May 2017 - Taipei

As I started looking at the pictures I took last month, I realized the only pictures I took before our trip to Taipei were of food :).

Saturday morning latte art breakfast (became a habit)

Sunday morning breakfast at Australian Dairy Company - famous breakfast place in our hood.

Dinner on the street at Temple Street Night Market.  

Lunch Scramble at work - local spicy noodles.

Gwen's team Happy Hour (it is Target and some things are the same everywhere).

More Latte art.

Gwen took a week work trip to China - Shanghai and Shaoxing.  Again more food and a lot of fabric.

At the end of May, we had the Dragon Boat holiday, so we decided to get out of town and check out Taipei, Taiwan. 

We even had a Dragon Boat to greet us at our hotel.

The weather was not great Saturday, so we decided to check out the city via the Big Bus tour (new to Taipei).

Before the weather turned, we saw Taipei 101 from a few angles.

 Some other highlights from the bus.

We found a a Japanese restaurant for lunch and had amazing ramen... It's not like the instant noodles we all ate in college.

Saturday night we had a tour of the Shlin Night Market, and luckily the weather cleared up.  We had a great time and ate some of the local dishes.

Large sausages and fruit.

 Oyster pancakes and Octopus soup.

Apparently all Night Markets in Taipei have 3 things: food, shopping and games.  It's more like a fair in the US.  Here are some of the games and food.

 Wheel cakes made to order and some amazing herbal tea.

Sunday we ventured off to Maokung to ride the gondola up the mountain for views of Taipei  and drink local tea.

The cable car starts near the Taipei Zoo - so there is an animal theme.

Views on the ride up.  The cable car stops 2 times on the way up to see parts of the zoo.  Off in the distance there is a smoke stack painted as a giraffe.

And what is a ride in a cable car with a crystal bottom without toe pictures.

 Toes over tea.

After we got to the top and started walking around we saw some pretty impressive bicycles.  Taiwan has a very strong cycling culture.  The riders were taking a tea break.  If you saw the ride up, you'd be impressed too...  We got excited for our bike tour the next day.

And of course we kept seeing Taipei 101 (tallest building in the world from 2004 - 2009).  It is a stand out in the skyline.

 We found a cute tea shop on the slopes and did an official tasting.

We had some tea Ice Cream and did some shopping.  There is a cat theme here.

On the ride down, we saw a few new things.

 Some more pictures from the gondola ride down.

Lots of pandas....

Sunday ended with a tour of Taipei 101.  

Views of Taipei from the 91st Floor observatory.

There is a 660 tonne (~1.3 Million Pound) steel counterweight (tuned mass damper) between the 87th - 92nd floors.  The video they show of it moving during typhoon Soudelor is impressive.

 Here are some shots of us (and our guide) on the tour.

We watched the sunset over Taipei while eating dinner on the 35th floor.  We, lucked out with amazing weather.

We posed with the LOVE sculpture.

This is a shot back up to where we were earlier.  We did some FaceTime chatting with family with this view in the background.

Monday was our bike tour of tea plantations.  

We found this guy at one of our rest stops - he was not going near as fast as we were on our way down the mountain, and no we didn't eat it.

Some views.

We rode (sloooooowly) about 35 km up a mountain and then zipped back down.  After that, We had a local lunch cooked with tea leaves and tea oils and visited a Tea Museum.

We thought we were done riding (Patrick pigged out at lunch), but then we did another 2.5 km ride along a river through some tea fields.  Thank heavens this ride was short and flat.

Saw a local fisherman.

On our way back to Taipei we took little "secret" roads (by car) through a tea plantation to the top of a mountain, so we could get a great view of the famous island in a lake in the shape of a crocodile (no real crocodiles) and have more local tea.  We (of course) bought more tea and some tea oil.  We're excited to try the tea oil.  Our lunch was great, and apparently it's healthier than olive oil, but who knows.

For dinner Monday night, we found a local place for Beef Noodle soup.  We got the recommendation from our Night Market guide.  There is a reason everyone says it's a "must try"; it's amazing!

We felt like we deserved dessert, so we found some famous Mango Shaved Snow and Ice - specifically panna cotta and mango.

We found some local signs to put things in perspective.  We were 801 km (498 mi) from home in Hong Kong and 12,627 (7,846 mi) from the US (don't know where specifically).

On Tuesday, our last day, we celebrated the Dragon Boat festival.  A part of the tradition is to eat sticky rice.  The story is a bit morbid, but you can look it up if you'd like.  

We couldn't go to Taipei without eating at the original Din Tai Fung (one of our favorite restaurants) location - a few blocks from our hotel.  So, we popped in for lunch before we headed off to the airport.

