Ramen, I love ramen. Slurp =P

I have been told since my most tender childhood that it is not decent to slurp while you sit at a table eating. This rule doesn't apply to Japanese people. They slurp while eating ramen, the Japanese style noodle.

I love ramen in Japan!! They taste so different than that I have tried in my country Taiwan. What I like to do is to admire the ramen shop owner's skills while they prepare this Japanese spaghetti in front of you, over the counter. Behind the steamy fog, the ramen maestro dredges up the noodles with grace and dexterity, and carefully puts it in a bowl of broth. Yummy :P

There was one evening, on my lone trip, when I visited Shibuya. Being tired and with camera batteries depleted, I rejoiced upon finding a ramen shop and rushed in! Ooooh !! Yummy ramen !!

After taking a sexy picture of my food, I started eating it with the manners my mom taught me. Sitting strait, rolling my noodles with chopsticks like Italian spaghetti... and not slurping. At this moment, a young lady started to laugh at me, making sounds like "huhuhuh".

I gave her a friendly question mark with my eyebrows, my mouth full of tasty ramen. She responded by a slurp with a move of her hand with fingers in the position of chopsticks. Then she laughed again. My ignorance of such table manner seemed to amuse her greatly, which made me happy.

So I started to slurp my noodles, with few success. I think I need practice more often. The lady could very easily eat her ramen by slightly slurping it, and the noodles would disappear... in her mouth. But no matter how hard I slurp, well, the ramen just hanged there. Ahem, I am glad that my mom didn't see me like this.

The lady really burst out laughing when I choked myself while slurping. Okay, then I gave up. The ramen was really tasty !!

Later on, I had some more when I flew to Sapporo. Back in Taiwan, I started to choose ramen shops carefully, because I already know how the "real" ones taste.

I think I need more practice slurping ramen, therefore, I have to go back to Japan !!

Goodbye Ling Ling... 安息吧，陵陵。

By Taijing Wu
Fake Reporter

Ling Ling, the giant panda of Tokyo's Ueno Park Zoo died of heart failure April 30, leaving its fans of all age in deep sorrow. He was 22 years and seven months old.

Originary from China, Ling Ling was born on the 5th of September 1985 and started to serve at Ueno Park Zoo on the 5th November 1992, when he was seven years old.

The zoo started to keep giant pandas since 1972, when the Chinese government gave Japan Kang Kang and Lan Lan. Since then, giant pandas became the site's main attraction.

Optimistic political analysts depict this loss as an opportunity to break the diplomatic ice between the Empire of the Rising Sun and the "Empire du millieux"(another appelation of China in French, more litterary), with the recent visit of Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, as he proposed to lease two other giant pandas.

But reactions are not always positive.

The price proposed by Hu Jintao for the pair of giant pandas is about one million US$. News reports said that Hu mentionned leasing two other pandas to the zoo while he was meeting Emperor Akihito. During the conversation, he said he hopes Japanese people keep on appreciating pandas, and he would like to make it possible that these two countries commonly study pandas; therefore he would like to provide a new pair of pandas, and that kids would keep on admiring this kind of animal.

Well, probes on public opinions seems to reflect more cons than pros... This is a problem that the Fukuda cabinet has to solve... Let's see what happens then.

Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day, it was dramatic. I wouldn't want to survive such an atmosphere ever again. My mom had a sort of disagreement with my brother which triggered her temper and stormed out of the house without precising where she goes in the afternoon to comeback only close to midnight.

Yes, yes. Mothers are delicate creatures and if one doesn't handle with care, consequences can be extremely harmful.

That day, I woke up quite early in the morning and took advantage of the nice weather to go out take pictures on Yang Ming Shan. I went to 陽明書院, one of the residences of late Taiwan president Chiang Kai-shek. Although it is forbidden to take pictures in the residence, where late CKS received diplomats of all countries, I still managed to take some in the back of our guide.

In the first picture, the late president looks like batman in his portrait.

The room in the second picture is where he received and decided whether a military personnel would be promoted to general. This room has five doors that allows him to run away asap if someone (there should have been many at that time) wanted his life.

And this is the toilet that Madame CKS used. Everything inside is pink. Apparently, this couple didn't sleep on the same bed and used different bathrooms. Madame CKS' bathroom is pink-colored and her husband's is white-light blue.

Madame's bed is a single bed, while in the adjacent husband's room, the bed is a luxurious one for two people.

When I went home and was preparing to meet Thomas and James, my mom was already very unhappy, so I quickly rushed out to avoid being involved.

Sunday Cycling

Taiwan's a world leader in the bike industry, and Taiwanese are proud of that!

On Sunday, me and my friends, Junko, James, Thomas and Ken decided to make a bicycle trip to Bali by crossing the Tamsui River on the famous Kuandu Bridge.

The sun was sort of torrid, but our spirits were high... um, at least at the beginning. The ever-poised Junko likes to take pictures almost as much as I do.

The happy bicycle company met up at Kuandu Temple, our rally point where we took a copious lunch together, throwing jokes at each other.

Arrived at Bali's wharf, James, Thomas and Ken continued to the anthropology museum not far from there while I decided to go home, as I had something alse to do. Everyone seemed to have had great cycling fun!

The trip ended with a few sunburns for us. Poor Junko, she seems to have her nose a little burned by the sun. I should be more thoughtful and take care of my cycling mates next time!!

Summer is coming

I finally decided that I should join the blogging community... after my trip to Japan, meeting Mimi and her husband Sylvain.
Summer is around the corner, and on this island called Taiwan, summer can sometimes be so torrid at such an extent to withdraw all the energy one has. Right now I am planning a trip to Wang An island, a little island belonging to the Penghu archipelago, at large Taiwan's west coast.