Pink heater

These days are freezing! Living in a subtropical country, we have winters without snow but our winter is so humid thus awfully cold. Aside from warm comforters, we take comforts on heaters. My friend brought this electric heater home and it's so cute in pink, thus perfect for our pink meme...

The cute pink heater. No, it's not an electric fan lol.

My pinky friend enjoying the warmth from the pinky heater.

Friday Fragments

 Another fun with Mrs. 4-4-4-4 and other fragmenters for the juicy bits and pieces of our week.

***So funny, the more I was stressed preparing for my big seminar, the more I procrastinated. Imagine, I ended up blogging last weekend lol. Who can blame me, I love blogging more than burying my head to boring papers. The mass of comments I received made my day! I love the thoughtful ones where we know they really read our post, ahhh the more I spent my time blog hopping and commenting back lol. I enjoyed it better! Much much better!

***My daughter caught colds due to sudden change to freezing temperature so both of us ended up skipping our classes for the day. I dosed her with vitamin C, fruit juices and warm soup. Glad she recovered fast, in two days she's back to normal!

***I lost my house keys and the key/lock man sent to open our door just couldn't open it for an hour. So sad. So I have no choice but to agree with his decision to finally break our door lock open and replace with new one. Ouch! another 27usd wasted down the drain and a moral lesson hardly learned.

***Finally had my seminar presentation yayyy! Two weeks or more of stressful sleepless nights were worth my effort. Professors and colleagues were awed with my presentation lol. At least that's what they told me. The topic I discussed was taken from Nature, one of the highest impact-factored scientific journal, entitled "Adaptive prediction of environmental changes by microorganisms". It's quite interesting actually. Bacteria just like us learn how to cope up with their environment and thus survive the harsh environment. This is kind of scary especially for bacteria that cause deadly diseases, right?

***Again for this week, we infected another sets of chicks with pathogenic E. coli and will treat them on Monday with specified antibiotics. Hope I will get good results.

***I'm back to watching Desperate Housewives. Still on the 3rd episode of Season 8. Love it!

***My birthday is coming!!! It's next week Friday! Told my friends I will not celebrate such old age but they took it as nonsense! They're planning a surprise trip for me on my birthday! They wont divulge where.  Hmm, okay can't wait!

***Another big experiment is scheduled on my birthday but I managed to convince my professors to move it one day ahead lol. Nobody messes with my day! Bahahaha!!!

***No, unfortunately  somebody managed to mess up with my big day. My daughter won. They have a Christmas party at her school exactly on my birthday and she don't wonna miss it. So my birthday party/trip organizers moved the trip one day later, where we really need to wake up really early to avoid traffic jams. Hmmm, now I'm really very curious where in the world they're taking me.

That's it for now. Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Have a great weekend!!!

Birthday Pink

For my nth birthday last year, my friends gave me this beautiful bouquet of fragrant lovely flowers. Ain't they beautiful!

A group of pink roses accompanied by a white stargazer lily and greenies, all wrapped in pink!

Ain't they very pretty and sweet!!!

Friends who invaded me that fun night!

Celebrating with my dear family and friends last year!  

For my oncoming birthday this year (yes, on my fave holiday-filled December, and it's next week!), indeed I have a lot of blessings to be thankful for! My deteriorating physical and mental health (due to stress) improved a lot. I was able to take care of my body of my family's health properly. I was able to reunite my youngest daughter (then 4-year old) with us from across another country. I was beyond blissful to have my whole family together, even for at least 7 months. We bonded together as an expat family, travelling, celebrating all birthdays, going to foreign schools, hanging out with friends and simply enjoying another country's culture together. We passed a lot of trials and so blessed and thankful to God we survived them. Having a handful of genuine friends around helped a lot too. Overall, though as my birthday is coming, age is undeniably increasing, wrinkles start appearing but I don't care, I enjoyed my 2011 a lot and looking forward for a more glamorous blissful 2012. Cheers!

