Work Those Thighs!

Tuesday January 22^nd, 2013

It has been weeks and weeks of construction right by my house. Weeks! The noise is loud but tolerable for the most part. For the past couple days, not so much. Not only is it right outside my window but I’m inhaling what smells like toxic fumes. For the lack of air freshener, sweet pea perfume comes to the rescue! XD

Meeting at 1:00PM, we formed a group consisting of ten people. Some people you know included Akiko, Will, Leo and Kelly. The others were exchange students who I’m only acquaintances with. We all went hiking to a place called Mt. Thumb. The weather was a bit intimidating because clouds loomed over the skies and a slight drizzle could be felt. Personally I liked this weather because it was cooler, had a cold breeze and didn’t rain in the end. I needed the cooling weather effect because Andrea sure pushed herself by sweating substantially.

With the combo of Taiwan making me out of shape and not climbing mountains in Texas, I had a bit of a hard time. Some stairs were really steep and knocked the breath right out of the old lungs. Pair that up with the stairs ascending up for long stretches, I was panting for breath. XD Leo and Kelly easily went up the mountain like it was nothing but I’m glad at least I was able to be one of the faster ones. It gives me hope I’m not completely hopeless when it comes to hiking. XD Though when we finished our hike, Leo said that this was one of the easiest paths in Taipei. …Oh snap! It was a hard enough challenge trying to keep up on this one but to think that it was considered easy…I’m definitely out of shape. XD

The top of Mt. Thumb didn’t have the ideal view. We could tell it would show a vast amount of Taipei City and the mountains surrounding it but there was just too much fog to see anything. In fact, we were right inside a cloud at the top. You could feel the dampness and chill of the cloud. Nice air conditioner from nature to cool us off. XD I like how I can now say I ate a Taiwanese cloud because I did! Just chop into the air and viola! Cloud consumed! Mmm, cotton candy! XD

Photos of our journey!

After trekking back down and taking a bus, we had dinner at a little Taiwanese shop with a menu featuring wonton noodle soup of different sorts. I settled for ‘pork wontons with vegetables soup’ that didn’t have noodles. The good workout of a hike through death-to-lung stairs was not going to be ruined by unneeded carbs. These wontons were HUGE amounting to about five ear sized ones. Their taste was very delicious as well.

There were two darling Eclectuses outside of the shop that made me squeal with delight. Reason #1, I saw tropical birdies in Taipei! Reason #2, I saw my favorite breed of birdies in Taipei! Reason #3, I saw my favorite breed of birdies both a male and a female in Taipei! Double dose of color! Seeing and hearing them was chicken soup for my soul! I love birdies! ^_^

Except for a few people who broke off from the group, the rest of us grabbed drinks following dinner, some at a coffee shop, others at a milk tea place and me dashing into 7-Eleven. I preferred the healthy route of 100% fruit juice, which required a convenient store’s help. Drink shops may have fruit juice but it’s not necessarily 100% fruit.

Once all equipped with drinks we went to the ‘Bellavita,’ a super expensive shopping place but containing a nice place to sit down and chat. Following that was checking out a new Nespresso store that recently opened in Taipei. Nespresso has invaded Taiwan for the first time! Whoo! We went to check it out and get a couple samples. I had two different samples but both were decafe. If I consumed caffeine so late at night, Andrea would not be sleeping for the next seven hours. :P Learning about the products was also enjoyable for everyone (six people left). If we had the money, all of us would have bought a Nespresso machine. XD

Random thing to pose with. Meh, why not?

Our night group (plus Leo as cameraman)!

The night finished with a short trip to ‘eslite’ bookstore, the Barnes ‘n Nobles of Taipei. I found this cool cooking book with Taiwanese cuisine, in Chinese of course, but with many interesting recipes. I was tempted to buy it because it could help me learn Chinese cooking terms and if all else failed, I could run the characters through a translator. What prevented me from doing so was the sheer heaviness of the book. Gosh it will not be easy getting all my stuff back to the USA and the last thing I need is a bunch of heavy things. I do want a Chinese/Taiwanese cooking book to learn how to make such creations of food but first I think some exploration is required. We’ll see. :)

That’s all folks! Nighty night!