This weekend I headed to Dallas to watch the NBA Allstar Game 2010 at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. A grand total of 108,000 people were present at the stadium, breaking a world record for attendance at a basketball game. Pics will be up soon, but here are some more pictures from Taiwan!

Last night the “E” key on my laptop’s keyboard kept getting stuck. I panicked a little bit then decided to do a search on google (which is what I always do to find whatever information) on how keys work on a keyboard and how to fix them. Luckily, many people have had this issue and the solution was simple. I popped the actual plastic key off with a little bit of force (the mac forums said “don’t be afraid to use some muscle”) and low and behold :

picture taken from google --my key wasn't quite as dirty.

I had a tiny piece of something stuck under the plastic pieces that you see there, which was not allowing the key to press down all the way unless I pressed it at a certain angle. I fished it out, snapped the key back on and now I can type 5 Es and actually get 5 Es, not 2.

ONTO THE FOOD!

I had this for lunch one day….15 dumplings, gone in 10 minutes…maybe less actually.

Delicious dumplings--with green onion soy sauce

So, yesterday we finished up our last day of work, and we decided to reward ourselves with a good meal, since we had been basically been eating 5 dollar lunches and dinners because we were so tired. I’ve been a little sick lately, and towards the end of this meal I couldn’t really breathe through my nostrils but because the food was so well prepared, I could still taste it. We had the beef and lamb for the meats, and they had a whole shebang of assorted vegetables and goodies (cabbage, golden mushrooms–the skinny kind, kabocha, winter melon, shrimp, fish cake, corn, tomato) and we ordered an assorted seafood side plate.

There were so many dishes that I couldn't get them all into one shot

Assorted seafood plate and fruit salad starter

We also got dessert & tea! Red bean soup

Have you ever seen gray and white ice cream before? Mimi's sesame & vanilla swirled froyo. I forgot to take a picture before she started eating, so this was the best we could do.

On my way to Korea from SFO I had to transfer planes in Taipei Taoyuan Airport.

I had an hour to spend after walking two miles through the airport to the correct terminal. I was starving so I got some breakfast at a cafe close to my gate. It was probably 80 degrees inside the terminal, so I couldn’t get myself to eat hot noodles.

Delicious dumplings 3USD, 400Yen -- I had yen from my last Japan trip so I finally got to get rid of some of it! Mango juice was good too!

Finally made it to Korea—had some good dinner after a long day of work:

Kalbi & small dishes + seafood pancake + Cass beer = a good ending to a long day. THANKS YUHEE!

Then got completely confused by my all-too-swanky hotel room:

First, I couldn’t figure out how to turn ON the lights in my room—then I couldn’t figure out how to turn them OFF. Some of the lights have buttons on the wall to turn them on, others don’t.

This is what the screen on my room phone looks like. I can control the lights (and dim them) in my room from my bed. No wonder I couldn't find any of the right light switches in my room after 15-20 minutes of complete confusion. I felt like a chicken with my head cut off. You can also control the curtains with a remote control. Complete technology overload. It also took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the right shower head on this morning...and no, I never figured it out. I ended up pulling an entire knob fixture out. The bathroom has both a shower and a bathtub with a shower head.

A pretty bad video of how ridiculous this hotel room is—minus the giant 48″ flat screen tv.

Everyone apparently loves dukbukki (rice cake in a spicy red sauce) so Christine and I had to get some from a street vendor after freezing our butts off in 14 degree F weather. I seriously could not feel my face, my fingers or the soles of my feet and I was wearing sneakers. I haven't been so cold since....yup, can't even remember when. I was wearing a tank top, tshirt, thick flannel, pea coat and a scarf.

Nothin' like a little street shopping and some freshly shredded dried squid. Oh the smell of it being grilled as you walk the streets is intoxicating. I took a picture on Christine's camera of the giant dried tentacles, so that'll have to come in a future post.

That’s it for now! Leaving for the states tomorrow ! Sad to leave our counterpart in Korea by herself in the craziness