Taipei Story House

Summer is coming to an end (kinda) and I am getting ready for the show. In the meantime, I've just had
some random events here and there. A few of us were chosen to be spokespeople for a running event in Taichung (mid-Taiwan), which required us to attend a press conference. For the press conference we were also instructed to strike a pose according to their design. After seeing the "pose template" we joked that we had to do poses ExACTly as instructed, with Jasper sticking his leg out awkwardly, Eve' hair in the wind, and Jem doing a ballerina pose (on the left).


But the actual pose was obviously not as awesome as the planned template. We have to keep things professional!


At the press con:



The actual event is this upcoming Sunday, which I do look forward to!! If you're in Taichung and want to run sunday, just swing on by!!

Last Saturday, I was invited to sing at an event in Taoyuan Zhu Wei harbor. It was an event to help bring in more tourist to the area. The crowd was phenomenal and supportive so I had a lot of fun performing despite the mic not working and my music being wrong :p it's all part of performing. As long as you find ways past it


Being interviewed by the host



Du Mu and Eve were also there. It was a really fun night


Du mu also shared a pic of her cat who did this pose one day when it was too hot


Hahahahahah so cute and hairlarious at the same time! Then she added a beer bottle to make it look drunk


Cracks me up everytime xD

When I am in bad moods, BK is my comfort food. I love me some whoppers!!


One of my student's mom bought me a whole box of moon cakes for Mid-autumn festival! (a holiday in Chinese culture ) it was very nice of them ( and very tasty!)


So my self date this week was to the Taipei Story House near Yuan Shan MRT station.


I don't feel like typing the story behind the Mini museum so here's a picture of it instead:




the museum was holding a toy exhibit . It was fun and nostalgic to see some familiar toys from my childhood and also interesting to see the different styles and toys played by kids over the generations. Pictured is a description of the exhibit


The garden outside the house is very pretty and well-kept, reminding me a lot of my home back in Virginia









Pamphlets and ticket for the museum house


Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed in the house, but the inside certainly did have it's charm. Learned some really interesting facts about Teddy bears, barbies, porcelain dolls, and Japanese dolls though, such as:

- The total length of barbie sold can circulate the earth 7 times (wow)

- the "mackie" face mold with closed mouth introduced in 1992 to depict barbie as a working woman (so working woman aren't supposed to talk or smile?)

- Barbie bf Ken Carson was released in 1962 after her 1959 release

- First Taiwanese barbie factory was Meining Road in new Taipei city. In 1987 Mattel left tw, hitting the record by making 20000 dolls per day

- 2004 barbie and ken split (they broke up officially?!?!) why is that even necessary?

- Miaoli county was abundant in natural gas and coal making it the "hometown of ceramics" during the Japan era. Japan saw this as a great source of export business so they started making many porcelain objects such as dolls in european style

- Having a Japanese ningo doll was considered luxury at the time if the Japanese colonization. Having it as home decor or as a wedding dowry was considered luxury until 1970

Tw toy industry budded during Japan colonization era. Between 1960-1990 tw was worlds largest OEM manufacturer of toy's earning export value of over 1 billion US, second to Hong Kong. HK and Taiwan were known as "toy kingdoms."

The only room in which taking pictures was allowed was the paper doll "dressing room" because during some eras, dolls were too expensive to buy for kids so they made paper dolls, which came with an assortment of clothes letting poor children have the false illusion that they actually had awesome toys.






Example of paper toys



Notice the folds on the clothes so you can pin it on top of the figurine and make it appear as if they changed clothes



It was so cute to see children at the exhibit. You can tell they really wanted to play with everything, and it must have been tortuous to "only look and not touch" for them

There was a container outside the house for people to donate their second-hand dolls. I thought this was quite sweet.


I ended the date having cheesecake and a sexy glass of
Latte inside the cafe by the museum because it had started to rain. Took the time to brush up on my Chinese workbook


Sexy latte


The flower expo mascots!!


Btw in taiwan, 911 is 119 FYI


And on my walk home, I came across the construction site for what appears to be Noah's Ark. If the world floods, I know where to go!!!



Fin. Until next time!

Location:Taipei, Yuan Shan