Author: Rochelle Sy Chua

The Sweet Joy of Family

As we join the cause to make October 20, National Thank You Day, a national holiday, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the 2 most important people in my life.

Thank You

I would like to thank my mom & my aunt for taking care of me, for putting up with me, for sacrificing for me and most of all, for loving me unconditionally.

My mom raised me all by herself while my aunt treated me like her own.  I learned a lot from them about life.  I learned to be strong, independent & learned to appreciate the love & care people give to me.  I won’t be surviving now if not for them.

My mom’s & aunt’s love and their lessons on life are most precious to me. These are the kind of lessons that can never be learned from school, but only through family. This is something precious that we all get from the most important people in our lives.

We rarely see each other. We live in three different countries. I may not be blessed with a large family, but having two of the most wonderful people in the world as family is enough for me.

Tears fall as I write this post…

My mom and my aunt is family.  They are my life.  No words could ever express the depth of my love for both of them.

I love them both…

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國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum)

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國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum)
台北市士林區至善路二段221號
221 Zhishan Rd., Sec. 2, Shilin, Taipei, 11143 Taiwan
886 (02) 2881-2021

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One of the most important museums in the world, 國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum) can be seen by paying just 160NT.

If you love art and history, the National Palace Museum has such rich collection that it may take you the whole day to truly appreciate it. 

The museum is continuously being renovated and upgraded. The collection is always expanded. It now has over 650,000 pieces of the finest collection of Chinese art and culture from the middle Neolithic Age up until the Ch’ing Dynasty.

國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum) collection of antiques, books, caligraphy, historical documents and painting are displayed throughout three floors of the building.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures. Sorry, I don’t have anything to show you through, so you have to visit Taipei and go to 國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum) to know what I’ve seen. Their policy did gave me time to really appreciate the wonderful historical collection that they have that goes way back to 6200-2070 BCE.

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Here are the exhibitions during the time we visited (09/15/2009):

  • Compassion & Wisdom: Religious Sculptural Arts
  • Rare Books & Documents Gallery
  • Special Exhibition Galleries
  • Arts from the Qing Imperial Collection
  • Splendors of Qing Furniture
  • Transitions & Convergences
  • Prototypes of Modern Styles
  • The New Era of Ornamentation
  • Painting & Calligraphy Galleries
  • The Contest of Craft: Ming Dynasty’s Jia-Jing to Chong-Zhen
  • Treasures from an Age of Prosperity: The Reigns of Emperors Kang-xi, Yong-zheng & Qian-long
  • Toward Modernity: Late Qing Dynasty
  • The Mystery of Bronzes
  • Classical Civilization: The Bronze Age
  • Dazzling Gems of the Collection: Famous Pieces form the Qing Dynasty Palaces
  • The Neolithic Age: The Beginning of Civilization
  • From Classic to Tradition: Qin & Han Dynasties

The museum has free tour guides in English every 10 am and 3 pm. If guests prefer to tour at their own pace, they can pay 200NT for an English headphone guide.

This is me & my mom outside the museum (the only place we can take pictures hehehe :P)

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Rest of the pictures here.

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My Vote for the 2009 Bloggers’ Choice Special Award

I’m writing now to support a blogger friend 🙂

On October 9, 2009, The Philippine Blog Awards will have its event at PETA theater.  The winners from different categories will be awarded.  The categories are divided into 2: Main & Special categories.

For the 2009 Bloggers’ Choice Special Award, we will need to make a post indicating which blog that we are voting for.

Since micamyx is a friend, I’m hereby expressing my vote for micamyx.com at the Philippine Blog Awards Bloggers’ Choice (National).

If you’re a blogger and have established your blog before June 2009, you can also vote!
Here’s what you need to do:

  1. make a post that expresses which blog you’re voting for.
  2. fill out and submit the voter’s form at the Philippine Blog Awards Site.

You can see the nominees here.

Good luck & congratulations to all PBA nominees! 🙂

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Is Friendster Getting Revamped?

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On October 5, Friendster invited a few bloggers for lunch to meet with Ben Dunn, VP Philippines and Global Head of Brand Experience.

Mr. Dunn asked us feedback about friendster and why some people stopped using it.

We shared our thoughts about the service one by one.  What really came out was friendster lost its edge mainly because they stopped innovating/improving after a while that other services like facebook, multiply took that chance and penetrated the online networking world.

It is really good to know that Friendster is reaching out to get our opinion. I am glad that whatever plans Friendster has, I hope they get to improve their service.

We were treated to Fish & Co.. By the way, I ordered my favorite fish & chips.

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Here are what we shared to Ben (I also gathered feedback from friends):

  • Reasons why we stopped using friendster
  • – too much spam – no improvements – grandparents/parents joining the network – site looks dirty – page loads very slowly – no friendster application for gadgets like iPhone & Blackberry
  • Suggestions
  • – Have your own niche – change the look of the site – simpler user experience – develop an application for gadgets like iPhone, Blackberry, Palm OS, etc. – SMS + Friendster integration – aggressive marking & advertising

If you do have suggestions, please do post it here 🙂 I’m pretty sure, Friendster guys will appreciate your comments.

Here’s a picture of the group:

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If you have a friendster account, you can add me up here.

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饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market)

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饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market)
Raohe Street near Songshan Railway Station

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For my aunt’s last minute shopping, we went to 饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market).

饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market) was the very 1st night market in Taiwan.  It was established 1987 when the street was reconstructed.

The street is 600 meters long so you can imagine how many hours we stayed at the place.  After a few hours, we even stopped over a massage place!  hahaha that’s how tiring it was 😛

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The Owl is the night market’s mascot because street vendors only work at night. That’s basically when owls are active right? If you look closely, you could see the logo on the entrance of the place.

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As expected, like with all the night markets in Taiwan, you would see lots of people (lots! lots!), food (snaks galore!) & shops (shop the night away) It will take you hours just to be able browse through all of them!

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饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market) was where I bought a luggage 🙂

Here are the rest of the pictures.

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