SATO Japanese Restuarant at Uni-President Hankyuu

How To Open Japanese Restuarant in Taiwan <- actually, that isn't the store website; I couldn't find the store website.

SATO is on the 7th floor of Uni-President Hankyuu department store. It's connected to MRT Taipei City Hall (blue line) via exit 2.

Reservations recommended but not required; we waited about 10 minutes during dinner rush on a Sunday.

SATO features Japanese cuisine including shabu-shabu, sushi, and tempura. There are set meals, or you can order individual dishes. There are some vegetarian & vegan options, mostly sushi.

We went with a tempura set and a sushi dish. Side note, the green tea they serve is pretty awesome.

Terrible lighting! D: The sushi was reasonably fresh. There were some stringy bits, but the ika was really good, which is hard to find. The tamagoyaki was house-made too (as far as I can tell ;P).

Tempura set. 2 different sets of tempura with dashi & sauce, 3 different types of salt, miso soup (really good!) rice, savoury egg custard, cold side dish, and 2 types of tsukemono.Complimentary dessert! Matcha agar with sweet matcha sauce and azuki beans. It was a little unbalanced imho (too much bitter in the agar and not enough sauce), but a nice way to end the meal. You can order fancier dessert separately too, but they're pretty much 1 scoop of ice cream with some sauce for NT$90, which is ridiculous.

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

It's almost Halloween, so it's time to get scared!!! Just kidding; I don't like getting scared. Plus Halloween is kind of a kitschy thing over here; most of it comprises of all the English buxiban doing hoaky activities and some Halloween-themed candy, there isn't much in the way of Halloween celebration. Wait, I guess Spark 101 had a costume event last night (the subway was PACKED!) and there are some sales going on at Q-square and some of the Japanese department stores (I've seen one at Shinkon Mitsukoshi). Also, I read somewhere that there's a haunted house near the Taipei main station.

But that's not the point. The point is we went on a hike. A HALLOWEEN hike. It involved scary things, like spiders:

This spider may be dead, but it is still scary.

Spider with Tai for size comparison.

The Last Week of October in Pictures

30Thirty

On Googlemaps

The Best Onion Rings NT$80.
I'm one of those people that pulls out the innards of onion rings 'cause I don't like the batter, but these were crumb-coated with a...I don't even know what it is, I think they're like Chinese-style panko crumbs 'cause they're the jagged crumbs but tinier than normal panko. They were perfectly fried -- crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. So soft they fall apart. The mustard sauce that came with it was phenomenal as well. I'm a ketchup kind of person and I went with the mustard. That's how good it was.

12'' Vegetable Pizza NT$260 Perfect for 2. Crisp crust, fresh veggies, real cheese. So good.

Close-up


Tai also got the house coffee with fresh milk instead of creamer. He said it was really good. I believe him.

Next time we've gotta try some risotto.

MOAR Fruitless Travel, Sicks, and Yummy Food

As the title suggests, we were once again defeated by bureaucracy and came home without getting a bank account. But this time, it involved waiting 30 minutes for a bus that never showed up! And being more sick the whole time :D

This guy is not in the market for fruitless travel; he's gettin' shit DONE.

Going Nuts

So I think that Tai and I got different sicks and I am getting his sick, 'cause I was feeling pretty okay at the end of yesterday, and then this morning it all started going downhill again. After tutoring I felt my platysma was made of PAIN and my throat hurt again and my sinuses have been feeling...interesting. In an unpleasant sort of way. It is really quite unfortunate.

In other news, I am going NUTS not being able to bake cookies. I can't even make no-bake cookies or raw cake because I don't have an immersion blender! D:< Recipes I'm mad I can't make:
Peanut Butter Babies
Raw Chocolate Things
Chocolate-Peanut-Butter Bar-Lookin' Things

On the bright side, I found that there is this thing called Steamed Pudding that is kind of like cake, but wrapped up in parchment paper and steamed, so I might try making some of those. Especially this caramel-apple one, but I've got to get the apples and black sugar. Also, I found a recipe for a British summer pudding that sounds like a steamed pie: it's got a crust and is filled with stewed fruits. Maybe give that one a try too.

Also, I got in contact with this ceramic artist and might meet up with him sometime to talk about geeky clay things *u* So tomorrow we're going to go get Tai a bank account, maybe meet up with ceramic guy, and maybe go to the Zhongshan district and keep looking for jobs, if I'm feeling up for it.

Alright, gotta go meet Maggie and sign a contract for tutoring now. @_@ I am going to be so tiredddd DX

猫ちゃんの友達 Mr. Cat's Friends 貓咪先生的朋友

This cat cafe is ADORABLE and more importantly, CLEAN!!!

臺北市大安區大安路一段83巷7號1樓
Taipei, Daan District, Daan Road sec. 1, Lane 83, No. 7, Floor 1.
GoogleMaps
MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Exit 3

The kitties are absolute love *u* They have a play structure in the main area, as well as food and water.

They have cakes and some set meals too, but no rice or noodle dishes. Drinks are NT$100+

The Day of Fruitless Unexpectedly Unproductive Travel

Let's start with the good stuff: For breakfast I made Blueberry Microwave Minute Muffin in a Mug!

