Author: Rochelle Sy Chua

The Ugly Truth Movie Review

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On October 5, 2009

Ugly_truth

I was able to watch this last saturday and I must say that I enjoyed the movie.  Well, one big factor was Gerard Butler!  I just love him (especially after watching him in “300”).

It’s a romantic story about a local tv show producer, Abby, and a man named Mike, who is host of a segment, “Ugly Truth”. Abby, after coming from a disastrous date, just so happened to watch Mike on TV. She ended up calling him, and arguing with him over the air regarding their thoughts on relationships.

The next day, the station owner hired mike so he could help save Abby’s show from being cancelled. They hated each other.

Finally, Abby met the man of his dreams. She and Mike reached an agreement. The agreement is, Mike will teach Abby how to get the man of his dreams. If he is successful, Abby will work with him. Otherwise, Mike will quite the show.

It worked!  Let me share with you what Mike taught Abby, girls might find this useful (hehe!):

  1. Don’t Criticize
  2. Laugh a Lot!
  3. Guys love to visualize – so look your best!
  4. Don’t talk about your problems
  5. Guys love long-haired girls

Somehow, Abby realized that the guy of her dreams learned to love her because of pretentions (religiously following Mike’s lessons). So they broke up. In the end, Mike and Abby fell in love with each other. How? You have to watch it! I don’t want to give too much spoilers (thought I kinda shared the whole story already :P)

Great lesson taught here.  Yes, there are effective ways to get the man of your dreams but will you be happy by pretending to be that perfect girl?

My Rating for The Ugly Truth: 4 out of 5 stars.

Official Website of Rochelle Sy Chua where she talks about her travel experiences in Taipei, Taiwan, Philippines and Asia, as well as her adventures in food and restaurants

Dozo Izakaya Dining Bar

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On October 5, 2009

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Dozo Izakaya Dining Bar
No. 102, GuangFu S. Rd., Daan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 106
886 (02) 2778-1135

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A very expensive Japanese restaurant but delicious.

Mom treated us there. I especially liked the look of the place. It’s so cool, bar-looking, classy-looking place 🙂  I think the targeted audience here are businessmen and young people.  Service is great as well.  The place was jam-packed & the food was yummy!  My aunt was going back to the states the next day so it was kinda like our last dinner together at Taiwan. hayyy thinking about it, I miss my mom and aunt already.

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Anyway, here are what we ordered:

  • Grilled Squid with Seven Flavored Powder (220NT)
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Dozo Bar has a promo wherein we’ll be able to get their main dish of the day at 50% off.  That day, it’s their grilled squid!  I actually saw 90% of the customers ordering this hahaha.  Well, 50% for a yummy dish!  It’s super spicy though but nevertheless, my favorite dish from all the ones we ordered.

  • Assorted Grilled Skewer (340NT)
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A skewer sampler.  Wasn’t able to take note of the variants but it’s just grilled beef, pork, chicken.  The white one is just plain weird, we don’t know what it is, it just tasted out of this world 😛

  • Salt-Grilled Imported Japanese Mackerel (260NT)
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I’m not really fond of fish which still has fish bones so I didn’t enjoy this much.

  • Deep-Fried Homemade Tofu with Peanut (120NT)
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Different twist to the usual tofu dishes Japanese restaurants serve.  You must try this when you go to Dozo bar.  I’m just a tofu lover and it’s a nice thing to know that peanuts do go well together with tofu! yum!

  • Assorted Vegetable Tempura (160NT)
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  • Lemon Smoothie (130NT)
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one proof that a restaurant is expensive is the price of their drinks!  This drink is delicious but the it’s just too pricey.

  • Peach Milk Smoothie (180NT)
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  • Coke (80NT)
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what an expensive cola drink!!

  • Skewered Grilled Mushroom with Soy Sauce & Cheese (80NT)
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Though expensive, I think if they open here in Manila, they’ll be successful. Best to open in Greenbelt area 🙂

Rest of the pictures here.

Computer & Electronic Stores at Taipei

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On October 3, 2009

I’m a techie by heart.  When I arrived at Taiwan, one of the things I wanted to ask was where can I shop for electronic products?  Are they cheap/affordable?

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me w/ å…‰è¯æ•¸ä½æ–°å¤©åœ° (Guanghua Digital Plaza) mascot! cute cute cute!

When asked about electronics, two stores come to mind to people who live in Taiwan:

  • 光華數位新天地 (Guanghua Digital Plaza)
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No. 8, Sec. 3, Civic Blvd., Zhongzheng Dist., Taipei City 100, Taiwan
臺北市市民大道三段8號

This place is amazing!!!  Would you believe a whole building full of computer & electronic shops?  Total paradise for people like us!!!

It even has its own guide book!  That’s how big the place is!  There are 6 floors & 1 basement floor.
– basement for parking
– 1st floor for demo of electronic products (showroom)
– 2nd to 5th floors are where the electronic stalls are located
– 6th floor is for office space & maintenance station

You’ll find any gadgets/electronic/computer products here.  It’s just overwhelming.  It took us 3 hours just to look around the place.  You can find softwares, computers, laptops, computer parts (memory, hard drive, etc), gaming consoles, games, mobile phones and lots, lots, lots more stuff!

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Pictures I took when I roamed around the store can be found here.

  • Nova 台北店 (Nova Computer Arcade)
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台北市100館前路2號
886 (02) 2381-4833

We dropped by Nova at night when they were about to close.  We arrived at around 9pm and they are already closing by 9:30pm.  So most of the stores are already preparing to close.

