The bridge that changes color at night...

It's actually the light on the bridge, not the bridge , that changes color starting at twilight.

I thought F4 fever is gone but I think I’m wrong. I thought of calling it "Meteor Garden mania residual". Three weeks ago, hubby told me two of his highschool classmates, a couple, informed him they were coming to Taipei only to watch an F4 concert. Surprisingly, the concert’s venue is right here in Tamsui. What luck it is that this group will reunite hubby with his highshool classmates! By the way, we never heard about it as it seems the group’s no longer in the limelight here. Hearing the news from hubby, I checked the web for information about this concert and google led me to one website that’s managed by F4 fans. I figured that the group is no longer called F4, they’re JVKV now. The Taipei concert is scheduled on Saturday early evening in the Fisherman’s Wharf while a fan/autograph signing day follows on Sunday somewhere in Taipei City. We thought we can bring the two, KC and Alexis, out first before the concert or maybe the day after but it appeared that they have been booked already. Thus we met them at the MRT station and decided to bring them to the concert place which is less than 10minutes bus ride away from the station.

On the way, we chit-chat and I was like, “did you really just come here for the concert?” And the answer I got is of course, yes, indeed! I asked how much the tickets cost and found out there was none because the concert was actually a free one! Free? Then does that really mean they’re no longer in? Hmmnnn… that did not come from me that was from one of them. We arrived at the place just after sunset and we saw the crowd already gathered and waiting for the group. We saw a group waving small Filipino flags. KC mentioned that one of them may be another Pinay she knew who came to the concert venue a lot earlier than us. She told us that the said Pinay fan and her friends went to the place in the morning. I am not sure if they also flew from Manila just to watch the concert. With time still available for quick exchange of stories, I figured out that Alexis came to like the F4 group through KC. They also went to Hongkong last year to watch the group’s performance and mind you, they watched the same concert, on the same venue, for three consecutive nights. Awww, these two are really fanatics.

The concert stage

F4 fans waiting

(I was not able to take a close shot of the fans waving small Philippine flags)

Jade curiously trying the "concert light" I bought for her

The concert was scheduled to start at 6PM so we left them earlier so they could find a good place. We strolled for a while then headed to the coffee shop nearby. Realizing we haven’t gone to the Wharf for a number of months, and no night shots yet, I left hubby and Jade in the shop while I went out to take some pictures. I found out that the bridge light alternately changes color. We were able to see it lit in blue and green. We peeked on the venue hoping to catch a glimpse of the F4 guys since we were already there but with no luck. We left the place before 7PM without seeing any of the F4 members. I guess the concert started late.

The so-called lover's bridge in blue
Twilight shot

This time light's changed to green

Boats at the wharf

(Noeds commented it looked like it's inVenice)

The wooden bridge at twilight

More photos can be found here.

On Tuesday, hubby received a message from the couple informing him they got back to Manila safely on Monday and was happy to have watched the concert. I’ll not be surprised to hear that the two will fly back again to Taipei for yet another F4 concert.

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Strange-sounding, mouth-wathering recipe: ADOBASIT

Combination of pork and squid invading one of my teflon pots

You’re not a Pinoy if you don’t know and eat adobo! That’s my personal line and I don’t intend to insist. :) Adobo has always been a favorite in our home. The adobo can be anything like baboy (pork), manok (chicken), combination of baboy and manok (the first three can be with or without potatoes), pusit (squid), and sitaw (string beans). The adobong manok can also be varied from a combination of all body parts (except the internals), wings, drumsticks, breasts, and “adidas” (chicken feet). Back home, different provinces have their own ways of coming out with adobos, others prefer dry while others with sauce to mix with the rice later. For me, if I cook adobo, I always include all, if not most, of the following basic ingredients: onions, garlic, ground or whole pepper, bay leaves, soy sauce, vinegar (or calamansi extract), salt and sugar. At times, I add ginger to adobong manok and oyster sauce to adobong pusit. In one of my favorite restaurants (part of Iggy’s Inn or Iggy’s Place) in Baguio, the special adobo served is a combination of lechon baboy and chicken. That didn’t sound strange at all to me.

Recently, I was exchanging comments with my multiply friends when I posted our Christmas celebration with seafoods mainly served. Noeds, also a high school friend back in SJHS, asked Sharon and I if we ever tried cooking adobong baboy and pusit, not separately but combined. Both our answers are “no” followed by same reaction and question of “Really, is there such thing, sounds strange to us! Can you share your recipe?” Noeds in turn told us she just cooks it like the regular adobong baboy and add the pusit. The tastes match, she said. She also mentioned about using something like the pork cubes. I told her I’d like to try. I mentioned it to hubby and he was interested. I told him I couldn’t imagine the taste and he said it should be fine.

