Hey, it's Chinese New Year... again! Didn't I do this last year?

This time around, the boss swung for an employee get together at a steak restaurant. It was a nice touch, and perhaps a bit out of character for her. It's at a place called Tasty, which they claim is western style steak. I assure you, it is not western style. It is a nice restaurant, and you do get a 5 course meal. I went there once before with Tiffany, and while the meat is good, it is not steak. It's like... I don't know how to describe it. It's covered in a sauce, and there are no grill marks. I think it may be roasted. Anyway, I have yet to see a real western style steak outside of the states.

The weekend after I went to a Chinese New Year market. These are starting to pop up, as it's almost New Year time again. This one was quite crowded, and full of all sorts of snacks and things to buy. I tried the peanut soup, which was pretty poor. It's basically peanuts in water, with some breadstick thing. While not expensive, I feel that the paper bowl it came in cost more than the meal itself. After the market, it was on to Ximen, and then a weird park next to Ximen. I was with April, and mentioned how the best beef noodle I've had in Taipei was way up in Bali. With nothing else on the agenda, off we went to Bali. It takes an hour and half to get there, so it's a bit of a foolish trek just for beef noodle. But the people who run the place are super friendly, and definitely make the best beef noodle in the city. So, right on.

And then, the only other thing of note is that I went to the zoo to see the panda baby. On the subway TVs they actually have a counter showing how many tickets are left for the day. He's kind of a big deal. Going on a weekday, especially on a particularly cold one (Honestly, it was like 50 degrees) would beat the crowds. The ticket said I could go in at 1:20 - it was around noon. No worries, the zoo had lots of animals to see. Anyway after the time came, they were still accepting tickets from 12:50. When I tried to go in, the guy said not yet. Why even give out tickets if you're not going to honor them? Anywho, when the 12:50 crowd went in (around 1:30), I just slipped in the crowd with them. And after all my trouble, I got to see the panda baby. A little, white ball of fur who was sleeping. Yay.

Short blog this time, because next week is a doozy. I'm taking a trip to Yilan on the weekend, which will complete my list of things I want to accomplish in Taiwan. I finished all the children's park puzzles (one seriously took me like 2 hours). Also, the BBQ restaurant near me went out of business! So, scratch that. And finally, the club with the brewery on site? They didn't renew their lease or somesuch, so they are closed indefinitely.

And next Monday, it's off to the Philippines! It'll be nice to be back in a country where everyone speaks my native language. In the meantime, please enjoy these pictures of lazy pandas.