The rain hasn’t let down today. It’s pouring like cats and dogs and it doesn’t look like its going to stop anytime soon. The news says that there’s been flooding everywhere in Taiwan. We were brave enough to venture out today and see some of the flooding for ourselves.

I hope the rain stops soon and that everywhere here remains safe.

The rain didn’t damper our plans to go “shrimping”. This is the very first time I’ve ever fished for shrimp! It was really fun. There’s an indoor shrimp pond that people can come to hang out, drink beer and shrimp. It’s sort of like the equivalent of crabbing but you don’t have to get sunburned!

Here’s pics of the us catching our first shrimp! Those suckers aren’t small. I’m not sure what their fed but these shrimp are huge!

The fruit of our labor!

Or rather mine! I blew the guys away by catching the most. Not that I was counting (Chen = 1, Min = 2, me = to many to remember!) Hehe!

We brought them home and Min’s aunt cooked them for dinner. They were delicious.

The guys are thinking of pulling an all-nighter so that we can enjoy our last day here as well as helping us be able to knock out on the 14 hour plane ride back home. Hmm…I don’t think I can make it until noon tomorrow.

I have had a blast this past month is Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan! I had a great time meeting Min’s family and words can’t thank them enough for being such wonderful hosts and showing us such great hospitality.

I’ve had the opportunity to see the most breathtaking views of my life during this trip. Min and I have thoroughly enjoyed each others company and have perhaps laughed the most we have ever together. Can you believe that we didn’t kill each other after all?! This was definitely the honeymoon of a lifetime I LOVE YOU lots babe!

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/farewell-asia/feed/ 1 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/rain-rain-go-away/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/rain-rain-go-away/#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:51:44 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=207 ]]> Wednesday, June 4^th

Thanks to the Taiwan’s HSR (High Speed Rail i.e. “bullet-train”), we were able to make it to Kaoshiung in 1.5 hrs.  Normally, it would take about 4 hours driving!  The train gets up to speeds like 195 mph!

2 days countdown before we are back home! I can’t believe a month has passed by already.

It has been raining everyday in Taiwan since we left. It doesn’t look like it will be clearing up either. So our plans to go fishing and mountain climbing had to be canceled. No worries though. The guys are enjoying staying in so that they can play mahjong with the family and I have wireless to update my blog!

I did have a chance to squeeze in some time to go to the hair salon. Min’s mom told me I had to experience getting my hair washed by other people while I was in Taiwan. I was worried at first but I was told that they wouldn’t cut my hair so that put me at ease. I didn’t know that you could wash your hair for an hour! It felt awesome. They massage your scalp and neck and rinse and lather 4 times! My hair felt squeaky clean afterwards. After they blew dried my hair, I thought I was done. But then a stylist came over and started braiding and curling my hair.

This is the result of her work! Yep, that’s all my hair! Interesting style. Hmmm…I don’t think I would necessarily wear my hair like this again .

Before we headed to the airport and bid farewell to Japan, we had a chance to enjoy one more traditional Japanese meal.

Have you ever seen a Buddha statue this large? We had a chance to stop by and admire statues of Buddha before we headed to the airport.

Our last and final pit stop in Japan was their Wal-mart!

Does Wal-mart sell beetles? Well, for $6.80, you can have these little critters as your pet!

Endless options of sushi!

Farewell Japan! Thanks for the great hospitality. Arigato gozaimasu!

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/breakfast-of-champs/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/kimonos-are-cool/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/kimonos-are-cool/#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:59:21 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=167 ]]> Monday, June 2^nd

Today is our last full day here in Japan. We began the day out by visiting the small town of Shirakawa-Go. The interesting thing about this town is that all their homes have roofs made out of straw but yet they have automatic sliding doors. As Alanis Morsette would sing…”Isn’t that ironic…don’t you think?”

The following are my favorite pictures of the day.

Now that’s a modern day refrigerator! They use running water from the river to keep their drinks cold.

Did someone want some sake?

Wow, there’s such a resemblance!

Chen, you look so puuurrrttty!

After lunch, we headed to the beach.

