eternal sunshine

dusk ft. the alleys of my favorite city

When I said I'd see Taiwan again soon, I meant soon.

To mark 1 year since our last collective trip there, we took a 2-day jaunt to Taipei in September and mmm, that city just never gets old to me. I fall in love and break and lose myself a little more every time. Honestly, I'm barely put together now, what with all the pieces of myself I've left behind over the years.

As ush, we ate:

LOOK AT THIS BEEFU~ BE MY WAIFU~ Taiwan and its abundance of delicious barbecued meat, cooked to perfection by attentive waitstaff. Clearly, heaven has a name. We tried 大腕 this time and yes, it's worth the hype. And the food coma. 

大腕, 我永遠支持你!

We didn't limit ourselves to beautifully marbled beef, no we didnt. We also partook in 2am runs to 7/11 after failed successful nights filled with pavement peering and mental scorecards. This was one of those nights that really highlighted why we're best friends, 'nuff said.

7/11 feasts are 10/10

Of course we had BREAKFAAAAAAST. Waking up to warm soy milk and a crap ton of fried food is kind of the perfect way to wake up. This picture makes me feel oddly emotional it's like a family photo.

soy in love with you(tiao)

And duh, hot pot.

when in doubt, peace and po(u)t!

Drank:

4play had some of the most delicious and potent drinks I've ever had. The best kind of lethal combination there is. This drink clearly bought out the supermodel in me -_- It was a shot of something terrible tasting (absinthe? vermouth? insert alcohol name?) followed by helium, followed by embarrassment.

可以再美一點啊~


twin some/ lose some

These grainy photos accurately portray how the rest of the night panned out for us. From delectable drinks to decidedly less enjoyable drinks in darker, louder places with drawn out conversations and blurred... everything.

oh my starry eyed surprise 

 

happy birthday, our special v. 

We made merry:

Where else but 東區? I can hear my Taiwanese friends just screeeeaming at me to get out of my comfort zones and usual hangouts but but but... OKAY. NEXT TIME, I PROMISE. *skulks away*

juice/ yogurt/ honeycomb ice cream 

could this place be any more catered to yuppies + could i love it more? 
(no.)

We shopped and walked and ate and chilled and sent our wishes into the universe and ate junk food at 4am and made inebriated calls and collapsed and had never-ending heart to hearts and sat on sidewalks and watched the world pass. You know, the ush'.

my happy shiny people  

☆ best and brightest with my best and brightest ☆

Taipei, soon just wouldn't be soon enough. I look forward to going home to you already ♥.

type t

Here lies a quick post to remember my not-so-quick trip to Taiwan by.

In May, I went back to Taipei. We all know how I feel about Taipei so I shall not expound further (because I have talked about it ad nauseum so many times [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.]) It is embarrassing but I will not be embarrassed - I wear my obsession love loud, proud, and in stamps on my passport. 

It was meant to be an eat/ pray/ love/ we’re a million lonely people sort of trip, in many ways more than one. Didn’t quite pan out the way I expected but the eating, as ush, was a staple in my itinerary.  In 10 days, I took less than 20 photos so this post will be 0% comprehensive, jsyk. Let’s do dis.

I had many a meal alone:

Like, only person on the patio, alone. (in the rain)

And some meals, less alone (。⌒∇⌒)。

hi girls! @ NCIS sushi
mayo laden american style sushi - yes please.

Finally got to try Hutong 胡同 after V’s rave review and it gets an emphatic four thumbs up from us. We ate double our weight in beef and boy, was it was the sweetest suffering. The service was impeccable and systematic, even though it seemed like there were about 80 people behind the tiny counter at all times. 80 very busy, very alert people. You barely had to glance at your plate and a perfectly grilled piece of meat would find its way to your dish. That might also be why we ordered way too much. Good on you, HT.

胡同

mmmmmmeeeaaaaaattttttt~

Also finally got to try Diary. After 2 years! Every time I’ve tried to make a reservation in the past 2 years, I’ve failed because they’ve always been that booked up. Thanks to a last minute cancellation, we managed to snag a spot and it really was lovely. I would go again more for the drinks than the food because they were potent and dangerously delicious to boot. 4 boozy woozy thumbs up.

hi coley companion~

diarystagram

---

We spent plenty of time getting up close and personal with TPE and her torrential rain but that did not dampen my love one, tiny, bit. See you soon (like, real soon, like, again), my best and brightest. 

svc, prg, cz.

hello.

be home before you know it, sg.

that's seoul ravin'

For someone who claims to love Korean pop music as much as I do (I do dedicate half my waking life to [waxing lyrical] about these gene pool lottery winners), it's preposterous that I had never visited Korea prior to last year. I mean, some would almost consider that shameful.

We were thoroughly spoiled by the perpetual perfect combination of a light breeze and soft sunshine cutting through the barely nippy weather. Early Fall in Seoul was just that glorious and I will admit right now to skipping down more than one cobblestone street in glee solely because I live for dat Fall-time breeze, okay.

What I didn't quite expect though, was the absurd atrocious NO REALLY WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE amount of walking we had to do. Oh for the love of all things good and holy believe me when I say that there. was. a. lot. of. walking. Let's not speak of me buying too-big foot cushions from 7/11 in Garosu-gil and then unglamorously trying to stick it in my heeled boots as an attempt to salvage my aching feet. Let's also not speak of me eventually caving to my growing limp later on that very same day in Myeongdong as I went against my sensibilities and bought a pair of outlandishly [glittery toms]. Let's just not.

P.S. Two weeks after returning from Seoul, my right heel was still sore.Yup, being in your mid-20s is not fun.

well if you insist. who are we to disagree-ee-ee?

