Chinese New Year

Holiday etc…

by

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…

Merry Christmas

by

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.