April 2017

The month of April flew by - literally I was on 14 airplanes for approximately 75 hours in the air.

HKG - SEA - LAX - SJO - ATL - SEA - HKG - ICN - PVG - DEL - IXC - BOM - CJB - BOM - HKG

Started the month off with a trip to Costa Rica (planned long before knowing I would be living in HK) with a roommate from college and her family.

It took a lot to get there an back, but was totally worth 7 days of sand, sun and relaxation.  Getting me ready for the rest of the month.

The rest of the month was work - and I am only hitting the fun highlights.

Flew Thai airlines for the first time - very colorful airline - kept me awake 😊

Next fun surprise was a gift from my US team - Taco Cats and Hula Cats

Spent Easter weekend in Shanghai and visited the Yuan Garden - still just a beautiful as before.

Found some Easter decorations in the Waldorf Astoria.

One of my colleagues celebrated her birthday in Shanghai and found the coolest place for drinks - Yongfoo Elite - the way we described it was that it was previously the house of a rich person.  Really laid back atmosphere.  In the picture below you can see the house cat hanging out with Buddha.

Sunday in Shanghai, we took a cooking class - it was dumplings.  We started buying key ingredients at the wet market then going to an apartment to prepare.  We made and ate 3 types of dumplings - soup dumpling (xiao long bao), vegetable fried dumplings, and shrimp steamed dumplings.

Last stop in Shanghai was the famous (or at least famous with my friends) Dragonfly Spa for a foot or a foot and shoulder massage before the night flight to New Delhi.

Landed in New Delhi at 2:20am and made it to hotel by 4am.  We had planned this to be a rest day.  What does rest day mean - head to Agra and see the Taj Mahal.

It was as beautiful as I remember and my colleagues who had never been were in awe.  Only down side was the heat - we saw 43℃ (that is 110℉) and that was the real temp not the feels like temp.

Lunch was at a traditional Indian cuisine - Peshawri at ITC hotel.  The exciting part was the family size Naan (or maybe Roti) we ordered - it was enough bread for all 7 of us.  Made sure I had people in the picture to give context to the true size.

The beginning of this trip in India we stayed at the Imperial in New Delhi.  It was, as always, an amazing hotel.  My personal highlight is the breakfast buffet with homemade granola.

They always have the most beautiful flower displays in the lobby.  This time was loofah with carnations.

From New Delhi my trip went more local for the rest of next week.  We went north to Chandigarh.  On the way to the mill, we had some unusual (but normal for India) traffic obstacles.

Later the same day we headed to Mumbai.  I had another experience I don't think you would find in the US.  I boarded my flight, a Boeing 737, from the rear of the plane.

After some more work on Saturday, I got to explore Mumbai.  I took India's version of an Uber  (Ola) for 4 hours and checked out Gateway of India, Juhu Beach and picked up some Alphonso Mangos, which were in season, for my colleague to take home to his family.

One of the fascinating parts of cities is transportation - I missed taking pictures of the tuk tuks in New Delhi, but I got pictures of them in Mumbai - they look much safer in Mumbai.

Sunday night we headed south to Coimbatore.  Continued to spend a lot of time on the road.  Here are some highlights - more local Tuk Tuks

New road hazards

We determined we traveled approximately 1,400 km (870 miles) in cars visiting 4 facilities.  I learned a lot about horn blowing.  In the US I feel when you use your horn there is some emotion behind it (get out of my way, hi, etc).  In India blowing your horn is part of driving etiquette - telling other drivers you are passing.  I saw a lot of larger trucks with signs actually telling people to "please blow horn" so they know they are nearby or preparing to pass.

We had another traditional south Indian lunch - Thali.  I have had this meal many times before in HK, but it was so much better here.  Few notes - as I was obviously the only westerner in the restaurant - they brought me a spoon so I did not eat with my hands.  Also the cost is amazing.   In HK this meal costs ~ US$11 and local here is cost ~US$1.70.

Two highlights of the facility visits.  Each day a symbol is drawn in chalk on the street in front of factory entrance.  Some were very elaborate and beautiful.

And I became a celebrity.  At an inspection location the ladies all wanted their picture with me.

My last highlight of the India part of my trip was in intense Ayurvedic Oil massage - no pictures.  Two girls used a lot of oil to release tension.  There was very little English,  but they did tell me my skin was beautiful and wanted to know if I liked their brown skin.  I realized they have not seen many westerners.

Ended this adventure on a flight leaving Mumbai at 1:20am with a little sleep before HK.  But when I returned to HK - I had a new roommate move in.

Patrick arrived in HK a week before I got home and started back in the Target Hong Kong office on the raw material quality assurance team.  

More adventures to come.