Monday, May 17, 2010

My day off.....shopping around town

Here in Tucson we have this little Mexican snack stand called Aquas Frescas. Located in our main mall it is always bringing in customers/shoppers! Every time I'm out therapy shopping (as I like to call it :P) I have to stop by and get a raspados. What is a raspados you might ask? Well, it is pure joy in your mouth with bursting tastes of sweet fruit juice and ice. hehe. As you can see the picture below, you first choose which flavor raspados you would like. I believe they have 10 or so to choose from. I always get strawberry and mango mixed...mmmmm!
Once you pick you're flavor they then add shaved ice to the fruit juice and you can also have the option of adding ice cream to it. (which I do! I tastes soo much better)
So, here is the finished product. You can see the strawberry juice on the bottom, then the vanilla ice cream added, and then the shaved ice on top topped with dulce de luche.


They have sooo many flavor and varieties to choose from.

Anthony is in love with their chips. In Mexico, they have these tostito chips that they top with your choice of zesty ingredients. Anthony likes the chips with the sweet chili sauce (known as chemuy) garnished with fresh cucumber chunks.




I like my chips with the "works." It has cucumbers, sweet chili sauce, cabbage, Parmesan cheese and last but not least fresh lime squeezed on top of it. Mmmmmm!!!! Delicious! What makes it taste even better is that these chips already have a zangy taste to them that compliments all the other ingredients in the bag. (picture it tasting like the salsa verde dorito flavor chip) If you're ever in Tucson, stop by the Tucson mall and get one of these!! :)

As I saw these shoes, iI thought of Korea and how I can picture Korean hip hip boys wearing something like this (the neon color Vans).....I just hope I don't see anyone here wearing them...hahaha
I thought this was SO cute and I was surprised to see this at the mall. It's rare that you see some type of anime used for advertisement/decoration here in the states. (Unless you're in the comic store or an Asian market, haha)
I wanted to buy this cute lil key chain...but then I saw the $8 price tag. I know, I know. It doesn't seem t-h-a-t expensive but it does to me when I compare it to when I got to Korea and what Iwould pay there. :P
I wanted to buy these.....but where would I wear them?? If I wore these here people would think I'm either ill or weird.... That's why I can't wait to go to Korea. It'll give me an excuse to wear some animal ears! hahaha

Don't these just look so cute?? It's just unfortunate that this is the only store practically in the city that sells "cute" things. Unlike Korea, where there are sooo many stationary stores and cute boutiques, it's hard finding something decently cute in Tucson. When you do find something you'll defiantly have to pay the price. T_T

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Duk Boki....mmmm!!

So, today Anthony made duk boki for us and it was the best!!!! This was actually our first time trying it and it came out pretty good!! We like our's pretty spicy so we made sure there was alot of go chu chang paste in the soup base. Add some eggs and ........soft duk pieces.....viola! Oh, and instead of fish cake (being we didn't have any laying around the house) we added mini smokies and it was delicious!!! You should try it!! The only thing is our duk was frozen so we had to wait until it was thawed out in the water (just for 30 minute or so.)





I can't wait until we go to Korea. We'll be eating this almost everyday!! (especially being that they sell them on almost every street corner so we don't have to dirty our dishes! hahaha)

The only thing that sucks is that if there are any leftovers you can't microwave it. I tried bringing it to work (so i wouldn't have to eat my work "food") and it didn't turn out so good. When you try to microwave it the duk actually get kinda hard. **eeww** So, I had to wait until I was at home to dump it on the stove and fire it up. It turned out much better that way.... :)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Tuntex Sky Tower hi-def photos

I took these photos on May 9th 2010 in Kaohsiung

Northeastern corner of Tuntex sky Tower.

Northern part of the Tuntex Sky Tower.

Northwestern corner of the Tuntex Sky Tower.

The top of the tower close-up.

View from the southern part of the building, which is facing the Kaohsiung harbor.

Tuntex Sky Tower from above, taken from Google maps (source).

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The beautiful desert

The desert is so beautiful here during the spring. The wildflowers start to bloom and the wildlife is active. The only thing that I don't look forward to are the rattlesnakes and mosquitoes. The heat can defiantly be a killer too. Today it was like 90 degrees! It only gets warmer from there. Being that I hate drinking water this is the wrong state to live in. You can't walk to the mailbox without breaking a sweat.Did you know that it's a felony to cut down one of these saguaro cacti? Yep, sure is. These things live till like 200+ years.

Monday, May 10, 2010

More "Yummy" days....


Another day another gag. Today was chicken pot pie or the choice of "beef." (more like high sodium flavored dog food.. ) The only other "healthy" option was the withered spinach that is probably reused everyday until it's gone. The potatoes were looking pretty bad as well...all dried up and burnt.....Luckily I bring my own lunch to work if not I would either starve to death or.... have high cholesterol which will lead to death either way...hahaha





What would I do without my ramen?? I eat it almost every other day...

