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é™½æ˜Žå±±åœ‹å®¶å…¬åœ’ (Yangmingshan National Park)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 25, 2009

é™½æ˜Žå±±åœ‹å®¶å…¬åœ’ Yangmingshan National Park
1-20 Chu Tzu Hu Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
886 (2) 2861-5404

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My mom rented a van that day in order for us to go to Yangmingshan National Park & Jinshan. We went first to Yangmingshan National Park, 1st impression? The place is huge!!

We stopped over first at the å°æ²¹å‘ (Siaoyukeng). Located at northwestern part of the park, this has the largest sulphur steam vents.

The sulphur vents spew gases and the odor is pungent, very pungent! Here is a preview of what you can see in the place.

The scenery is really lovely. And we climbed up to the top where the highway is located, about 800 meters long. Whew! We were already very tired after that. In the picture below, that is a preview of the stairs that we climbed in order to reach the top.

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If you’re planning to go to Yangmingshan National Park, be ready for a hike! 🙂

When we reached the top, it already started raining. We still went ahead and toured the rest of the tourist spots at the park. We were already there so might as well continue even if we’d be soaking wet w/c was what happened hehehe 😛

Next stop is the National Park itself. Since it was September, flower festival has already ended (the event runs from November to April). Still the park is a beautiful sight.

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To share the history, Yangmingshan was called Grass Mountain during Japanese occupation of Taiwan, since it was covered in grass and seldom visited by the people. After world war II, åœ‹æ°‘é»¨ (Kuo Min Tang) renamed it to Yangmingshan and created the park.

We walked around and spotted waterfalls, flowers & è¾›äº¥å…‰å¾©æ¨“ (Xinhai Guangfu building). The building, located at the center of the park, is one of the popular spots in the park where people hang around. It has a coffee shop & gift shop on the 1st floor & art exhibit on the 2nd floor & coffee shop at the 3rd floor.

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We also found fish ponds surrounding the building. I took a video of the fish pond and also took a video of the duck that we saw, soooooo cute!!

Other sights to see in the park are the ff.:

é™½æ˜Žå±±èŠ±é˜ (Flower Clock) – large clock that is made of 15,000 flower pots! Something that we should take a picture of. Surrounded by Taiwan flowering cherrie, Japanese flowering cherrie, camellia, etc.

Statue of Late President è”£ä¸æ£ (Chiang Kai Shek) – Yangmingshan is a summer residence of the late president. It was he who renamed the place to Yangmingshan in honor of çŽ‹é˜³æ˜Ž Wang Yang Ming.

Statue of çŽ‹é˜³æ˜Ž (Wang Yang Ming) – is a Ming Dynasty famous chinese scholar & military official of the 17th century

More pictures from the park here.

P.S. This is where my aunt lost her 1,000USD watch (she removed it and put it in her pocket coz it was raining hard but it fell accidentally) and where I damaged my phone due to heavy rains. We were soaking wet when we went back to the van. Still had a great time, we just didn’t anticipate the heavy rains.

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The Chophouse

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 24, 2009

The Chophouse
Level 4, Trinoma Mall, EDSA, Quezon City
(02) 916-6299

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We had dinner at the Chophouse today. Stef & I waited for Shar & Francis for 2 hours hahaha! So we ordered appetizer & drinks first then spent the time talking about stuff 🙂

I wasn’t impressed w/ the food so I don’t think I’ll go back. The concept is nice though. Maybe they could improve on their recipe. It’s not bad don’t misunderstand, I just think it’s nothing special. I think my expectation in food is getting higher & higher 😛

The service is great though. 🙂

Here are what we ordered:

Holy Cow Iced Tea (Php 85)

I liked that their iced tea is brewed and they didn’t use the powdered iced tea available in the grocery. I just feel disappointed w/ other restaurants wherein they use those powdered iced tea, I mean what’s the point for us to go to a restaurant if we’ll just be able to drink processed juices 😛 Their iced tea is really good. I loved this one!

Nachos (Php 265)

This is corn chips layered & covered w/ spiced beef, tomato salsa, cheese sauce & sour cream. I’m not fond of olives & sour cream so I didn’t enjoy this much. I bet for nacho lovers out there, you’ll enjoy this. They have generous serving of the sauce.

Mushroom Cream Soup (Php 110)

US Beef Minute Steak (Php 420)

this comes with choice of sauce & side dish. I was very disappointed in this dish as I expected this to be good as this is their specialty. That made me decide not to come back though their other dishes are okay.

