The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

Well, this book was a gift from my brother. After bigbadwolf, I couldn't bring myself to buy books in retail price anymore. This book was sold at RM57.90 at Popular book store. For that kind of money, I could buy around 6 books in the bigbadwolf. But, the perk of buying books in normal book store is I can get the latest book that I want. Still, thanks bro! 

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

This novel gives me the feeling of American Gods. The story started with a man (the narrator, it's told in first person narrative) driving around his childhood home after going to a funeral, I think. Then, he started to remember about his childhood, his first kiss and a farm house he visited when he was a child and the girl on the farm house. 

He remembered when his parents faced financial trouble, they rented out a room to lodger, The lodger then committed suicide after losing all his money to gambling, and the lodger chose to die near the farm house because it's at the end of lane with few people. Then, the man (was a child then) met the farm house inhabitants, the old Mrs Hemstock, Mrs Hemstock and Lettie Hemstock. To comfort him, the Hemstock offered him fresh cow milk. The one plot I remembered was it was the first time the narrator drank cow milk directly out of a cow, fresh cow milk, not from a bottle. Hahaha!

Sseal : Escargot 24K Gold Cream (The Face Shop)

I bought a snail mucus cream from the duty free shop when I was travelling in Korea a few years ago. I don't remember the price, but I do remember it was cheaper than my Shiseido D program toner. I didn't normally use something I was not familiar with, however since it was not expensive, it was having a buy two free one promotion, my friend wanted two only, so I agreed to take the third one. My friend was very confident with The Face Shop products, she said that a famous Taiwanese beauty show was praising this exact product. 

Well, the box design was quite fancy, the base was black with golden lines and words embossed on the surface. It came in a golden brown bottle with a giant lid (I think the lid alone contributed around 50% volume of the bottle). 

box of the Sseal Escargot 24K Gold Cream

To Mend Or Not To Mend

Since the Dhaka factory incidents, there are many reports on newspaper on how the fast fashion industry is damaging the environment, exploiting the workers, etc. The fashion retailers are churning out new collections very fast and people are buying more clothes than ever. So, very often one clothing item would be left in the back of the cabinet after one or two wears, or in the extreme case, never unpacked from the shopping bag. When people buy more, more natural resources are used up, polluted more water, and finally, add more textile dumping. 

It's scary to read about that. I think I am not a crazy shopper for clothes. However, I still got a number of T-shirts, shirts, pants, socks, etc. I tried very hard not to buy more clothes unnecessarily, in fact, it's been more than six months since I last bought a shirt for work.

I owned a lot of T-shirts, some are more than 10 years old, I owned it since when I was a teenager and still going strong. Sometimes, I hope it just break and I can toss it. However, the worst thing that could happen to a T-shirt was just the threads came off. I felt weird when I read the comments on the fast fashion articles, some readers said that their H&M or Zara clothes were gone after a few wash, the thread came out. I had clothes from H&M and Zara, it's still fine after many wash. Same story with other really cheap T-shirts, the society T-shirts, souvenir T-shirts, etc, If I really like the T-shirt (the well worn type, very comfortable to wear), I would stitch it and if another side have that issue after a while, I would turn it into a cleaning rags happily.

If a button came off from a shirt or pants, I would definitely repair it. However, with my current stock of T-shirts, I will have a hard time to finish wearing all of them. I don't even dare to think to wear all the T-shirts until worn out. So, I had some doubts in my mind, should I mend the T-shirt? If I repair it, I am doing a bit for the environment, I extend the life of a clothing item. If I don't, it's still not going into the dustbin, it will become a cleaning rag first before going to the dump site. 

simple stitches to save the T-shirt

If the fabric direct tear off or socks became too loose until keep slipping off, I could just get rid of it. If it's simple thing like the thread came off or button came off, I can and know how to fix it, but should I do it? In a dilemma. 

I really want to get new Marvel T-shirts!!!!!!

Taiwan in My Eyes

After 11 days in Taiwan, below are some titbits on Taiwan. 

1. Taiwan is really the Land of Scooter
Many Taiwanese were not familiar with public transport because most owned a scooter. It's convenient and fuel saving. Somehow in the Taiwanese novel, many heroine owned a scooter, but not the hero. The hero would normally own a car. That's odd. Almost half of the motorists were male, as far as I could see on the road from my 11 days there.

Scooters in Taiwan

Scooters in Taiwan

2. Generally, Taiwanese are friendly, but it's not true for some of the bus drivers / taxi drivers

We met many helpful and friendly Taiwanese along the way, however, some of the Taiwanese bus drivers were on par with the Malaysian drivers, they were impatient and didn't talk nicely to the commuters. Well, I get it, the road was jammed, the bus was packed to the brim, and the clueless tourists still kept asking the dumb questions, etc. (Well, although we tourists already researched about the price or schedule, sometimes,  we need some assurance!). And the most important thing was they also drove dangerously. When I went to and left Alishan, I took bus and taxi respectively, both speeding on the hilly area, and even overtook car in front of them although it was a blind spot! I was so scared, but I refrained myself from correcting the drivers, I was afraid they would drive more crazily. I just prayed in my heart. I am very thankful that I am well and alive.

3. Personally, I like the Taichung BRT concept, too bad, it will be abolished soon
The concept was like train station, the commuter swipe the easycard to enter the stop and waited for the bus, then boarded the bus and upon reaching the destination, depart from the stop after swipe the easycard. In this way, the bus driver didn't have to spend time to collect the bus fare, he or she just concentrate on driving. Plus, since there's a dedicated lane for the BRT, it wouldn't be so affected by the traffic jam. I hope that the Sunway BRT will be a success and do not follow the path of Taichung BRT.

