Cypriot wedding preparation and trip to Cyprus

I haven’t update my blog for a while—life was too busy and I was too lazy L Okay…stop talking nonsense…here comes my first entry of trip to Cyprus last Christmas.

After my trip to Kenya, I spent a day back in Warwick and applied my Cypriot visa in Birmingham. Well…must complain a bit about Cypriot visa---which is just a piece of paper as normal visa. BUT…it says that you will have to return it when you depart from Cyprus—which means that there wouldn’t be any proof to show that I actually had been to Cyprus on my passport.

Anyway…focus on my trip in Cyprus…I arrived in Cyprus on 23rd of December. Thekli and Marko came to pick me up and it was so great to see them both again. The key reason for me to pay a visit to Cyprus was also because of Thekli and Marko---the bride and groom to be in a few days. I could be proud to say that I participated very much in their wedding preparation, such as took the wedding rings, picked up wedding cakes, tied wedding cakes, prepared wedding gifts and so on and so forth. When I got to Thekli’s home, I had the chance to meet more Cypriot friends of Thekli’s and we began to eat wedding cakes while we were preparing for the wedding. I also realised that the Cypriots’ English are too good so it was useless to practise my poor Greek.

Transportation in Kenya

Sherri and I tried different kinds of transportation in Kenya, such as, matatus, buses, coaches, taxis and flights. I enjoyed taking the some of the transportation in Kenya, for example, the flights; however, I was quite scared of some of them in a sense, such as the matatus and coaches.

What’s matatus? Matatus are minibuses driving along main routes to pick-up and drop-off passengers. You can know where do the matatus go by the directions and determinations written by the side of the matatus. Normally, it could take about 9 passengers in a matatu, however, some drivers would just break the law to take more passengers. Before you hopping on the matatu, you need to ask the driver assistants (in charge of collecting fares from the passengers) about the fare to get to your destinations. You must bargain if you think the price is too high. When you are on the matatu, you just have to hold the bars as tight as possible for the fast drivers and bumpy roads.

Sherri and I took buses only when we were in Nairobi and I quite liked to take buses around the city. You have to hop on the bus as soon as possible because once the buses are approaching, all the passengers would squeeze to get into the bus (Passengers are not allowed to stand on the buses in Nairobi). At first, both of us were quite afraid of people pushing us or cutting the queue, however, we could even hop on the bus when it was still moving afterwards.

As I mentioned in previous blog that the experience of taking coaches in Kenya was just like taking the rollercoaster, so exciting and a bit dangerous. The main road from Nairobi to Mambasa was very bumpy and full of dust. It took us about 10 hours to complete a single journey. What amazed me was that there were very few traffic lights and street lights and signs along the whole journey—I wondered how the drivers know where to drive to.

I took an internal flight from Maasai Mara to Nairobi which I had seen the most beautiful mountain views of Kenya from the sky. I met a very nice and kind French family taken the same flight with me and they even showed me to see giraffes and lions from the sky. The whole journey from Maasai to Nairobi was less than an hour, however, the flight stopped by another two airstrips to pick up more passengers. I noticed there was even a duty free shop by one of the airstrips. I was quite curious what would be in that duty free shop if it was open that day.

It couldn’t be a good idea to take the coaches in Kenya if you have car-sick. However, I have no doubt at all that you must be a very good and very experienced driver in order to drive in Kenya.

Time for feast of Chinese New Year's Eve!!

The feast of Chinese New Year’s Eve this year is quite special, how? Because this is the 2nd time I celebrate the Chinese New Year’s Eve with Sherri (we celebrated our last time back in New York). This is also the first time Sherri celebrates the Chinese New Year in the UK. To me, it is a special feast of Chinese New Year’s Eve, there is old friend, there are good friends and new friends. Regard to lots of Taiwanese students couldn’t make our party for Chinese New Year’s Eve because there is a party +KTV arranged by TSA at a Chinese restaurant. Therefore, our party for Chinese New Year’s Eve is very international!! We have Chris from Germany, Dani from Brazil, Rami and his friend from Argentina, Alex from Greece and the hosts Sherri, ShuYin and I from Taiwan.

What should we have for the Chinese New Year’s Eve? Take a look at our menu!!

高昇排骨 (pork rib)------步步高升(get promotion)
檸檬雞 (lemon chicken)
蠔油芥蘭 (vegetable with oyster sauce)-----變向的長年菜,象徵著長長久久(Long life)
味噌魚 (Miso fish)------年年有餘 (Have something left for every year)
咖哩牛肉 (curry beef)
米粉 (fried transparency noodles)
蘿蔔香菇湯 (soup of Chinese mushrooms and radish)-----好彩頭 (good luck)
焦糖蘋果蛋糕 (Caramel apple cake)------平平安安 (safe and peaceful)
橘子(mandarins)-----大吉大利 (good fortune)

Listening to the Chinese New Year’s music with the taste of electronic music, eating the dishes I mentioned above, speaking English and gossiping of everything---that’s how we laugh over the Chinese New Year’s Eve. Such a particular feast of Chinese New Year’s Eve—let the foreigners to know a bit more about Taiwan and our traditions---this should be a splendid Chinese New Year’s Eve!!!