Christmas Cottage

Kalibo, Aklan - Philippines. Five years ago, while still working as a mentor on one of the state universities in Panay Island (yes, where Boracay is), I grabbed the opportunity to travel around the huge island. After attending the province's festive Atiatihan Festival, I and my colleagues then proceeded to Aklan's renowned Christmas complex, yes and it's not even Christmas yet. Ain't this colorful Christmas cottage looked so majestic! I just can't get enough of it.  Inside is full of festive Christmas goodies, ornaments, dolls of different kinds, angels,  Santas, snows, toys, sweets and other collectible items ~ name it. Yes, Christmas in this part of the world is all year-round. Fancy a Christmas cottage of your own too? I do.

Me with the lovely Christmas cottage. 

The following photos (as sent to me by my hubby 3 nights ago) were taken (from his mobile phone, I'm afraid not of good quality) from the festive streets of my country showing that this early, people are already celebrating Christmas everywhere! Love it and missed it all!

The Manger: Baby Jesus with Mary & Joseph and the three kings. 

Christmas booths and sparkling/bright cottages and trees are sprouting everywhere.

Verena's Wordless/Wordful Wednesday

Rolled Up Pretty

Just Another Mom of Twins

Birthday whites

Oh December, my birth month, here you are again and it means I'm turning thirty plus something again this year! Wow, time indeed ran so fast! Cliche it may sound but truly it seemed just yesterday I turned 22 lolz! Though I hate to think I'm getting older but I can't deny I'm getting wiser! Cheers! So much things happened to me this past year and I thank God I pretty survived them. Indeed, life is worth celebrating for. For my birthday wish~ wishing for a better 2012 for me and my loved ones, and of course world peace. Now I'm blowing the candle! Gan bei! 

This was my pretty white birthday cake two years ago where I shared its sweetness with my labmates at school.  

See, two years ago, I've already been hiding my age LOL!

With my labmates (and Professor, far right).

My bday gift, no, my labmate's baby~ our constant guest in the lab.

Have a great day! Thanks for dropping by!

Taichung Park

Walking around the parks and just letting our kids run loose were becoming our weekend afternoon routine last summer. In one of those lazy afternoons, we strolled along the city's century-old park, named Taichung Park. I just learned it was more than a hundred years old, ain't that cool! It's only about 10-minutes-scooter-drive-away from our place. I used to drive past it on our way to shop at Yi Jung Jie night market or to China Medical Hospital for our routine medical check ups and hence, my first time to actually drop by and just enjoy nature's beauty. The park is full of tall luscious green trees, rich flowers and well-manicured grasses where my kids were tempted to just roll over. In its midst is a picturesque lake, also known as Sun Moon Lake. It is adorned with a classical Chinese moon Pavilion, a cannon platform, and with facilities including rowboats for rent, children's playground, outdoor music stage and tennis courts. In the weekends, it's kind of festive with a lot of fun activities going on ~ music, foods, games, art exhibits and more.

Taichung Park was developed a century ago in 1903 during the Japanese colonization. The old pavilion was built in 1908 and its classical design was still well-preserved amidst the upgrades done on the park through the years. Indeed, it's one of Taichung's famous landmarks. 

Behold the  lovely classical  Chinese pavilion in the lake. 

Visitors can rent rowboats for about 7us$ and tour around the lake.  

My kids with the scenic lake and  connecting bridge in the backdrop.

My baby among the vibrant yellow flowers.

Posing again for Mommy among the trees with her signature "peace" sign lol.

The tranquil lake in the midst of the bustling city. 

This park is free of entrance and a lot of Taiwanese snacks are sold during the day. Indeed, Taichung Park is one of the nice places to hang out and relax. Think about an inexpensive and healthy way of relaxation, yes? Have a great day!

        

Friday Fragments

Another blogging fun for Fridays. Posting too short for stand-alone posts yet too important to discard. Come and link up and join the fun with Mrs. 4444's and other fragmenters. This is my 2nd week and I'm getting hooked. Hence, my fragments...

