taiwan day 4 and day 5

2nd last day in taiwan! lunch was at 参和院, near 忠孝复兴 station (exit 11). it has the cutest and most exquisite dim sum, and also interesting dishes. 

the nicest one is the green colour bun with the cartoon character face. as for the rest, they look pretty but taste normal. 

this is the worst buy. looks nice, but it is tasteless. yes tasteless. the coloured fillings also tasteless. the biggest disappointment. 

this omelette is good! goes very well with rice. 

after lunch we go back to ximending again for some more shopping. we went to the h&m which is one whole entire building on its own, with 4 storeys. and they have a very big kids section. darling and i had a fun time choosing yuanze and xuanxuan's clothes. 

ta da!! yuanze's clothes! hope that he can wear the long sleeve blue shirt and maroon pants next year when we go to taiwan! 

went back to our hotel room to chill. roader's hotel is very nice to give us a room upgrade on our 2nd night. the upgraded room is much bigger in space, and has a bath tub by the window, which you can see the view while bathing in the bath tub. so i soak myself in the bath tub, drink a bottle of 纯萃 milk tea, and play fifa. this is the ideal holiday~

in the evening we are meeting up for dinner with my colleagues from the previous workplace: yu laoshi, who teaches mother tongue, and was my co-form of 2E1 in 2012; mr john lim, teaches geography, now he is a subject head of geography at another sch in the east; mr felix yap, teaches chemistry, who is my angel last year. 

and the dinner place is 锅爸, a steamboat restaurant that i chance upon online. 

it is a really awesome place and i shall let the pictures do the talking. 

drinks section #1

drink section #2: if you dun like packet drinks you can also go for old school bottled soft drinks  

drinks section #3: hot drinks such as latte, milk tea, cappucino. also have iced milk tea. 

check out the beautiful meat! 

the soup flavours that they have are: 麻辣, curry, tomato, kimchi, and another 4 flavours that i can't remember. i personally like the tomato one! 

out of all these food, darling and i actually like the deep fried youtiao, which we never see before in singapore's steamboat restaurants. 

this is my personal favourite! 麻辣鸭血! a delicacy that cannot be eaten in singapore. the 鸭血 is so smooth, even smoother than tofu. and the translation is... -.-''' the 卤肉 was also not bad. i scooped it and drenched it on white rice. so gooddddd! 

softee or chocolate fondue for dessert? 

this is the ultimate winner. haagen daaz and movenpick side by side. 16 different flavours of ice cream to choose from. shiok!!!

thanks for the great catch-up! :) 

nothing much about day 5, because we have to check out at 1015 am and our taxi driver is picking us up at 1030 am. check out procedure was very smooth and efficient. 

our taxi driver super on, 1010 am msg me to tell me that he has already reach. 

so 1030 am when we went out of the hotel, we were expecting a yellow taxi, but who knows a 7-seater pop up in front of us, and the driver came out and saluted me. omg both darling and i were shocked. 4 seater yellow taxi send us to airport cost us NT1000. 7 seater vehicle also cost NT1000. we were so lucky! the driver told us that his vehicle is first class atas vehicle, and it is being used to ferry big shots from DBS bank, taipei city mayor and other big shots from various countries. the car is really very comfortable, and he said that 坐五六个小时都不会晕车. and so we talk cock alot during the journey and also got his contact. so if anyone is going to taipei with a big family of 7 pax, you can get his contact from me. i guarantee you that you will not be disappointed with that atas 7 seater vehicle. :) 

i must also say that taiwan airport security are super serious about check in luggage and prohibited items. at the check in counter, the counter staff ask me whether got selfie stick in hand carry. she said need to put in check in luggage, if not at the departure hall the airport police will ask me to throw away the selfie stick. and then she ask whether our check in luggage got power bank, and i said no, because my power bank is in my hand carry. 

so at the departure hall, the airport police scan my passport, and then he stop me and say my check in luggage got problem, and tell me to go back to the counter. i was like super stunned and when i was walking down and i realise... ... it is the new ironman power bank that i bought!!! ggggggrrrrrrrrr... so immediately went to the counter, took my luggage, and took out the ironman power bank. HAIYAAAA. 

another tip guys, sign up for citibank credit card, and you will get this priority pass card, which you can go to the priority lounge at every single country's airport and enjoy their services. last year we went to the priority lounge at hong kong. so this time we went to the priority lounge at taoyuan airport and we had our lunch there. the food there was quite good and they also provide lots of beverages such as beer, red wine, soya bean milk, fruit juice and coffee. really quite shiok. :)

on the flight back, i watched Ghostbusters and Jason Bourne. super happy to watch 4 wonderful movies on the two flights. i think i am not going to fly budget anymore. hahahahaha. 