We had some of Japan’s freshest snails! It actually wouldn’t be that bad if it wasn’t super fishy and didn’t have grains of sand still in it. Eeks.

The highlight of the day was arriving at our hotel. This hotel is the number one hotel in all of Japan. They say people all over Japan drive here to stay and experience the awesome hospitality. This is what we were greeted by as soon as our tour bus pulled in!

As soon as we got our room (tatami), we were presented tea and then measured for our very own kimono…which we were required to wear anytime we were walking in the hotel!

Here we are acting like samurai!

Don’t the guys look pretty!

Tonight, we had a traditional dinner where we took off our shoes before stepping in the room and we also sat at a really low table. Of course, I was comfortable sitting Indian style, but I can’t say the same for the Min and Chen.

Min in pain after a few minutes of sitting!

The food was awesome tonight. So many different dishes and there were even gold flakes on the sashimi!

After dinner, we had a chance to watch a show. The performers were all women. Women even played the male roles. They had really elaborate costumes that were beautiful and really colorful.

After the show, we headed to the hot springs. This was our second time of the day! We went before dinner to relax. After soaking for a bit, the guys head to the bar, where I joined them later. Chen ordered a high end “shochu” on the rocks. Shochu is an alcoholic beverage made out of sweet potatoes, barley or rice. The bartender served the shochu on a big as rock!

Here I am trying to devour the ice ball after Chen finished his shochu.

Nothing hits the spot after late night drinking than some ramen!

We can’t read Japanese. Where’s the menu with pictures? Thank goodness they had a Chinese menu after all.

The ramen sure hit the spot!

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/kimonos-are-cool/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/a-perfect-summer-day/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/a-perfect-summer-day/#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:54:06 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=153 ]]> Sunday, June 1^st

Today is warmer than yesterday, no freezing rain today thank goodness. I love the cool breeze and sunny skies…it reminds me of a Texas winter actually. They say Japan experiences its warmest month in August when temperature reaches the low 90′s. If only we could say that for Texas. I didn’t expect it to be so cool here but am loving every minute of it before we have to head back to the sweltering heat of Texas.

We spent most of today in Takayama, a city two hours outside of Tokyo and Osaka. Yesterday’s views were incredible, but I have to say that today blows it away. That’s because today’s weather is perfect. Clear skies and cool weather. We were at one of Japan’s national parks. Sorry, I admit I have forgot its name . The were tons of artist who had easels out and drawing/painting. This guy is pretty good, huh?

This was his inspiration.

Min, Chen and I had a blast today goofing off for the camera. Below are some of my favorite pics of the day.

Don’t you just love how graceful Min looks?! His toes are perfectly pointed!

The guys taking a sip out of the river. Yum.

I knew yoga was good for something!

After lunch, we headed to Hida Takayama, an area where they have lots of little shops. Of course, the first thing the guys see is a store where we can sit down and enjoy a bottle of sake. I got a frozen sake…sorta like a frozen margarita. They even had salt on the side. It was strong as heck so I was taking small sips. Chen persuaded me to down it so I did. Needless to say, I had a major brain freeze afterwards.

Check out our room for the night.

Yep, that’s our bed for tonight. This is a traditional Japanese style bed…tatami. Actually, you’re supposed to put blankets and stuff right on the floor. So this is what we did.

To our surprise, when we came back from dinner, maid service made the beds the correct way.

Tonight, I experienced my second time in the hot springs bath. I’m becoming a pro at this. I guess once you get over the fear, it’s not to bad walking naked around strangers. Now, if friends/family where here, that would be a different story.

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/a-perfect-summer-day/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/snow-in-the-middle-of-summer/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/snow-in-the-middle-of-summer/#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:25:30 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=138 ]]> Saturday, May 31^st

On the itinerary today was to visit the mountainous Tateyama…also known as the Japan Alps. It was freezing and raining today. Actually, the weather started out bearable but once we got higher and higher, it just got colder.

Need I say more?

