IamJN

Books. Fields of green. Gentle sunshine. Full moon. Starry nights. Comfortable company. Hot baths. Sunflowers. Turquoise bays. Walks.

Messages

Run Log

2008:
Saucony PAssion Run 10KM
Great Eastern Women 10KM
SAFRA Singapore Bay Run 10KM
New Balance REAL Run 15KM

2009:
Saucony PAssion Run 15KM
adidas Sundown Marathon 10KM
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 21KM

2010:
Mizuno Mt. Faber 10KM

2011:
Nike Goddess 5KM
New Balance Sundown Marathon 42KM
adidas King of The Road 16.8KM
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 21KM

2012:
SAFRA AVventura

Links

Art Sans Rulez:
Chocolarts
Avant Gart

Sites & Sounds:
浜崎あゆみオフィシャルサイト
ayu's Youtube Channel
Divine Ayu
FAIL Blog
FAIL Blog Wins
FMyLife

Coast to Coast:
0.5 Bizarre
RVNPs3'o7
RVNPs2'o8
RVCS
NUS X-Country

Cai Tong
Charlene
Charmaine
Chi Ling
Christopher
Eileen
Faraliza
Gary
Hai Wei
Hester
Joshua
Jun Yi
Kaylene
Kheng Chuan
Li Xin
Li Ting
Merwyn
Michelle
Roxanne
Sharman
Tze Hui
Wei Kai
Wei Sheng
Wilson
Winnie
Yan Peng
Yee Jin
Ying Ting
Yujun
Zheng Yang
Zhi Yi

Thoughts

23rd December 2009
Reinvent yourself
a kilometre at a time.

24th December 2009
Handphone socks are the new Cool.

25th December 2009
My dress code reads:
Order from Chaos

28th December 2009
Before learning to sing,
one must learn to listen.

7th March 2010
There is only so thin a line between being distrustful and being possessive

12th March 2010
We're special in a different way
and similar in a special way

15th April 2010
Love offers sanctuary,
not immunity

5th May 2010
Examinations are taken en masse
But we're each of us fighting our own, lone battles

16th June 2010
A small wardrobe leaves room for creativity

8th Oct 2010
Falling down is fine. Not getting back up isn't.

19th Jan 2011
The virtual realms which our dreams sculpt are so real, they leave us in wonder at how powerful the subconscious mind could be

30th Jan 2011
You know it's a good book, when the emotions you experience overcome mental weariness, and you find yourself reading into the wee hours of morn!

15th Mar 2011
Don't just have something to look forward to. Have somebody.

23rd Aug 2011
You can lose your arguments,
but never lose your faith!

21st Sep 2011
Mind over mind, then mind over matter

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TWD3: Soup's Served / Wednesday, December 28, 2011

JN's Note: Press Ctrl + to zoom and be nice to your eyes! Thank you very much.

Day 3, 13 Dec 2011, 花莲

Mom woke me up at 7+ and we headed down to the outdoor hot springs together, in our swimming costumes as required.

My dad had mistaken it for an outdoor pool from the pictures on the hotel's website. I was kinda disappointed when we discovered that swimming was prohibited in the waters, being a daughter of Poseidon and all.

Unfortunately, we waited for quite a long time before the gates to the hot springs were finally opened. Indeed, the hot springs did resemble a modern condominium's ensemble of swimming pools. One looked like a lap pool, snaking its way along the floor, while another one resembled a trail of smoke curling inwards. Wispy vapours rose from the artificial springs and a device by the side of each pool indicated the water temperature -either 39 or 40 degree Celsius.

We shrugged off our "yukata" and placed them with our oversized hotel slippers into a pigeon hole. Then we slowly made our way to the hot springs. I dipped my hand into the water to confirm safe and then we proceeded cautiously a step at a time, lowering ourselves into the pool.

Ahh~ it was comfortable. My mom pushed a magical button and waters surrounding us began to bubble furiously and I felt like witch fodder in a cauldron. How fun hehe. We got ourselves into another pool and this time the push of a button activated powerful jets of water to massage our backs.

Then a lady told us that we had to put on swimming caps. I had mine in the hotel room, but my mom obviously didn't bring one. We sighed and retrieved our belongings and I pointed out that we'd probably spent more time waiting for the springs to open than enjoying ourselves in the hot springs.

