Jeff's Bday - Hot Pot

Jeff, my roommate, had birthday this Thursday and decided to make a celebration in Hot Pot restaurant close to our school, close to Conguan MRT. It was a great event well to mention here. What is Hot Pot?
Hot Pot is known also as Chinese fondue, because similarly to fondue in France, people seat around the table and eat from a steaming pot in the middle, chatting, cooking and drinking. This kind of food is very favorite especially in the winter season when people like warm their bodies. During the dinner everybody can cook whatever he wants, most often thinly sliced meat, mushrooms (a lot of different types), leaf vegetables, wontons, eggs and seafood off course (shrimps, fish, fish balls, crabs, oysters) etc.

On pictures you can see not only satisfied faces of my friends but the typical divided hot pot - half for curry flavor and half for tomato taste.

The restaurant Jeff had chosen, don't know exactly the name but similar to Tien Wai Tien :) was the most common type - eat what u want, drink what you want. Price was little bit higher, almost 500 NT$ per person, but if you are student, it is only 440 NT$ and the food is really delicious.
After cooking you can have ice-cream... a lot of ice-cream ...

Miss and Mr. University NTUST

Our university organized this nice competition based on personal charm - intelligence, genuine, beauty and humanity, so we decided to participate. No bigger action without Fileb. Preparing began long time ago and last Friday, finally the finale came. We had to practice disciplines such a so called Cat walk, Hand waving, non practiced Full-hearted smile, cause it was really funny.
Link for contest, here.

After this well composed entré contestants introduced themselves. After that talent show - I prepared a special composition inspirited by shopping in our campus. We have two convenient shops here in NTUST: 7eleven and Family Mart. In both of them you can hearing jazz music :) during shopping. When you enter, sensors detect your movement and specific melody is played. I have to notice that the melody from Family Mart is much more amusing so I decided to play a free improvisation, variation for this melody...It's called Jazzy Shopping in NTUST.

At present only one video with this song is available, click here or on the picture below.

Celebration on Czech Economic and Cultural Office Taipei

Last week on Tuesday (November 17th) after my departure from Hong Kong I was in hurry again:). Czech Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei organized a celebration "20 Years after the Fall of the Iron Curtain". I simply could not miss such action ... I invited Vincent, and at 6:30 with just a little delay we bumped out to Grand Hyat Hotel... only one little mistake....

We caught a taxi and professionally prepared with scanned maps from Google-maps in cell phone we showed the address to driver... After 35 minutes of nerves we left Taipei :). Bad luck - but this story has its moral advice for next time (I only don't know how to formulate it:). Suddenly after one hour spent in taxi we have reached our desired direction. High time, festivity had been already high. We met several of my friends from Czech Republic and some new faces. Food was pretty good :), for drinking Pilsner, Bohemia Sect and Becherovka had been served.

Regretably my camera is pretty big and heavy, so I left it home...Photos are from Sarka.

Hong Kong - market

Another interesting thing in Hong Kong? :) Some cheep electro and clothes ...
I have discovered very nice store not far from famous Monk Kok market, where I suddenley decided to buy a new laptop. Look at it - isn't it nice? Yeah, it is:). Design is very similar to Macbook Air, but this brand is called Roden TM... after deeper check we can mention, this one has several advantages which made it even better than Mac from practical point of view. Let's make a simple comparison between MacAir and Roden.

Basic comparison of products (average user):

 - MacAir has not any video signal output; Roden has HDMI (tested soon)

 - MacAir has only 1 USB (usually I need 2, better 3); Roden has 2

 - quality of display; almost the same; display used on Roden is very bright and clear

 - MacAir has better battery (up to 5 hours - reality?); Roden 1,75 hour (movie); above 2 hours "normal" work (word, web, wireless OFF)

 - MacAir is from aluminum; Roden is from plastic :)

 - HDD: MacAir has either 120GB SATA disk or 128GB SSD (but than the price is higher); Roden has 160GB SATA (5400 rot/s) - Toshiba or WD

Up to now experience? No problem. Fast for normal work, nice keyboard, camera and mic as well...
The red disk is showed only because of comparison of width. That notebook is really slim.