The really neat part about this tour was that there are eight forms of transportation to get you through the tour. First, we took a cable car to elevation 977m. Next was a 50 minute bus ride to elevation 1930m. Then a 10 minute ride on a trolley bus to elevation 3015m (the peak of Mt. Tateyama). Then, we began our descent. A 7 minute ride on the gondola to 1828m, walked 15 minutes across the Kurobeko damn, 16 minute trolley bus ride to elevation 1433m to where we were finally picked up by our tour bus. Wow, now it was really a long day! We started the morning geting off the tour bus around 11am and we finally got back on on it at 4pm.

Min wore shorts thinking that it wouldn’t be that cold. Boy was he wrong. The guys took of their jackets for this picture and put it right back on afterwards. Burrrr.

I hadn’t expected it to be cold and rainy so I got a nice burnt orange raincoat! Go longhorns!

Fresh rain water….delicious!

This water is the freshest natural water there is. We all tasted it and it truly was better than Evian.

I wish everyone can see all this in real life. The pictures don’t give justice to how breathtaking everything is out here in Japan.

Tonight, I experienced my first time at a Japanese hot springs bath. Actually, I was lucky that I had gone earlier with Judy back in Taiwan because had I not, I would have been really lost on what to do. There are so many rules you have to follow. But mainly, you have to wash yourself before going into the hot bath (the shower stalls are out in the open) and then you have to be completely nude (no bathing suit or towels allowed!) So, I have seen enough old naked ladies bodies for a lifetime now! Here’s a picture of me in my Kimono robe before heading to the hot springs…as well of pictures of Chen and Min goofing off in theirs.

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/snow-in-the-middle-of-summer/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/ohayo-gozaimasu/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/ohayo-gozaimasu/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:11:47 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=116 ]]> Friday, May 30^th

Ohayo gozaimasu…that’s hello in Japanese. We arrived in Japan today after a pretty short flight…3.5 hours. The minute we stepped off the plane, I already noticed a really big change in culture from Taiwan. The biggest difference was the weather…nice and cool. Well, at least cooler than the blazing heat of Taiwan. Min and Chen are definitely loving it since sweat isn’t running down the legs as they walk! I already heart you Japan.

We flew into Yomato, which is a city in between Tokyo and Sapporo. Customs in Japan is strict. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, we flew past customs by just putting on a polite smile and saying thank you. In Japan, they take your finger prints and a picture and they even have cameras that can sense your temperature. Anyone who seems to have a high temperature gets pulled to the side and quarantined!

From the airport, we jumped right on to the tour bus and headed off to the first item on our itinerary.

We headed to the Higashi Chaya District, which has one of their oldest buildings in town. Our first item to do was to drink tea Japanese style. Now, the proper way to drink tea is to finish the cup in 3 sips, turning the cup clockwise after every single sip. And then wiping down the rim of the cup by turning it counter clockwise. Get it? At Japanese tea houses, they serve you a dessert to counter act the flavor of the tea. Their tea isn’t like tea in America…look how green it is! It is a lot stronger in flavor. We had to take our shoes off and sit at a traditional Japanese table. The waitresses are exactly how you would imagine.

After having tea, we headed to the Kanazawa Park and Kenrokuen Garden. The garden was full of interesting trees and plants that I’ve never seen before. Leaves were growing up instead of down.

This is the Kanazawa Castle, which was used as an army base until War World II for the Maeda lord of Kaga Domain. Until 1995, it was the campus of Kanazawa University and now is being transformed into a park. The castle is massive in size. You can tell by just seeing how tiny we look in the pictures below.

We started getting bored of taking “nice” pics so we mixed up our poses a little!

These pictures were taken by Min. He was really proud of them. I have to admit, they turned out pretty professional looking.

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After all the walking, we headed to our first official dinner in Japan. It was a buffet style restaurant where you had tons of variety. You even had choices of several types of meat and seafood that you cooked yourself at the dinner table. It looks like a meat market, doesn’t it?