But still I had a glance of what Nova has.  It’s a haven for people who love technology.  Over 130 booths/shops that sells mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, components, gaming consoles, etc.

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The location is very good as well as it is just across the 台北車站 (Taipei Main Station).

光華數位新天地 (Guanghua Digital Plaza) is memorable for me coz it was there where I bought my PS3! And the building wowed me so much! The prices are the same for both stores though. So you can take your pick.

Other products are still more expensive compared to Singapore & US. But there are some items that are cheaper in Taiwan like PS3, iPhone & some computer parts.

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台北市動物園 (Taipei Zoo)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On October 3, 2009

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台北市動物園 (Taipei Zoo)
No. 30, Sec. 2, Xinguang Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei 11656, Taiwan
886 (02) 29382300 ext. 630

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Whenever I travel, I always look for a famous zoo of the place.  This is why we made sure that Taipei Zoo is part of our itinerary.

I find it so cool that we can even use our Taipei Metro ticket to enter the place.  Entrance fee is at 60NT while children between 6-12 years of age, students, military & police officers & low-income families can get in at 30NT.

We just rode the Taipei Metro and while we walked towards the entrance, I noticed that the floor has marks of footprints from animals (similar to what hollywood has on their streets wherein hollywood stars have their names printed on the streets).

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Since we have limited time due to a plan to go to some other places that day (& my aunt only wanted to see the panda), we were only able to visit some parts of the zoo.  Still, I enjoyed my stay at Taipei Zoo!  I wish we had more time though..

Here are the display areas we visited:

  • Panda House
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me wearing the panda hat at the souvenir store.

This is the best area that the zoo has since ofcourse Panda is the most popular animal in China.  We lined up just to be able to see 2 cute pandas and have limited time to look and take pictures of them coz obviously there are lots of people waiting for their turn.

The 1st panda is sleeping!!! And he really didn’t care that hundreds of people lined up to see him! hahaha I took a video of him sleeping until the end of my turn, he was still sleeping.  Cuteness!

The 2nd panda is eating!!! Total cuteness, he was munching on the grass like he was enjoying it soooo much!  You better see this 🙂

  • Koala House
Another popular area in the zoo.  Located near the Panda House, the Koalas are brought in from Australia.  We were able to see “Patrick” the Koala.  He was just curled up on the tree though so wasn’t able to see his face clearly but nevertheless, still a nice sight to see 🙂

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  • Amphibian & Reptile House
One of the bigger indoor display areas in the zoo.  It houses over 90 species of amphibians & reptiles.  So many different species of each animal (snakes, turtles, iguanas, frogs, etc).

I saw several species & took pictures of them:
Green Tree Python

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Double-crested Basilisk

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Iguana – seems like the animals really enjoy eating hehehe!  I find this uber-cute!

Turtles – several kinds of turtles in the area. It’s just funny to see them doing different things. I took a video of turtles walking around, turtles eating even (EVEN!) turtles making love! ahahahaha

  • African Animal Area
6-hectared area, we were able just to glance as my family wanted to leave the zoo already.  They stayed a lil while coz they know I wanted to check out the other areas.  I wasn’t able to see the monkeys & the giraffe but I was able to see the elephant for quite a while.

Here is the elephant we saw walking around his area hehehe 😛

If ever I get the chance to visit the place again, I’ll visit the other areas like Formosan Animal Area, Fern Garden, Insect Valley, Children’s Zoo, Asian Tropical Rainforest Animal Area, Water Garden, Australian Animal Area, Desert Animal Area, Bird World, Temperate Zone Animal Area, Wetland Park, Insectarium, Education Center, Conservation Corridor, Children’s Theater, Xinguang Special Exhibit House, Nocturnal Animal House, Cool Energy Conservation House & Penguin House.
This is a must-go if you’re in Taipei.  The rest of our pictures can be found here.

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Winners of HeaRty’s Haven Slenda Contest

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On October 3, 2009

Last August 31, I launched a contest here at HeaRty’s Haven.

HeaRty’s Haven is giving away 1 box of Slenda (1 month worth) & 1 DVD to 5 lucky readers.  I’m pleased to announce the winners of the contest.


Here are the winners:

  1. MrsMartinez
  2. Francesca Ivy
  3. Rowena Lei
  4. Jeff Yu
  5. Suzy
The last 3 names are drawn via randomizer.org (since there are 5 readers who got the same # of points) 🙂  I’ll contact you to get some information on how the items will be delivered to you.

Here are the point breakdown:

  1. Anna Uy – 3 points
  2. Jeff Yu – 4 points
  3. Rowena Lei – 4 points
  4. Ria – 4 points
  5. MrsMartinez – 5 points
  6. Suzy – 4 points
  7. Sadjz Sumague – 3 points
  8. Jane Robles – 3 points
  9. Francisca Ivy – 5 points
  10. czaroma – 4 points

As this is my 1st contest, I realized I should have done things better.  Here are my learnings:

  • Make the contest simple – I’ve put a lot of steps and people tend to feel it’s too complicated to do.  I already thought of what I need to do next time 🙂
  • Make it easier for the judge to pick winners – Since I’ve put complicated steps, I ended up spending lots of time just to determine if each of the person who joined did the steps written in the “how to join” section.
  • Shorten the time of the Contest – I made this a month-long contest, I should have done this like a week-long contest only.  Coz people tend to forget this already.

Congratulations to all the winners!

PicPanda.com

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