Excited! But a bit apprehensive!

So...tomorrow morning, bright and early, the Wang Family (Mom, Dad, Dave, and I) are heading to Taiwan!  I think it's going to be a GREAT trip...once we get there...I dont think its going to be a great time GETTING there.

Here's an excerpt from an email I sent my friend about the upcoming flights:

Ugh, I think my flight has the potential to be miserable. It's Orlando to Dallas (manageable, even though it departs FL at 6AM), then Dallas to Tokyo, well Narita actually (I think I might lose it on that leg...plus I'll be with my brother who is not the most comfortable long flight traveler...I'm seriously contemplating a way to secretly roofie his drinks on the flight but that has so many potential ways to go horribly wrong...but could still be funny and amusing!) and then we have a 6 hour layover where Dave and I will sometime and somehow (without cell phones) meet up with my parents who are coming from another part of Florida and then it's off to Taipei.

Anyways...I'm sure it won't be that bad...I'm just being my over-melodramtic self :-)  Its just been a long time since I've had to fly over the Pacific... 

Well, I'm off to start trying to figure out what to pack!

Subway Rat

One of my favorite things to pass the time while waiting for the next subway is to look for rats...

The Land of Happy Cows!

Catching what hopes to be the end of winter, Ryan and I took a trip out to Vermont to check out the sites as well as try our luck skiing at Stowe.

Unfortunately, Ryan missed his Friday morning flight and wasn't able to catch another flight out to Burlington until Saturday afternoon. That left me with a lot of time to kill by myself - Friday 1pm until Saturday 4pm.

So...loving the cheesy (no pun intended) tourist attractions - I hit up all that Vermont had to offer!  Starting with....CHEESE!!!  I went to Cabot Creamery and had the sweetest lady give me a tour of the factory.  She even had cheese samples tucked away in her apron to share! 

After Cabot Creamery, it was off to the Bragg Farm Sugarhouse where they make maple syrup.  It's too bad you can't capture the feeling of a place because this place was warm, sugary, and oh so sweet.  I got to watch Mr Bragg reduce down maple sap, sample the various grades of maple syrup, and try out the "Sugar on Ice" special which is shaved ice, hot maple syrup (somehow reduced down so its thicker and super sweet), an unsugared donut, and some dill pickles.  I know, they lost me on the dill pickles too.  Apparently its to cut down on the sweetness of the whole thing.  Ehh, I love dill pickles so why not?  Oh, and they threw in a cup of apple cider too!

Next up...the hotel!  I checked into the Golden Eagle Resort and relaxed for a bit while contemplating what to do about dinner.  As one can imagine, I wasn't really all that hungry after many many cheese samples, maple syrup tastings, and the sugared shaved ice.  Ryan and I had originally planned to have dinner at Hen of the Wood but I wasn't sure if a) I wanted to go have dinner at a nice restaurant by myself and b) if I was hungry enough.  Well, I decided to go and turns out was definitely hungry enough.

And of course, pictures of my (super yummy) dinner:

Jasper Hill Farm 'Constant Bliss' - Greensboro, Vermont

Champlain Creamery 'Champlain Triple Creme' - Vergennes, Vermont

Grilled Bread, Hen of the Wood Mushrooms, House Bacon, Poached Egg

(dont know why this picture won't rotate...so it's staying on its end!)

Labelles Farm Duck Breast, Chestnut Spaetzle, Local Cabbage, Mustard Seeds & Currants

Whipped Potatoes, Creme Fraiche

Saturday morning started off with a late breakfast of Vermont's version of eggs benedict...basically the same...except with a lot of extra cheese.

After breakfast I stopped off at a local sporting clothing shop where I picked up a pair of SOY underwear...I'll save that for another blog post...check back after Peru where I give them a try and see if they're all that they're advertised!  Anyways...back to Vermont.  I headed downtown to Burlington's Church Street Marketplace and stopped off at Lake Champlain Chocolate for a spicy hot chocolate.   

After checking out the chocolate shop on Church Street, I headed over to the Chocolate Factory on Pine Street....hey, like I said, I had a lot of time to kill.

Finally...the airport!  Picked up Ryan and then headed straight to BEN AND JERRY'S!

Yeah....Ice Cream!

Waiting for our free sample...Pro: Free Ice Cream, Con: Oatmeal Cinnamon Flavor

My favorite flavor..but not my favorite picture!  Side Note: Apparently Half Baked is #5 on the Wall of Most Popular Flavors.  I think it should be higher ;)

The graveyard of retired flavors.  Interesting that Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz has a tombstone here, but yet they still sell it at the Ben & Jerry scoop shops.

Here is our obligatory touristy photo op shot

Post Ben&Jerry's we headed over to get some "Legendary Cider Donuts".  After trying these donuts at 50cents each, I would have to agree!!  They were definitely tasty...good enough that we stopped by for some more the next afternoon even.

Lots and lots of things can be made out of maple syrup!

More eating!  We stopped to get some cheese samples and then made our way to dinner at Michaels on the Hill.  We called it an early night since we had to get up early to go snowboarding and also because we were losing an hour due to daylight savings time.

Sunday morning: Breakfast and then Snowboarding!  We tried the easiest of the easy hills a few times...mostly successful and then hit the cafeteria for lunch.  Then, we took a snowboarding lession and ended our day with the 2nd easiest green slope.

And..thats the weekend!

New York Chinatown Soup Dumplings :-)

小笼馒头

Yummy...I made a trip down to chinatown to get some soup dumplings!  And ended up getting some scallion pancakes too.  And then some ice cream :-)

Take me out to the ballgame!

This should more appropriately be named: "Take me out to the outlet malls and to the ballgame!"

Saturday morning, my parents drove up from West Palm for a trip out to the outlet malls.  My mom has been on the hunt (rather...I had been hunting and she had been directing) for some purses to bring back to Taiwan for her sister and niece.  A few weeks back, I had purchased two at Coach and my parents were now in town to check out what else the stores had to offer in terms of bags as well as look for some shoes for my dad.

We spent Saturday roaming the stores where my dad picked up some shoes, Dave snagged a soccer jersey, and I scored some goodies too.  My mom ended up keeping the 2 bags I picked out and we were then all set to go and get dinner.

Sunday, we had breakfast with Natalie and her parents.  After TooJays (again!), we said "Bye" to my parents as they headed back to West Palm and we headed off to a Braves vs Astros spring training game.

Sadly I didn't take that many pictures...but here are a few!

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY, NATALIE!