Lucky 2011!

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We met up again with Stanley and Vicky! They drove us to a beautiful cafe on the side of a mountain overlooking the ocean - not bad for a Friday afternoon. The view was breathtaking and I think it actually made Brett a little homesick for the coast of South Africa. We practiced English and Chinese over giant portions of iced coffee. I didn't think I understood S & V properly when they told us they'd ordered "bowls" of coffee, but sure enough out came our drinks with ladles and small serving cups - our friends had also had "Brett" and "Amanda" written in syrup on ours! The other bowl said "Lucky 2011". So sweet.

Stanley told us all about monkeys in the mountains stealing people's food and cameras. He said a monkey had once taken his food! He had also seen a monkey holding some random cellphone! Milton also told us when we last saw him that if we go hiking with him and Jenny we can't take anything a monkey would try to steal. Based on these reports as well as what our host from Hamasen told us, it's become clear that monkeys could prove to be formidable opponents if we stumble onto their turf.

After coffee, we headed down the hill for some beef noodles. These have become my favourite food in Taiwan. I could eat them every single day. We also paused long enough before inhaling our soup to take photos this time, so enjoy! We practiced saying "beef noodle soup" with Stanley and Vicky so I hope we can impress our friends Milton and Jenny tomorrow by trying to order in Chinese! We also practiced saying the names of our new favourite drinks - "shi gua niu nai" and "mu gua niu nai" - or watermelon milk and papaya milk.

Exciting news! Brett doesn't want me to brag about this, but I'm very proud of him! Anyone who's looked at the blog has seen his awesome photos, and recently he started uploading some of his favourites to this website called Panoramio. Panoramio is the site where users submit pictures to be used on Google Earth, and tons of Brett's photos have been picked up! So weird to be looking up places in Kaohsiung and see photos by "brettboje" pop up! Unfortunately you can't search by username on Panoramio but they're all photos you would have seen anyways on the blog. I guess I'm just so happy for him that strangers all over the place are seeing his photos - one of his night market pictures from Beijing has already been viewed 100 times! Yay Brett!

PS - Brett, with his usual cynicism/pessimism/skepticism combined thinks this is nothing to be lauded as "any bloody idiot can get their pictures on Panoramio" according to him, but I still think it's great!

PPS - He's not always so grumpy. I think it's all the atmospheric pressure changes we've been experiencing this week what with the passing of typhoon Meari.

We agreed to meet Stanley & Vicky by the Central Park MRT Station Entrance / Exit.

The four of us shared two enormous bowls of coffee. One read "Brett Amanda" & the other read "Lucky 2011".

Amanda, Brett & Vicky!

The view from the coffee house.

Brett & Amanda

Stanley & Vicky

We then had some beef noodles.

Dry beef noodles on the left and wet beef noodles on the right.

Brett had a papaya milk (木瓜牛奶) while Amanda had watermelon milk (西瓜牛奶).