***So surprised the other day. I was so exhausted sleeping very late working on my presentation. I prayed to God hopefully there would be no class the following early morning. Need to finish my ppt. The next day, indeed my prayers were granted. There was no class for 8-10 AM. I confirmed with the department secretary, she confirmed with the prof's office and confirmed me the good news! Pretty amazing, right? Is it just a coincidence or God just love me soo much! Yippee!

***I was watching my favorite TV series "The Walking Dead". Again, I'm quite unsatisfied with the kind of dull and lack of thrilling zombie-nation-attack-action for this week which was a far cry from the heart-stopping action-packed first season. However, this week's finale surprised me with the unexpected creative twist and it sure got me and made me cry. If you're a crazy zombie freak like me or just curious about it, check it out here.

I'm quite sad though they're done with the mid-season finale and will be back on Feb. 12 next year.  Hope they will be back even hair-raisingly better! Can't wait!

***I did my experiments this week. Basically, we want to test if certain antibiotics are effective to chickens. Right now, I'm still in the first phase of the study. So blessed to be assisted by the efficient team of Prof. S graduate students.

***My daughter sprained her ankle while practicing (running) for a school race. We went to a Chinese hospital last night and sure did got her no-not-the-massage nor the acupuncture but another type of interesting sprained muscle treatment method. I don't know how it's called, the doctor doesn't know the English term either. A kind of small metals hooked to a power supply then left it to stimulate the muscle's pressure points for 15 min. My daughter enjoyed it though. A kind of spicy yet soothing herbal patch was bandaged later. I hope this treats her painful ankles in no time.

Her  first time on a traditional Chinese hospital. 

***Reading the news headlines from home is sooo depressing. Corrupt government officials (and they're not even subtle), escalating crime rates, poverty, discriminations, massacres, justice not served for the victims, killings, public transport drivers' recklessness, kidnapping for ransoms, terrorist threats, ahhh and the list never ends. Too much for a morning coffee break! Wishing and praying for peace, that people would stop being so greedy and cruel, start giving love and make our world a better place to live in.

***December is finally here but the spirit of Christmas is nowhere to be found ~ yet. So sad. Amidst the intensely humid freezing wind filled with busy people, I can't help but missing my warm, festive, laid-back and Christmas-junkie home! Been missing spending Christmas with my family for five years now :( . On a lighter note, I and my daughter are going home next month. Woot woot!

***Lastly, while waiting for hubby to be online (who's in another part of the world), can't help to take these snaps to show off my drink~ Taiwan's famous delicious bubble milk tea which he surely misses by now.  My apologies for being a bit narcissistic in here LOL!

Advance Merry Christmas to yah all!
Have a great and awesome weekend!

University Lake

Our campus lake at daytime

At early evening (photo credit)

at late night.. simply beautiful.. 

Our university lake (Jhongshing lake), found at the heart of our campus has always been an attraction to the students and the local community alike. It's a man-made one, the shapes of China (big lake) and of Taiwan (small lake).

Top view: the shape of China.

Top view: the shape of Taiwan. So cool right?

Being surrounded by green trees, flocked by different kinds of birds (yes, it's a bird sanctuary), a home to geese and ganders, ducks, swans, turtles and fishes, it's definitely one of the best places to relax. People can just come around and relax, feed some fish and birds, do some taichi and yoga or simply enjoy the cool breeze. The first time my daughters came to Taiwan, I never failed to tour them around and took few photos of them by the lake.

The first time Aron came here last February 2011:

My pink baby by the NCHU lake! 

Feeding and playing with the geese.

Feeding the fish and turtles.

Enjoying the panorama.

Me and my baby! So glad to be reunited with her again!

The first time Joey came here two years ago:

Can't believe how small she was by then. Indeed time ran so fast!

And the first time I came here four years ago:

Me with a good friend.

and with another good friend, August 2007.

My, I just realized the coincidences of me and my little girls wearing pinks the first time we had photos with the lake lol. More of our campus lake...

At our graduation day.  

With our good friends.

Indeed, a lot of good memories happened in this lake. The face-bashing-with-cakes birthday surprises and the late night  hang-outs with good crazy friends that were such good stress relievers will surely be missed.