Eat, we did. We chowed down on fake food,

is it... cardboard flavored?

And then some.

meat and you always, and forever

A good chunk of our time was spent in Hongdae. Confession: I rooted myself at the [3ce] section of stylenanda for far, far too long, swatching everything in sight. [Sora]! Pretty colors! I am weak.

Meandering, getting a feel of youth culture, eating an unholy amount of patbingsu and drinking more mediocre coffee than ever was the name of our Hongdae game. The coffee/ cafe culture in Seoul is extremely prevalent, with a quirky kitschy industrial concrete-floored one at every turn, especially in Hongdae.

The best coffee we had was at [Paul Bassett] near E-dae, though I believe he has outposts in Gangnam as well. While I'm on the topic of recommendations, oh my goodness the patbingsu. My friend from college took us out for some good ol' 치맥 chi-maek (portmanteau for chicken and maekju, which basically is chicken & beer) and patbingsu and even though we were stuffed UP TO HERE *points to throat* with chicken and beer, we promptly finished off 2 entire portions of patbingsu after dinner. It was that good. So good that these two direction donkeys (that's us, btw) set off to hunt for it again the very next day and getting lost for that patbingsu was worth every wrong turn. At this point, I should tell you the name of this place, shouldn't I. It's [옥루몽 ok ru mong] and it is the best icy goodness (paired with fresh, smooth, sweetened red beans topped with perfectly bouncy mochi) you will ever put in your mouth annnd I am now hungry. Good job, me.

spot the tourists!

coffee, tea, cake, beer... and me in a giant mirror.

legendary patbingsu at ok ru mong

My favorite part of Seoul though? Garosu-gil. Garosu-gil was utterly, completely delightful. It was a treat just walking down the gorgeous, tree-lined streets of Garosu and the fact that apparently a disproportionately large amount of pretty people come out of the woodwork on weekends certainly helped. We spent the better part of our Saturday people-watching and trying our best to tuck the tourists in us away from sight.

clearly, we were not part of the pretty people posse 

While there, I also attempted an #OOTD. Hashtag.

(spoiler, i failed.)

Also, selfies. (or should I say...

... seoulfies)

We ate a disgusting amount of food throughout our trip, as we do. A lot of it is documented in the vlog but unfortunately, my memory card ran out of space as we treated ourselves to [jung sik dang]. When we vacation, we try to have one nice-ish meal and this time, we decided on jung sik dang. An intimate restaurant in a quiet part of Apgujeong, we enjoyed every last bit of the immaculate presentation, thoughtfully put together flavors and excellent service. In short, this was pretty damn good.

look ma, fancy korean food

you. too.

♡ 서울, 난 니가 좋아 [x]

비디오 / 서울 2013 
bi-di-eo / seoul 2013

臺北//太完美

In a completely unsurprising turn of events, I went to Taiwan. Yes, again. Need I really say more about how I feel about Taiwan? Need I? No. I need not. But I will. IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL PEN EXAGGERATED BLOG POSTS DESCRIBING MY UNENDING LOVE FOR TAIWAN IF I WANT TO. Indulge me.

This trip was a trip for the soul. The chicken soup hot milo of vacations, if you will. So warm, incredibly comforting and by the time you're finished you're stupidly holding the empty cup, desperately trying to shake what's left of it into your mouth just wanting, no -  needing, to relish every last malt chocolatey drop.

Like I said, indulge me.

{get up and go}

You know how sometimes you need a holiday from a holiday? Not this one.

We would shop for half an hour and then decide that that warranted an hour's rest, gorging ourselves on multi-flavored waffles and coffee in the meantime. We would end our day's activities at 5PM and lounge around in the hotel, nursing glass after glass of choya with early 2000s R&B playing in the background before finally deciding to head out for the night. With the intensity and fervor of what would normally be reserved for world affairs, we spent hours discussing and making our very vital, very lengthy lists. In between gargantuan meals of hotpot (read: a zillion 蛋饺s) and sampling bites from every alternate food store at the night market, we would happily fill our time and tummies with an absurd amount of skewered processed food from the convenience store. We would also  fall asleep at a moment's notice, oblivious to the city we were supposed to experience annnnnd... Okay this part was just Dith.

you sua, mee sua

ELIXIR OF JOY

(actually tofu. but also magical.)

無老鍋 i think you mean ooooooh 老鍋

i'm a crepe, i'm a weirdough

We also went out and you know, fell further.

a disarmingly accurate representation of our saturday night

can we go back, this is the moment 

tonight is the night, we'll fight till its over 

so we put our hands up 
like the ceiling can't hold us 

It was a good night, y'all. I've tried this paragraph like oh, twenty times. Each time trying an increasingly pretentious version (it was a night that took us places and showed us faces... yeah, i know -_-) but it was just one of those nights where everything and everyone fell into place to create pure, unadulterated good times.

However, our old bones didn't handle it quite as well. Let's just say that our bodies only felt ready to return to the streets of Taipei at 4PM the next day.

my people

my people being social but not very sociable

barely making it through my first (ever!) foot massage

this 麻糬 was so nice we bought it twice

(in the span of fifteen minutes, too)

I came away from this holiday with a profound (just go with it) sense of enlightenment in many ways and an even deeper affection for my most treasured city only made better by being with my best friends.

I have long resigned myself to a life of loving Taiwan hopelessly from afar but leaving it never gets easier. T-dub, till we're reunited again? I'll be right here pining.

vpcd x tpe 
11.2013
{all roads lead to 25°02′N 121°38′E}