15 minutes earlier

It's amazing how much one can accomplish when one uses time wisely. I woke up 15 minutes earlier than usual and was able to make myself a healthy, delish omelette. :)

Happy Thursday!

feeling special

It's saying a lot to have the dom as a pre-dinner drink. I mean, at least for someone in my position. We were invited to a birthday party, his 13th one this year. Just by looking at the guests, one can see that he is a pretty well-respected person.

The other drinks are all finely selected. The Chapelle Chambertin had a rosey smell to it, thought I do prefer the Griotte Chambertin. The 1955 armagnac de Montal, his birthyear, was absolutely magnificent.

For appetizers, we had fresh oysters imported from France, Iberico jamon melon wraps from Spain and assorted cheese. Yum yum yum...Oh, and mussles in little staub containers. The mussles were delectable. I counted, I had 17 mussles in here. Here are the before and after pictures.

For the main course, I chose steak over fish and duck confit. Looks delicious eh? The hawaiian salt was very unique. It's coarse and dark gray in color. It was a dash of heaven with the steak.

So here you go, delicious food, fabulous night.

It's fruity!

My little cousin started his first-year university couple of months ago in Hualian. It is his first time living away from home, and I think he is enjoying it.

So he is in town this weekend and my aunt and cousin came to visit us. We went for lunch at an Italian restaurant near my house and had a wonderful time catching up.

an important meal

I love breakfast. it's the best part of the day! A lot of people can't seem to eat when they first wake up. I'm not saying to eat right away. I mean, that's why they discovered brunch right?

butter flour milk sugar

aunt stella's handmade cookies & cakes.

Currently Twiningsing

I am. huge fan of chai, though it seems impossible to find in khh. boo :(

my good friend Alexis had been so kind to mail some tea bags over from Canada. (best gifts ever! millions of hugs and kisses) My stash is running low so I kept my eyes out today for some comforting-flavored tea.

Still no chai, but cinnamon is the closest thing. Seriously, how can the Taiwanese people not like chai? sad.

A Little Treat

Friday afternoon, I'm sitting in a cafe reading a mag, sipping on coffee. Is this all too good to be true? How long will this last?

Keep it up folks. The world is your oyster.

Find a Little Peace

I was going through my photos today and found a lot of them being close-up flower shots. Here's some of them before the next flower post.

happy friday :)

tapa craving

I miss Spanish food.

{{ bilbao }}

Semana Grande, Spanish for Big Week, is Bilbao's main festival that starts on the 3rd Saturday in the month of August, lasting 9 days. Bilbao, 14 km south of Bay of Biscay, is the largest city of the Basque Country.

We were there for two days, arriving on the 1st day of the festival!

The architecture in Bilbao is a little mixed. I found it a bit strange to find modern looking buildings sitting on one side of the street and classical style buildings on the other.

There it is again! Garbage bins out on the streets...

I quite like this. There is one single tree planted right in front of a police station.

Booths are set up for the festival...

Churro stands...

A walker that I am, I once again dragged my brother into touring the city on foot for hours... The downtown area is surrounded by two mountain ranges with an average elevation of 400 metres. Within the urban area, there are steep hills. And when I see hills, I want to go up on those hills...

This walkway on the right brings you to an elevator, which takes you down to street level at just less than 1 euro per person. I'm not sure how many metres above it is but from the photo, you can see how high up it is.

These condos look pretty fancy...

This is quite an awesome looking pedestrian bridge. The walkway is actually see-through, but because they've had some accidents with that, now the walkway is mostly covered with carpet.

Gehry's famous Guggenheim...

Its more overwhelming to see it in person...

Festival parade...

they were extremely efficient at cleaning the streets....