Parade of Signatures

In my previous post I have mentioned there that I will be posting about the parade of signatures inside the Taipei 101 mall. Okay, I admit, I confess, and I am aware that taking photos in front of these signature outlets are not allowed. But last time that we've been there, my husband and I really tried our best to make steal shots on these outlets. Sorry about that, I just want to have souvenirs.

So let me start with Chanel:

Let me tell you something about our experience with Louis Vuitton. Here is our first attempt:

And one of the male sales attendant gave us sign that we were not allowed to take shot because he saw my husband with the camera. At first I thought we did not made the shot so we move a little bit far but still in front of the outlet and capture again (**kulit!).

My shot with Prada was few steps away from the outlet because, you see that sales man standing in front of the entrance, he was staring at us until we left but we came back after few minutes and posed here instead.

There are so many signatures inside Taipei 101. If only I could capture them all I would do but I guess, that would be enough for me (for now). You can see larger views of these pictures on my Facebook.

Thank you for looking.

Six-day Chinese New Year 2011 holiday vacation

Our six-day Chinese New Year holiday vacation has finally ended last Monday. Everything is now back to normal, meaning we're back to work 9am-6pm a day, grocery at night, doing my online commitments at 9pm. Our holiday this year was shorter than the previous one. Before we had nine days at least. But no matter how short or long the holiday vacation is, this season is still one of my awaited moment of the year to have rest from work and to visit other places.

I share this event in a single post only. I know this could be pretty long but I tried at least to share to you where we have been and what we did in our past Chinese New Year holiday vacation.

Trip to Yilan. It was the first day of our Chinese New Year holiday vacation. Father Edgar, a Filipino priest here in Taipei invited us for a whole day trip at Yilan to see the Catholic Sanctuary of Our Lady of WuFongCi. Yilan County is one of the mountainous part of Taiwan and well-known for hot springs and SPA. At exactly 10am of Feb2, the four of us left Taipei (my husband Gerry, Fr. Edgar, and Vietnamese priest, Fr. Martin.) On the way to Yilan we passed the longest tunnel in Taiwan, the Hsuehshan Tunnel. The total length is 12.94 km, making the Hsuehshan Tunnel the second longest road tunnel in East Asia and the fifth longest road tunnel in the world. And it was indeed very long and very awesome!

Less than an hour we reached the place. We started to walk and we were about to climb up to that high part of the mountain. Have you seen the one that encircled in the image below? That was the cross of the church and that was our destination...pretty high!

Here we are together with Fr. Martin and Fr. Edgar with the amazing falls behind us. That was the first time in my life to see falls in super close up. We have been to Wulai once and I saw falls also (much bigger than this) but it was far from us even we were in cable car.

We reached the foot of the place which we were about to see. And of course before I made my first step on that stair, I've got to have a shot.

And finally, we reached the church. You see now the cross that I encircled on the first image I have posted above. I couldn't explain how I felt that time after I saw the cross, the church, the view, the statue of Our Lady of WuFongCi. It was like a journey to a holy place.

They said way back in 1980, a miracle happened on this mountain (highest part) where a miraculous lady appeared to some climbers who lost their way back home and this lady guided them to find the way of going back. They believed it was the Blessed Mary.

After taking some shots and smiles, we continued walking to a higher place of the mountain. We stopped up to this part because we were almost far. We're not actually prepared for mountain climbing because we really just wanted to see the church. They said it will take about 4 hours of climbing to reach the highest peak and we were not supposed to do that**LOL. I am afraid of heights and I was so afraid to look down but I tried because the place was very inviting.

We stayed there for couple of hours. We prayed, we took many shots, then by 3pm we started to walk down the mountain. We had so much fun and we felt the relaxing nature environment of the place which we did not experience in Taipei.

Stay home. This date was the Chinese New Year itself. We preferred to stay home since all establishments were closed, so silent, and solemn..so we did nothing but to clean up the house all day long instead.

Taipei 101/Watched movie. We went to Vieshow Cinemas (very near in Taipei 101) around 11am to watch movie, The Mechanic" (Jason Statham).

After we watched movie, we had our lunch at JS Doner Kebab, one of the famous Mediterranean cuisine here in Taipei. We ate the Chicken Kebab with Pilaf. This is our most favorite order at Vieshow Cinemas.

After we had our lunch, we went to Taipei 101 (as usual) since Vieshow Cinemas and Taipei 101 are neighboring buildings.

And of course my favorite scene to capture for Taipei 101:

After taking some pictures outside the building, we proceeded inside the Taipei 101 Mall.

Take a look at this shot:

Obviously this was taken in front of the Chanel outlet. I will make a separate post about those signature outlets at Taipei 101 mall. I have plenty of these kinds. My husband and I managed to make shots in different signature outlets inside the mall. As a matter of fact, this is not allowed (taking photos in front of the outlet) but we really tried our best to get ones for souvenir**LOL.

We left the vicinity of Taipei 101 almost late afternoon.

Jingmei Park. We love biking, playing badminton, and basketball. My husband and I have so much fun doing these together, and Jingmei Park is our favorite place for these recreations.

For our 4th day of holiday vacation, we went to Jingmei Park. We spent the whole afternoon biking around. Stop and snack. Chat and laugh. Smile and shot then biking again. The weather that day was very cooperative. The sun came out and we've got a lot of pictures to be kept and remembered.

Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. This was our 5th day of hopping around and my second time of visiting the place. We've been here last year's Lantern Festival. The place is really huge, perfect for family bonding, kite flying, and picture taking. We went there together with our friend, Arnely.

