Nathan Sawaya: The Art of the Brick

The exhibition sign.
There were so many people attempting to take
pictures by it I was forced to snap on with people
otherwise I would have never gotten a picture!

My friend got a free ticket from work to see Nathan Sawaya's exhibition "The Art of the Brick". I decided I would tag along with her because the ticket price was reasonable at 250NT ($8.33). We went on the second-to-last day of the exhibition s there was a high turned out which made the exhibit difficult to enjoy at times, but the sculptures were amazing.  I mean, who wouldn't enjoy art made from Legos?!

This hand is one of Sawaya's many magnificent
Lego creations!

Face-off: Xin Fa Ting (辛發亭冰品店) vs. Tai Yi Milk King (臺一牛奶大王) !

In Taipei, two of the biggest names in the iced dessert business are Xin Fa Ting in Shilin and Tai Yi Milk King in Da'an.  Unless you go to either one of these shops during a generally low-traffic time (like late-morning on a Sunday) you're going to meet huge crowds, especially on Saturday night when all the young people are out and about.  Although that may sound daunting, the staff at both shops seem to well accustomed to dealing with the high volumes of customers, and although there often are long lines in both places, the wait never seems to exceed 5-8 minutes.

Xin Fa Ting's peanut shaved ice

Tai Yi Milk King's pudding and chocolate ice

Both shops have their own style of preparing their cold desserts, so let's get down to business and compare the two!

(And just so you know - both shops sell more than iced desserts, but I'll be focusing on that since it is their specialty).

Concert Review: my little airport (live at The Wall - Gongguan 公館)

my little airport is nicole (vocals, piano) and
啊p (Ah P) (vocals, piano, guitar).
(Photo from their Facebook page)

Last summer, a friend of mine introduced me to an indie band from Hong Kong called my little airport. 

I've liked Cantonese music for a while, so I was excited to listen to their songs and was pleasantly surprised by their sound. Their lyrics are a mix between quirky and serious, especially seen through some of their song titles like "gigi leung is dead", "I don't know how to download good av like iris does", "donald tsang please die".

(You can read more about Gigi Leung and Donald Tseng  here and here, respectively.)

Nope, this was not the concert ticket,
it was the flyer, adorably shaped
like a plane ticket!

The concert poster

They clearly put a lot of thought into their music no matter what the tone or language (Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French, or a mixture of two or three) is. So, when I moved to Taiwan and discovered they'd be playing in Taipei, I knew I had to see them!

Getting to Taiwan - The Worst Flights Ever

I looked so enthusiastic about traveling, right?
haha

You know, I've been on many flights to several places over the years.  To Beijing, London, San Francisco, Chicago.  Some were long, some were turbulent, some were delayed for hours and hours (like my flight to New York three years ago).  But none of them - not one of them - were as torturous as my flights to Taiwan!

Seriously!

Moving to Taiwan. How did I get here?

I graduated from college about 8 months ago, and now I'm getting ready to move to Taiwan.  It's a little weird because I thought my future would be so different when I graduated.  I thought I'd be going to law school now or maybe working for the city government, but my goals changed and now I'm going to Taiwan to study English.