taiwan day 3

started the day by ordering breakfast from 古莫尼 again. actually i walked to 他给 first to try my luck, but the queue was even crazier as compared to tuesday. so forget it, 古莫尼 it shall be. this time round i ordered the thai basil pork sandwich for myself, and the signature bacon egg cheese sandwich for darling. the thai basil pork sandwich didn't disappoint! 

after breakfast we check out from our airbnb apartment and took a cab to 台中高铁站. the cab fare cost us NT305. cab fare on monday from the 高铁站 to our airbnb cost NT300. 

we reach 台北高铁站 at around 1130 am. and we took cab again to our hotel at ximending, which is only 1.1 km away, and we reach the hotel in less than 10 min. cost us NT80, if i remember correctly. 

in the past i have stayed at either rainbow hotel or east dragon hotel. this time we stayed at Roader's Hotel, and i must say that both of us are very impressed with Roader's Hotel. let me tell you why! 

first of all, their lobby. the lobby is the most impressive and hipster lobby i have ever seen. got a fireplace (with fire projection hahahahaha), and many sofas/couches for the tourists to sit. got a big screen to show movies from HBO or live nba basketball matches. provide these items FOC 24/7: popcorn, tidbits, instant noodles, 包s, coffee, hot chocolate. for breakfast they will put donuts and sandwiches at the lobby, first come first serve. 

and the lobby got a photo booth! 

damn cool right. there is a printer underneath and you can collect your photo printout. 

and paste it right here on their bulletin board! 

the many flavours of instant noodles that you can choose from. 

secondly, the hotel staff are very young and dynamic, and they make sure all the guests feel at home. they are very prompt in entertaining requests and are always so cheerful and friendly. 

our room! 

our room has a pretty nice view. :)

we head to 永康街 for lunch. for my previous 6 visits to taiwan, i have never been to 永康街 before. i must say, this place is amazing man! so many restaurants, so many good food! what have i been missing out during the previous 6 visits! 

lunch is at the famous 鼎泰丰. the queue there is totally crazy. 

but they have a very good queue system. first you go to the counter at the front of the entrance and tell them how many pax. then they will give you a paper slip with your queue number. and the paper slip will also tell you the waiting time. mine is 35 to 45 min. -.-''' 

then they will also pass you the menu to let you order the food first. so one of the staff will actually walk around to collect the menus from the waiting customers. at the front of the entrance there is also a big tv screen that flash out the queue numbers. and some of the staff are bilingual or trilingual. they pin flag badges on their right chest to show what languages they can speak. i saw usa, japan, korea, and the most outstanding one is... SPAIN. a local taiwanese can speak Spanish?! wow simply awesome. 

ok since i got 35 to 45 min to waste, i walk up and down the 永康街, while darling is pumping out her milk at the 浦乳室. a good thing about taipei mtr is that every station will have breastfeeding room, and the breastfeeding room is very well equipped with a table, power socket and hot water. 

i queued at the very famous 天津葱抓饼 and tasted it, but it did not live to our expectations. it was overrated. darling and i have tasted much better 葱抓饼 at hualien in 2008. i remembered vividly that when i bite into the 葱抓饼 the egg yolk exploded with the egg yolk juice swimming inside my mouth. the guide told us this is called 炸弹葱抓饼. and therefore... 天津葱抓饼 was a major disappointment. 

but thankfully 鼎泰丰 did not disappoint. i ordered alot of food. hahahaha. it was a good change from the 夜市 food that we were having for the past 2 days. when i tasted the 小笼包s and 虾仁蛋炒饭 i was like OMG SO GOODDDDDD. 

we had matcha dessert at matcha one cafe, also at 永康街. presenting the hand model, my darling! the matcha crepe cake was really good, but a bit pricey. tried once can liao. 

and after that we went to the famous Chia Te bakery to buy my favourite 3Q 饼. i was shocked when i saw a queue outside the bakery. but luckily the queue was moving quite fast. Chia Te is also famous for its different flavour pineapple tarts. i also saw egg tarts and they look really good, but i was too full to try them. 

for the whole night we went back to ximending for shopping and dinner. :) 

taiwan day 2

our taichung airbnb location is really very good. at night no need to worry about food because once we step out of our apartment, all the street food is available. and it is the same for breakfast! from our apartment walk 1 min and will reach 逢甲路, and the whole stretch of 逢甲路 has numerous stalls selling breakfast. 

the most popular one is 他给吐司, and the queue there was insane. so i went to the one with lesser people. 

