Yilan Day 2

Woke up at 5 am plus automatically. My body clock is now tuned like that, thanks to my job, and also because of my duty as a father. 

I open up the curtains a bit, and saw the sunrise! Felt so happy. Stepped out of my room and went to witness it. Felt so blessed that I am able to stand here and witness something so nice and so magical. 

Let me say more about 蜻蜓石. It was opened by this guy, 石教授, who is a professor, and his area of research is insects. Based on what I know, and the information that I gathered through magazines and TV shows, he chanced upon this piece of land high up in the mountain, and then he noticed many dragonflies here. And he spotted an opportunity as well as potential in this piece of land, and decided to build a 民宿 on this piece of land, and the 民宿 architecture is shaped like a dragonfly, and hence this place is called 蜻蜓石, because of the dragonfly design and the professor's surname. 

This place is really great, and is a place that I really will want to come back again, even though the drive up to this place is quite torturous. Google maps brought me to this nice house up in the mountain, but is actually not 蜻蜓石, and thank god darling spotted a sign labelled 蜻蜓石 further in front, and I followed the signs all the way for another 1.5 km. Omg. But once we reach this place, the scenery and the positive vibes coming out from this place totally made the drive worth it!

breakfast! looks good isnt it? hot porridge with sweet potatoes, carrot cake, egg, saba fish, chicken floss, some purplish green veges plucked from their garden, together with warm soya bean milk. definitely a breakfast for champions. 

thankful for this good weather because before we came to yilan, we checked the weather forecast and it said that it will be raining everyday for the whole time we are in yilan. in fact, day 1 and the morning part of day 2 was the only time we saw the sun. after that it was rain, rain and rain. this pic shows yuanze using his hand to touch the water in the pool to feel for himself how cold the water was. 

we went for a farm tour, conducted by one of their staff. he was very knowledgeable and introduced us the various fruits, plants and animals that they have in the farm. 

yuanze also had the opportunity to collect eggs at the chicken coop! its really once in a lifetime experience for him. 

we checked out at 11 am and our first destination for day 2 was Lanyang Museum. the design is nice, but we did not go in and view the exhibits (because we are not museum people LOL). so we straight away proceed to the next destination, that is called 掌上明珠, for lunch. 

掌上明珠 is a very atas restaurant, and serves omakase for lunch/dinner. for kids, they have an ala carte dish, that is fried rice. the omakase lunch course is NT1500 (SGD68). 

the words written on the table cloth is actually the menu. 10 dishes in total! omg. there is only 8 dishes in the pic because my hp camera anglen not wide enough. 

first dish: appetiser. bun with sweet potato filling, with ikura on top. and i also found out only today that yuan ze likes to eat ikura. #mindblown

that is the fried rice dish for yuanze. tastes quite good. yuanze loves the little coloured balls at the side. we asked the waitress what it is and wanted to buy for yuanze if is available in taiwan supermarkets. the waitress said is actually some sort of rice krispies and can only be found in japan supermarkets. WOWWWW. 

THIS FISH IS DA BOMB. so so so good. the whole white chunk on top is salt. 

this prawn also. omg, so so so good. 

after lunch, we went to our 2nd accomodation for this trip to check in. our 2nd accomodation is 湖漾189风格旅店. 

this 湖漾189风格旅店 is a heaven for kids. they have a big playing area indoor, as well as a big playing area outdoor. they have many electronic motor vehicles. yuanze was really so thrilled. 

as for the room, we booked the 亲子三人房. NT4800 (SGD218) per night, breakfast included. 

  

WARNING: the toilet is a bit too open. HAHAHAHA. 

one of the reasons why yuanze love this place so much. 

anyway this place is quite ulu. so in yilan, it is best that you rent a vehicle and self drive. for our dinner for both nights, i drove to nearby restaurants to da bao food back to eat. 

that's it for day 2!