Finally, here are photos of original Apple store pricelist from Hong Kong

Prices are listed in HK$ (clearly).

Also, in market you can find fake iPhone, called Tv Phone (it can receive digital TV). Adventage of these devices is ports for two SIM (double SIM). Price of these models was around1000 HK$, what is pretty much, because quality is low and the display is not sensitive enough. But looks good, and also could be bought with very nice cover with embedded keyboard.

I have also tried so called iphon mini, several times in different stores (5x) - but even not a single one worked as needed for normal usage. Pity.

Honk Kong po druhé

V tomto přízpěvku bych rád popsal pár dalších dojmů z města...

Jak s oblibou uvádím shrnující pocity z cesty do Hong Kongu - Hong Kong je malé město (co do plochy, kterou zabírá) plné velikých věcí: Giant Budha, domečky jako prsty drápající se někam do nebes, obrovské nákupní střediska, haly metra připomínající letištní terminály. Hong Kong je o byznysu. Proto tady lidé kladou velký důraz na to, jak vypadají a jak se prezentují. Všichni jsou tak jakoby "vyladění" a takovou koncentraci vozidel značek Porsche, Ferrari, BMW M3, Nissan GTR, Mercedes třídy S budete v Evropě hledat těžko.

The Bank of China building

Snídaně
Známí, u kterých jsem pobýval měli nedaleko bydliště vytipovanou parádní kavárnu. Na snídaně prostě skvělé (až na tu cenu:). K snídani velké kapučíno - tak dobré jsem už hoooodně dlouho neměl. Juice - sice z lahvicky ale, mmmm no prostě regulerní fresh juice z guavy nebo kiwi. Dezert ... škoda jen, že jsem to nenafotil. Ale ty džusy - úlet.

Lokality
 - Victoria Peak - parádní, ikdyž poněkud zamžený výhled z Victoria peaku a procházka - zase trochu sado maso.

s masáží ...

 

a vtipnej hydrant:) hydrant slon

Více fotek z výletu na Viktoria Peak zde.

 - Pláž  - konečně jsem se dostal do pacifiku.Sice bohužel po tmě, ale i to se počítá. Voda byla jako káva, kterou necháte asi tak 25 minut bez povšimutí. Teploučká. Na pláži jsou veřejné sprchy, ale ne typ ala Italy. Sprchy jsou v samostatné budově. Mezi plážemi jsou speciální místa na grilování a lidi v Hong Kongu si grilování dopřávají jak libo.

 - Monk Kok night market - night markety jsou v HK docela jiné než na Taiwanu. Hlavní rozdíl je v tom, že na Taiwanu jsou hodně zaměřené na jídla, takže místní se tam chodí navečeřet, v HK jsou zaměřené na věcičky, a občas se dají sehnat pěkné faky (ale o tom další článek). Každopádně pro případné vizitory bych doporoučil procházku ze stanice metra Jordan na Monk Kok. Samozřejmě v HK je celá řada jiných marketů, kde se koupí ještě živé rybky a vubec cokoli. Ovoce apod.

Život v HK
Pár řádek o výchově dětí v HK. V HK má téměř každá lépe postavená rodina služebnou, resp. chůvu. Matky většinou chodí do práce velmi brzy po porodu a o dítě se stárá chůva. V ulicích na mimino nenarazíte. Prý vubec nechodí ven ... takže o děti se starají chůvy jak povídám. Je tady tolik chův - třeba i několik žen z vesnice. Takže pak o vikendu, v neděli, jediný den co mají volno, dělají srazy. Parky jsou plné... posedávají, povídají si, hrají hry a zpívají....

Cesta zpátky
naprosto v pohodě:). Ale jedno mi není jasné - finanční situace Thai Air. Obě dvě cesty které jsem absolvoval byly s B737 (letadlový double-decker) odhadem tak pro 300 lidí. Skutečnost? 35 pasažérů do HK, 25 pasažérů do Taipei. 10 členů posádky min.