Last Sunday, I had no other plans for dinner except for that much awaited adobong baboy and pusit which I simple call ADOBASIT. Sounds like a combination yet contradiction of the Ilocano terms “adu” (many or plenty) and “bassit” (small or not much). As I mentioned in my earlier posts about recipes, I really don’t have an exact recipe. As long as you know how to cook adobo, you’d know how to come up with this. What I did was to cook the adobong baboy first then when the pork meat was already tender, I added up the squid noting that when the later gets overcooked, the meat will harden. I gave the combination less than ten minutes to simmer and tada, dish was readied for dinner. The combination came in just fine. I’d say, the taste of the pusit dominated that of the baboy but was still ok. This is one dish that will get through my kitchen not just once or twice but often.

Don't you think they make a good pair?

You may have to think twice and give it a try!

Thanks to Noeds for sharing this authentic dish!

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Pictures speak louder than words...

My first post for year 2008! It's not that I forgot publishing in Page 101 but I've been busy and overwhelmed uploading hundreds of photos in my multiply album, most of which are set to be viewable only by people in my network. I may need to set a time to filter the pictures suitable for posting here and will have to find the words to draw the emotions that came along with those pictures.

Anyway, after Christmas, we had a busy weekend - a year ender family getaway in an indoor hotspring (more of a bath house) in one of the oldest hotels (1950 built) in Yangmingshan followed by a fun-filled cold Sunday in the grounds of Taipei Municipal Children's Recreation Center. We had a happy New Year celebration, hubby and I waited for the countdown on the TV while Jade went to sleep and didn't want to be awaken. We celebrated New Year's daywith friends and colleagues at home, we served lunch this time. First weekends of January were spend outdoors - mainly meant for Jade to enjoy. Full stories to follow soon. Just to let you know that I'm still around :) Here are some of the pictures, insignificant number compared to the collection :)

The family enjoying the warm soak on a cold Saturday night,

last Saturday of year 2007

Dynamic Jade enjoying the grasses on a cold Sunday afternoon,

last Sunday of year 2007

Cheers to Year 2008

The family celebrating with friends on New Year's Day

(Jade had her first taste of red wine, just a single drop)

Another family outing on a cold Saturday,

1st Saturday of 2008

(Mini-San Francisco Bridge on the background ???)

Jade displaying her independence by taking the slide by herself,

1st Sunday of 2008

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The Christmas that was...

Ours was just a simple one. With the 25th treated as a typical day here in Taiwan, we opted to have early Christmas celebration during the weekend. Since Sunday was planned to be celebrated with Ate Rosie and friends, we invited our colleagues and friends to our humble home on Saturday and the theme was seafoods for dinner. Earlier on Saturday, I went out with 'te Rosie and hubby to the seafood market in Taoyuan leaving hubby and Jade home so the little girl can take her nap.I set dinner to start at 7pm so when we reached home by 3pm, I started to work on the kitchen few minutes after we arrived from the market.Dishes prepared includes adobong pusit, buttered shrimps,clams, crab feet (cracked before cooking), seaweed salad and stir-fried pork.While I was cooking, Dennis and Jade went to KFC to buy 2 buckets of chicken.

As the guests started to arrive, fish and squid balls with spiced vinegar for dipping were served with the help of a friend.Our friends enjoyed the meal except for the crab feet which entailed one to eat barehanded to savour it. The guys were teasing one of them when he started to "agkammet" (used barehand to eat) because his index finger was "nakapilantik" (lifted and directed upwards) but he didn't mind and continued to savor his plate with matching slurping sounds. The meal was followed by some rice cake sweets from the night market and more of the fish and squid balls. The dinner ended with the group watching the "Pirates of the Carribean" (don't know if it was part 1 or 2) where most of them sat on the floor because of the limited space.

The next day, we went to Juvel's place for late lunch while the rest of the day was spent at Ate Rosie's place where we had our dinner. They prepared the usual macaroni salad and spaghetti that's why I didn't cook these two anymore. I brought down the leftovers plus my simple "pinakbet" from Saturday which our "manangs" consumed with delight. Watching ate prepare one of the dishes taught me another new delicacy for me to try in the future.

