death by taiwanese food

it's been 5 days since i came back to taiwan. it's amazing how much you can eat in 5 days and the variety of foods they offer here. funny girl G has been repeating herself with the phrase "i can die here" because of all the good foods. (will post pix later)

well, today finally had a chance to stop from serious eating and do some damage control. i went hiking with my cousin ken, his wife terry, and lilian (a family friend). we went to the famous "yan ming shan". somehow in all my years in taiwan, i've never been hiking there even once. maybe it's because i grew up with a dad who doesn't like to hike (so he said in the car tonight).

thank God that the weather was super nice. when i woke up in the morning and looked out the window, i thought.. "gosh.. it looks hot and humid and maybe it will rain... not sure how i am going to survive today's hike" but as i went out, there was this nice breeze. although i was already sweating by just walking around on the street, it felt good because of the breeze.

we met around 10:30 at the Bei Tou MRT station and waited for a bus while we caught up with one another's lives. took this small bus up the mountain and started off on this trial by a temple. it was all uphill!!! we must have climbed uphill for hours but we took short breaks in between and enjoyed some fruits and food they prepared. the majority of the hike was uphill which was nice (because i really hate how going downhill can be so slippery and scary... and it hurts my knees and thighs). we walked thru this place that used to be the opening of a volcano and there used to be a small lake but it's all dried up now. well, to cut the story short, it was a very hard hike but rewarding hike because i had a break from eating and could do some serious exercise to sweat off all the calories and oil from fried chicken chop, din tai feng's "real" meat little steamed bao, yummy taiwanese style tapanyaki, all the delicious and delicate cakes from any bakery in the city, shaved ice desserts, bubble tea, grass jelly milk tea, dan shui fish balls... etc...

the entire hike took us nearly 6 hours to complete. LOL but it was really worth it.

(warning: food pictures posted in a later time might turn friends to enemies. if you cannot tahan and still want to be my friend, please don't look at the pictures. )