So when I said I thought the toilets (i.e. holes in the ground) were weird, here’s a picture of the standard toilets in Japan. It’s called a “bidet”. I’m not sure exactly how it works but the diagrams sort of explain it. I have to admit that I tried to use it, but the idea of having warm water splashed up my tush was uncomfortable so I didn’t enjoy it very much. Funny thing is that Min’s parents visited Japan a while back. They loved the toilet so much that they ordered one for their house. So, I am sure once I get over fear, I’ll love it so much I even may want to get one for our house!

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/ohayo-gozaimasu/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/i-heart-taipei/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/i-heart-taipei/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:35:18 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=111 ]]> Tuesday, May 27^th

After two whole days until shopping until we dropped, we arrived back in Taipei, Taiwan late Tuesday night. We get to spend two more days here until we leave for Japan on the 30th. Need I say more about partying it up one last time in Taipei!?

Min and Chen suffered the consequences the next day no doubt! :O So, on Wednesday, we just lounged around with the family (slept in, watched tv, did laundry, etc.) and got some rest before our 4 day trip to Yomata, Japan.

Min and I did squeeze in some sight seeing that morning. We visited “Taipei 101”, which is Taipei’s tallest building…I even believe it may even be the tallest building in the world. Not only is it the tallest building in the world, but it also has the Guinness Book of World Record for the fastest elevator. It took us up to the 89^th floor in 37 seconds! Now that just reminds me of how much I dislike our elevators at work. It takes about 10 seconds for it to just open the door. The views from here were cool. You could definitely see the entire city of Taipei from the viewing deck. Taipei 101 is considered a tremendous achievement in the architectural, engineering and construction sector. An interesting note about this building is that it was designed to resemble the bamboo stalks.

The building’s mascot is the “Damper Baby”. A damper basically works to counter act the forces of the earth…for instance in an earthquake, a damper would shift to alleviate the earthquakes energy. I know…this sounds like a boring blog but , I guess the engineer in me finds this all quite interesting!

]]> http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/i-heart-taipei/feed/ 0 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/no-wi-fi/ http://vicdai.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/no-wi-fi/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:53:44 +0000 vicdai http://vicdai.wordpress.com/?p=110 ]]> Sorry for the lack of updates these past few days. I couldn’t find any wireless while we were here in Japan. I guess it’s difficult to get wireless all the way in the mountains!  We are at the airport right now, flying back to Taipae then taking a 1.5 hour bullet-train ride to Kaoshuing, where we’ll be hanging out with Min’s family for 2 days before we head back to the states.

Japan updates to come soon…well as soon as I can bum some wi-fi!

After a 1.5 hour flight, we arrived in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is completely different than Taiwan. First of all, they drive on the left side of the street here and you need an electrical adapter converter. Hong Kong is so diverse. You have a mix of all sorts of people…the natives, Americans, French, English, Middle Eastern, Blacks, Indians, it’s endless. You really do feel like you’re in America. There are so many people in Hong Kong that they look like ants when walking on the streets.

Min’s cousin Tom showed us around for the day. He took us to the parts of Hong Kong where you can see the entire city. Hong Kong has some of the most amazing views and you don’t even have to drive anywhere. You can see skyscrapers with mountains in the background with the Pacific Ocean. Here are some pictures of us goofing off at Victoria Harbor.

We are on top of the mountain here. They have a tram that takes you all the way up where you can see the entire city for miles.

We were lucky enough to also be in Hong Kong on the weekend of their Beer Fest 2008. Hong Kong has a street very similar to Austin’s 6^th Street. So we did a little bar hopping.

Monday, May 26^th

One word…SHOPPING! The picture below says it all.

After an entire day of shopping, this is the result of all of our hard work!

Here’s Min showing off his cool new pair of Pumas. He was really excited with these because they have a Houston shout out. Notice the oil rigs!

Good thing Min’s aunt had an entire empty suitcase for us to fill up and take back!

Yeah, that’s a damn big suitcase if I can fit in it!

A whole day of shopping is really exhausting so we’re calling it an early night. We are heading back to Taipei, Taiwan tomorrow evening. Yes, this was a very short trip in Hong Kong, but believe me, you can definitely do some damage to your wallet if you stay any longer!

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day! I miss you all.