day16: ximending, shilin

sunday, 4/13/2008:

so as my cousin and i were planning to go see sharon li, i asked if we could see any other celebrities...ones that i actually like! my cousin searched a while online and found that yoga lin (too bad that vcr clip doesn't show clips of him crying because that is always my favorite he looks like he's in kindergarten and you just want to hold his hand and help him cross the street!) was going to go to ximending!! i LOVED the first season of one million star and yoga was definitely my favorite contestant...and the winner! anyway, sunday was the day we were going to go see yoga! but my cousin hadn't gotten up yet, so i started my ktv homework, by first trying to think up songs that i knew. i had a whole list of them before my cousin got up!

we left around 12:30pm to go to ximending, and yoga was supposed to show up at 2:00pm. when we got to the spot, there was a small crowd (picture) in front of a small stage. the crowd was much smaller than i had imagined. all these girls were sitting in front of the stage, holding little signs that were buns and said "yoga". a few people had big signs. some people had signs of lcd lights! and one person even had a peter pan sign! my cousin and i tried to squeeze in from the side, but i think we were not appreciated, hehe. they were broadcasting some of the songs he sang on the show, about 5 songs, and they kept looping. yoga, was of course, late. a dj went up on the stage and started talking and then was saying how yoga had this surprise new look. we waited patiently. finally this van drives up, and then tries to back up right next to the stage, but has to make a turn to do that, seriously almost ran us down. of course we didn't want to move and lose our spot so the van just really slowly backed up next to us, and we were basically squeezed as much as possible. somewhat frightening, but taiwan drivers have really good technique (if not courteous), right? anyway, then yoga POPPED out of the van and OMG O_O what happened to him?!?!?! purple satin shirt and purple belt, hair slicked back, all because he decided to sing an elvis song, his only song. i was pretty shocked. i come all this way to see him and he turns himself into a cheap elvis impersonator (and a really bad one at that)! the whole event was supposed to be to advertise for his concert...not so we could hear him sing, hehe. but seriously, he was always so good at picking songs in one million star. and now he's turned into a monster singing an elvis song. omg i can't believe it. i don't have words for how upset i was (and still am). anyway, i still took a lot of pictures.

after the yoga fiasco, my cousin took me to this japanese restaurant (he ming?) i think still in ximending. but first, she took me to a papaya milk shop! papaya milk is one of my favorite foods! i can't believe i hadn't had any yet my whole trip! anyway, onto the japanese restaurant. probably the best thing i had there was my kiwi cocktail! lots of kiwi chunks in it! i had a beef dish that was raw when it came and the waitress lighted the pot so that it cooked on the table. it was okay, more of a show than tasty. my cousin had this sticky pancake thing, pretty good. she also got these other sticky cake things as appetizers, not too impressive. anyway, after some slight shopping in ximending, it was time for dinner! my cousin was meeting her bf and his uncle+family for dinner and insisted on dragging me along. but before leaving ximending, my cousin took me to lao tien lu, the best place to get "lu wei", which is basically all sorts of things cooked in soy sauce and spices. we got duck wings, chicken wings, duck eggs, some kind of stomach, tofu, and there were so many different things there and a million different kinds of tofu. we didn't eat it until the next day, but i will just say now, OMG IT WAS SO GOOD! usually i'm not a huge lu wei fan because i'm not a big soy sauce fan, but seriously it was really good.

o yeah and on the way out of ximending we stopped in a convenience store and there was an incubator for warm drinks...it was all cans in there! lots of canned coffee in there, but there was also canned ovaltine! AND SUPAU! who drinks supau warm?!?!

anyway, my cousin's bf's uncle+family we went to eat sizzling steak plus salad bar. the steak was a lot like the steak my cousin took me to the other day. the salad bar was pretty normal, but had some interesting chinese dishes, for example chicken feet that still looked like chicken feet but already had the bones removed! SO FULL! especially because we just ate not too long ago...

but then on the way back home, walking back from the mrt stop, my cousin is like, omg the minced meat on rice is SO GOOD at this one stand, so she convinces me i have to try it, so a bowl of rice with minced meat later, my cousin is like, omg the "yan shu" (basically where there's lots of choices but everything is fried) at this other stand is SO GOOD, so then somehow we are standing there picking stuff out... my favorite is chicken butts on a skewer (usually 5), and we also picked squid, chicken chunks, and chicken skins (yeah just the skins, fried...). so then the food vendor fries it, and right before being done, throws in some basil (the best part!). the chicken butts and chicken skins are SO GOOD!

in case you haven't noticed, i have now entered the phase in my trip where i crazily eat everything in sight...not many days left and so many things left to eat!

anyway, back at home, my other cousin takes me into her room and she watches me as i do my ktv homework, practice practice practice. what i found is that, it's not about necessarily picking songs you like (because of the short practice time), but picking songs that you, for whatever reason, are better at singing, both lyric and melody -wise. i couldn't possibly memorize the lyrics, but i had to get really used to reading the words fast and how the melody goes, because at ktv, when the singer's voice is gone, sometimes it's pretty hard to figure out how you are actually supposed to sing, it depends on the song. what is cool is that on youtube, you can get a lot of the mvs in the ktv version, so that the words are really big and you can follow them as they turn blue! in these videos the singer's voice is still there, which is important for initial practicing, but then i also found a really good youtube account that has ktv videos in which the singer's voice is muted!

WORTH EATING: papaya milk, lao tien lu, yan shu

full set of pictures at picasa!