Our Taiwan Trip: Food

Since we are heading into the March break, I thought I'd focus my posts this week on food and travel. I actually wrote this post months ago right after our trip around Christmas, but decided to hold off for a while. After all that holiday wine and dine, who wants to think or read about more food right?

Before we went to Taiwan, we were advised by friends who have been there to pack light and only bring three essentials: passport, cash, and extra stomach. One really can't say they've been to Taiwan without trying all their small eats. Taiwanese lives by the philosophy of eating often and eating well. Sure, there's the internationally accepted three-meals-a-day format of dining, but why be so limited when you can make like the Taiwanese and do some gourmet snacking at any time of the day, all day, every day?

Weird and wicked food and snacks from Taiwan that you should try.

Clockwise from top left: 

• Stinky Tofu: is the world's best love-it-or-hate-it snack. Cubes of bean curd are deep-fried and draped with sweet and spicy sauce. We couldn't hold our nose and eat so we took a pass on them.
• Tian Bu La: I somehow suspect the name came from Japanese "Tempura" but nobody from Taiwan that we talked to could verify that. These are fish and pork balls that have been deep-fried then dunked in a broth to boil.
• Beef Noodle: there must be 20 different ways of making a bowl of beef noodle in Taiwan.
• Ice Cream and Fruits in a Waffle Cone.
• Sesame Ice Cream Pouf.
• Mango Shaved Ice.
• Sesame Sticky Rice Balls in Sweet Red Bean Soup.
• Oyster Omelete.
• Three-Cup Chicken: is cooked in a cup of rice wine, a cup of oil and a cup of soy sauce. There has been a century long conversy as to what the "three cups" really are. The flavour is further enhanced by adding some fresh basil, chilies and garlic.

I am sure there are still hundreds of other snacks that we didn't get around to trying. Other than the three travel essentials mentioned at the beginning of this post, I would also add: and a workout plan afterwards!

Our Taiwan Trip: Interior Design

As the largest city in Taiwan, Taipei is #4 on the world's list of the most expensive metropolitans to live, right after Hong Kong, Singapore and London (UK). A high-end condo can easily cost NTD (New Taiwanese Dollar, local currency) 3,000,000 per square meter, or CAD$11,000 per square foot.

My granduncles' family live in Taiwan, and one of my cousins runs a real estate development company in Taipei, so we were able to take a private tour to this model penthouse suite in the heart of the city.

I was completely in awe when I first set my foot into the suite: the colour palette is totally me - I love the clean and crisp style.

Love this study nook and the wall built-in unit - such a good use of space.

The entertaining area is so intimate with a mixture of modern clean-lined furniture and timeless classics like Louis chairs.

The dining room is next to the living room right outside of the kitchen.

This all-white kitchen and dining space is not boring at all thanks to the layering of different surface finishes and shades of white.

This is a typical condo-sized kitchen, small but functional.

I love all the mouldings throughout the suite, especially the black frames. The contrast is so sharp and gives this almost all-white space some depth.

Striped wallpaper, geometric mirror inserts, and tufted headboard not only don't clash with one another but they exist in perfect harmony in a guest bedroom.

Guess what? This is a dressing room to the master bedroom!

The master bedroom comes with a dressing room same size as a guest bedroom! This is something I would never expect from a condo suite.

The master bedroom: again love the crisp and sharp colour palette. The blue-slate velvet upholstered wall sets a perfect backdrop for the white Baroque headboard.

The only downside I find in this model suite is that the size of the bathrooms all tends to be on the small side. That's supposedly acceptable in Asia as they value more "living" space than "utility" space like a bathroom.

Master Ensuite.

So for $4.5 million dollars, you can have this gorgeous penthouse suite all to yourself, together with all the smog and haze and fumes from motorcycles in Taipei!

Our Taiwan Trip: Architecture

First of all, Happy New Year everyone! During Christmas we took a 10-day trip to this tiny but densely-populated Pacific island called Taiwan. We landed in Taipei, capital city of Taiwan. The first impression was that the city in general is clean, but the air quality is far from crisp or clean. Smog and haze and exhaust fumes from motorcycles are just part of people's everyday life there.

Another thing I've noticed immediately while on our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel is that how boring the cityscape is. Most, though not all, buildings are old, grey, made of concrete and unattractive. You really can't expect to see the Asian equivalent of Prague here in Taiwan. There are some buildings with intriguing architectural details, especially those 1890s-1940s brick or ornate cement structures and old shophouses built during the Japanese Colonial era as well as several heritage temples.

What you can expect, architecture wise, is a completely eclectic style: a little bit of Gothic Revival, a hint of Baroque, and a lot of Asian harmony and symmetry.

Clockwise from top left:

• The iconic skyscrapper Taipei 101: is 509-meter tall and comprises 101 floors.
• Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall: Chiang is a former President of Taiwan.
• Carved white marble spindles at the National Palace Museum.
• Inside the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
• The Residence of Mackay at the Aletheia University in Tamsui.
• The Residence of Mackay at the Aletheia University in Tamsui: this beautiful building is full of Southern European flavour.
• The Residence of Mackay at the Aletheia University in Tamsui: love this all white corridor.
• The intricate details of the ceiling, walls and columns inside the Office of the President.
• The main tuned mass damper atop Taipei 101: this is the ball that helps the building withstand the typhoon winds and earthquake tremors by absorbing the vibrations.

The next up is probably your favourite subject -- the interior design in Taiwan. I will take you through a tour of a multi-million penthouse suite in the heart of Taipei and show you how rich and famous Taiwanese lives, uber-modern style.