One Sunday Morning

Last Sunday morning, the mother and the daughter decided to have their breakfast at a café they frequented in the neighborhood.

Before they left, the conversation went :

     - hv you got your handphone? yes
     - my handphone? yes
     - ipad? yes
     - ok, lets go.

And so they drove to the café, sat down, made their orders. While waiting for the food, they both busied themselves with the devices they have. When the food arrived, they ate and chatted and gossiped about other patrons in the café as usual.

When they were contented with the food warm in their stomach, the mother took the ugly recycled bag from some boutique and started to fumble for the purse and...... she stared at the daughter and said ....

    - I don hv my purse (with a big grin)
    - wat??? 
      - you remember the phones and the ipad and not the purse?
        - brilliant mi!! great job!!
    - now wat??
    - u drive home and I wait here
    - huh????
    - just go!!!!

So the mother drove like a mad woman making U-turns and passing a few traffic light to reach home and backed to the café some 15mins later. The daughter was seen with a "blacked" face :

   - wat took u so long??
   - eh, u think our hse is just at the back lane ah??
   - I need to go to the toilet!!!
   - why din u??
   - I was afraid that the staff wld think tat I was trying to run off!! they were eyeing me fr the corner
   - go now lor....
  
And so the episode ended with :

  - this is not the first time u know...
     - can u pls help me by reminding me...
       - u know yr ma is getting old...
  - yayaya...okoko
     - remember tat time.....u forgot....
       - ya...and u found it in yr bag...
  - hahaha....
  - ya...hahaha!!!

I am just saying that the life we live now is all about smart phones and gadgets. At home, when I am going upstairs , I always make sure I bring along my phone forgetting the glasses and other stuff and cursing when I reach the floor.
  

Hong Kong Disneyland (2)

In Disney's Storybook Theater, we watched the live performance in Broadway Style. It was very grand and absolutely entertaining! 

The Golden Mickey Theater.

It's called the Golden Mickey's and presented by favorite Disney characters.

I remember we had lunch there before we found ourselves in "It's A Small World". Here we rode in a small boat in a small canal with the music of the theme song and the display along both sides of the canal. 

It's A Small World.

Beautiful and colorful.

In Adventureland, we were entertained with the live show called "Festival of Lion King". Another grand and spectacular performance by the Lion King characters.

Simba, the lion, Timon and Pumbaa.

Bao remember the Stitch Encounter where it had an interactive session with none other than Stitch itself. It was truly enjoyable for her. We got to choose the language preferred which was English.

Picture from the official webpage.

We also watched the Mickey's PhilharMagic 3D show which was definitely captivating and mesmerizing. I remember gems flying out and reached just a few inches in front of our eyes and kids with stretch arms trying to touch.  

Picture from the official webpage.

In the Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh, we took the ride in a very cute little car. The adventure brought us to the world of Winnie and the friends.

Later in the day, we came upon Tarzan's Tree House which is on an island. To get there, we had to take a ride in the special raft.

Tarzan's Tree House.

Picture from the official webpage.

Found Tarzan in the house but Jane was no where to be seen.

We had our first ever Geyser encounter in the Geyser Gulch where Bao was frighten by the sudden gush of water.

At night, we were very tired. While waiting for the fire works, we took the railroad and had witness the beauty of the whole park at night.

The fantasy land glittered at night.

The Sleeping Beauty Castle at night .

With this, we bid farewell to the wonderful place and hope that we would be back again.

Hong Kong Disneyland (1)

At the entrance.

We went to this dreamland in 2008 when Bao was still living in the world of fairy tales.....don't want to wait until she outgrows it.

But to our astonishment, we, the adults were also having a lot of fun there!

Indeed, we lost ourselves in this fantasy world.

First, we found ourselves at the Main Street that lined with exquisite shops on both sides of the street. 

Dared not to spend too much time here, we made some brief stops before we walked further in and met these 2 princes by the road. And Bao asked to kiss princess Belle and the princess immediately lower herself and offered her cheek. Princess Aurora talked to her and said she like Bao's hair syle.

Hello Aurora.....hello Belle...nice to meet you!

And....look....who is this?

Then, we reached the parade street and like others, we sat down by the curb and waited. When the music was heard, and the first in line came into view, we were so excited.

The atmosphere was just sooo great!

Here comes Mickey and the gang!!

Alice ...... and the wonderland!!!

Aww......Cinderella.......Snow.......

Arial hidden among the sea, Donald, Chipmunk, the Toy Sory.

When it was over, we continued to stroll along and when we came upon photo session with Mickey, the line was just far too long. We couldn't afford to waste the time , so we took photos with "not-so-populars", like...

Good old Pluto ..

Goofy and Winnie the pooh. 

Though it was not a super peak season, the lines to certain attractions were seen far too long to queue. There were signs on every attraction to indicate the waiting time, some were as long as 1 hour. As we only had 1 day to cover the whole park, we had no choice but to give up on those spots. 