古莫尼 (Good Morning)!!!

i ordered a kimchi pork sandwich for myself and a ham cheese sandwich for darling. the kimchi pork sandwich tastes amazingly good!!! darling said the ham cheese sandwich is normal. oops. 

so for day 2, we hired a taxi and the driver drove us to different places. he came to pick us up at 9 am and these are the places that we will be going: 彩虹眷村，新社古堡，薰衣草森林，中社花海，and finally 高美湿地. he charges us NT3500. if you want his contact let me know! 

and i also need to specify that 新社古堡，薰衣草森林，中社花海 requires entrance fee. is around 100 to 300 NT. can't really remember. but the good thing about 新社古堡 and 薰衣草森林 is that part of the entrance fee can be used to purchase food/drinks. 

彩虹眷村

a very small village whereby all the murals are painted by this 94 year old grandpa. normally the grandpa will be there to take pic with tourists. but he was not there when we were there. and when we reach there, there were tonnes of tourists. so we quickly went to a quiet spot, take a pic, and left. the driver said people normally spend 30 min at rainbow village. we spent 3 min. 


新社古堡

we love this place! we redeemed our hot drinks (darling ordered honey tea and i ordered cappucino) using the entrance fee. the cappucino taste really good! probably because drinking a hot drink in cold weather makes the cappucino taste exceptionally better. 

after 新社古堡 our driver drove us to a mushroom farm to let us see how mushrooms are being grown (FOC). darling bought some mushrooms and mushroom tidbits for her family. the mushroom tidbits taste surprisingly good. even the niece likes it. hahahaha. 


薰衣草森林

didnt really see that much lavendar (maybe it is not the season yet). the lavendar ice cream is good. must go try. darling ate the ice cream very happily because it was her first ice cream in 9 months. the drive up was horrendous (think genting highland). 


中社花海

it's a real pity that the weather was cloudy on that day with no sun, which made the 花海 look less beautiful and spectacular. 

after the 花海 it was a bit too late and we decided not to go to 高美湿地. our driver was very kind to charge us NT3000 instead of NT3500. so i gave him NT3000 and another NT200 as tips. 

and so we walk around 逢甲夜市 again for dinner. and we went to the convenience stores to check out the 纯萃. 

wooooo so many flavours! huat ahhhhh! 

we had to eat this again. our favourite mochi wrapped with pork, at our favourite yakitori stall. 

that's the end of day 2! 

taiwan trip 2016

i went to taiwan with darling from 5 dec to 9 dec.

actually this trip nearly did not materialise because yuanze had colic and he throws alot of tantrums in the middle of the night. darling is worried to leave yuanze in sg alone and she will feel very guilty, worried and uneasy if she travels to taiwan. so honestly speaking, i am prepared for the worst case scenario of not going for the trip.

but thank goodness, yuanze has no more colic, and he sleeps better in the night. and thus, our trip went on as usual. i also want to take this opportunity to thank my family (especially my mum) for looking after yuanze while we were away. she specially took leave just to take care of yuanze. and of course my two sisters. huanyang for playing with him and letting him listen to ang mor hip hop songs. xiaoyu for borrowing story books from the library and reading these story books to him, and also entertain him in 101 ways, and taking photos and videos of him and sending them to us.

and this is my how many times to taiwan? let's recall.

first time was with my family. i was in primary 6.

second time was with the army. we went there for training for 3 weeks. we were known as the 星光部队.

third time was with my jc friends.

fourth time was with darling, in 2008.

fifth time was with my pe friends, in 2009.

sixth time was with brotherhood (xuehong, nzj and hw), in 2012.

so my 7th time is with darling, in 2016, 8 years after 2008.

and this is our itinerary:

5 dec - taichung
6 dec - taichung
7 dec - taichung to taipei
8 dec - taipei
9 dec - taipei 

it is a very very short trip. this time we flew by china airlines. the air ticket is $545. we book the air tickets very early, which was in june. accomodation at taichung is an airbnb room, right smack in the middle of 逢甲夜市. cost $59 for one night. 

china airlines is not bad. it is after all taiwan's national air carrier. i watched 2 movies: 寒战II and Suicide Squad. i watched 寒战 I with darling at macau and totally love it. when 寒战II was aired in singapore, i din wanna watch it because it is in mandarin. i was overjoyed when china airlines has the cantonese version. :) 

we reached taoyuan airport, bought our taiwan sim cards, bought the bus tickets to 桃园高铁站, and once we reach 桃园高铁站 we bought the 高铁 tickets to 台中. reach 台中 and took a cab to our airbnb. this cab driver drives like a f1 car racer and i was so traumatised. from a 25 min journey become a 15 min journey. and so we reach our airbnb location at about 620 pm and our kind host was already there waiting for us and brought us to the door of our apartment, and also introduced to us what are the nice food that must try. he even prepared a food map for us! 

