Holiday etc…

So, it’s the week after Chinese New Year and things are getting back to normal, more or less. We had a great 10 days in Boracay and if you haven’t been, I’d suggest you go if you get the chance. I highly suggest you try to make it there one day if you haven’t been. Although somewhat developed, its free from international chain restaurants, although a few of the bigger international hotel chains have made their way there.

We stayed on the “wrong” side of the island, but as the island is only about 1km wide at its narrowest point, it wasn’t much of a walk. We stayed in the Reef Retreat hotel and if you’re into wind or kite surfing, then this is the place to stay in, as Bulabog beach is meant to be the place for these sports. We did see quite a few surfers and some of them were quite impressive.

The main beach on Boracay is called White beach and the sand was indeed quite white. The water was really nice and clean and the beach was one of the best I’ve ever been to. The water wasn’t quite as shallow as I expected after reading up on Boracay, although I’m used to the shallow beaches on the west and south coast of Sweden which I guess doesn’t compare.

We had some great meals and if you’re going, make sure you visit the local Greek restaurant, Cyma and don’t miss the wet market, the seafood there is really cheap and tastes great, just make sure you pick one of the bigger restaurants to cook the seafood for you, as we had a bad experience with one of the smaller restaurants at a second visit. Don’t bother with the Ole tapas place, it wasn’t very good both in terms of the food or value.

Since we got back, I managed to find myself some active lactic culture and I’ve made my own Filmjölk and it came out really good. I’m now on my fifth batch from the first culture and it’s still coming out good. I’ve really missed this stuff as it’s been over two years since I’ve had it. It’s just a shame that most of the cereal here is overpriced or crappy tasting, but I can make do. If you live in Taiwan and want to know how to make Filmjölk, feel free to get in touch with me.My next project is to try to make cottage cheese, but this might not be as easy…

And it’s 2009….

Wow, it’s already five days into the new year and I don’t know where the past few days have gone…

Loads of things going on, but nothing seems to happen fast enough to make any real difference, talk about frustration.
Even so, things are at least progressing forward, which is a nice thing. Hopefully something good will come out of it all in the end.
It’s less than two weeks until we go on holiday now and I’m so looking forward to spending 10 days in Boracay, although we have to spend one night in Manila as well, but at least it gives us a chance to do some cheap shopping.

Yesterday Brenda caught up with me in age, although it won’t be long until I’m older again…
We didn’t do anything special, went out for a meal and chilled out. It’s fairly cold here in Taiwan now, a warm day is 20 degrees in the day, the not so warm ones are about five degrees cooler and at night it’s dropped down to 11 degrees already at times. I guess it doesn’t help living close to the mountains as it makes it even chillier. The big downside here is that heating isn’t standard, despite the fairly cool winters, although our new AC units have built in heating, but it’s not exactly fantastic, but it’s better than the little portable radiator we had to make do with last winter.

I’m going to try to get some more restaurants added to the list, I just haven’t focused a lot on the blog recently, but I really ought to, right?