Yilan Day 1

The nth time that I am going to Taiwan. This time we decided to just focus on Yilan, because we want to bring Yuan Ze to the nature places, for example animal farms and fruit farms. We want Yuan Ze to experience something that he can never get to experience in Singapore. 

converting yuan ze to become an adidas ambassador. 

at the departure gate, waiting to board our flight. i also bumped into my jc friend. didnt know she was here until she sent me an instagram msg, saying that she saw me. hahahaha. she is going to osaka with her family. 

reached taoyuan airport at about 12 plus in the afternoon. darling went to the nursing room for her mother duty, while i go collect the car. this time we decided to self drive, because yilan is quite inaccessible in terms of public transport and hiring a personal driver is more expensive.

so off we go to our first destination, that is our 民宿 called 蜻蜓石. it cost NT7800 (SGD354) per night on their website. but they only allow pple to book on their website 3 weeks in advance. but on airbnb, i can book it 1 month in advance. being the kiasu singaporean, in case the rooms run out, i book on airbnb first. book on airbnb has its cons as well, because got hidden fees such as the airbnb service fee and cleaning fee. hence next time if i want to book, i will book on their own website. high chance will be able to get a room, as long as you dun book on saturday nights, and avoid their summer vacation (that is around july august period). anyway i booked the cheapest room that is on level one, where you can see the pool. the rooms on level 2 can see the yilan scenery and of course more expensive. 

the drive to 蜻蜓石 was stressful, because it is left hand drive in taiwan. the last time i did left hand drive was 5 years ago, with brotherhood. and i didnt sleep much the previous night, so i was quite tired. but thank goodness, we reached 蜻蜓石 safe and sound, and we are blessed with good weather! 

蜻蜓石 also provides afternoon tea, dinner and breakfast for their guests. so for that amount of money, i think is quite worth it. the dinner is omakase style! as for yuanze, they prepared steamed egg, braised pork rice, a bowl of soup and fruits. that was more than enough for yuanze. 

the appetiser palette. 

the chicken was so good. from their own farm. so tender, so juicy. 

their version of goreng pisang. 

dessert. 

there were other dishes as well, for eg the sashimi platter and the soup dish. both dishes were so so so so good that we forgot to take pics. the dishes above were very good as well. 

stay tuned for Day 2!

11.11

it has come to the point that my birthday, 11 Nov, is closely related to Shopping Day. this year alot of birthday wishes come in "Happy Birthday and Happy Shopping!!" along that line. hahahahaha. 

for me, the birthday celebration kicked off at my sister's newly renovated condo. she ordered hai di lao to her house. she chose the cheapest package, that is $260.00. and then we ownself buy more ingredients from the supermarket. damn shiok to eat hai di lao steamboat in the comfort of our own home. 

the next day, darling and i brought yuanze and enxuan to ArtScience Museum for the Walt Disney Exhibition. Thank you darling for the tickets. :)

the best part of the exhibition for me is the theatre that shows video clips of the mulan movie, and then prompt us on what instruments to use for sound effects. enxuan enjoyed it alot and spent quite some time there. :D

thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! 

Teacher's Day 2019

The celebrations for Teacher's Day 2019 kicked off with our ACES Day dance. Simply amazing to see 1200 students and teachers dance together in the parade square. 

Next is the class party, organised by my form class. To be honest, I was not expecting much, but when I stepped into the classroom, I was amazed by the amount of effort they had put in. They exceeded my expectations. :)

Lastly is Staff Appreciation Dinner. This year the dinner is held at Lakehouse @ ORTO. The theme is Avengers. I am a huge fan of Avengers and of course I was super thrilled when this theme was approved by the P. I was still thinking of what to dress up as, then as I was scrolling through my instagram feed, I saw that my friend, Kenny Seong, who also happen to stay near me, posted a photo of the Mjolnir (Thor's hammer). So I asked him does it belong to him, and yes it belongs to him, and I ask him if I can borrow it from him, and he agreed to it. So yayyyyyyyy, my next step is to search for a Thor costume, and I managed to find one from Miio Costume!

This year, I was the emcee for the Staff Appreciation Dinner, together with our in-house emcee Nuriah. So happy to finally get the chance to partner with her! And her effort in dressing as Incredible Hulk is 100%!

It was a day filled with fun, love and laughter. Thank you to my students for the gifts and cards, thank you to my colleagues for the gifts, and Happy Teacher's Day to all my fellow teachers!