So my time in Hong Kong is wrapping to an end. After doing Teresa Carpio's concert, I felt that I needed to give Taiwan a try again. Last time I was in Taiwan, I hadn't gone through much training and wasn't mentally/physically/vocally ready. After a 6 months of training, I think it's time for me to give it all a try again! But of course, I will miss Hong Kong tremendously. These are the last few days of my HK adventure, which all started in November 2008 until now (June 2010)
Visit to Cheung Shui Wan (Repulse Bay) for a day of swimming and tanning
Went to the Annual International Art Festival. This was a Buddha Face made out of some kind of animal skin
The director of Leonardo/Claire Dane's "Romeo and Juliet": Baz Luhrmann giving a short speech about his work
The entrance
My cousin Teddy Lo, an LED light artist had his own gallery as well! It attracted the most attention because of its uniqueness
This piece is created by Teddy and co. When you shake your head left and right, and also up and down, you can see images appear where the light strips are. cool, right?
The crowd outside Teddy's booth. Turns out you don't have to shake your head (which made me dizzy) you can just take a cell phone and shake it left to right and see the images. haha silly me
I went to ATV Singing competition 亞洲星光大道 Asia Star Avenue) season 2 (I was part of season 1) to support this year's contestants. The competition has really grown since my year! The stage is like 3 times bigger, audience size is 5 times bigger (at least) and now they get special guest stars to come. That night was F.I.R. one of my favorite Taiwan bands.
I found out from a TV commercial that Rainie Yang had been invited once too, and I was SO upset that I missed her -___-. I should have done season 2. hahah
Leaving ATV building and there were fans of the show outside waiting for season 2's contestants to come out. I was surprised that a few people still recognized me and asked to take pics with me. I will miss ATV, the people were all very nice there!
Back in the studio, we purchased this new gadget. when you press the keys, it plays like a piano, but in the right sequence, you can find the harmonies for each note a lot easier than a regular piano. Pretty cool design though.
My friend Vene (who was also part of Teresa Carpio's concert) invited me and the others from the concert to her house for a BBQ. We ate SOOO much and at the end of the night, they surprised me with a cake to celebrate my early birthday. It was a very special night, and she even had karaoke which I hogged and sang for 4 hours straight while the other played mahjong. Then we played charades until 6AM. It's really fun to charade to Chinese movie titles.
How did we differentiate between when to guess Chinese movies and American movies, you may ask? Well, Natalie will demonstrate for you our mechanism:
"Chinese movie"
"American movie" we are SO PC
The next morning, Vene's parents invited us on their boat to head over to Sok Kwu Wan, a great location for fresh seafood.
Well, after the party, I had to get ready to go back to Taiwan for a short 4 day trip to take care of some business in preparation for moving there (i.e. looking for a place to stay and prepping visa paper work so I can stay for a longer time). I usually would stay with my grandmother, but she's recently been diagnosed with Liver cirrhosis, which causes her to have esophogeal bleeding if she is stressed out and not careful. I hope to visit her often during this time to cheer her up. My grandmother, at age 77, looks great for her age and has always been healthy (she eats a blend of wheat, beans, egg white, cranberries and other health foods every morning!) smoke/alcohol free, and yet she still was diagnosed with this disease. I can understand why she gets really down about it, but I guess our bodies can be really unpredictable sometimes. All we can do now is hope her symptoms alleviate and just be optimistic!
Even though she was sick, she still remembered my birthday and got me a cake. I love my grandmother!
At night, met up with Simone and Rose for a dinner date and of course FROZEN yogurt. Look how flashy the face of this store is
With Simone and Rose. Glad to have them in Taiwan with me. They are like my American humor outlet. What I mean by that is, American humor and Taiwan humor is very different, so I need some people to understand me when I say things like "Your Mother is ____" or "your FACE is _____" and actually know I don't mean it literally -___-
Also, since Qu Yuan threw himself in the river, many people who respected him started throwing rice into the lake in order to distract the fish and evil spirits from consuming his body. But one day, Qu Yuan's spirit appeared in front of his friends and asked them to wrap glutinous rice in bamboo leaves and throw them in the river to drive away the dragon. Thus, we eat glutinous rice (zhong zhi) wrapped in leaves on this holiday and also hold dragon boat races.
This is a Zhongzi my friend's mom made. They can be sweet or salty. The salty ones are my favorite when it's just a piece of meat with rice. I hate the ones with lots of random stuff like egg yolks and peanuts. yuck
Mahjong tiles. One of the best past times between Asian friends. This game is quite fun, despite the fact I've realized I don't have Mahjong luck. Out of the 10 games we played, I lost all 10
At the Taipei airport. Stellar LED Taiwan flag. haha
So I got back to Taiwan in time for my birthday! Turning 24 and feeling older. But I want to feel younger! So therefore, I will just think that I'm still 21 and it's allll good
I got a bit fat around these few days cuz of all the cake I got!
This was bought by Vene and co celebrating at the BBQ. A delicious blueberry cheesecake
Cake #2: Bought by my grandmother. Light creme with fruit!
Not a cake, but I made this at my b-day dinner (buffet of course) Waffle with vanilla/green tea ice cream and doused under the chocolate fountain.... mmmMMmmmmm
Cake #3: Bought by Steven! Delicious fluffy mango cake
Can you tell I lOVE it
Cake #4 Made by my friend, Alice Ng. A delicious blend of blueberry and chocolate cheesecake.
For my birthday, I wanted to go on a hike to the beach. Isn't this place gorgeous?
Shot of sundown
My friends who accompanied me on my trip: Stephanie, Natalie, and Alice
Trying to look sexy is hard in the water....
Stephanie's "sexy jump out of the water" pose
THIS makes me laugh so hard. Natalie's "washed-up from sea mermaid sexy pose" hahaha
Work it, Nat!
"Pouring self with sand sexy pose"
Pulled this out while cleaning out my apartment. My certificate for not being a fatty from Nov. 2008. YEAHH!!
So moving out takes a LONG time and annoying process of throwing things away and deciding what to take with you (for me I only get 20 kg by suitcase without getting charged). This is how my apartment looked during the cleaning out process.
A few days later, and countless times running up and down 6 flights of stairs (No elevator) in hot summer weather, I finally finished moving. I'm gonna miss this place!
Last dinner at Tsui Wah. Met up with my Hip-hop teacher, Kenny "eg" Wong. Cool guy and great teacher
So, finally got to Taiwan, and in the past 3 days I didn't get to sleep more than 8 hours cuz of moving and throwing things out (I have a problem throwing things away, so it took a lot to decide what I needed and didn't need), and the night of arrival was the line-up for an audition number for the Taiwan competition I did in the past. I got there at 11:30PM and lined up until 8:30AM to get a number and by random, I got number 5. YIKES! So scary being one of the first to go, but out of 500+ people, I got to be one of the 20 some selected to continue to the next round! Next round is still untelevised and will take place 7/31. Gonna get used to my Taiwan lifestyle and practice hard until then!
Well, keep you all updated! SEe you lata!
