Friday, March 26, 2010

progress

the weather continued to be cold today. it's actually only with the wind chill factor that it's so cold. cold enough that i really wish i had brought my overcoat. without the wind, it actually feels like a brisk winter day in los angeles, which is quite nice.

tried a new beef noodle place near chunghsiao fuxing today. and i took pics. unfortunately, was not very impressed with the food. afterwards took a short stroll down the street, and noticed a beef noodle house in the alley. took a closer look, and turns out, its a branch of my favorite beef noodle place! pretty sweet, since now i don't have to go as far to get great beef noodles.

i headed towards eslite. eslite is the only 24 hour bookstore in the world. the first and last time i went was 8 years ago, at 2am, in their original store. i've never seen a bookstore so packed. this time i was there to check out a food demonstration of argentine cuisine. this branch of eslite in xinyi, the most modern area of taipei, covers 3 stories is much newer and extremely nice. i used the restroom, and if you ever have to use the bathroom in taiwan, find an eslite. the toilet covers automatically raise, and the toilet seats are heated. toasty.

because i was early for the demonstration, i headed downstairs to starbucks and got a latte. wow its been a long time since i've had a decent coffee. the price wasn't bad at NT$100 (approx US$3). i also saw that they sold starbux mints. and not the big ones that they now sell in the states, but the original beads in the blue tins, so that you get 100 mints, instead of 30. all for NT$77 (US$2.30). guess i didnt need to buy a bunch of tins when i came.

the food demonstration was kinda boring.

afterwards, i had time to kill before meeting a friend for dinner. so i headed to the eslite cafe, where they serve austrian beers. i thought the same-- why austrian? anyway, had a egglesberg dunkel. yum. and worked on my software. and i got tiled rendering working! which means despite my decreased productivity this past week, i'm actually ahead of schedule. next up, workflow managed, cloud enabled, distributed, real-time rendering.

met up with my friend at the starbucks in the basement of bellavita (upscale department store just next to the eslite building). we then headed another floor down to the food court. this isn't any food court. there's food for many countries, and it's all upscale. there's even a dining area where you get table service, and the menu is just the compilation of the food from all the places. i order an omakase (japanese, 10 course chef's choice meal) for NT$380 (approx $11.50). it's nowhere as good as sitting at the sushi bar at nishiya, but it was better than any food court food i've had, and quite filling at that.

dinner lasted 3 hours. i miss having good conversation like that. but it was lacking a bottle of wine, a craving that's left unsatisfied still...

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