Taiwan trip-Day 2

We woke up early on 2nd day, 6.30am to rush for a day trip to Fo Guang Shan temple @Kaohsiung & Qi Jin island. Had a simple Taiwanese breakfast at the hotel before departing to Fo Guang Shan temple.

I still look sleepy, eh?

Fo Guang Shan temple @Kaohsiung

Entering the path to Buddhahood *oommpphhhh*

We need to walk through the meters long Great Path to Buddhahood before reaching the Memorial Hall. 

The world highest sitting Fo Guang Buddha (about 36 floors high) was located behind the Memorial Hall.

Let's go for photo viewing!

The superb wood carving skills（⊙ｏ⊙）

Maitreya Buddha who can talk with face expression!

April's Buddha bathing.

Sleeping Buddha made by white jade.

Jade Buddha 玉佛殿

We didn't have time to explore all the places as Memorial Hall as it is really huge.

So, if you are planning to visit the centre, please estimate spending about a half day there if you wish to walk through all the places & having lunch there of course!

Their food was super delicious! Had fried rice, fried spring roll & glutinous rice ball with ginger soup ^_^　

Next stop will be @Qi Jin Island.

The ferry that will transport us to the island.

Approaching Qijin in less than 20 minutes ride.

The famous Qijin street market  J

Taiwan's rare black sand beach

Back to Qijin street market... Had fun taking a short ride around the town & makan- makan ^_^　

Fresh seafood on sale! Rice and tea/sky juice – FOC J Not inclusive of the egg shaped ice- cream~ 

That's all for now! Next blog will be going to share our experience in Alishan!

XOXO

sassycat

Taiwan trip- Day 1

We woke up as early as 6am on Day 1 to rush for the flight to Taiwan scheduled @9am. Luckily it was not too early flight as I had sleepless night due to excitement on the night before #^.^# Arriving at KLIA and managed to camwhore abit ^^

Arriving at Taiwan, Taoyuan International Airport around 9- 10am.

We took a shuttle service to the high speed rail station. We’d later transfer Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit.

First stop @7-Eleven. There were a lot of people at there to buy early breakfast and knick-knacks to munch on. Bought a pack of green tea & Snickers Almond bar to refresh myself ^^

Taiwanese mime performance & their larger-than-usual breed of dogs（*@ο@*）

Here are some photos of our 1^st hotel in Taiwan:

Found some of the local food something worthwhile to try… We started our dinner with a hearty local steak & Taiwanese mushroom soup ^^

Time to shop around! We walked around LiuHe night market which is well-known for cheap bargains and nice street food. 

Tried their “chau tau fu” and we actually prefer the HK ones as the soup was slightly oily~

The artistic Dome of light ∩__∩y

Posing with the 3D masterpiece（*^＠^*）

The beautiful Love Pier *@_@*

 

That's all for Day 1! Stay tuned for more entries ^^

Cheers, 

sassycat

Room by Emma Donoghue

I recently picked up this book after abandoning it for quite some time. For some reason, I had placed the book down… However, since now I’m down with fever and diarrhea which means I’ve plenty of time, I decided to pick it up and try again. I could’ve picked up any old book but I told myself there’s something unique about this and heard it was drawing inspiration from a real- life incident. Sure enough, I’m not regretting it the moment I flipped through the pages.

After settling in for a two days of reading (with breaks in between), I must say that it’s a great read with lots to think about and living a lot to imagination from its beginning. To cut a long story short, it is a story about the relationship between a mother and her five year old son, Jack. Both Jack and his mother, ‘Ma’, are kidnapped by ‘Old Nick’ and locked in a Room. ‘Ma’ tries to protect Jack, who was born in the Room, from ‘Old Nick’, and conceals from her son the fact that they are actually locked inside and that there is a whole wide beautiful world out there to live in. As Jack grows, ‘Ma’ begins to spill out the truth about the Room and the world outside, which Jack, in his innocent way, calls ‘Outside’. The story climaxes during the Great Escape when Jack successfully executes his ‘Ma’ escape plan from ‘Old Nick’’s dungeon. This part was the most thrilling and nail- biting moments.

However, at some point, the story begins to slow down as ‘Ma’ and Jack’s Great Escape with not much emotional emphasis on their relationship develop in the “Outside” world. Perhaps, this is because the story was from the child’s innocence perspective. Overall, the book is still very engaging plus a down-to-earth approach with its informal tone/ Jack’s monologue.  

I will definitely on the look-out for more of Emma Donoghue’s books♥

XOXO
sassycat