Frannywanny

They say fairy-tales do not exist but just today I just witness something that seems to come out of a storybook. It's a story of a pretty girl named Kate Middleton who's just like your average British girl. She had a normal childhood together with her siblings Pippa and James. She went to St. Andrew's for college and here, she met Prince William who's second-in-line to the throne, little did Kate know that on that fateful day when she was introduced to the Prince, she was actually facing the man who will soon be her beloved husband. William is the son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana . He grew up trying to hide from the prying eyes of the media and his family has been very successful in doing so up until August 31, 1997 where his mother, Princess Diana died from a tragic car crash. From that point on, the paparazzi and the world suddenly took notice of Diana's elder son who's starting to look quite dashing with his tall stature and shy smil...

As with every trip, we try to inject a bit of history in order for us to learn a bit more about the country that we're visiting. For example, we watched the amazing Siam Niramit show in Thailand which I felt was worth every penny because I have learned to appreciate the colorful Thai culture. In Malaysia , Paul and I visited the Petronas Twin Towers which stands as the icon of Kuala Lumpur. Thus, in Taiwan , our trip began with a short visit to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall which was just a few MRT stops away from Caesar Park Hotel . I love how accessible going around Taipei is. Almost all tourist spots are adjacent to an MRT terminal making it easy for one to go around without getting lost in the process. Note that it may be difficult to get lost in Taiwan as majority of its population can't speak English that well. Thus, make sure to have a trusty map (make sure it's in English! My sister grabbed a map but it was in Mandarin..not very helpful at all :P) and or...

I initially wanted to share with you my Taipei experience in chronological order. However, as I try to recall the three amazing days spent in beautiful Taiwan, I can't stop drooling over our last lunch at Mala Hotpot . Therefore, I'm skipping forward and will begin my food adventure series in my new-found favorite restaurant in Taipei. Months before our trip, my friends and I began fixing our itinerary. It's a good thing that we all wanted to shop and eat. Jeanny and Karl, having been to Taipei before, were tasked to take care of our last day. Initially the plan was to feast on Xiao Long Baos at Din Tai Fung for lunch and have a special eat-all-you-can hotpot dinner before heading to the airport. However, we had to move our schedule around as Mala Hotpot cannot accomodate us for dinner and has only one slot for us that day -- 2PM to 4PM . Still, we were all determined to give Mala Hotpot a try after Jeanny told us that they have eat-all-you-can Haagen Dazs and Moven...

I'm finally back from my short vacation to Taipei, Taiwan where I spent 3 relaxing days with Paul, my sister Pan and our dearest friends. Finally, after almost 8 months of planning, our Taiwan trip was able to push through and we're all back home rejuvenated and our minds filled with more knowledge about a culture not quite different from ours. Taiwan is located at the northern part of Asia . Slightly above the Philippines and below Japan and Korea. In fact, we were once told that you can actually pick up some Taiwanese radio stations when you're standing along the shores of Pagudpud in Ilocos Norte . It's THAT close. While Cebu Pacific offers the lowest rate for flights from Manila to Taipei (Taoyuan International Airport), the only drawback is your flight is at 1040PM and you arrive in Taiwan roughly two hours after. After going through immigration and customs, we waited for our shuttle service that will take us to our hotel -- Caesar Park Hotel . Caesar Park...

Exactly two months after I bid everyone goodbye for a two-week long vacation , we're off again for a short vacation this time to the land of milk teas, fishball soup and stinky tofu. It will be an amazing food trip for the next few days and boy I can't wait! Summer is finally here and while my trusty weather app assures me that Taiwan will be slightly colder than Manila, I'm going prepared with bottles of Beach Hut Sunblock to protect my face and body. No way am I exposing myself to the nasty UV rays which might give me skin cancer in the future. No no no way!!! While I prefer lathering on fragrance-free lotions as my nose is pretty sensitive to excessively strong scents, Beach Hut' s floral scent is pretty ok for me. It's not sticky or greasy which is normally what I get with sunblocks with high SPF levels. Beach Hut's newest sunblock has SPF 100 that totally beats our old sunblock by 30 SPF levels. We're ready to walk under the sun as we visit va...

In anticipation of our upcoming trip, Paul and I decided to have lunch at Feng Wei Wee which is our neighborhood's Taiwanese food stop. We've dined here before back when they used to have a different type of interiors and manner of service . A year ago, you enter Feng Wei Wee and see a serving area where you basically have to point out the things you like and the server will gladly serve this to you. Thus, in Tagalog, it's called Turo-turo . Today, Paul and I were surprised that there was no service area showing the dishes and they have a more cozy-looking interior design with a couch on one side and better looking seats around. It's just like any other restaurant where the server hands you the menu and you choose from there.

It's funny that while I've been blogging for years and has been trying to keep myself updated social networking-wise, it was only recently that I finally discovered the world of Twitter . I know that Twitter has been around even before Plurk did but I never thought it would be so much fun to be a part of it. Thus, just about a month ago, I created my very own Twitter account and has been tweeting non-stop with friends and fellow bloggers. One thing that I love about Twitter is that I get to reconnect with my old high school friends. We get to be updated with each other's day-to-day activity and it's easier to plan a get-together given how fast the response rate of Twitter is. Needless to say, we get to communicate in real time without any cost. While tweeting each other one weeknight, we decided to meet up for dinner. Me, being the official reunion organizer of the class, took charge of pulling everyone together for our first ever tweet-up. It has been a while si...