Tom's World. I'm addicted.

Seven-Eleven Madness 1: Lychee Slurpee

So, I was challenged by Andrew Yang to get a different item from Seven-Eleven every time I visited while I was staying in Taiwan. I won't be doing that everyday, but those who have been to Taiwan or any Asian country know how awesome the convinience stores are there.

Different flavors of things are considered different items...so, Andrew, here we go!

Lychee Slurpee

That's right, a slurpee with the flavor of lychee. Delicious delicious icy coolness!

Back from the South

After four days in the southern part of Taiwan (ooo, ahh, Cape No. 7), I am back in Taipei with too many photos to post. Haha...so I'll start organizing them now and hopefully they'll be up on Facebook or something soon!

That being said, I'm very tired of hiking and very tired of seeing temples (cool at first, but after the first ten they all start looking the same... -.-)

Nerdiness, Waterfalls, and Keeping Your Head Out of the Toilet

First off, for those who are extremely nerdy, be jealous. I went to the Computex Taipei Int'l Information Technology Show.

That's me and Greg Yen (who happened to be in Taiwan for a while and we overlapped two days!) We nerded about and went to booths like Microsoft, Intel, NVidia, and Sandisk. Got some cool swag.

My sister, Greg, and I also went to eat at one of the strangest restaurants I've been to in a while. Located in Shilin...well, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Modern Toilet (yes, that's the name of the restaurant) was very interesting. Next time, I'll go and have a meal there instead of the ridiculously large shaved ice urinal plates! (only 100NT btw, roughly 3 bucks)

The following day, a big chunk of family (grandmother, uncle, 3 cousins, aunt, greataunt, parents, sister, dad's cousin, dad's cousin's wife) all went on a hike. It was about an hour hike into the mountains and we were rewarded at the end with this!

Okay, unfortunately for me, my time on the internet is running out so this post is short (I have the only laptop that can pick up the wireless that the whole family is leeching).

I will write more later! And hopefully more in detail!

Oh My Goddess!

In the past two days, my sister and I have watched 20 episodes of How I Met Your Mother. For those of you who watch the show (GINGER!! :D), you know how awesome and addicting that show can be. We’ve been watching the show as a way to get over our jetlag (that’s why we spent 9-12PM watching it Friday evening), but seeing as I am up at 6AM Saturday morning, I’m thinking EPIC FAIL.

We went to Longshan Temple (or Lungshan Temple, 龍山寺) the afternoon we landed in Taipei.

Quick history lesson/geography lesson/Taiwanese facts about Longshan Temple!

Located in the district of Manka of Taipei, it was founded in 1738 and dedicated to the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. It was rebuilt in 1919 and completed in 1924.

Longshan Temple always keeps it nature as a Buddhist temple, but also houses many deities of Taoism, showing the tolerant mentality of the Taiwanese people.

It is well known that the statue of Kuan-in (Goddess of Mercy) in the temple survived the bombing from the Allied aircrafts on June 8, 1945. The whole main hall and a part of the right annex were burned out during the air raid, but the statue of Kuan-in remained completely intact. Crazy, seeing as it’s made of wood and the whole temple was practically burnt to the ground.

One more thing, my dad’s grandfather helped work on the rebuilding of the temple and one of the pillars was actually carved by him.

On the way there...

I got on the plane at JFK International Airport in New York City. We made a quick stopover in Anchorage, Alaska.

Contrary to my belief, Sarah Palin was not there to greet us and also make sure no Russians were sneaking in.