I cannot remember how long I haven’t been celebrate the Chinese New Year back in Taiwan…maybe I get used to it or maybe I don’t care about it anymore…it becomes kind of format to me. Even I do like the atmosphere of Chinese New Year and the happiness of gathering around with families and friends. Well…it is a bit sad for not getting the lucky money from my families…but…why not give myself one by me. Even 2p is still nice!!

Anyway….May everyone’s New Pig Year goes as you wish!! Get promoted!!
Happy Chinese New Year and make a BIG fortune!!

Please do look forward to another party for Taiwanese students ONLY on the Chinese New Year’s Day….tomorrow we’re having Hot Pot!!

Food in Kenya

A lot of friends are curious of what Sherri and I had eaten in Kenya. Well…actually, we ate pretty well almost everyday while we stayed in Kenya. We tried some different food, such as Indian, Ethiopian, Kenyan food and lots of seafood and buffets as well. We also tried some home-made food from time to time and camping food during safari.

The first day when Sherri and I arrived in Nairobi, we cooked and had our late dinner at WanJu’s flat—this was my first cooking in Nairobi :D. We, on the next day, then, had our first typical Kenyan food with beautiful view of sunset Nairobi. We ordered something called Game Meat which is a kind of Kenyan speciality. Most of game meat is a mixed meat of giraffe, zebra, crocodile and ostrich. I didn’t dare to try any kind of the above I listed. However, Sherri did try the crocodile and she felt it tasted just like fish. Well…anyone is interested in trying the game meat?

We also tried Ethiopian food the other day. I had no idea what Ethiopian food exactly was and I never thought of trying it before. To eat Ethiopian food, there is no need to take any forks, knifes, spoons or chopsticks---but use your hands!! The Ethiopian food was served as family-style on a large round of Injeera, the spongy fermented bread of Ethiopia (to me, it tasted a bit sour). On top of injeera, there were several food (meat, vegetable and sauces…). To eat Ethiopian food, you just have to tear off a small strip of injeera and scoop up some food in it, then, put into your mouth. To be honest, I quite like the Ethiopian food except the sour injeera.

Both Sherri and I like seafood so much so we must try seafood when we had a chance. We had most of our sea food while we were at Mombassa. Unknown fishes, squids, prawns were our favourites. Apart from seafood, we also fell in love with Kenyan beer. We tried it almost twice a day during our stay at Mombassa.

Most of the food we tried during our 1st safari trip was buffets which we were free to choose what we liked to eat. I liked the passion fruit juice the most J. The eating experience was not that pleasant for the 2nd safari trip to Maasai Mara---because all the food was cooked by the tour guides went for safari with us. They brought all necessary food with them, therefore, there was not too many choices. Since that there are certain foods I don’t like at all, such as carrots, green peppers and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, there must be 1 or 2 dishes with the ingredients that I don’t like everyday of 2nd safari trip. It took me quite a long time to pick those ingredients out. However, the dishes were still good and tasted to some extent.

I think that I like most kinds of food around the world except those particular something I don’t like---that’s to say, it should not be a problem for me to travel around the world :D. Which country’s food should I try next?? Maybe some food from Northern Europe…

銀白世界

這兩天,英國又下雪啦!!相信是老天爺聽到我的聲聲呼喚,在距離上次下雪大概兩個多禮拜後又降雪啦!!而且,這次的下雪量是英國近十年來最多的ㄧ次喔!!
下雪了!!真開心!!
下雪的星期四,一大早被淑瑩的電話聲叫醒,原本睜不開的雙眼還是抵不過下雪的魅力,只見我急忙在五分鐘內整裝梳洗完畢,準備出門踏雪囉!!那天幾乎玩了一早的雪,跟雪莉和淑瑩繞湖一圈,結凍的湖,積得厚厚的雪,都足以讓我們玩很久.後來我還雪中散步到Westwood去,一路上的雪景美得就像畫一樣,雖然天氣很冷,我卻因為下雪而覺得很溫暖…
走回Lakeside的路上,看見一希臘男生(偷聽到他跟朋友講希臘文啦!!)在堆雪人,看那雪人的底,他應該想堆個巨人雪人吧!!所以,我問他介不介意讓我加入(沒辦法,我太愛堆雪人啦!).他點頭說好,我們就合力堆了一個真的還蠻大的雪人,不過,他居然拿紅蘿蔔當雪人的鼻子耶!!(我最討厭紅蘿蔔啦!!不能用小黃瓜或什麼的代替嗎??)Anyway,我後來才搞懂那雪人是他要堆送給女朋友或追女朋友的(居然誤打誤撞幫了倒忙!)希望女孩有被感動!!
很浪漫吧!!如果…也有人在下雪天堆個雪人送給妳,ONLY FOR YOU…妳會做何感想?是否會被感動?
我應該會吧!!最好在告訴全世界那雪人是送給我的…滿足獅子座的虛榮心和好面子!!

