228 Memorial Park

As an addendum to my last post, I’m including some pictures I took for the 228 memorial park in Chiayi. I have pictures of the one in Taipei as well, but I know there are plenty of those out there! =)

I liked the park, even though it felt pretty run-down.  First thing was the museum:

With it’s nifty sign (it’s directly across from the entrance shown in the first photo).

Local pictures

I just found this group on flickr.  It’s specific to SF but after looking at the photos on there, I think it could be specific to any city you’re in.

Anyway, I just thought it was a nice idea to capture your city in ways most people don’t think about/notice.  It’d be a good project someday. =)

Flickr Widget

I discovered the flickr widget (seen on the right of this blog) while looking for a place to put the flickr badge.  It’s either new or I never had any use for it before.  Either way, I have an easy solution to my problem!

I prefer the flickr flash badge, which has a mosaic of pictures and enlarges random ones periodically, but until I figure out how to put that on this, the flickr widget will have to do.

So now you can keep track of whether I’m keeping resolution #2.  I failed in all resolutions last week because I got sick again, but I should be able to keep them now that I’m feeling better. =)

EZ-Rider Parking Validation

I just found this video on the “new” EZ-Rider parking validation.  The video says registration is free before Feb, and $7 after Feb. 1st.

Wish you found out earlier, and wondering why a little hangtag costs so much?  Me too.

Until I found the official Bart source.  Ok it’s only $7 if you don’t already have EZ-Rider because you pay $5 for the card, and $2 for the hangtag.

Yes it’s not as good as free and it would have been nice to not miss it by ONE day…. but $2 is reasonable.  I assume the hangtag has some electronic coding on it as well.

$5 for the card isn’t horrible either, considering you get a pretty sturdy case and a strap (? correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while and I don’t use a strap) in addition to the card and paying less for fare.

Side note: Hope this doesn’t increase car volume in the parking lots..  It’s already crowded enough as it is in some locations..!

Schmap

I just found out that one of my photos were included in some sort of map/guide publication (?) called Schmap.  I think this is the direct link to it.

While it’s pretty exciting, I think it’s less the quality of the picture and more the availability of pictures for People’s Cafe (since there were no other pictures for that spot).  Speaking of which, they have great mexican hot cocoa and turkey wraps.. go try it sometime!

To be honest, I feel like they picked the worst picture I took from that location :p  At least two other pictures showed more of the cafe and would be more representative of how the cafe looks…

Well, getting picked for being the only one with a picture from a location is better than not getting picked at all, right?

Sesame Oil Chicken Update

While I was googling Sesame Oil Chicken, I found out that it’s normally eaten with mi^h sua^h (麵線), so that’s what I did next.. :p Below are the pictures of what I ended up with.

I cooked some of those Japanese style thin noodles in a combination of water and chicken broth, cut some pieces of chicken and poured both broths (chicken & sesame) over the noodles.

With, of course, the obligatory close-up picture.

Sesame Oil Chicken (麻油雞)

When I wandered into the kitchen to find food to eat, I remembered I had defrosted chicken thighs, so I took it out to prep it.  That’s when I realized it wasn’t boneless… oops.  I originally planned to cut it up, marinate, and stir fry but I wasn’t about to go through all the work of cutting around bone!

Long story short, I cooked them whole and the sesame oil sitting on my counter called out to me so I added it in.. the oil smelled so good, I ended up making some variation of sesame oil chicken. :p

I googled a couple recipes while it was cooking and ended up adding both rice wine and green onions.

The rest of the ingredients were fairly intuitive so I had added them already (ginger, soy sauce, water, sesame oil), along with my own creative additions (salt rubbed on chicken before frying, pepper, and a dash of sugar to bring out the sweetness of the chicken).

Here are a couple pictures of “professional” ones in Taiwan as a reference.

Yes, my pieces of chicken were clearly way bigger and they pulled the ginger out on the sides of the bowls as decoration.

They also don’t have any green onion…I thought there weren’t either but I figured it couldn’t hurt to combine recipes.  They are actually a nice touch, taste-wise.

I should get one of those fancy bowls too so I can make it look all cool and traditional looking.

Note to self: less oil, bigger pieces of ginger, and smaller pieces of chicken for next time.

UPDATE: I know the link to the second picture disappeared.. appparently that website was revamped… and is still a work-in-progress.. I don’t want to remove the picture until I find a replacement picture because it will ruin the whole format, so bear with me. =)

Painted Cupcakes

The other day, I went into a Lucky store for some groceries… and I noticed these cupcakes.

Ok so I didn’t just “notice” them, I went looking for them.   I always check out the baked goods — just to see what they have and to admire them, even though I rarely buy anything.  Yes I’m strange. :p

Anyway, these are quite unique — not just because they’re colorful, but because they look like they’ve been spray painted.  Yup, the coloring is not a result of very very fine sprinkles.

As in exhibit #2 (to the right –>), there is literally a line of color going down each row of cupcakes.

I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be good for you.  Hoping it was just the party trays, I looked for normal ones — but they also had coloring on them.

The only cupcakes that weren’t painted were the dirty looking ones in the first photo (those were sprinkles).

Yikes.  I wonder how they’re selling.

Wildfires in the Bay Area

I haven’t been keeping up with news on the fires because I felt like I was being paranoid about them.. but the smog from the fires have become so thick that I can’t see any part of the blue sky anymore…

So here’s the latest article, and a quick quote:

Air quality regulators today warned Bay Area residents – particularly the elderly, children and those with heart or lung disease – to limit outdoor activities after measuring unhealthy levels of particulate matter from the fires in portions of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.

Elevated levels of pollutants are also expected today in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

The pictures were taken on 6/21/08, driving westbound on I-80 between Davis and I-680, and the first is from I-680 southbound, around sunset. Resolution’s horrible as they were taken with my cameraphone. I had to straighten and crop them, of course… I basically pointed and pressed the button without looking.

The article has a map if you want to know where the fires are. There have been 1,032 fires so far in Northern California.

The smog has gotten progressively worse since the pictures were taken.. It was actually relatively clear on that day, aside from that patch along the freeway. I believe today’s the worst so far. If you can, stay indoors if you’re in the aforementioned areas.

Fox media bias?

I asked someone about the results of the primaries, and he said, “Obama is bitter”, followed by “that’s what the commentator said”. So I looked up the transcript of the Clinton and Obama speeches, provided by the Wall Street Journal.

It didn’t read very bitter to me, so I looked up the video:

I noticed that when Obama congratulated Clinton and the audience started boo-ing, he interrupted them and said, “no, no, she ran a terrific race”.