TO BE CONTINUED.......

Taiwan Round Island Trip Dec 2009 (3)

From Hualien, we traveled along the east coast which is facing the Pacific Ocean. If I am right, the name is 苏花高速公路 and it's one of the most scenic road in Taiwan. At one turning point, I looked down and saw the front tyre rolling extremely close to the edge of the cliff. The road was quite treacherous but the view was really fantastic and I was comparing it to the Great Ocean Road in Australia in my mind. 

Picture contersy of 苏花公路,it says 台湾最美“死亡公路”.

Then we stopped at the 妈祖庙 before we reached the 香格里拉农场in Yilan. The driver was having difficulty in locating the place. When we finally arrived, it was late. Straight away we had our dinner at the restaurant. We were then being entertained by a series of programs arranged by the farm . 

We were dead tired after all the programs. We only had a chance to look at the farm when we woke up the next morning but sadly it was time for us to leave. No chance to enjoy the farm.

 

It was quite a nice place .

We had made a big round around Taiwan island and were now heading to Taipei again. We had Mongolia Grill for lunch before we reached 九份, an old mining town with very unusual narrow street that is built on the mountain side. We had to walk up and down in the pavement steps with tiny shops on both sides in the rain. It was here we tasted the wild boar sausage of Taiwan.  

It was drizzling and colddddd.....

Poor Bao,cold and wet.

 

It was quite a nice place if it was not for the weather.

When we were back to Taipei again. It was the time for National Palace Museum with tons of previous treasures from china.

Bao at  the concourse of the muzuem.

This  place is so big that we were to follow the guide to a few outstanding items on display only. It's just not possible to tour the museum on our own.

 

Audio devise are provided with the infos of the incredible muzuem.

First, we were introduced to the most precious of them all. 


This is called 毛公鼎and it is the 镇馆之宝. The guide pointed out that the legs resemble those of n animal but I don't remember the reason behind the 镇馆之宝.

 

This is another prominent one. A piece of rock that resemble a piece of pork. It is actually very small in size but the look of it is amazing!

The craftsmanship of this piece is super exquisite with tiny crickets on the leave.

There are many porcelain with beautiful pastel color on display and even more bronze and copper artifacts. This place is meant for those who really know how to appreciate these world class treasures! They are priceless!!
 

To my delights, our dinner was to be spent at the 五角板桥which I read about before we went. It looks more like an art gallery than a restaurant.

 

Not only the ambience of the restaurant is so unique and interesting, the food served was very delicious. We had a very nice time there enjoying the food with the mother-and-daughter team.

 Taipei 101 Tower is the last in our itinerary. Unfortunately there wasn't time for us to go up to the observation deck. We could only walked around the shopping area which happen to look like our KLCC.

For only RM2,700/pax, I think there is nothing much to complain about. It covered all the accommodations and most of the meals. The rushing for destination is just something you have to accept when you opt for a tour though given a choice, I will not consider joining a tour again.

 

Taiwan Round Island Trip dec 2009 (2)

In Kaoshiong, we were first brought to FoGuangShan, the biggest monastery in Taiwan. It was founded by the renowned 星雲法師 in 1967. Since then, there were other subsidiaries in other part of the world and there is one in Jenjarom.

The main hall , 大雄宝殿。

Around the big monastery.

 

Big bronze statue.

We were also being brought to the Dragon & Tiger pagoda by the Lotus Lake. I remember when everybody was on board the bus to leave, there was a lady in our tour went missing and the guide had to go around to look for her. She was found busied herself with some stuff she wanted to buy.

The pagoda of Tiger and Dragon.

 

Lake Lotus is a big lake in Kaoshiong.

 

Though sunning but the temperature was low.

Then we traveled 7 hours in the bus all the way to Hualien and we had crossed the island from the west to the east with some small stops along the way.  The worries that I had before this episode didn't exist as Bao was enjoying the funny video they played .

We were treated to the cultural show there at night. 

 

The highlight of the whole tour and the reason I chose this tour is specially for the Taroko Gorge National Park.  

At the point they stopped the bus and let us got down.

The weather was quite cold when we were there. There we were being introduced to the few spots in the Park. No chance to wonder around the huge park on our own. But I was quite impressed with the narrow gorge squeezed in between high and almighty cliff. It was really a regret that we couldn't spend some time to appreciate the beauty of this place.

We had to put on the helmet for the falling rocks. The background of the steep.

 Look how narrow the cliff is. 九曲洞.

Looking down.....

The Must-Stop spot.

After that, we were brought to a marble factory. This is another "requirement", something the travel agent need to do is to bring the tourist to visit Taiwan made products.

We had no interest at all, so we waited outside.

No doubt they are very finely made.

To be continued.....