(continues from here)

♥Dec 4th – Cloudy♥
After breakfast, we checked out of Li Yuan Hotel, stored our baggage there, and headed to Taipei Main Station (台北火車站) using the Metro. We bought our tickets to Ruifang (瑞芳), our transit point to Jiufen (九份). Adults and kids ticket with numbered seats cost NTD76 and NT38 respectively.

Train was comfortable, and took us about 40mins to arrive Ruifang.

Ruifang Station Underpass was turned into a photo gallery

Girls were not interested in the photos, but the ‘sparkly’ pebble washed wall. o.O”

This girl will use the disable ramp instead of stairs; and climbing through barriers, instead of just walking passed it.

And she’s always eager to do something dangerous. o.O”

We wanted to have lunch at Ruifang. We walked through the street market but could not find a place to eat.

Pork sausages.

So we got a bus and headed to Jiufen (九份), a picturesque town which used to be a prosperous mining town.

The moment we arrived, signs of minsu (民宿) or homestay is every where.

Using the directions sent to us by the minsu owner, we found our minsu, Windsor B&B/溫莎堡景觀民宿, easily.

The entrance to the reception area of Windsor B&B or minsu.

We got room no. 3 for our first night. Girls love the spacious room we got. With 2 queen beds; a balcony; bathroom with wooden tub; separate living and dining area (although cooking is not allowed); and a little attic with floor to ceiling window, which the girls loved the most. Zaria called it the ‘secret’ room, and everytime we got back to the room, she would ask us to go there to share secrets.

Our room balcony.
Jiufen’s main attraction is the old street, filled with eateries, and shops selling food stuff. It was good place for us to get some snacks as late lunch.

Instead of pop corn, there’s pop rice (a crisp made from puff up rice)

This stall stinks, but it serves extremely tasty fried stinky tofu.Don’t miss it if you were in Jiufen. The shop name is Jiufen 1st Shop (九份第一家).

We actually went back for another serving of this stinky tofu before we left 2 days later.

While we had stinky tofu, girls had the fishball there (not bad too).

This is a very famous snack in Jiufen. A dumpling made with red yeast and pork or Hongzao Rouyuan (紅糟肉圓).

A group of workers making the dumpling.

Boiling them in water.

And this is how they look like.As it’s filled with pork, we didn’t try any.

Yam/Taro Balls or Yu Yuan (芋圓) is another famous snack in Jiufen. This is the balls that you get in your Snowflake dessert.

Business is brisk for this famous Taro Balls shop Lai Apo (賴阿婆). Tourists buy them raw to bring home as souvenir..

Making of taro balls in Lai Apo

Most people would just buy a bowl and eat in the shop. (we’re not most people, instead we went to another shop for Taro Ball Dessert o.O”)

Vendor selling various stew dishes.

Signage of a herbal tea shop.

Shaved peanut brittle with ice cream (花生捲冰淇淋) is another popular snack. A big block of peanut brittle is shaved, and laid on top of a springroll wrapper, 3 scoops of ice cream is added, and then topped with some coriander leave and wrapped up. We had one without ice cream. The coriander and the crunch of shaved peanut brittle was a nice combination.

Jiufen has some ‘traditional’ toy shops which of course attracted the girls.

Jiufen is a place to sip tea, relax when enjoying the view, so the old street is lined with tea houses with fabulous view. Jiufen Teahouse (九份茶坊) is probably the most posh one.

Love the way they boiled water for tea brewing.

After checking how much it cost to have some tea here (~RM300 for the whole famiy), we thought better of it. What more, Zaria was touching everyhing, and I was worried she might break something.

We continued walking came to a cafe (988 Cafe).

Zaria decided to hang around and try out riding on a bike while Zara and me went into the cafe to get a table with a view.

The cafe didn’t serve nice drinks, but the view was spectacular.

We can see other cafes or tea houses along the old street.

As well as Keelong town far away.

After sunset, Jiufen is still very picturesque.

The restaurant street of Jiufen in the night.

Looking up at the restaurant street.

We took dinner hopping from one stall after another while the girls took the onigiri from 7-11 (which they loved and had it a few more times the rest of our trip).

To be continued.

To supplement my earlier post, I have a few Videos to share from the experts who recently visited Malaysia discussing the disadvantages of added sugars in GUM (growing up milk).

Professor Peter S.W. Davies

Here is his 1st video

It’s a myth where parents assume children need a lot of added sugars for energy and growth. In fact any form of added sugar (Corn syrup solids, glucose syrup solids and sucrose) when consumed by a child, those extra calories may simply convert to excessive body fats and may contribute towards later overweight and obesity.

