New Years in HK

I got to ring in the New Year with a few friends from HK. Here are some pix from the event!

Happy New Year everyone!

 
 
 
 

Vegetarian Restaurant in TW - YuShanGe

I stopped through Taipei a few weeks back on my way home for Thanksgiving and business in the States, and a coworker took me to this vegetarian restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but I think it was one of the fanciest dinners I've ever had. 8 courses, and each course came with a detailed explanation about the nature of the dish and why it was served that way.

  I never really had real sushi before I became a vegetarian, but I think I know what raw fish tastes like now! My coworker tells me it takes just like real fish.

  This soup came with its own bonsai tree! No, I didn't get to keep it.

  This was the main course - a steak. It's actually made of a "monkey head mushroom," and tasted really good!

Who said vegetarians can't eat raw fish and steak? :P

Other Travel Pix

I posted the rest of my travel pictures on picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/danaung/DadChinaTravel#

There are about 125 of them (out of the 2000 pictures that I took).

I think I'm just about recovered from my traveling (mostly from all the work that piled up).

Upcoming trips: Taiwan in mid November, California near Thanksgiving.

Chengdu (成都)

The highlight of our Chengdu trip was definitely the Pandas. Rather than add another picture of a market or old street, I'll leave this as the Panda post, because they were REALLY cute.

 
 
 
 

Huanglong (黄龙)

A 4-hr bus ride away was Huanglong, where we got to see more limestone deposits and blue water, but at a higher elevation. Since it was so high, it snowed!

 
 
 
 

Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou was BEAUTIFUL. We got there at 7am and left the park at 7pm. Since it was fall, the leaves were turning red/orange/yellow and the water was an unbelievable shade of blue.

I'm thinking of making a trip during winter to see what it looks like covered in white!

 
 
 
 

Xi'an (西安)

We took a 4-hr train from Luoyang to Xi'an where we walked around the city and checked out the Terracotta Soldiers.

 Walking around the city walls.

 Walking around the Muslim Quarter.

 I think I spent as much time being amazed at the # of Chinese tourists as I did being amazed as the number of terracotta soldiers.