Out and about

If for no other reason, one MUST come to Taiwan for the food!

savory, crispy scallion pancake:

savory, crispy duck:

mochi with a red bean paste center:

We spent an afternoon roaming around Taipei 101, which used to be the world's tallest building until the one in Dubai was recently erected. Ah well, I'm sure it was good while it lasted.

Taipei 101 in the distance:

What's Christmas without a shameless reminder of the "true" meaning of the holidays...to spend moola. And lots of it.

Mister Donut, a Taiwan favorite, two years ago.

Uh. Probably.

The Japanese are geniuses:

Jon's dad =)

What a cool dog...

Canine fever!

Since our last visit to Taiwan exactly a year ago, the Changs have adopted two more dogs, putting them at a total of four! The toy poodle is the only one allowed in the house (the others are too big) so I can't help but take an insane amount of pictures of him. Plus, he's just so darn cute. And his dog perfume smells AMAZING. It'll make anyone want to sniff him all day long.

The black retriever/Newfoundland mix is named Nori (Japanese for seaweed).

The brown poodle is Gobi, as in the desert, except not.

Taiwanese breakfast

It's a family tradition to make a pit stop at our favorite breakfast joint after any one of us gets picked up from the airport.

On our way home, we caught the sunrise.

so happy to be back...

It was only 6am but never too early to chow down!

Fresh, hot soy milk. Mmmm.

My favorite: fried egg and deep fried dough (you tiao) wrapped in sticky rice

And the best part of all is that authentic Taiwanese food doesn't have to break the bank!

We're in Taiwan! Arrived bright and early and spent most of the day napping and eating. No wonder we love being back here.

I'm determined to take a ton of pictures on this trip. With my poor track record, I hope you'll actually get to see some of them here =)

Side story: While I was getting a haircut not long ago, my hairdresser asked about my Christmas plans. After telling her that Jon and I are going to Taiwan, she exclaimed, "Oh, I LOOOOOVE Thai food!" Awkward...

One day before we leave for Taiwan, Seattle gets its first BIG snowfall, complete with abandoned cars on the freeway and nonstop news coverage of schools closing.

(view from our bedroom)

I'm thankful for the contractor who still showed up to work on our entryway floor.

I'm thankful for Jon working from home today. Therefore, I'm actually thankful for the snow =)

full of thanks

Today, I'm thankful for...

...the gentle snowfall this holiday season
...my husband's patience with my impatience throughout the year
...healthy family and friends

HELLOOOO California!

It's warm...
It's familiar...
It's home.

This year all three children are home for Thanksgiving. Karen's home from college. I'm home from years of being away and Jon is with me. I can tell, in their quirky kind of way, that my parents are elated. And so am I!

garlic breath...the good kind =)

Actually, it's never good. But sometimes it's worth it.

Jon and I had dinner with our friend, Jason, who discovered a very hole-in-the-wall mom & pop dumpling house in his 'hood. And what a GEM it is! All the dumplings are made to order by a little, old lady whom I suspect is the owner's mother. If you appreciate the simplicity of pork+leek dumplings that is the hallmark of northern Chinese cuisine, Fu Man Dumpling House is the place to go. There's undeniably nothing fancy about Fu Man, especially with a name like Fu Man. But Fu Man is cheap eats and Fu Man is good eats.

We doused our dumplings with their housemade "special garlic sauce," and walked away with garlic breath...the good kind =) By the end of the meal, I wasn't sure whether I was eating the dumplings for the dumplings or for the sauce. Pure goodness!

Tagged!

Thanks for motivating me to blog, Becky! :)


Five things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Starting college
2. Learning Mandarin and incidentally meeting the dude who would become my husband =)
3. Still living at home
4. Working a part-time job at an insurance agency
5. Wondering what life is like outside California

Five things I have to do today:
1. Call Costco to get a quote on some window blinds (still missing quite a few home essentials)
2. Laundry (LOVE fresh-out-of-the-dryer clothes; DISLIKE folding and putting clothes away)
3. Book our flight to visit Jon's family for the holidays
4. Return Christmas decorations that seemed festive in theory but tacky in reality
5. Finalize personalized family photo book for Jon's parents

Five snacks I love:
1. Hummus (no pita- just spoonfuls of hummus)
2. Dark chocolate
3. Potato chips
4. Turkey jerky (the double pack from Costco makes it too easy!)
5. Cheese and crackers

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Build my parents a brand new house
2. Buy my parents new cars
3. Send my parents to travel the world or travel with them
4. Travel with Jon, travel with my siblings, travel with my friends
5. Buy a local, AUTHENTIC Japanese restaurant so I could eat there anytime I want

Five places I have lived:
1. Sunnyvale, CA
2. Beijing, China
3. Ithaca, NY
4. New York, NY
5. Kirkland, WA (current residence)

Five jobs I've had:
1. Famous Footwear (worst job ever)
2. After-school tutor
3. Book-keeping at an insurance agency
4. Marketing specialist at Trend in Beijing
5. American Express intern

Five people I tag:
1. Brooke Dean
2. T. Hoang
3. I don't know enough people with a blog (I gotta expand my network!) so to make up for not following the rules, I'll add the following:

Five things people may not know about me:
1. I don't like fruit too sweet (semi-sweet with a bit of tartness is perfect). My mom thinks I'm weird for not eating watermelon when it's as sweet as sugar.

2. I LOVE peanut butter as much as I love chocolate, bread, and cheese but never let myself eat it because I get fixated on the percentage of saturated fat in such a teeeeeeny serving.

3. I go to the local Costco so often that I'm afraid the ladies who give out the samples will recognize me. While I'm at it, I might as well admit, with a bit of shame, that I only go AFTER 2pm, in the middle of the week, because that's when they have the most samples.

4. Despite being a Californian for most of my life, my vote on Nov. 4th probably proved otherwise.

5. I try to spend very little to no money on my own meals so that I can occasionally buy something at William-Sonoma (and other fancy stores) that I probably shouldn't buy but LOVE the idea of having.

Fortune cookie

Much to Jon's disappointment and misfortune, I seldom cook Chinese food. I like eating it, he likes eating it, but unfortunately for him, I love Italian much, MUCH more. So, over fifty percent of our meals involve pasta of some kind. But this past weekend, I succumbed to all the hype about a particular Szechuan restaurant that was highly recommended by a good friend and decided to give it a try. I was secretly more skeptical than I revealed but didn't want to be a negative nelly (as Jon likes to call me!). Not only was the food authentic and yummy, but I also discovered (after our SPICY meal) the BEST fortune cookie in America. Bold statement, true, but the fortune cookie was THAT good. SO GOOD that we all asked for more. And by no means am I a fortune cookie connoisseur, but being Chinese should qualify me to judge this type of thing, right? If the restaurant sold them, I would buy them. A TON of them. This coming from the girl who looks disdainfully at restaurants for handing out fortune cookies in the first place should say something. In fact, they were SO GOOD that it warranted a blog post after an almost 2-month hiatus. If you didn't have a reason to visit Seattle, you do now!