Here is his 2nd video

As a guideline, the World Health Organisation say we should keep added sugar intakes to less than 10% of our total calorie intake. So for a growing up milk for a 2 to 3 year old child, that’s not really many calories to put aside for added sugar – only 150Kcal or less than 7 teaspoon per day maximum.

Dr John Monro

Here is his 1st video

There’s natural sugar level (lactose) of 11g-12g per serving in children’s milk, anything above this can be considered added sugars.
Do check the ingredient list for added sugar ingredients.

Here is his 2nd video

The nutritional definition of sugars represents more than just mono- and disaccharides because the body digests and metabolises things like corn syrup solids and glucose syrup solids just like sugars and they give rise to sugars immediately in the body.
Added sugars include Corn syrup and glucose syrup solids.
To give yourself a guide to the amount of added sugar, look at ‘carbohydrate per serve’ in a growing up milk powder.

Here is his 3rd video

He reiterated the fact that looking at ‘carbohydrate per serve’ is a good to give us a guide to the amount of added sugars in a growing up milk powder. Anything higher than 11-12g for ‘carbohydrate per serve’ is added sugars.

In short, all these videos are asking you to learn to recognize the different names of added sugar, and make sure you are checking the nutrition information panel of the growing up milk you are buying.

(Continues from here)

♥Dec 2nd – Drizzle/飘雨的台北♥
My collague, Teresa, came to the hotel to meet us. Somehow, Zara and her ‘clicked’, and the rest of the day, they were glued together (oh well, Teresa was looking after Zara for me).

Because it was drizzling, our plan of going to the zoo has to be changed. We went to the National Palace Museum (故宮博物院) instead which was packed with tourists who came in bus load.

Zara showed lots of interest in the artifacts, reading the didactic to learn more about them, not Zaria though.

However, both were intrigued by this longish painting from 1085-1145, which is 528cm long capturing the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital. It’s called Along the River During the Qingming Festival (清明上河圖).

You can view the animated River of Wisdom, to see why it’s so interesting for the girls.

(No cameras are allowed in the museum, so no photos of the artifacts)

Teresa bought us a simple lunch at the Museum Cafe (delicious!) and then we went to Shinkong Mitsukoshi. The Taipei Station branch there was having an aniversary sales, and I don’t know why, I didn’t buy anything even with the good discount. o.O”

Teresa bought us dinner as well in Shinkong Mitsukoshi, and got the girls some presents. The girls said Teresa took care of them like their Gu-ma(姑妈), and called her their Taiwan Gu-ma. o.O”

In the night, after we parted with Teresa, we went to Shida Night Market again (師大夜市) since it’s so near the hotel.

Trendy boutiques to cater for university students are every where. This one has some rocking horses at the shop front.

Another funky shop.

The display window.

Bubble tea is sold everywhere, this one has miniature samplers.

A nightmarket can’t do without some stalls selling food. This old man was burning grilling some corn.

Eww. Pig’s blood cake.

Tangyuan (Glutinous rice balls) shop where we had 2 bowls of tangyuan from. Maybe because they do tangyuan with pork too, the sweet tangyuan we had tasted a bit porky. o.O”

♥Dec 3rd – Sunny/放晴♥
After a day of drizzling, it was sunny. Lucky for us, because we’d made plans to meet up with my collagues at Bali (八里), a seaside town near Tanshui (淡水).

We took the metro to Guandu (關渡), one of my colleagues, Iris, met us there, and then together, we took a cab to To House (兔子餐廳), and met up with the rest of my collagues.

To House (八里兔子餐廳) is a theme family restaurant with a compound housing lots of rabbits.

Healthy looking rabbit in To House.

Besides rabbits, there are other animals too, i.e. Parrots.

There’s also a pig!

Girls spent the whole time petting and feeding rabbits. Coming in only to have their lunch. Leaving me lots of time to catch up with my collagues whom I was meeting for the first time.

Deco around To House.

We left the place only at about 3pm with Iris, we took the bus and went to Bali Ferry Port.

The Streetfood, mainly selling seafood, around the Ferry Port, attracted lots of customers.

Salted eggs are supposed to be famous here as well.

And in Taiwan, Stinky Tofu is sold everywhere.

Guess what? We didn’t buy anything from these stalls, except a stick of squid cake. We were too full from lunch, and I didn’t feel good everytime I wanted to get something, Iris rushed to pay.

We took a short Ferry ride to Danshui.

Over at Danshui, it’s the same, food stalls are everywhere and each one of them were very crowded.

This is the famous Amah’s sour plum drink, but we didn’t really like it.

Danshui street.

Catching the sunset is one of the main attraction, but the evening was gloomy.