<sub>This is a very unattractive picture of the muffin mid-microwave.

I was afraid it would overflow, so I didn't add a lot of oatmeal, but it turned out a lot smaller than I thought it would! More oatmeal next time~


^{Plated. It was really good!}

I'll definitely be making this a bunch. It's so quick and easy and I get my oatmeal and a whole egg all at the same time! Maybe add some cinnamon next time too, just to change up the flavour a bit :)</sub>

Being Sick D:

I've been sick for the past couple of days, and today Tai got sick too. I think he got a different sick though; I have a coughing sick and he's got a sniffling sick. Maybe it's just manifesting itself in a different way. O.o

In either case, it's not too pleasant and I've been feeling really unmotivated to do anything. Getting tired really easily does not help.

Normally I'd do something like make cookies to make myself feel better, but we don't have an oven. I did make lunch today -- stir-fried rice noodles with oodles of mushrooms, sesame veggies, mung bean-miso paste, and sacha-topped tofu. Maybe I'll try making steamed cake with apples instead of blueberries, now that we have (real!) cinnamon. I think it's raining again though -- don't wanna go out!!

Change of plans, make tiger kigu instead. D:< I hope my tiny Hello Kitty safety scissors can cut cloth!!! Okay, I know they can't, but they will try very hard, and that is what counts.

Mung Beans, the Trad. Market, and JERBS

I have come to the conclusion it is not necessarily cheaper to get things at the traditional market. I've been getting dry goods like beans and rice from the dry goods purveyors, but I've found the beans are generally rife with bugs. Maybe it's the vendors I'm going to -- I've tried three. Last week I bought a bag of mung beans for 55 NT, and, after coming home and realizing that they were filled with bugs, stuck them in the freezer to kill the little motherfuckers.

I can get a bag of beans about half as big at 全聯福利中心 for about the same price, and those are guaranteed bug-free. For not having to deal with bugs in my beans nor dry goods taking up space in the freezer, I think I might just do that. _{I still have half a bag of buggy black-eyed peas in the freezer too D:< and all the brown rice, but that's so that it won't go rancid.}

Also, wood ear 木耳 tends to be cheaper at the grocery too.

In any case, now I have a huge container of cooked mung beans, and the only thing I know how to make with it is mung bean dessert soup. While there is considerable variety available (via the addition or omission of ginger, glutinous rice balls, job's tear/pearl barley, etc.) I need to figure out something not-sweet. Since I've been sick the past couple of days and not exercising, I can't be noshing on sweet bean paste for the next week O.o

Some searching on the internets revealed a bunch of South Asian recipes for mung bean curry, and this tasty-looking soup. Now I just need some curry spices! :D

In other news, I had an interview with one of the cram schools yesterday, and it looks like they're going to hire me if they can get enough students for a class, which is cool. The pay is kind of low -- NT$500/hr, no prep, and I have to come up with my own lesson plans, but it does come with retirement, taxes taken care of, and NHI if I want it (which I might -- can't apply for it on my own for another month D:)

I did find a couple other schools, and I have another interview on Saturday at noon-thirty. I like this one better, I think. They got a really good interior designer/architect so the space is really nice, and they have their students speak English when they're at the center, which is much better for learning. Also, they had a couple Robert Jordan books on the bookshelf, including New Spring!!! Hopefully they'll hire me ^^ I want to read that book!

Printing Woes D:

Today I went to print out my fliers. Most convenience stores have printing and copying so I went to the local Family Mart (where I was referred to by the OK Mart 'cause they couldn't print from USB). The cashier helped me out with the printing machine, but they didn't have B6 paper, so all my fliers were printed on A4. And he didn't hit colour for one of them, so the sculpture cake flier looks kind of terrible. And pixelated. >.< Colour printing is expensive though! NT$10 for colour, NT$2 for b/w.

So then I came home and redesigned the fliers for A4.

And made chili. Kind of. We don't have oregano or cumin or jalapeno peppers or black beans or kidney beans or tempeh or garbanzo beans...so it's just black-eyed peas and tomato sauce and onions and garlic and Korean peppers (which are my new favourite spice -- they're super-red and not-very-spicy :D)

Now I will go hang out with Gracie at Taipei 101 and look for Jason's, a grocery store that purportedly has distilled vinegar.

The end.

Making My Own Way

Spent the last 2 days setting up websites and stuff for tutoring! The owner of the DIY shop down the street said he'd let me put out fliers if I had any, so of course I had to make some! And then set up a website so it looks more legit. Website requires pictures, which requires digging through all my online places looking for them, and then figuring out how to use GoogleSites and Picasa and why are Picasa and Google+ Photos the same thing but set up differently?! WHY REDUNDANCY GOOGLE?!

Anyway. Oh, and not being able to type in Chinese on account of my lappy being dead (I 'typed' everything in GoogleTranslate -- not recommended). It works again, by the way. It decided to work this morning after I inserted a flash drive with the new Ubuntu on it, but I don't think that actually did anything, since it didn't install the new Ubuntu. It just worked. Thank the lords. So I got to set up my language tutoring site with the super-helpful aides of Chinese language input, GoogleTranslate, and Perapera-kun.