On the 24th, we fetched Jade after work to attend the early Christmas eve mass which started at 7pm. After the mass, we headed home right away and dropped by ate's place to get some food servings for our noche buena, if we can call it that. After our meal, we unwrapped the rest of Jade's gifts as some were already unwrapped earlier during the Christmas party we attended a week earlier. She was all smiles when she saw Barbie though she was actually the one who chose it when mom and dad were doing the shopping. We watched DVD (Biohazard 1, Resident Evil) after that and to our delight, Jade didn't make any attempt of pulling us back to the bedroom so we were able to finish the movie.

On the 25th, we were at work as usual but after office, we went to KFC and had Jade enjoy the playpen slide her own.

We called our families already during the weekend as we expected that it would be difficult to get into the line on the 24th and 25th. It would have been a different Christmas if we were home celebrating with the bigger family yet we had to make do with what we have and where we are. Eventually, Christmas celebration 2007 was fine.

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TGIF's unplanned date with a “long lost” friend

One of the things I look forward to during the weekdays is for the bell to ring at 5:40PM. Since I am not too busy at work, I always yearn to get out of the office as soon as possible. If only I can get paid from not coming to the office… Anyway, to me, Friday is always a day to look forward to – I don’t really have to tell the reason, do I?

Yesterday, 20 minutes before the bell rings, hubby came to my desk with the phone on his hand on a notion to pass it to me. I asked who’s on the line and he told me he doesn’t know. I was like huh, you’re talking to somebody you don’t know and now you’re passing the phone to me???
I got the phone and said “hello”. The person on the other line replied and in turn, I responded with one of my longest “hi’s” ever. The voice was so familiar to me and I started to post the caller questions such as “where are you?”, “how are you?”, “what happened to you?” and “why did you only call me now?”. These were followed by “I am so happy you called!”, “Ive been looking for you.”, “I’ve been trying to reach you since I got back here.” and a lot more exchanges followed.

I met her in my workplace 4months ago, the 1st time was during her interview. I was tasked to screen her fluency in English. We had a very light conversation which turned out to be exchanges of our personal experiences. I know I like her already and wished she’ll be taken for that position. She is older than me, by how many years, I really don’t know. It made me happy to hear that she got hired. For one reason, I will have somebody to share my work loads with. As I was to take a two months vacation then, she was asked to be with me as she would be taking over most of my projects. Aside from the conversations we had when I gave her trainings, we did have our chat times in the coffeeshop and in our work tables. I always tell her how I hope she will still be in the company when I get back from my break. She just gave me smiles and a “let’s see” expression. Anyway, I knew that we would jive well.

Not even a month passed when she told me a bad news that her mom met an accident and she needs to go home to their province to attend to her mother. Her initial decision was to quit from work as she expected that she needs to spend long time with her mom since her siblings were out of country and she’s the only one left here. It saddened me to hear the news. But then, her boss offered to grant her a 2 months vacation similar to what I planned to take. She tried to turn it down (I felt she has other plans already) but the boss insisted so she gave it some consideration. I asked her to contact me once she gets home and that I made her promise that I will still see her when I get back since her turn to return to office is a month earlier than me. On the other hand, I also told her that even when she decides not to come back, we would still keep in touch.

During my vacation, I eventually found out that she decided not to come back to work anymore. I got sad of course but knowing that I could still contact her made things better. We came back to Taiwan mid-June and one of the first things I did was to call her. The phone kept on ringing but nobody picked it up. I sent a text message but received no reply. I thought she might be busy tending to her mom so I’d give her another call later. I did call her again few days after my first attempt but this time, it was a voice message that answered. I didn’t leave any message instead I sent another text message. I waited but received no response. Days and weeks passed – nothing from her. I asked one of the HR personnels in the office if she knew why she didn’t come back but the girl didn’t know anything. She told me she could be travelling abroad. Ah, yes, maybe, I thought. Last month, I tried to call her number again but still no luck. I gave up and thought she might have gone to another country already. Not until I received that call did I found out that she lost her phone several months ago… and that’s why she became unreachable.
She eventually realized she got my calling card – only on the day she called.

Since we have a weekend appointment, I told her we’ll meet her the following weekend or weekdays but she told me she’s scheduled for a business trip on Wednesday so I told her that we could meet on Monday. But then she told me right there and then to why not meet today instead. Impromptu, we had a TGIF date. I had to bring my family so we went hope to fetch our daughter first and headed to meet her in the MRT station.

We exchange stories like we haven’t seen each other for ages; we had to walk to the restaurant so we took the chance to talk on our way. And still we had spent more more than 2 hours dining and telling our own stories. Oh how really glad I am to have seen and talk to her. Eventually, we can keep the ball rolling.

Reunited ...

That's Tita Irene, Jade

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