Girls found a new game of throwing pebbles into the river.

Riverside Living Statue.

There are lots of streetfood available too.

As the only pork eater at home, she has the honour of having a stick of famous Taiwan grilled sausage.

There are grabbing game machines again.

And other games.

Once we got to the Metro station, Iris, left us to run her own errands.

Outside the metro station, we caught a puppet show.

Lottery icket seller outside the Danshui Metro Station.

Busker crooning Jacky Cheung’s hit.

We had BBQ buffet dinner at Danshui before taking the metro back to the hotel.

To be continued.

When we suggested for a holiday further away from Hong Kong, Zara made some noise, “What’s the point of going for a holiday when all we do is walk walk walk?” “It’s so boring taking the plane.” “I have ear problem, and you still want me to take the plane” etc etc.

We gave her 2 options, either go with us, or stay home with Jelly. Of course, she chose the former.

Daddy’s airmiles could cover 4 of us to either Perth, or Taiwan. Looking at the AUD exchange rate, we therefore decided to go Taiwan instead. We have to time our trip according to flight schedules claimable by airmiles and to make sure I’m in town on December 9th because I have bought tickets for Jacky Cheung’s concert. Hence, the trip was made during the wet season in Taiwan. Sigh.

♥Nov 30th♥

We arrived at Taipei about 7pm+, it was already dark. Upon arriving at the hotel, a package from my Taiwan colleague, Teresa, which consisted of a Taipei Guidebook and 2.5Kg of Taiwan rice welcome us.

Our hotel for the next 4 nights will be Li Yuan Hotel (儷園飯店), a small hotel located near Shida (師大) and 1 minute walk from Tai Power Metro Station (台電大樓站).

We got a family room with 2 queen beds. The room is small but functional and clean.

Soon after we checked in, we went straight to Shida Nightmarket (師大夜市) for dinner. We picked a restaurant which specialises in herbal chicken soup, 龍涎居雞膳食坊. We were too hungry to take any photos, but Daddy who’s not a chicken eater claimed they serve one of the best chicken soup he’s tasted.

We did some walking about the nightmarket after dinner, and then headed back to rest.

♥Dec 1st – Gloomy♥
We woke up late and missed the hotel breakfast and had to eat out.

Our first destination after breakfast of road side pao and bubble tea was Bo Ai Road (博愛路), the Taipei Camera Street, to get a lens Daddy was eyeing (he did the research before arriving and knew exactly which shop to go to. o.O”).

We spent sometime in Ximending (西門町), for lunch, to glance through some of the small shops.

Shops and stall at Ximending :

菓風小舖, the sweet shop where we spent most time in.

Roadside Sweet Potato Ball Seller

Girls kept asking for money for these ‘games’, but I didn’t let them.

Lots of shops have dogs at the door front, this is one of them.

上海老天祿 stewed duck wings

The Red House (西門紅樓), Taiwan’s first public market now a theater.

Girls were fascinated with the many costume shops across the Red House.

Besides getting some sweets from the sweet shop, we didn’t buy anything else in Taipei’s shopping street. o.O”

As Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall (中正纪念堂) is nearby, we thought we’ll visit it as well. Not knowing we’ll spend so much time there. As it’s surrounded by a big park, lots of locals walk their dogs, do team practice for various events etc etc.

We saw a brass band practice in the park.

Zaria spent so much time chasing after pigeons.

School team practicing march.

Li Zhen’s Sculptures (李真雕塑) were exhibited in front of the Memorial Hall.

Girls wanted to take photos of the sculptures.

And wanted to be photographed with the sculptures.

Inside the Memorial Hall, the girls could not believe the still guards were real, and not human.

Zaria asked who the statue is “Is he the King of Taiwan?” o.O”

As we were there in the evening, instead of change of guards, we managed to catch the flag lowering ceremony (at 5pm).

As night fall, they started lighting up the whole park.

Li Zhen’s sculpture.

That night, recommended by my Taiwan colleague, we went to the Eslite flagship bookshop (誠品信義店). A bookshop with 8000m² of floorspace! Heaven for me!

We even had dinner there at their food court, then just glanced through the various floors.

We love the 杏仁燒, an almond dessert with grass jelly, peanuts, red bean and tosted almond chips from this dessert shop Summer Tree Sweet (夏樹甜品) at the food court. (sorry no photo).

(To-Be Continued)

Zaria had her school concert end of November.

She had to be made up for her stage performance and gee, I realize I don’t have much make up at home. Only the some loose powder, very natural blusher. I had to borrow a darker lipstick as well as some eye shadow from her teacher.

