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Descisions, descisions, descisions…

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Why is it that every time you’ve just about made your mind up that you’re going to do something, the whole game change?

I thought I was ready to go ahead and take a job and now something else cropped up and all of a sudden the previous offer doesn’t seem all that interesting any more. But all this means that now I have to wait and see what’ll happen, as the new offer isn’t set in stone yet.

In the meantime I’m busy working on a project of my own, that again might not work out the way I wanted it to, but I guess that’s always the case when you have to rely on other people. Given some time it might still work out, but the question is how much time I have to get it off the ground before I get too involved with something else to not bother.

Sorry about being so cryptic, but I can’t really spill the beans until I know what’s going on and then I promise I’ll come clean.

A friend of mine has just opened up a new cafe here in Taipei and I’ll be adding more details about it later. For now you can have a look at www.thefairycafe.com for more details.

New hosting service

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So, I had enough with my old host, they might’ve been dirt cheap, but it was just too much hassle everytime I wanted to do something with WordPress, so I decided to move the site.

I’m also busy working on another project on the site which will hopefully kick off in the not too distant future as things have finally started to move forward, albeit slowly.

Right now the site is in chaos, as I need to fix some stuff with the plugins to put everything back in the order it was. I’m also going to look at finding myself a more attractive design for the site. Stay tuned for a bunch of updates.

Holiday etc…

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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….

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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?

Merry Christmas

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So, it’s that time of the year again, Christmas…

I can’t believe I’ve already spent over two years in Taiwan, time really does fly.

So last week I went to South Korea as my ARC has expired and I need to leave Taiwan every 30 days which is a real hassle when you live on an island. I meet up with a guy there that I got to know through work some five years ago and we’ve keep in touch over MSN, but until now, we haven’t managed to meet up.

Seoul looked just like any big city in the world, but cleaner and more organised on some strange way. There were some Japanese influence on the older buildings, but everything that was new looked like it could be slotted in in just about any big city. It was a great trip and I had a really good time, mostly thanks to my friend who was a great host.

I’ve been working with a French guy here on a project he’s doing and hopefully he’ll be able to help me out in the long run, we’ll see what happens, but he’s got some pretty cool ideas, he just doesn’t know a lot about computers which is a bit of a problem. It’s going to take longer than he thinks to do the stuff he wants and some of it is going to cost a lot more money than he wants it to. The other problem is that he wants certain things to be perfect while other things doesn’t seem to matter, but he somehow seems to mix up his priorities in terms of what is important to a consumer that would buy his products.

Anyhow, we’re off to Boracay for our first real holiday together for Chinese new year, although, we’re sneaking off a bit early as it’ll be cheaper that way. We got some super cheap plane tickets there which was less than a normal return ticket for one person would cost, so it’s kind of a budget holiday, but on a really nice beach.

To all my friends out there, have a great holiday and a happy 2009 if I don’t get around to posting something more on here before the end of the year.