I grabbed an image from Wikipedia (image below) so that you can see the entire hall in its top view (because this shot is impossible for me to capture**LOL) :

Click the image to enlarge

Just a bit of info: The total building area covers 29,464 square meters on an open space of 115,000 square meters. Recently it became a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public. (Source:Wikipedia)



Okay, this was the last day of our Chinese New Year holiday vacation and for our last destination, CostCo Warehouse.

The nearest CostCo branch in our place is in Hsinchu City, can be reached by two rides (bus) in less than 45 minutes (since we used to ride in public bus only). Our last visit in CostCo was four months ago. My most favorite to shop in CostCo are the Kirkland chocolates especially the one with almonds inside. Yummy!

Whew...that was a non-stop hopping. We had lots of fun and we had lots of pictures, too. I don't know if how many GBs this event consumed in my hard drive. For now I do not bother yet to check because I am busy doing other things but later I will do for I have to clean up my hard drive.

We followed exactly what we have in our itinerary then, except for one thing. We failed to visit Shilin Night Market because we felt very tired and we didn't have any "power" to do walking at night. So we decided to set it some other time.

So until here. Thank you for your time checking what we did last holiday. And don't forget to get back here to check for my next post about my souvenir inside Taipei 101 mall. Have a great day to all!

I love February!

Welcome to the first day of the month for lovers! Everybody is getting so excited that the environment is filled with hearts and love. I am a sentimental person and I do love seeing red and hearts around me. I definitely know what's with this month to feel it something special than the rest of the months of the year..it's Valentine's Month. Some might say that we don't have to wait for February to show love but personally this has become my personal favorite season of the year..and it is still important to us to celebrate it extraordinarily special.

Let me tell you some reasons why I love February.

My birth month. I am a February girl, an Aquarian (where in the new horoscope it says I’m already a Pieces..nahh! I still want to be an Aquarian!). Yes I was born in the month of February and I hate to say this but I am turning 32 (very soon!) this year. This is the first reason why I love February more. Although I do not used to throw a birthday party, I just make sure that I offer a thanksgiving mass for another miracle year for me.

Valentine’s month. We all know that every 14th of February we celebrate the Valentine’s Day. Everywhere is full of hearts and lovers are really blooming. My husband and I celebrate Valentine's Day (it's true). We are not “corny” but we do dating and do endless courting. I love how our relationship goes and we are very much in-love with each other like we used to feel before marriage. Now that we have two boys (10y/o and 9y/o), we feel that we love each other more.

Still talking about compatibility I just want to share this...my husband Gerry is also an Aquarian. We belong to the same zodiac sign..our names sound really blending (Gerry and Grace), we are both eldest, and we even finished the same course in college (but in different time and place). And by the way, I just want to recall that last Valentine, I surprised Gerry with a bouquet of roses courtesy of Island Rose which I won from Sulit.com.ph's Valentine Postcard Making Contest. You can read my story about last Valentine here. This Valentine...hhmm.. I am still thinking what to give him!

Chinese New Year bonus (Red Envelope). Yay! Do I have to share this? For those who do not know yet about “Chinese Red Envelope", here's a caption from About.com:

A red envelope (紅包, hóngbāo) is simply a long, narrow, red envelope with money in it. Traditional red envelopes are often decorated with gold Chinese characters like happiness and wealth. Variations of the red envelope include red envelopes with cartoon characters and red envelopes from stores and companies that contain coupons and gift certificates inside.

Chinese New Year often celebrates in the month of February (depends on Chinese Lunar calendar). This year, Chinese New Year will be celebrated on February 3, and we will be having a week of holiday vacation from work (from Feb2~Feb7..yipe long vacation!). We feel so lucky and proud that our current company is giving us this "Red Envelope" (with money and gift certificate inside) every Chinese New Year. Are you asking me for how much is inside the envelope?...secret. It's a counter part of our 13th-month pay in the Philippines. And another thing, I forgot to tell you, I will be receiving a birthday $$ bonus for this month also, that's another benefit...so good, right?

Giveaways from our generous colleagues. Still in connection with Chinese New Year, some of our office mates give us some gifts for this season. And most of them are very generous enough, like us when we are celebrating our Christmas season. They also show and give love on Chinese New Year. Amanda, my husband's manager, gave us a set of Shiseido and Aquair (shampoo and body wash) products. I love these items so much because they are little bit expensive and as a matter of fact I can't afford to buy especially the travel kit from Shiseido.

Last Saturday, our former Taiwanese co-employee, Lance, met and treat us for a dinner. We ate duck hot-pot, just perfect for a very cold weather here. And before we parted that night he gave us a box of very sweet and delicious strawberries. By the way, this is Lance together with my husband Gerry after we had our dinner (..obviously I took the shot!).

So far, we don't have yet concrete plans where we to go this holiday vacation but we have some things we want to do. One of our priest in the church is inviting us to go somewhere in Ylan tomorrow so we are hoping for a good weather so that we can come. There is also an ongoing Floral Expo here in Taipei but I am afraid we can't go there because of being so crowded (I hate crowded place, actually). We also want to visit night markets and go on food trip. Another in our schedule is to go to Costco and do shopping (yipe!). The nearest Costco branch in our place takes an hour travel by bus, so we can only go there when we have enough time. We will also go to Taipei 101 (again!) to look around and to watch movie. Our company gave us free movie tickets, so we want to spend it this holiday.

Oh, how I love this month! I am filled with excitement with all these things coming my way. If only I could make the whole year as February, I would do**LOL...

Haizz, before I end up...Kung Hei Fat Choy, everybody! That's the only thing I could say...