Sarcasm

At the egg stall in the market, she touched the stacked up eggs and the vendor told her don’t touch, after the eggs will break in Cantonese.
I told her, “Auntie asked you not to touch, after the eggs break.”
She frowned, put her hand down and said, “When people hold eggs, do they just break?” o.O”
(true, eggs don’t break just because we touch or hold them)

In a bad mood, we moved to the fish monger. A few people were crowded around a pail. I went over and took a peek. It was a big live Ikan Haruan (Sang Yue/生鱼) still swimming in the pail.
I exclaimed, “Wow!”
Zaria took a look at the pail then rolled her eyes, “It’s only a fish, why you WOW for.” o.O”

Recovery

I picked up a small soft toy someone dropped at a busy train station. I asked the girls to do ‘paper, scissor, stone’ and see who can get the soft toy.
Zaria lost. So I gave the soft toy to Zara.
Zaria was angry, she snatched the soft toy from Zara and tossed it to the ground.
I picked it up, smacked her hand, and then passed the toy back to Zara.
Not even after a minute, Zaria asked Zara, “Can I put make up for your doll or not?”
(Good that she recovers very quickly. That’s her, quick to get angry, quick to cool down)

When we were buying Zara her birthday present in ToysRus, Zaria too wanted us to get her a toy dog grooming set as her advance birthday present. We issued warnings to her, i.e. once we got her that, she won’t be able to ask for another present when it’s her birthday. Of course she agreed to it.
A couple of weeks later, she saw another toy she wanted to get.
Me : “You already got the grooming set for your birthday. So no more present for you.
Zaria : “Actually, I didn’t want to get THAT, but my body wants me to get it. But this is what I really want.” o.O”

Zaria playing with the toy her ‘body’ asked her to buy

While playing building blocks at home, Zara smashed Zaria’s building, Zaria took a building block and then tossed it at Zara, hitting Zara at her forehead.
Zara came to me crying and told me what happened.
I asked Zaria to come out. As it’s not the first time she threw things at Zara, I picked up a huge piece of building block, and told her to teach her a lesson and let her have a taste of her own medicine, Zara will now toss the building block at her.
She had fear in a eyes (and surprise in Zara’s eyes), she immediately said, “But I was just about to say sorry to jiejie.”
I asked Zara if that’s good enough, Zara said, “She hasn’t even say it yet.”
Zaria replied, “I’m still thinking how to say it.” o.O”
I have to chip in, “Say it or you stand there and let jiejie toss the building block at you!”
Reluctantly, she shouted, “SORRY JIE!”
Zara replied, “That’s not the way to say sorry.”
I passed the building block from one hand to the other and waited for Zaria.
She took a deep breath then said nicely, “Sorry jie.”
I asked Zara, “Is that good enough?”
Zara replied, “Yes. That’s good enough.”

The debate is still on. Is added sugars ok in growing up milk?

If you are still confused with fact of sugars in milk, I’d gotten some materials from some key opinion leaders on this topic. Let me share with you some points of what they said.

Dr John Monro from Plant & Food Research, New Zealand :
1) All sugars are sourced from plants except for lactose which are naturally present in milk

2) Added sugars (in milk powder) are mostly factory products of chemical and enzymatic starch digestion

3) All sugars and pre-sugars (carbohydrate) are rapidly converted to sugars in the body

4) And to sum it all, see the diagram below :

(credit : Dr John Monro)

The child could be consuming a lot of *added sugars every day!

Professor Peter SW Davies from The University of Queensland :
1) In 2010, 43milion Preschool children are overweight or 92milion ‘at risk’ of overweight

2) If we lose the ability to ‘balance’ our intake and expenditure body weight can be lost or gained dramatically

3) WHO Recommendation on Nutrient Intake Goals
…………………………% of Total Energy
Fat —————————-15-30%
Protein ———————-10-15%
Carbohydrates———— 55-75%
Free/Added Sugars —– < 10% 5) Carbohydrates with nutritious value (you can find a whole list on the internet) : bread, banana, apple etc 6) Added sugars have NO nutritious value which is Empty Calories. Extra calories lead to weight gain, and is not required in a healthy diet. 7) So what can we do? Select wholesome natural food as source for carbohydrates; look out for *added sugars in processed foods. While we know that growing up milk has essential nutrients for growing up children (for their brain and physical development) , and contains more nutrient than a glass of fresh milk, what you can see from the above key opinion leaders is that, the excessive added sugars being added in is not needed in children’s growing up milk. So parents, when you are choosing your children’s growing up milk, do check the carbohydrate per serving found in the tin/pack of the milk. Remember, anything above 11-12g per serve is added sugars. *Added sugars come in the form of corn syrup solids, sucrose, glucose syrup solids, maltodextrin