So yeah, here are the sites:

DanDan DIY for U.S.-style home-made desserts.

DanDan Language for tutoring in American English or Japanese.

/shameless self-promotion. _{I don't think anyone reads this blog anyway, so it's probably not a very good place to be shamelessly promoting oneself ;P whatever}

Finding ALL the Cram Schools Ever & Being All-The-Way Fired Let Go

And having the computer crash.

All in the same day.

On the bright side, Maggie took me out for lunch, and it was delicious. Yay!

Relationship Fulfilment Class Support and Other Things

First up: Other Things.

Hankyu is having an event where you get NT$500 department store credit for every NT$5000, or NT$200 for every NT$2000 you spend on most items (excluding lingerie and I think electronics, but I'm not sure.) Since we just got a bedding set and pillows, we met the min. and got a credit! Along with tickets to a fashion show, which we couldn't go to since it was on the day of class support.

Yeahhhhh! We get stuff for spending monies! Shout-out to my dad for helping us with the bedding!

I guess it's a popular type of event, since I just saw a similar thing being advertised on the television at the MRT station, but for a different department store.

Mommy's Birthday was on Saturday~!

I'm still waiting for Gracie to upload cake pictures, but we got her a cake from How Sweet 幾分甜 and it was filled with pudding and strawberry mousse and even though the topping was whipped topping instead of real whipping cream it was pretty darn tasty. I had three pieces :D Also, my mom made the hugest feast in the entire world and my maternal grandpa and cousin and uncle and 2 twerpy nephews all congregated at her house for dinner.

BaDa Art Supply 八大美衝社

BaDa Art Supply 八大美衝社 (lit. eight big vigorous art society)
台北市大安區龍泉街87弄6號
On GoogleMaps

Items of note:
SuperSculpey doll clay in 3 shades
COPIC markers & refill cartridges
Xuan paper, ink, brushes, etc. for 'Asian' painting
Giant size acrylics for big paintings
Japanese brush pens with REAL BRUSH NIBS -- I don't know why they have to be Japanese, but this is the only place I've found that has them. Most normal bookstore-type places only have the felt-nib kind, which are fine if you're just making cards or something.
Tools for ceramicists (but no ceramic clay, as far as I could tell O.o)

Other: They have a giant black dog who's a real sweetie

Getting [Partially] Fired and Other Things

So instead of actually training me my work decided it would be best if they had the former teacher go back to teach the classes I can't handle (which, honestly, were doing pretty dismally under my tutelage). Honestly, I am actually very glad. I've still got 8 hours at the kindy, but those are just 20-minute general English classes which are MUCH easier to deal with. This puts a bit of pressure on us financially, but we've got enough saved up from last month and our start-up fund that this month (and probably next month) will be alright if we really scrimp (no more peanut butter! Or almonds, which I've been secretly saving up for).

This actually comes at a fairly convenient time, since my dad and the whole boatload of relatives just came back for 2 weeks, and preparing for the Relationship Fulfilment class support has been mad crazy, on top of which it's my mom's birthday on Saturday @_@ I'M SO SAD I CAN'T MAKE HER CAKE!!! Even steamer cake recipes require a mixer T_T

So yeah, life goes on and I am SUPER BUSY :D

The Happenings of the Week

Friday: Long day at work. I think I might actually get some training, now that I've been working my job for a month. v.v

Pro-tip for first time teachers: DEMAND CLASSROOM OBSERVATION BEFORE you start teaching. I guess at most places it's mandatory and part of the training, but at smaller schools they might not do it, and that's fucking dumb. It is SO much easier to just copy what the experienced teacher does, as opposed to being told what you have to teach and how you're supposed to teach it, but without any real demonstration.

Also, ask about classroom management and discipline. I wasn't told about ANY of that shit before I started, and now I have a bunch of rowdy kids who won't listen unless the principal or former teacher pops in. Ugh.

After work came home, worked out, took shower.

Saturday: 和氣照顧 for Wei-Chun's Dad at General Veteran's Hospital.

^{Public art at the hospital. It was SUPER-windy that day! But it didn't rain very hard in the afternoon, just sunny showers, which are my favourite!}

There were like...13 of us, and some Chi-mates even came from Hsinchu and Taoyuan!!! I am awed by their generosity and dedication. After the hospital we went to a vegetarian buffet for delicious delicious lunch!


^{Check out how colourful my lunch was!!! THOSE EGGPLANTS WERE AMAZING. The veggie-meat was mediocre. Not shown was this delicious lightly almond-y tofu dish. It is, quite unappealingly, called 豆腦. If you can't read Chinese, do not GoogleTranslate until after you're have it. Knowing the name will ruin it for you FOREVER.}

Then Maggie invited Ingting and me to have coffee by her place so we could talk about the day-care volunteering we're doing for the Relationship Fulfillment class this coming weekend. @_@ We went to Mr.2 which was FANTASTIC.


^{The exterior and interior of the store is abound with these figures in various sizes and positions. I like them!}