Coast of Kenya

When you are sitting by beachside of Kenyan coast, Mombassa, you won’t feel like being in Kenya or in any African countries. Mombassa is located in the Indian Ocean. It should be a nice town, however, I didn’t have the chance to walk around it while my short stay. Sherri and I spent 3 days around both North and South coasts of Mombassa, therefore, we didn’t really see the town much. The three days stayed at Mombassa, I felt like I was in Okinawa or Bali that kind of vacation resort. We were really relaxing ourselves over there—that we ate pretty well and a lot, we did nothing almost everyday but eating, drinking, sunbathing and water-playing.

The first day when we arrived at Mombassa, the very first thing we done was booked our safari trip to Tesvo National Park and Amboseli National Park. After that, we both were very tired after the over 10 hours coach journey from Nairobi to Mombassa. It was noon time when we finally got to our accommodation at the North coast of Mombassa. After a quick shower, we had our first feast with a whole fish at a restaurant nearby which is facing the blue and shine Indian Ocean. What a nice view and way to start our first sightseeing at Mombassa.

After lunch, we went to the Ngomongo village where we got to know more about the tribes of Kenya. It is a theme village collects homesteads and completes with permanent inhabitants in living styles and matching dresses of 10 different Kenyan tribes. Apart from that, there are some hands-on, dancing and musical activities waiting for you to experience.

We spent our 2nd and 3rd day at South coast of Mombassa and we loved Diani beach at south coast so much. We went nowhere but Diani beach and two same restaurants there for straight 2 days. Sherri and I both fell in love with Diani beach and it is so cool to swim or even just put our feet in the Indian Ocean—so we spent two afternoons to enjoy our first encounter with Indian Ocean. We went rowing the paddle-boat, canoeing and Sherri even went snorkelling. It should be the most enjoyable thing to immerse yourself into the cold and clear ocean while the weather is so hot. Sherri and I went to have a drink right after the water sport over these 2 days—what an ease life!! Then we would just walk along the sand toward another restaurant for dinner (the key reason for eating at that restaurant was they offer free-shuttle picking up and dropping off service).

I love water, sea and ocean and the scenery by the beachside of Indian Ocean is really great. While I was staying at coasts of Mombassa, there was no need to worry about too much, no need to think about the danger of travelling in an African country, no need to pay too much attention to people around you—you could just simply enjoy a true beach vacation.

Safari in Kenya

You cannot say that you went to Kenya if you didn’t experience the safari. I had never been to any safari before this trip to Kenya, however, I must shout out loud that I enjoyed it so much. As I mentioned before that I am not a big fan of animals, however, you just have to try to see as many animals as you could while you are in Kenya. Sherri and I were not that lucky to see the migration of animals because of the wrong timing (normally takes place between July and October). Even so, we were lucky enough to observe quite a few wild animals through our safari trips in different National Parks.

We booked the safari trip when we got to Mombassa and decided to go for a 3 days safari trip to Tsavo National Park and Amboseli National Park. The first safari trip we went was Tsavo National Park. We spent a few days to Maasai Mara National Reserve for our second safari trip. We took the minibus/truck with life-up roofs/windows for looking for and observing any wild animals, and of course, we could take pictures. It was a quite new, interesting and exciting experience to take the minibus around the huge national parks and try to see where the animals are hiding. The conditions of roads toward and in the National Parks are terribly bad and which made the trip more like adventure to some extent. Even the driver had been very careful driven all the time, however, the bumpy roads made the safari trip just like taking the rollercoaster. Sometimes, the minibuses/truck would stick in the middle of the road for bad weather condition caused the road so madly and easy to get into extreme difficult situation. However, stuck in the middle of way and bumpy roads are parts of safari experiences and they made the safari even more real and fun.

Through the two safari trip experiences, we did see lots of known and unknown wild animals. Zebras, giraffes, impalas, gazelles, monkeys and all kinds of birds were not so attractive anymore after the first day of safari. We wanted to see lions, elephants, hippos and so forth. I believed that we were really luck that we did see African buffalos, lions, elephants and hippos through our rest of first safari trip. We saw hundreds of elephants walking and eating on the field and the elephants even know how to cross the road. We were lucky to see lions when our first safari trip was almost ended. We saw about six female lions were about to hunt for food by sunset time that day. The female lions were approaching to a group of impalas and zebras and waiting for the appropriate timing to eat them up. (It was a huge pity that we didn’t get the chance to see the killing—I really wanted to have a look even I was quite scared anyhow).

Most lions we saw were sleeping all the time, they seemed to be so lazy and always found them hid under the trees to escape from the hot day. I wonder how lions are called king of animals if they spend most of time sleep…

By the way, we saw two different kinds of giraffes in Kenya. One kind is light brown giraffe and the other kind is dark giraffe, so called Maasai giraffe (please take look at photos attached). Moreover, I noticed that zebras’ legs are quite short:P but they are really cute! And elephants are not grey, they are black—this shock me a bit for I thought that elephants are grey :P

I am happy that I went to Kenya and see all these wild animals with my own eyes. There are still some animals I didn’t get a chance to see while I was there, such as rhinoceros, cheetahs, leopards and some others. Maybe I should visit Kenya or the other African countries sometime later to see all those wild animals. So, friends, fancy of a safari trip?

Let’s go sometime later then!! :D