Taiwan – Kaohsiung; Kai-Xuan Night Market. (5)

Final posting on Kaohsiung’s Kai-Xuan Night Market series. Hope you have enjoyed the earlier 4 part series. If you have missed them, do go back and a have a look. =)

This stall sells what looks like a pan cake but shape like balls. It’s ‘Gai Dan Jei’ or Eggette; ball pancake.

Looks cute, right?

Another stall selling deep fried crabs but I doubt these are soft shell crabs.

mmm.. not sure what this stall sells. Anyone knows?

Of course aside from food, you also find stalls selling socks…

ahem… and  underwears too!! Colourful ones, mind you!! haha

This look like seafood ball with prawn fillings.

Looks like a sushi conveyor belt. They are not selling Japanese sushi but it serves more of Taiwanese items which you can pick from the belt. Imagine a conveyor belt in the night market!!! Interesting right?

Piglet shape-like biscuit.

really cute looking…..

Before heading back to the MRT station, stopped at this stall to buy an aloe vera drink. Quite nice but you can taste the slight bitter slimmy sap of the aloe vera. =P

Well that’s it for this series. What the next series or posting? Want to know? If yes, the click and follow me. =)

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Taiwan – Jiufen, A Walk in Old Street (7)

One of the places that is of history is the old theater; Shengping Theater. It was a prominent cultural landmark located on Qingbian Road built during the Japanese occupation. Both the theater and surrounding buildings feature 1930-40s architectural elements, and has more recently been used as the set for commercials and movies. They have some old Black and White movies shown at certain times too. I was there in time to catch one but I just stayed for a short while only as I wanted to feel the environment to be in a old cinema as oppose to what we have now.

This is the outlook of the old stall inside the theater which sells drinks and tidbits.

An old cinema projector on display.

This is the inside of the theater with no cushion chairs but hard wooden chairs and no surround or stereo sound for sure. LOL!!

Heading out, I continue to explore the surrounding ….. more old buildings

And I saw this eroded metal sculpture on the side of the concrete stairs. It looks like a cartoon sculpture of a miners on a train. Guess this was to remind that this was an old gold mining village and part of the history that’s left.

Not far from here was the Fushan Temple. Fushan temple has a history of more than 200. Years dated back to Qing Dynasty and it was built to give offering to the Earth God. A matter of fact it is a temple within a temple and also considered one of the largest Earth God temples back then.

Beautiful stone structure and colourful too.

The altar inside the temple.

Walking back, I can’t help but to take this picture of these 3 adorable dogs at one of the stalls.

My train ticket back to Hsinchu from Ruifang after a long wonderful day.

…. waiting for my train

You can see bigger photos of this trip in my Flickr; Simple Guy

Want more? Catch me on my next posting. Yup.. It will still be a posting on my trip in Taiwan but where and what is the question. 😊

So click and follow me …….

Japan – The Country side of Yamagata Prefecture (1)

This is my trip to Japan way back in Nov 2005 (8 years already!!. wow!!).

It was one of my business trip and also my first trip into Japan and as usual it was always short and a rush visit. I was heading to Yamagata prefecture; a small country town up in the center of Honshu island.

My flight into Narita Airport was from Hong Kong. Upon arrival, I have to find my way to catch the train from Narita Airport to Tokyo Station, and then catch my Shinkansen to Yamagata Prefecture. Oh yes.. I bought my Shinkansen ticket way before I landed in Japan. So, good planning was required else I would have missed my ride. The total trip would take me close to 5 hrs just by train.

When I arrived at Tokyo Station, I was surprised to see the sign had English too. It was a relieved as I could not read or speak Japanese. Moving around the Tokyo station and finding the right platform was daunting task especially in the evening when everyone is rushing to go home after work.

One of the Shinkansen arriving at the station ….

A typical kiosk on the platform where the local Japanese will buy thing before boarding for their trip on the Shinkansen.

This Shinkansen look like a duck….. 😄

This is the coach.. a double decker. In fact, it was my first time sitting in a Shinkansen (a few years later, I have also managed to sit in the bullet train in China and also the one in Taiwan)

My dinner on board the Shinkansen which I purchased from the lady goes around from coach to coach selling food and drinks.

This is the view from the hotel in Yamagata over looking the beautiful hills in the foreground.

As usual, I will take the opportunity to walk around the town before heading to the office.

… Very quaint place.

follow me on my next posting in Yamagata, Japan.

Taipei…. A snapshot from my viewfinder (3)

Across Ximending MRT … is the Red House Theater which is a historic theater in this area which was built by the Japanese. Well I did not go and see any performance but I just wanted to drop by there as there was another small night market there (another!!) . Well… just a very small one. =)

Stay tune…. more to come.

Region of Tuna – do you know it in Japanese?

I guess most of us love to eat Japanese food whether it is tepanyaki, sushi, ramen,sashimi or others.

Today I was at the supermarket and I saw this sign at the Japanese food area. To me, it is a new thing; individual parts of a tuna fish.

Anyway, just a sharing for my readers out there (if you do not know) and also in Japanese words too. Now you know which part you will ask when you go into a Japanese restaurant. 😊

So, which part of the tuna do you like best?

Dinner @ 123

What a ‘welcoming’ site to Taiwan; wet and cold. It took 45min before I got to the hotel and it was still raining. Was hungry as the airplane food did not help much on me stomach.

So … the next best thing was to borrow an umbrella from the hotel and to look for food nearest to the hotel.  Mmm… saw this small little shop each time I was here but never step in or tried this place. It was always full of people during dinner time. So tonight was the night to give it a try.

The deco is like a typical simple Japanese stall … guess most it customers were Japanese (can see also lots of Japanese words and magazines and lots of empty sake bottles)

All the empty bottles…..

Tables and chairs are small but comfortable. Menu was simple and in both English and Japanese. Asked the waitress for their specialty and she recommended their Japanese fried chicken. (everything Japanese haha). Aside from that we ordered some fried glass noodles, fried rice, fried veg, fried dumpling and fried prawns…. Geesh.. all fried stuff.. Lol

  Name cards of their customers who dine there.

Pineapple Beer anyone? Taste real nice….  Ladies will like this a lot.

Fried Glass noodles

Their speciality….. Japanese Fried Chicken

Simple deco…..

Fried prawns with pineapple with sweet and salty mayo.

Fried Dumpling.

Overall, the food is nice and home cook. Guess we will come back again the next time and to try the others dishes which are not on their menu.