ONEBUBBLE

I don’t remember when but roughly two weeks ago we took a trip to the Danshui River Park. Actually I don’t know if that’s what they call it but this place is located alongside the Danshui River (obviously) and if you take the MRT (red line), just go north until you reach the Danshui Station (duh).

Danshui has become quite the hot tourist spot. In addition to its various historical attractions, it has a perfect combination of good crowd, great food, and beautiful scenery. If you’re looking to avoid the hustles & bustles of a night market, this is a great place to just walk around and enjoy the breeze. (Edit: actually, I never been here at night so maybe it gets just as boisterous as a typical night market. I doubted it though…)

I would recommend coming here right before dawn so you can catch the sunset and enjoy the night scenes here. You can also check out some nearby attractions such as the Fisherman’s Wharf or the Red Castle.

Every spot has their own specialty or creation and Danshui is no exception. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry so didn’t get a chance to really enjoy the food here. Which bites… but not literally. You can also walk through the alleys and check out what’s happening on the street side.

I wished I bought one. I saw one that’s at least twice as high as the one in the picture above (left side).

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Here are some videos we took:

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THE BLACK STORE

We did however check out this joint famous for its pork chops. It’s about a 10-minute cab ride from the Danshui Station. It’s a very well-known restaurant so any cab driver from Danshui should be able to get you there no problem. By the way, it’s called the Black Store because when it first opened, about 20 years ago I think, the interior was all black. Taiwanese are simple people when it comes to store names.

It wasn’t bad but I think we came at a bad time (around 2-3pm) because the food came out immediately after we order it. There’s no doubt the pork chops were pre-made because it wasn’t quite hot off the grill if you get my drift. Maybe if you come during lunchtime then you won’t get the leftovers.

We ran into this little charmer right after our meal. It seems like every time we eat pork chops there’s a pig right outside waiting for us.

Raohe St. Night Market is one of the oldest night markets around, and from what I’ve read, it’s supposedly the first night market in Taiwan. Located near the Songshan Railway Station (like you know where that is…), it’s about a ten minutes cab ride from the Taipei 101 area. The taxis here are much cheaper compared to New York City but it still adds up. For example: a cab ride of about 40 minutes and 20 miles will cost roughly $30 USD in Taipei and I’m guessing about $50 in New York. It’s not dirt cheap like the street food here but if you split the cab with couple of buddies then it’s not too bad at all. It beats trying to figure out the bus routes in a foreign country.

I have heard that this night market is one of the better ones in terms of food deliciousness which makes sense if this is indeed the first ever night market in Taiwan. Well, it’s a good “combo” market meaning it covers both food and shopping. We didn’t spend much time here, but from what I remembered, it had a good crowd, great variety of food, and enough stores on the sides to keep your eyes busy wandering.

We decided to eat here first because the line was long and it looks like everyone was clamoring for one of these steamed/fried buns.

They looked pretty good from where we were standing. By the way, don’t believe the hype. The line died down right after we got on. If we were there ten minutes later, there would’ve been no one there.

These buns were huge and there were HOT!! Like mouth-burning lava HOT!! The taste wasn’t bad but we were stuffed (and burned) so it kind of killed our appetite for the night. I would recommend against this as your first bite.

Another Doraemon sighting. Confession: I grew up reading Doraemon and eating Dorayaki. Anyway, I bought one, left it in my shorts, and forgot all about it. I ate it about a week later (I put it in the fridge after I found it) and it was just alright. Somehow, I don’t think I gave it a fair chance to be good…

We ended the night by spending a good amount of coins at one of these game stations. Here’s Andy trying to win the grand prize. I think it’s either a polar bear or a really fat rabbit.

warning: immense load of pictures than my previous post so try not to get caught at work because the last thing we want is for them to block ONEBUBBLE. COM at your company…..actually that would get us A LOT of publicity and then maybe we could do this as a full time job.

Sooooo, Tyler and I met up with some old friends in Hsinchu that I haven’t seen in 10 years, which makes it the last time i saw them was 14, ANNND when i was 14 i looked completely different: height was the same but width wise — @_@. In any case, it turns out my friend majored in interior design, worked for a firm for a year and ended up closing shop and opening up a NEW shop but this time: serving UDON noodles, which i thought was crajee-lah!

