Monday, we had the biggest snow storm this year. Five days later, the temperature is in the 70s. Nevertheless, we had fun both days. Today, we went to the Great Fall in Maryland. My friend told me that the view is better from the Maryland side of the Potomac river. It was great to be able to do some outdoor walking. I bet the scenery will be even better in Summer when the trees turn green and there's more water in the river. I'm definitely going back there sometime.

Monday and today.

The fall brought so much colour. A couple of weeks ago, we made a weekend day trip to Shenandoah National Park. Five-hour beautiful drive. You really have to see it to appreciate the beauty of nature. The pictures just can't capture it but I still took many. Here they are




More pictures here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chengdu_spicygirl/sets/72157608773766094/

I meant to post this funny clip long time ago and finally got around to do it. Back when my parents visited us in Taiwan a few months ago, one exciting event was going on - the Taiwan presidential election.

My parents got to see all the campaign on both sides. They watched TV everyday to follow the election progress. Although they didn't understand the Taiwanese dialect, they did pick up two words at the end - "Dang Xuan" (get elected). The pronunciation in Taiwanese sounds like "Dong Suan"冻蒜 （frozen garlic). It was pretty funny because the TV actually used the two characters for "frozen garlic" in the subtitle.

So when my parents went back home, they told my families the only Taiwanese words they learned. My nephew just turned two and was at the time when he picks up everything he hears immediately. So here he was showing me what he learned:



waving the campaign flag and chanting:"Ma Ying Jiu, Dong suan; Ma Ying Jiu, Dong suan; Dong suan, Dong suan, Dong suan!", Just like the way the Ma's supporters did in Taiwan. Of course, by then Ma had been elected and didn't need the support from this little fan of him any more. My mom was instructing him in the background: "say it loud, keep it up."

Just realized that it has been two months since last post. What did I do? A lot. We moved from Taipei to the U.S., spent a few weeks in the hill country in Texas, moved to Washington D.C., moved twice in two weeks in D.C., finally found an apartment that we'll move in next month. I also had many phone interviews, more interviews in person, landed a new job yesterday.

Now, I feel a little tired. I hate moving so much but just have to live with it. Good news is that I can sleep late for another two weeks before start working.

It has been over four years since I lived in the U.S. last time. To be honest, I didn't have any so called reverse cultural shock. Things are more expensive though, especially the gas. It cost around $1.49/gallon when I left and $4.19 now. I'm glad that I'll be able to work here again. It'll be good for my English.

Dear friends, thanks for thinking of my families in Chengdu. Everyone in my families are fine. I've been trying to reach them by phone since yesterday afternoon but couldn't get through. However, the text message on cell phone still works. So last night I received a text message from my brother telling me that everyone back home is fine. Of course, everyone was shocked by such strong earthquake. Luckily no building collapsed in my hometown as far as I know, at least in the city. The center is in Wenchuan, which is not far from Chengdu. I passed through that area a few weeks ago on my way to Jiuzhaigou.

My families haven't gone back to their home yet, worried about any aftershocks. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to them soon. Thanks everyone for your emails.

Update: I finally was able to talk to my brother and my mom last night. They are still staying outdoors and sleeping in the car. Luckily, water, gas, electricity are all fine, so they can cook meals. Only one building was severely damaged in our town and everyone was evacuated. My parents and my nephew were at home (5th floor) when it happened. My dad was on the balcony. The building swing so hard that he had hard time to stand even holding onto the handrail. They immediately left the apartment and haven't gone back since then. It is raining in Chengdu now and they may go back home soon.

Just came back from a trip to China. For the second time, I went to Jiu Zhai Gou. I didn't expect the scenery to be great since it's dry season and Jiu zhai is famous for its water. But I was so lucky to see Jiu Zhai in snow. Just this view is worth the trip.

First shot in Jiu Zhai

I'll write more about the trip but here are more pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chengdu_spicygirl/sets/72157604908328341/

We went to Zhu Zi Hu (Bamboo Lake) at Yang Ming Mountain today. It's the 3rd day of the 海芋 festival. I couldn't find the English name for this kind of flowers, but the Chinese name literaly means "ocean taro". The leaves do resemble those of regular taro, so I guess they belong to the same botanic family.