My cute lil lunch box that I got from Korea.....


This lipgloss smells so good and works so well! My boyfriend's mother gave it to me from Korea. It's called "luxury." Where can i buy another one??



Sunday, May 9, 2010

My Korean Wishlist.......

Before I got to Korea I'm making a list of allllll the cute things I want to stock up on. One thing you'll never see in the states- Adults wearing animal hats.... Those are the cutest things!! That's one of the many reasons I love Korea/Koreans because everything is so cute and innocent there. It warms my heart! ^-^












Images sources from wink-mall.blogspot.com

So cute, right?? Even if i got one and brought it back home I can only imagine the looks from people....thinking I'm crazy or something. -_-

Saturday, May 8, 2010

"Yummy" work food

It always surprises me for some reason on how my work is allowed to serve these odd/questionable foods in the employee cafeteria. Sometimes as I'm looking down the line I feel like I can compare this to prison food. It just disappoints me being that we have chefs that make really good gourmet food (for the guests) yet the associates get......mystery meat. I'm willing to eat leftovers from the restaurants than this-----------








I came across a cute blog about an English teacher teaching in Japan and if only I could eat what he eats everyday.... -_- --------------->





I imagine this is probably how English teachers in Korea eat as well. You can't really go wrong with rice, kimchi and panchans. I'm so jealous......

Please America. Help us by feeding us real food (no hormone injected chickens or corn feed cows...)


Sunday, May 2, 2010

Yeliu Geopark 野柳, Taiwan

Taiwan's famous geological curiosity


Yeliu Geopark (野柳地质公园, sometimes spelled as Yehliu or Yehliou, Chinese 野柳) is a famous geological park in northern Taiwan, close to Keelung City, the biggest city on Taiwan's northern coast. My girlfriend brought me there for the first time and I wasn't sure what to expect. But when I saw this amazing natural wonder, I was totally stunned. This is definitely something for nature lovers, even though there are many tourists. Let me show you how to go to Yeliou Geopark and what can you expect to see.

If you go to Yeliu from Taipei, you need to go to Taipei Main Station and take the normal train to Keelung (it'll take you about 1h). Once you reach Keelung's main station, exit and walk right (you'll see an overpass, cross the road that way and turn right again). It's very close to the station, maybe 5min away. There you'll see buses stopping at one of Keelung's main roads and people waiting for them. Take a bus to Wanli, a small township (takes around 30min) and ask the driver to tell you, when you arrive at Wanli, because it's not the final destination. The Yeliu Geopark is right next to it, but you have to walk around 15min from the station through Wanli to reach the entrance to the Geopark. Just walk on the main road and you'll be fine. The township is very small, but also very beautiful, with 2 temples and a small bay. Photo on the left is the entrance, the admission is 50NTD per person (adults), that's about 1.2 Euros at the current rate.

See my map of the famous spots in Northern Taiwan (around Keelung):

Yeliu - Wanli - Keelung - Miaokou Night Market - Ruifang - Jiufen

These are my best photos of the Yeliu Geopark:

The area before you enter the park is full of tourists, buses park here. Most are Mainland Chinese.

After paying admission, you have to walk for along this paved lane for a while.

This is the north eastern direction.

The Yeliu cape with the lattice transmission tower.

The Yeliu cape again.

The view on the left opened up and we saw these amazing rock formations.

I'm trying to grasp the image, something I have never seen before.

YeliuThis is a map of all geological phenomena. Please click to enlarge (Map source: Yeliu Homepage)

These stones are called hoodoo stones. Some of them have very unique forms.

A Taiwanese girl taking photos. I like those natural pots full of water.

This looks like it's located on the Moon. But no, this is Yeliu.

Another closeup on the pots.

This is totally like on the Moon, don't you agree?

A small thin cape next to the bigger Yeliu cape. Fishermen like it.

The fishermen from close: They were busy and probably see nothing special in these formations.

Taiwan's rocky shores of the northern coast.

A pathway was carefully placed here, so visitors don't damage the landscape.

The Moon again.

And then we saw the world famous Queen's Head, the most popular formation here. It's one of the symbols of Taiwan and everyone wants to take a photo here. Read more about her here>>

A small bridge.

At the cape on the eastern side.

The lattice transmission tower from close.

We climbed up and had this amazing view.

The Yeliu cape from above.

We enjoyed a wonderful sunset. See more photos here>>

Before we left, we saw a statue of a fisherman, who saved many lives of people, that were drowning here.

Yeliu Geopark is truly one of the most amazing spots in all of Taiwan. Sure, you need a little more time and effort to reach there, but it's truly worth to see. The whole area around Keelung is amazing, so I definitely advise you to visit, in case you fly to Taipei. It's only few hours away and you can go on some fascinating day trips, in case you're finished with exploring the city. If you have any questions, ask me in the comments section.

[My TAIWAN page][My TAIPEI page][Info: Yeliu Homepage][All photos by MKL, 2010]