Fish & Chips (Php 295)

San Miguel Beer (ofcourse have to support our very own :P) battered fish fillet w/ french fries, coleslaw & tartar sauce. This one’s okay. Fried just right.

Coffee (Php 65)

It’s funny that I wasn’t impressed with their steaks (w/c are their specialty), I ended up liking their free bread more.

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The bread is very fresh & super good!

Manila’s Metered Taxis

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 24, 2009

Hai, Jo & I rode the taxi back to the office coz we missed the shuttle by 1 minute!

For me, it’s meant to be… coz we got to know the new meter LTFRB implemented! Believe me, it’s sooooooooo cool! I think this is the cheapest taxi ride I ever had in my whole life (in the Philippines).

I also realized that majority of the taxi in the Philippines are tampered… imagine I used to pay around 70-90pesos from GO to GBS but with this meter it cost us only 45 pesos!!!

It’s just sad that not all taxi drivers bought this meter as it’ll cost them Php16,000.00. It is definitely worth it though, the driver was very proud of it as well. He told us that all his passengers were very happy upon seeing the meter.

It will be mandated by January 2010 though. I really hope this will push through despite of the disapproval of the different taxi companies.

The advantages that I can see are the ff.:

No tampering of meters! (this is very important for passengers)
Tax properly reported (good for government)
Passenger’s approval & confidence to the ride & taxi fee (makes it a joyful ride – good for driver & passenger hehe)
taxi ride properly documented (receipts- coolness)

Disadvantages:

meter is expensive – Php 16,000.00 (1 year warranty)
you can only get materials for the meter like receipt paper through LTFRB (so price is dictated by the government, no other sources for materials)

I did mention about the receipt earlier. Promise, we were sooooo impressed.

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Here are the information that you can see in the receipt:

Taxi Operator Details
Car Details (Plate #)
Official Receipt #
Date
Distance measured by kilometers
waiting time
Taxi Fare

I really do hope the plans to make this mandatory on January 2010 will push through.

Rest of the pictures here.

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Breakfast at ç¾Žå¥½ç¾Ž (Mei Hao Mei)

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 23, 2009

ç¾Žå¥½ç¾Ž (Mei Hao Mei)
Taipei, Taiwan
via MRT – å—å‹¢è§’ Nanshijiao

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This place is open only during mornings mainly because they serve only breakfast. And they are famous of it.

First thing I noticed is that they act really really fast! Another thing I noticed is that they are super efficient & they collaborate really well.

Here’s how they work: One takes orders, one cooks, one takes care of packing, one takes care of the bills and one takes care of helping customers on the coffee machine. They are just so fast, friendly, efficient and their food is super good & unique.

While my mom take our orders, I spent time taking pictures of the place. After a short while, the manager approached me and asked why I kept taking pictures of the store. My mom kindly explained that I’m a blogger and I always write about all my experiences & I’m definitely going to write about their restaurant. The manager quickly changed mood and started smiling at me ahhaha. I was scared for a second that time 😛

I honestly love the food! We ordered for take out as my aunt & her friend were still at the house. The food is overly cheap as well! My favorite is their omelette! YUMMY!!!

Here are what we ordered:

Cafe Latte (30NT)

This is just coffee from their vendo machine. The guy at the place was kind enough to assist my mom on it 🙂

Soya Milk (18NT)

Going to Taiwan will not be complete without drinking Soya Milk! My ever ever favorite drink! 🙂

Omelette (30NT)

Most unique omelette I have tasted, I think they combined egg with lumpia wrapper so it can hold the egg and bacon inside it.. super yummy I tell you! I just can’t get enough of it.

Egg Sandwich (30NT)

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Roch’s Taiwan Trip Photo Album

Posted by Rochelle Sy Chua On September 22, 2009

I’m truly sorry that I wasn’t able to blog while I was on vacation (September 12-21).

I toured Taipei, Taiwan and had a blast. Went to soooooo many places, took lots of pictures (more than 1k!!!). Had so much fun with my mom & aunt. Met up with colleagues during the end of the trip.

Went to temples, museums, amusement park, hot springs, famous parks & memorial halls. One thing that I really noticed about Taiwan is that people are sooo disciplined & nice.

You’ll definitely see a series of posts about my Taiwan trip. It’ll take some time to complete all of it so let me give you some idea what’s in store.

Here are the photos that I took while vacationing, enjoy!

Please stay tuned for the write-ups 😉

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