Zoo

I managed to catch the first episode of Zoo on tv and I am intrigued. Can't wait to watch it next week. Hmm, maybe I should read the book too. :) 

Wild Life, Gondola, Underground Mall and Night Life

Today, we are off on our own, just three generation of women spending time together.

First stop for the day: Taipei Zoo
We set off after 9am and took the Metro to the Taipei Zoo. We arrived just after 10am. The girls were really excited to be at the zoo. We took the visitors' tram right to the end and slowly made our way back down to the entrance/ exit. We visited Amphibian and Reptile House, Bird World, African Animal Area, Nocturnal Animal House, Desert Animal House, Koala House, Panda House.









In between visiting the animals, we had lunch too. We shared spaghetti, Braised Pork Belly Rice (Lu Rou Fan) and hot dog. It has been a long time since I had Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan and it was as good as my memory recalled and the pork ball soup, yum! :)


Second stop for the day: Maokong Gondola
We were finished with the zoo around 2pm. We walked a short distance from the Taipei Zoo over to Maokong Gondola. The Maokong Gondola is a gondola lift transportation, like our cable car in Singapore, which runs between Taipei Zoo to Maokong, a distance of 4000+ metres. The gondolas travel mostly over green forest and hills. We could see Taipei 101 and Taipei city in the distance as well as Muzha district. The girls were really thrilled riding in the gondola. They were laughing and squealing away with joy being so high up in the sky lol. Once at Maokong, we ate ice sticks to beat the heat and to look around the area which has tea houses and hiking trails. It was 3pm when we arrived back on solid ground.









Third stop for the day: Zhongshan Metro Mall (underground mall)
We took the Metro from Taipei Zoo station to Taipei Main Station. We went to the Zhongshan Metro Mall which is an underground mall which stretches from Taipei Main station to Zhongshan station. For the first time in many days, I bought 2 blouses for myself at Zhongshan Metro Mall, so did my mother lol. Marieann also managed to find her Korean children's comics here. :) I bought her 3 comics at one go to stop her from asking us to visit bookshops again lol. :P

Fourth stop for the day: Shilin Night Market
By the time we arrived at Jiantan station (the start of Shilin Night Market), it was close to 6pm. We were all hungry lol. We quickly located a eating place to have some food just to stop the growling stomachs. We were keen to browse the night market for Taiwanese snacks lol.


Chicken Rice, different from Singapore's chicken rice

Oyster Omelette

Smelly Tofu with pickles

Before we went to hunt for more food, we stopped by the game stalls. I wanted the girls to play at a particular game stall which gave me lots of fun during my childhood in Taiwan. Catching fish! The girls were most happy trying to catch the fishes in their nets lol.




After 15 minutes of "fishing", we went over to the food stalls. There were so many people. I think the girls were kind of overwhelmed by the people, the food stalls, the smells, the sights... They didn't want to eat anything. Finally, we ended up eating Japanese puff with mochi ice cream and drinking ice jelly drink with tapioca balls.








Fifth stop for the day: Neihu
We took a bus from Shilin Night Market to Neihu, my aunt's place. I have to collect the pineapple cakes which my cousin-in-law have made for me. We also had rice dumplings at my aunt's place as my mother and I were still hungry lol. We watched a bit of tv programme before leaving for the hotel via taxi at 9pm.

Hotel Sweet Hotel
The girls were dead tired after a long day. They were asleep by 11pm, the earliest ever since we came to Taipei. :)

Malay Girl+Kazakh Boy = Wedding@Singapore Zoo

Today's my colleague and friend, Filzah's BIG DAY. She is married to Murat. :) Their solemnisation was held at Al-Amin Mosque and thereafter the reception was held at the Forest Lodge, Singapore Zoo. It was really exciting for me as this is the first time I attended a wedding reception at the Zoo. :) My girls were envious and wanted to come along. Sorry, the invite is for one only, that is, me haha. :P

I was the first guest to arrive at the reception at 11am and I am darn proud to be early lol. :) It was really strange and funny to see only 1 guest and 5/6 waiters and waitresses with drinks coming at me haha. :P By 12pm, most of the guests have arrived and were all mingling around. My colleagues/ friends and I took photos with each other. The reception decor was in keeping with the Zoo theme, lots of animal print around and the wedding favours which are animal soft toys brought a lot of "Oh"s and "Ah"s from the ladies haha. :P There were games and performances in between the 8 course lunch. One of the games required us to make a scrapbook page with the polariod photos taken of us at the mingling session before lunch and with the materials provided at each table. There was much fun and laughter when we were making our scrapbook pages. There were also Kazakhstan musical performance and dance performance which were unique cultural experiences.



My loopy-eared giraffe soft toy with our polariod photo

Our scrapbook page by Sharm, Monica and I :)

The lunch was really nice! For a Muslim wedding, I had expected the food to be all spicy. To my great surprise and happiness, it was Chinese food which meant I could eat all the dishes with gusto and no fear of spices except for 1 dish haha. :) There were Hot and Cold Assorted Platter, Braised Rich Fish Maw Soup with Seafood, Oven Baked Crispy Chicken, Crispy Butter Oatmeal Prawns, Deep Fried Garoupa with Thai Chili and Diced Mango, Seafood Fried Rice, Vegetables with Braised Mushrooms and Honeydew with Sago.

There were touching and emotional moments at the wedding such as during the showing of the video clips of the groom's family back in Kazakhstan giving their well-wishes for their marriage and during the speeches by wedding couple and their parents. The lunch reception ended around 3:20pm. All of us agreed Filzah and Murat's wedding reception was indeed a unique experience, not just because of its location, but because of its cultural elements too. :)

Our table photo with the wedding couple

Our group photo with the wedding couple at the end of the reception

Our group photo (I looked like I am being kissed by 2 giraffes haha)

Filzah and Murat, here's wishing you both a beautiful life together filled with much love and happiness.

First Outing of 2010

This is the first outing of the year, 2010. :) My girls and I went with Marieann's classmate and her mother to the Singapore Zoo. The girls have been talking about it the whole holiday and we finally made time to go for it. :)

All ready to go! :)

Forgot 1st Jan is a public holiday. It was really crowded when we arrived there at 10am. We soon made our way into the zoo after a light breakfast. We saw many animals on our way before watching the Elephant at Work and Play presentation at 11:30am. The girls fed the elephants after the show. They thought it was really fun. :)




Elephant presentation show



Next we went to Kidzworld for KFC lunch and wet play for the older girls. Juliane was having a running nose so instead she went for rides on the pony, merry-go-round and horse carriage. She also got to pet the animals such as guinea pigs, goats, horses and also fed some of the animals which she totally enjoyed. It started raining around 3:30pm. We had tea break at KFC, Kidzworld while waiting for the rain to stop. When the rain stopped, we hurried to take the tram as we only had half an hour left before the last tram ride at 5:30pm. We went round the zoo on the tram once before leaving at 6pm.









We were dead tired by the time we arrived home at 6:30pm. Marieann was asleep by 8pm, Juliane was asleep by 9pm and I was... still awake lol. Too exhausted to fall asleep. :P But I will try to rest soon. Tomorrow is another busy day!