the famous 黄金右腿. perfectly bbq-ed with cheese on top, together with tomato salsa within the chicken and fresh salad underneath the chicken. what a wonderful combination. i can eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner! 

the very famous yakitori restaurant. we saw this restaurant being featured at one of the taiwan travel variety programmes and told ourselves that we must go there! their signature yakitori is the mochi wrapped with pork. damn nice, damn addictive, damn creative. how can pork and mochi taste so good together?!

the instagram worthy galaxy drink. right now galaxy is the in thing. galaxy cake. galaxy donuts. galaxy bagels. and this drink taste surprisingly good and refreshing. 

this concludes day 1. :) 

天地人和

天地人和, brought to you by 新艺舞团, was concluded on sunday evening. 

i did not dance in this production, but neverthelss i still wanted to contribute to the dance troupe, and i am very thankful that peter (the director of the dance troupe) gave me the role of the FOH manager (sounds super atas hahahaha) and also asked me to order dinner for the dancers and the production crew. at the same time i also want to thank darling to allow me to go help out with the production. she is always so understanding of my passion for performing arts. 

the dance troupe is only in her second year. i was heavily involved during the first year, when i followed the troupe to sibu for the Sibu International Dance Festival, and i was also involved in their first dance production held at victoria theatre. as i had mentioned before, the reason that keep me going for dance is always the people. there are people inside that i had known for a very long time from the nuscd days, for example xuehong, bin gege, nzj. the people that i only knew from last year, such as regina, sandra, viv, zixiang. i started off being a bit shy with them, but when time goes by, we clicked and became good friends, united by our passion for chinese dance. i am always thankful to be able to make good friends and forge strong bonds through dance. 

ok so enough recapping of what happened in the past, let's now focus on the present. for this year, myself, zixiang, sandra and guofeng did not dance. but they got many strong dancers in, for example tan fangxi, a very strong dancer that i had noticed since my uni days, who was actually in the same nus chemistry batch as me, and was in dance ensemble. my student foo chunying had also joined the troupe, and she danced in 3 items. not forgetting to mention elizabeth chan who came back to singapore after her studies at HKAPA, and i actually had the honour to dance on the same stage with her 8 years ago at buddha tooth temple for DLS item. although there are only 20 dancers in total, but i think the overall quality of the dancers was stronger compared to last year. 

Opening Item: 天之上 云卷云舒 Clouds Billowing
Choreographer: Xuehong

天之下 风吹草舞 Wind Whirling
Choreographer: Elizabeth Chan

地之刚 峰峦月下 Moon Soaring
Choreographer: Bin gege

地之柔 碧波浩瀚 Waves Rippling
Choreographer: Nah Jiemin

地之烈 动如雷震 Thunder Rumbling
Choreographer: Viv

人之欲 患得患失 Desire Unending
Choreographer: Yoke Kay

Crowd Favourite Item (that's why deserve 2 photos hahahahaha): 人之爱 矢志不渝 Love Enduring
Choreographer: Xuehong

人之和 和睦祥安 Peace Everlasting
Choreographer: Bai Laoshi

and the finale!! arranged by xuehong!! super duper nice. totally what we should expect from the GWH choreographer. :)

WELL DONE 新艺舞团!!! 

the national exams

this year is my 3rd time doing the chief presiding examiner role for the year end national exams. 

first time was in 2013. second time was last year. both the first and second time are at secondary schools in tampines. 

and the 3rd time, is of course at a school in the north. and it is at one of the most talked about schools, if you have been following the news. :p

so anyway, if you have not been following the news, these students (who are from sec 5) sat for the wrong maths paper 1, because the teacher of that school, who is one of the HODs, registered the paper of the wrong subject code. 

how did the students realise? after the paper 1, when the students went back home and start to compare their answers from their friends of different schools, they realise that they actually sat for the wrong paper. they alerted my presiding examiner, and also alerted their form teacher, and shortly after that the principal knew about this matter and... you can guess the repercussions after that. 

so the next day, when i go to tiong bahru to collect the exam papers, i was given the maths paper 2 of the correct subject code for these sec 5 students. 

definitely the school have to do the necessary follow up, which is to work with cambridge to mark the paper 1 in such a way that the students will not be short changed. and the school also have to make a phone call to every single parent of these sec 5 students, to assure the parents that their children will not be short changed. 

there were other incidents that also happened during the year end national exams. 