Taichung BRT

4. Coin laundry shop is not as easy to find as I have imagined

It is easier to find coin laundry in big cities, however, in Alishan and Cingjing, I didn't see any coin laundry shops. Maybe we were staying in the more touristy area. Well, not many of my friends would laundry their clothes during any trips, most would bring enough to last the whole trip. However, I am not the kind who is strong enough to lug the big luggage around. For me, a 20kg luggage is the max, anything more than that, it will become a burden and slow me down.

a coin laundry shop in Taichung

5. Other than human, the traffic light have icon for bicycle too

I saw one in Taipei, so cute!

icon for bicycle for the traffic light

6. Most of the takeaway drinks were sealed 

Well, I didn't know whether it's standard or not. But, most of the restaurants / eateries I went have a plastic cup sealer, so the drinks would be sealed nicely. It's very convenient, no danger of spillage. 

sealed paper cup (for takeaway)

7. MIT  stands for Made in Taiwan

When I first saw this MIT, I couldn't catch the meaning. After that, then only I understood it. It's 'Made in Taiwan'. Well, I bought 2 MIT shoes. LOL! The quality was good and it's very affordable. 

MIT (luggages made in Taiwan)

8. Political Campaigning was very intense in Taiwan, if not more than Malaysia

When I was in Taiwan, it was the campaigning time for local elections to choose the mayor for each state. In Malaysia, we will see many small political flags, but in Taiwan, it's just a big huge posters of the candidates stuck to some buildings. I wondered the owners got paid for this posters or not. I think one big poster is good enough, the flags war was quite wasteful, there's no use for the small flags after elections and it's a mess to remove the flags. One big poster is good because after elections, it could be removed easily and maybe could be reuse. I saw some market vendors use the used posters as the top cover for their stall. LOL!

an election campaign poster in Jiayi

an election campaign poster in Sun Moon Lake

Well, I was in Taiwan for eleven days, but I met quite a few politicians there, not really met, but observe from afar. Hahaha! One of them using a car convoy to meet with the voters.

using car convoy for election campaign in Changhua

The biggest surprise was when I back from Jiufen and stopped at Ruifang, the politician was using a concert to campaign. Initially, I thought it was a normal concert, then Miyoshi san told us it's due to elections. Wow!

using songs for election campaign

Other than that, the campaigning was extended to TV advertisements, not only to advertise themselves, but also to smear the opponents. Overall, I think all the politicians are the same, no matter it's in Malaysia or Taiwan. What they did was just to get the votes.

Taiwan 11 Days Trip (12) - Taipei Part 3

24th November 2014

The second last day of our trip. We woke up too early and it's still time left before me and CY met with our other travel mates. So, we decided to go to Ximending again. It's still early in the morning and not many shops were opened yet. So, we just strolled around the area. Well, we got a picture of "The Red House 西門紅樓" without the presence of another human beings. Hahaha! 

The Red House 西門紅樓

We realised that the Watsons was opened for business. Apparently, the store in Ximending was opened for 24 hours. Good news for shopaholics. We went there to browse initially, at the end, we bought many things. Another group of customers in that shop were putting many Naruko products inside their basket enthusiastically. From their accents, I think they were either Malaysians or Singaporeans. Well, I never tried Naruko before, so I didn't know the price, whether it's cheap or not. Then, they told me it's very very very cheap and put more products inside their baskets. So, at the end, I bought three Naruko night gelly, sunscreen, a box of face mask with very cute cover, a cream made with sheep oil, etc. CY also bought six bottles of the night gelly. It's not light, so we went back to the hostel to drop off the products before went out again to meet our friends. 

Skin care products bought from Taiwan

Taiwan 11 Days Trip (11) - Taipei Part 2

23rd November 2014

Me and CY planned to meet with our friends at one of the MRT stations. We wanted to have the famous Fu Hang Soy Milk 阜杭豆漿. We thought we were early, but instead we were actually later than our friends, we met them right out of the exit of the MRT Station. The queue for this Fu Hang Soy Milk was so long, it formed a L shaped queue on the pavement and a further line along the stairs to the shop. I even had some time to left the queue for a while to buy two pants from a clothes stall next to the queue. Well, that's the benefit of queuing with friends.

queue for the Fu Hang Soy Milk

The counter of Fu Hang Soy Milk

I think I spent around 5 minutes to buy the pants, then around half an hour more before we finally reached the door to the shop. Hahaha, I should have gotten something to eat before I came here, I was so hungry. Luckily, a souvenir shop staffs were distributing biscuits to the people queuing outside. We went to the souvenir shop after that and bought so many biscuits that we were entitled free delivery to our accommodations. This place was like food court, just the Fu Hang Soy Milk occupied the biggest space.

Inside of the Fu Hang Soy Milk

We ordered soy milk, rice milk, the famous Fu Hang Soy Milk and other side dishes. Well, to me, their signature dishes tasted like chawanmushi. I like chawanmushi, hence I like this too.

Fu Hang Soy Milk

Taiwan 11 Days Trip (10) - Taipei Part 1

21st November 2014 - night

Reached Taipei Station. It was nearing Christmas, so there's a Christmas decoration inside the station. From the hostel map, our stay for the next few days was very near to the station. However, we went round and round and couldn't find the place. Finally, we asked a taxi driver outside the Cosmos Hotel, well, he told us we were right outside the building. We were stunned. Our accommodation was in a commercial building, right next to Cosmos Hotel. No wonder! We kept looking for Nihao Taipei, not realising that it's not a standalone building. We thanked the taxi driver and went into that building. The hostel (Nihao Taipei) rented a few floors in the building and converted it into rooms. Well, the properties in Taipei is more expensive, it's a good way to utilise the built up space. 

Christmas decoration in Taipei Station

Taipei Station at night