Local farms charges an entrance fee of NT$100 per person. Once in the farm, you could choose to redeem the NT$100 coupon for drinks, snacks or you can pick 10 flowers from the fields. Pretty good value. I was really surprised to see so many people on a Thursday afternoon.

All flowers in the fields are white/ivory color, however, you can find purple, pink, red and other colors of flowers sold in the street. Be careful, those are actually sprayed with vegetable dye. But some tourists like them. I personally prefer the original.

The weather was perfect too. However, only one mini-bus runs between Beitou MRT station to the Bamboo Lake (S 9) every 40 minutes and is really crowded. At the bus station, taxi would try to rip you off. they would refuse to take any group less than four people because they charge by headcount, so about NT$600 per trip. The festival will run until May. It's fun!

Our friend Tim and his families came to Taiwan for their spring break. I went to Dan Shui with them today. For the first time, I took the ferry to the other side of Dan Shui River - Bali (八里)。The river bank looked so different from its crowded weekend scene.
I hadn't ridden bicycle for over 15 years but gotten really interested in it since I rid it in Jinmen a few weeks ago. Today we rid along the Danshui river all the way to Guandu bridge. The weather was perfect with nice breeze.
In the afternoon, we went to Beitou for hot spring. It was perfect for our sore legs. We had the whole place to ourselves until a group of tourists from Hong Kong got in and ruined our peaceful moment.

It's truly a relaxing day. I need to take advantage of my free time now to go out more.

I'm back from our R&R trip to Australia a week ago. It was a lot of fun but now I'm paying for it. The work has piled up so much that I had to go through over 400 emails on my first day back. Finally, this weekend I got some sleep and was able to download my pictures. I have put up some of them online but will have to add more detail notes later.

We spent almost 10 days driving around Tasmania. It's a beautiful island with friendly people. The only drawback - EXPENSIVE, especially at a time like this when dollar is soooooo weak. I'm sure you'll hear more when PR comes back. Yes, he's still there, not Tasmania but driving in the outback Australia. He probably just finished his sunset tour at the big ROCK at this moment. I had to come back early to work, so we can pay the credit card bill from the trip :).

I'm having technical difficulties to insert pictures in my entry in livejournal as I always do, so you can look at the pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chengdu_spicygirl/sets/72157603286847258/

We have been searching for authentic Sichuan food ever since I moved to Taiwan last year and have been very disappointed about those we tried. one of the partner in our office always asks me how spicy can I eat exactly. I told him that there is no good Sichuan restaurant in Taiwan. He is so proud that Taiwan has everything that he could not accept that. So everytime he saw ads or articles in newspaper about Sichuan restaurants, he would bring them to the office and gave them to me. Unfortunately, none of the pictures he previous showed to me resembles anything similar to authentic Sichuan food.

Two days ago he bought me a China Times Weekend magazine, which introduced three Sichuan restaurants. Again, dishes from two of the restaurants don't look like Sichuan food at all. But the other one really caught my eyes. I know if they can really make the dishes like they appeared on the magazine, it got to be good. According to the article, the chef married a Taiwanese and just moved to Taiwan two years ago. So I couldn't wait until weekend, and immediately called up my gangs. Everybody was up for it. So tonight, after work, seven of us went to try it. Now I have a good news for those who like Sichuan food. This is definitely the most authentic Sichuan food I've had in Taiwan so far. The chef Mr. Chen is from Yi Bin, Sichuan 宜賓. In case you don't know where Yi Bin is, it's where the famous liquor (Wu Liang Ye) is produced. It's called 天府家常菜， 臺北縣永和市仁愛路五號 （捷運頂溪站）（02）8660-0190. It's open 11:30am-2pm for lunch and 5:30pm-8:30pm for dinner, closed on Monday.

The chef does tone down the flavor for locals but if you tell them that you want authentic Sichuan food when you order you food. They can do it. The chili and peppercorn are definitely from Sichuan, soooooo good.

We ordered seven dishes and one soup.夫妻肺片，口水雞，豆腐鰱魚，魚香茄子，辣子雞丁，水煮牛肉，蒜苗臘肉，酸菜粉絲湯。Every dish was good. I took some pictures with my friend's cell phone. I'll post them later if they come out well. If not, I'll took some next time. I'm taking PR there for sure. It's reasonably priced. We had a few bottle of beers too. It came out about NT$300 per person. If I have to use one word to describe the feeling after the meal - 爽！！！