned the lollipop upside down. Pressed the top of the lollipop to the center of the Kleenex.
4. Along with the Kleenex, turned the lollipop around and wrapped the Kleenex around the side of the lollipop.
5. For the eyes and the mouth, I used black ink (could be just any water color too) and cotton bud.

Life as a Housewife

It's been 9 months 2 weeks and 3 days since I have become a housewife. It's a lifestyle that I never thought I would go through before. So far, I love it. Well, it's because I still do not have any kid.

If you ever wonder, what it's like. Here is my life as a housewife so far.

Everyday, you choose the time you want to wake up. It's a privilege. I wasn't even able to do that during college time. For me, I clean up the house once a week because it's just the two of us and the house is not dirty enough to be cleaned everyday. Sometimes, I would clean again 3 - 4 days after I clean at the beginning of the week. However, that's only because the house was really messy or I was doing my crafts which normally messed up some area of the house. Cleaning day will include my laundry day. So it's all in one day and that's the day that I get dirty and I refuse to go out of the house :P

Eating lunch is a bit messed up. There is no definite schedule. I ate when I felt hungry or like now, I tried to stick to the noon lunch so my nerve can heal faster. Even though I am not sure how effective that would be. Anyhow, sometime during the weekday, I will hang out with some other moms to have lunch and tea. It's more for their kids to play together and for the moms to socialize. At the beginning of the year before Summer, it was fun because we would go to a certain destination every week. Right now, it's been different. We do not have any specific day anymore, we will just hang out when we feel we want to.

I took a Chinese painting class to reduce my boredom :P It is a fun class. During the class, we will watch the teacher paints and listen to his guidance. We will paint our own at home. So I do have my homework. At the beginning, it was not demanding however, once the painting progress, it took a bit of my time to finish my homework. Normally, it took me one whole afternoon and sometime night to finish up. So one day was gone again.

During the weekdays, I cooked at home. So around 6.30 - 7 pm, I would prepare the vegetables or the meat for cooking. Normally my husband would get home around 7.15 - 7.30 pm. That's when I start the fire. During Winter and Spring, I loved to look for recipes online and just cooked. You would never guess how much time you need to get to a good recipe online, buy the ingredients, prepare the ingredients, and finally cook the dish until you try it. I used to spend one day to search for a week worth of recipes. I also used to baked more. Right now, the weather is really not helping. It is still hot for me to bake often. So I guess I will start baking again once the weather starts to cool down. Therefore, in a month or so, wait for more blogs on my homemade cooking :)

I also teach my friends' children English. They are just 3 - 4 years old. Their moms just want them to have English exposure. The moms just don't want their children to be afraid of English in the future. Right now, I am only teaching 1 hour a week for them. I have been teaching them for almost half a year. One of the moms said she could see the different level of interest in English in her children. Her daughter does not have class with me because she is attending a Kindergarten. She said normally when she showed both of her children some children English songs on youtube, her daughter would not be as interested as her son whom had class with me. It was a very interesting observation on her part. I was interested too because that meant all the effort I put in preparing the class were not wasted. I was having fun preparing the materials for them too. For me, it was like preparing materials for my own future children as well.

Then weekends, my husband and I will explore Taiwan. It can be restaurants, tourist attraction places, malls, movies, etc. We will be roaming outside the house. So if you are interested in joining us, let me know.

Injury to my Bottom Right Inferior Alveolar Nerve

As I blogged before, I had my bottom right wisdom tooth extracted last Wednesday. However, since then I have numbness over my bottom right lip, chin, and gum. It was not fun at all. I can't feel. It's a bad feeling. I checked online about numbness after wisdom tooth extraction. It was unnerving. I was scared.

It seemed that during the procedure, my inferior alveolar nerve was injured and therefore, the numbness. Some said if the injury was severe, the numbness will be permanent. If there is no feeling (ie. tingling or prickling sensation), then the damage is permanent. However, if you still have some sensation, then the nerve is repairing.