the other major one actually happened at my previous workplace, when one of the private candidates actually use a bluetooth earpiece to communicate with his friends, during an english paper. he got caught by one of the invigilators. 

the next one is during the english listening comprehension. there was actually an interference during the first 3 seconds of the broadcast. at first i was so worried, thinking that whether is there something wrong with the radios. but after checking with my friends who are also CPEs/PEs of various schools, then we found out that it is a nation wide problem. and hence the radio station replayed the broadcast again for the first passage, and as a result... the listening compre paper ended later... -.-'''

thank goodness after that... no major mishaps happened. and the national exams was finally concluded last friday. :)

on a side note, this is my first time conducting the national exams at an air conditioned hall! so happy!!!

11 Nov post

the most beautiful birthday cake ever. thank you darling. (photo taken from cream and custard instagram account)

and this is my first birthday as a father. what an important milestone. :)

some meaningful birthday wishes: 

"happy birthday mr tan! 做好老公好父亲是必须的，但也不要忘记对自己好一点。"

"happy birthday mr tan! thank you for always giving me so many opportunites in dance and for letting me be a part of your many milestones in life. have a blessed birthday!"

"happy birthday mr tan!! thank you for always being the most supportive teacher!! thank you for all the opportunities you have given me, and allowing me to see through many milestones in your life!! continue staying cool and awesome yah!!"

BEING 天地人和

新艺 Dance Company is proud to present their year end show: BEING 天地人和


Based on the concept of Heaven, Earth and Man. The show will travel through 3 Chinese dance styles namely; Han Tang, Classical and Ethnic Chinese dance with some contemporary elements. 

Come and enjoy an evening of diverse Chinese dance choreographies with them!

27 November 2016 | 7pm
Victoria Theatre
Standard Price $25, Student Price $20

For tickets, please contact 9763 0573 or email xinyidancecompany@gmail.com

Photo Credits to James Wong

thursday post

on tuesday evening, i was at the living room watching tv. darling was in the bedroom with yuanze. and then she whatsapp me, ask me to go to the other bedroom to get yuanze's body powder. 

ok so let me explain about the demographics of the bedrooms. right now i am staying with my in-laws. let's name the in-laws' place as 663. 663 has 4 bedrooms - 1 master bedroom for the in-laws, and 1 bedroom each for darling, darling's two sisters. 

darling's jiejie bedroom is used to put yuanze's 摇篮. so whenever who does night duty with yuanze, the person will sleep at darling's jiejie bedroom. sunday night, and monday night to thursday night, darling will sleep in 摇篮 room with yuanze. i will sleep in 摇篮 room on friday night and saturday night. 

darling's bedroom is used to put yuanze's baby cot. the baby cot is the place for yuan ze to 抹身 and change diapers. 抹身 is the tone down version of bathing, which will happen in the evening. bathing takes place in the morning. 

all right so let's go back to the episode where i am watching tv at the living room. so darling was at the 摇篮 room with yuanze, and she msg me and ask me to go to the baby cot room to get yuanze's body powder. so i hurriedly walk to the baby cot room, took the body powder, and went to the 摇篮 room and pass it to darling. 

darling look at me and said: "you never see anything else?!"

i was thinking to myself, what should i see?

so i went back to the baby cot room, and behold, i saw this: 

darling actually went to causeway point on that morning and bought 2 more figurines, ultron and black widow, to add on to my captain america and ironman! thank you darling! it was a really nice surprise and i was so so so happy for the whole night, so happy that all my tiredness from doing o level duty went away and so happy until i couldn't sleep. :)

the next day there was only one paper in the morning, and it was from 8 am to 930 am. so darling and i decided to go and have some quality couple time. super thankful to my mum in-law for taking care of yuanze while we go enjoy our couple time. 

first, we went to cream and custard, which is just opposite SEAB. SEAB is the place that i collect and return papers everyday. 

on the left is their signature strawberry watermelon cake, but both of us actually prefer the passion fruit cake on the right. they also have the special galaxy cake, which unfortunately was not ready yet. after eating the cakes we went to sushi bar at far east plaza, which darling has a very big craving for ever since she got pregnant. we ordered the usual stuff: scallop mentaiyaki, salmon aburi roll, hotate salmon aburi roll, and we also ordered their special promotion item which is the salmon fin karage. and OMG the salmon fin karage is so good! deep fried until perfection and the salmon flesh is so tender, so juicy and so fresh. 

today is 10 nov, and 4 years ago, this happened: 

thank you grace tiang, jingwen, hw, nzj and fen for helping with the epic wedding proposal. and thank you darling, for saying yes on that day. :)