Butttt….the restaurant had a really paris-cafe’esque theme to it which i thought was great, really classy lighting, and she had clocks installed which displayed different timezones which i thought added a nice touch of variety. The “little shop” as her mom had warned me, wasn’t as small as i pictured, as the restaurant was able probably to house no more than 25 at a time, but ANYSPACE beats I’s Cafe.

The house is known for a lot of their items, but I ended up ordering the fresh tomato sukiyaki which consisted of –> mushrooms, sausage, egg, udon, and a random piece of shrimp but NO tomato which i thought was kind of odd…see if you can find it.

While Tyler ordered the curry chicken sukiyaki which tasted great. It had a bold curry taste far from anything offered at Mesala Grill. Overall, taste wise it was great minus the tomato mishap, but of course EVERYTHING tastes better when its free =).

My friend along with her younger brother, took us to this place called NEIWAN known for its tradition food and mini go karts . It’s a historical landmark recently buffed up with street vendors to make it more accommodating towards tourists so you can get food, drinks, even watch old school movies on a giant projection screen.

The bathrooms still even have those squat pots to get a more old school aesthetic feeling, but i like it cuz it seems to preserve the tradition.

We walked along this bridge overlooking a river stream, which apparently is really clean and most certainly gets a lot of attention. Btw, if asians already all look the same, the least is wear something different right? Don’t enhance that stereotype by purposely collectively wearing the exact same colors when taking pictures. gosh they’d be so confusing if they lived in the states.

We finished our trip in Neiwan with Tyler walking way ahead of the car and looking back taking our last photo together, never to realize that there’s something weird with this picture. Can anyone find it? post your answer in your comment and we’ll high five you when we get back in Sept!

Neiwan Out!

Last Saturday, we met up with some friends in Taipei and somehow ended up at this Japanese pork chop restaurant owned by Jay Chou – apparently he’s a mega star here in Taiwan so our expectation was very high.

This is their cheese-filled pork chop. One of their more popular choices. It was alright. I ate it when it was cold so maybe that’s why it didn’t do it for me.

I ordered the miso pork chop because it came highly recommended. Well, if you love miso soup then maybe you’ll like this dish.

Asparagus pork chop. Not much different from the previous dishes. The meat itself is decent and flavorful. Other than that, the food didn’t match the hype.

By the way, this is what we have to look at before and after we ate those pork chops. This little pig is stationed right at the left side of the front door. I’m not sure if this is meant to stir up our appetite or not. Well, it didn’t. Maybe if they killed and fried the pig right there and then. Just kidding people…relax.

We ended the night by going to this bar lounge called the Gamers. True to its name, this place offers a variety of games such as billiards, darts, Wii, and some racing game like the ones you see at Dave & Buster’s. The games are cool but we came here for the “Speacil Cocktails”. Oh man, you gotta love it.

If you haven’t heard by now, me and DJ Frow. Back aka Mr. ILoveSundaes are embarking on some kind of a trip to Asia – a trip of MEGA proportions if you will. Our first stop is Taiwan which happens to be the birthplace of me, bubble tea and Chien-Ming Wang (two of which are beloved by the people of Taiwan) who unfortunately is sidelined with a sprained right foot. Hopefully, he’ll return to help the Yankees clinch the division by the time we get back to the States.

So, we have arrived safe and sound after a surprisingly-not-so-terrible 17-hour flight. I’ll post more on our trip here later including a run-in with a celebrity. Today, we’ll be hitting up the city of Taipei to run some errands and walk around like tourists. We don’t really have much of an itinerary for this trip partly because we just want to wing it as we go but mostly because we were just too lazy. This is where the interactive portion of the blog comes in. If you have been to Asia or know anyone that has, please help us answer the following question in the comments section of this post.

In the cities of Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo, where are some great:

• places to eat?
• places to checkout and visit?
• places to to demonstrate our incredible basketball skills?

Anyway, we thank you in advance for your participation. Along with this trip, this post also marks the beginning of another endeavor – my attempt in joining the blogosphere. Writing is definitely not my forte by any stretch. In fact, I suck. So yeah help a brother out. Comments, suggestions…or grammar tips are all welcomed.

That’s all for now. Hopefully, this won’t be the last post.