I was scared the first two days when I was still checking online. However, later, I felt the sensations and I was feeling a lot better. I searched more and they said taking B12 will help the regenerating of the nerves. So now I am taking Bcomplex, milk, yogurt, eggs, to help the nerve regenerating.

It will take a long time for the nerve to repair. My dentist said it could take 1 or 2 weeks but some might take 1 or 2 months. I am not sure which one I am and I hope one week will be enough for my nerve to regenerate and heal. I want to feel my bottom lip and chin again. :(

Bottom Right Wisdom Tooth Extraction

I had my bottom right wisdom tooth extraction today. It was painful. I had my bottom left wisdom tooth extracted a month ago and it was not painful. However, this one is really painful. I am in pain typing this post right now. Hiks... So sad.

Lots of local anesthetic... it was 1.5 hours (1 hour before) .... I was tensed... I had tears at some point of the procedure.... I prayed silently (it helps) my tooth was broken down to lots of pieces (instead of three in my previous extraction) and I completely hate the drilling sound...

During the process, my dentist (female) has to ask another dentist (male) to take over at several parts of the procedure... she said my roots didn't move at all... Both dentists were having difficulties taking out the roots of my wisdom tooth... I don't know if my dentist still remember, but I told her before that the roots of my teeth have hooks... So when the male dentist also had problem taking the roots out... I had to stop him and tell him that my roots have hooks... and he said, yes... how do I know? Well duh... I already had that problem since I was a teenager... but the male dentist was able to take out one of the roots and had my dentist clean up and took out whatever left. I had to take an x-ray after an hour of the operation to check all the roots were taken out and voila it's not... so I have to endure another half hour... and the male dentist had to come in to extract the left over root again....

Anyhow, after my dentist took out the top part of my tooth and started on the roots, I almost gave up and told her to just stop. Nevertheless, I thought, well I have made the decision to have it extracted so let's get it done. That really helps to ease my nerve. The male dentist even said I was brave to go through all those pain. He said not extracting the tooth was better now that I was in that situation. Well, yeah... I wouldn't have gone through the extraction if I knew ahead that it would be this painful. Haih.... However, with all those weird comments... I felt a bit calmer when the male dentist took over.  I think both dentists would rather not encounter my case LOL....

Before going to the dentist, I already have doubt on having this wisdom tooth extracted. Somehow, I felt that I shouldn't. However, I have made the appointment, and even after I consulted with my dentist, at the back of my brain or probably my instinct said I shouldn't. Yet, I still decided to have the extraction done. I mean logically I should do it now because if I delay then I wouldn't know when I would have the time to do it again. I am trying to get pregnant next month which means I can't do any extraction for oh probably in years... the baby will definitely occupy my time. So, my future baby has already affected my decision in my life even before conception. Isn't that amazing?

Anyhow, hopefully this pain will not get worse tomorrow and the rest of the week. My husband and I are going to Alishan for a short vacation this weekend. Gosh... I don't want the pain to be worse. Haih... What's need to be done is done ... So I guess that's it...

Tea Information

I attended some tea classes last month and only able to read the reading materials recently. It was all in Chinese and therefore, was difficult for me. So I read some in Chinese and then search online for some English version. However, the English information is not as complete as the information in Chinese. I really wish I could find more English detailed information about tea pots and tea in general. So if you happen to know resources on tea info, do please let me know.

Coffee House, Zhubei

The Coffee House, do you think it's just a coffee house? Well it's a coffee house and the name of the coffee house is also "Coffee House". It complicated but their latte is pretty good. We were the only customer since we went there on Friday around 3 pm. I guess everyone was at work except me and my husband :P 

 

Chicken Noodle Soup

Last week, my friend brought me to one restaurant and their chicken noodle soup was really good. It was really simple yet delicious. That noodle motivate me to make one myself. So I did. Result: appearance pretty good, taste hm.... Not really.... So maybe I should just go to restaurant. :p

Restaurant: Shi Yi Jie (十一街)
Address: no.275, Guang Ming road, section 1, Zhu bei city. (竹北市光明一路275�）