Walking towards the exit my mom cast another glance at the lap pool-like spring. And guess whattt! It turned out to be a fish reflexology pool! Somewhere we could go without swim caps! Can't believe my first time trying it out would be here, in Taiwan. It's very ticklish when the fish start nibbling at your feet. As more of them gather you have to grit your teeth to refrain from shrieking out loud from all the sole-tickling.

Then we returned to our rooms, had breakfast and soon checked out from the hotel. We were driven to 礁溪车站 and boarded the train to 花莲, the next area of interest.

From station to hotel, we were accosted by an average of 2 touts per street. "To Taroko Gorge?", "Where's your hotel? I can take you there with my van." and so on. We kept having to avoid stepping on dog poop as well, in spite of the fact that there didn't seem to be many dogs around.

After checking into 经典假日饭店 Classic City Resort, we set out to explore the place. More specifically, to hunt for food.

一品香扁食：干面

一品香扁食：虾仁扁食

扁食 is like the Taiwan version of 云吞. The noodles were chewy and tender and leaves both you and your stomach contented.

We bought this panda bubble tea from next door. It had this sliver of weirdness which I couldn't quite place. Maybe black and white pearls just aren't meant to coexist

Say hello to Kobe!

Right across the street there was this shop selling CDs, VCDs etc. B-I-N-G-O! The previous time I visited Taiwan with my girls, I had been highly impressed by the thorough collection of J-Pop and Mandopop albums stocked by the CD stores. This time, I wasn't let down either.

Jay Chou albums galore

Ayu albums with cool Chinese names and a calefare album on the left. Apparently calefare is NOT an English word?

Just as I had predicted, they had the CD-only version of Ayu's latest mini-album (I will kowtow to anyone who can find it for cheap/find it in Singapore). I bought it without hesitation. It cost around SGD$16.20. The CD+DVD version costs around SGD$18, a killer bargain compared to the SGD$29.95 ones in Singapore. Sigh Taiwan is like a music CD haven @_@

Then we returned to this place:

And we had dessert:

花生豆花

红豆牛奶冰

Sorry but I just need to comment that their logo looks to similar to the one used in Ayu's Tour of Secret =.=

Then we dropped by the highly-recommended 24-hours 公正包子店 for their 小笼包. These 包-lookalikes have yummy hearts of 小笼包 meat and ooze out rivulets of soup. Yum yummmm~!

You'll have to be quite careful when crossing the roads in 花莲市. Often there are no traffic lights to guide pedestrians. Be sure to look left right front for incoming cars and scooters everytime you cross the street, especially in the evening. Walking along the streets, I had to constantly exhale the residual stink of vehicle fumes from my nostrils like a bull.

Getting quite sick of Taiwanese shows that get girls or female celebrities to remove their makeup so that others can pinpoint their facial flaws and engage in a spot-the-difference session, between their au naturel and the made-up face/faces. The starker the difference (in other words, the more horrific she looks without makeup), the greater the shock factor and the more excited the participants and hosts get in their discussion of the victim's ugliness.

Don't such programmes just make females even more unhealthily self-conscious? This is a serious issue, given that many of us are already fussing over our appearances all day all week and all year. If there were a universal superficiality or vanity index, such shows would do nothing but increase it. These programmes do no good to the girls watching it as it compels them to obssess over their looks. It's like a disease -once a good girl friend of yours goes crazy about her appearance, your risk of infection increases significantly.

Anyway, we had dinner at a seafood place nearby the hotel. The fried rice was hard and unappetising. The fish was so hard it could have been a squid. The main attraction of the place was an unlikely, live creature -a superduperultrauber cute pig!!! It was covered by a mix of tan and white fur and had a tiny pink snout and tiny trotters and a tail shaped like a broad crescent. Could he/she be a cousin of Wilbur??? Or a possible rival of Kermit the Frog?

Anyway, Mr. Piggy (I would assume it's male) mostly had his snout to the ground, sniffing around for food most adorably. When the owner carried him back to the counter area, the petite cutiepie squeezed his head out from a 15cm gap at the bottom of the door and when he could get no further he started grunting in annoyance! Hahaha! Maaad cute what on earth. Even cuter, the owner scolded him and he immediately quit his act. Heheh I'm tempted to have a pet pig!

Well that's all for Day 3, the Eating Day. It seems like we'll be cycling tomorrow!

Labels: Hualian, Taiwan, Travel

JN
12:21 AM