Last weekend has been relatively slow, if you’d count having a nice dinner then checking out a new modern art gallery/lounge bar on Friday, going shrimping and bowling on Saturday, then having brunch with a friend and wallclimbing on Sunday.

God, despite not doing much (it wasn’t as exciting as going to an amusement park), I was dead tired and yawning come Saturday evening at 9:30!

That’s early…! And I even had to take a short nap before venturing outside again for some bowling action.

Must be getting old. 😛
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Continuing my search for the best steak house in Taipei, I ventured out to the Miramar Shopping Mall last Friday to check out Vickies Steak House, found at the 5th floor.

Highly recommended by restaurant specialist/colleague, Brendan, who said that their fillet mignon just melts in your mouth, Vickies seem quite upper-class and looks like a restaurant to bring your date to.

The steak I ordered — grilled fillet mignon and duck liver — cost a slightly steep NT$850 (Add NT$160 for set inclusive of soup, salad, starter, cake and drink), but since my friends and I ordered a bottle of wine (NT$800 for house red wine), our final bill was not cheap.

The borsche beef stew I got tasted like tomato soup with beef bits, not that impressive, but the oriental salad with nuts and Japanese sauce was tangily delicious. For starters, I ordered the potato with seafood bits — not bad save for the calories, while the steak itself…

Well, for once, I think my colleague overrated the restaurant.

Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious. But I still think Ruth’s Chris is way better, followed by Carnegies and Herbs.

The steak was served grilled, which meant it was in a sizzling plate with oil splattering all over. You’d have to use the paper napkin to save your precious clothes from being hit by the sizzling oil. Served with the usual pepper and mushroom sauce, the meat was pretty though, though for some reason, I can’t help but feel it wasn’t as “high-class” because it was served in a sizzling plate. The dessert was pretty dry and the wine was pretty thin.

Overall, a good place to bring a date, but totally overrated. At least, it was fun catching up with friends and good conversation abounded. Wasn’t happy when they kicked us out at 10:30 though, because the restaurant was closing.
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A lot of Taiwanese love shrimping… it’s nuts!

Here’s my record: For NT$450, I get to shrimp for 2 hours. And under this two hours, I manage to catch 2 freaking prawns.

That’s like NT$225 a prawn! So expensive!

But Taiwanese people love it. They line up, sit down along the pool, cast their line, wait for a looooong time just for a measely prawn.

Yawn, sounds boring for me.

Or maybe it’s just because I can’t shrimp well.

But, since weather last Saturday sucked and we had to cancel our trip to the Leofoo amusement park (wouldn’t be fun to ride roller coasters wet), I suggested trying out shrimp fishing near the Shilin area since most of my friends have never experienced it.

Mark loved it. Being a flyfisherman himself, he felt it was very relaxing trying to catch those prawns. He was up, down, running around, and managed to catch 10 prawns for our dinner meal.

Howard and Jonathan had less luck at a total of 6 for both. They weren’t really into it, and I managed to engage Jonathan in a conversation about politics, the Iraqi war and why the Philippines shouldn’t be a democratic country (which is another blog entry altogether and would probably earn me the ire of most Pinoy readers out there).

The best thing about shrimping however is not in the catching, but in the preparing and cooking it.

First step: Rinsing those little critters in water and then skewering them with a long BBQ stick. Ouch.

Mind you, most of them are still alive and you can see them twitching as you place them on the tray.

Totally barbaric, really.

Next step: dipping them in salt. Lots and lots of salt.Step 3: BBQing them on the fire. Make sure you get both sides of the prawns.Last step: Eating them with soy sauce and wasabi. YUMMY!

Overall, it was an enjoyable activity, though slightly expensive for my taste. My Japanese friends love to do this though, so I’ve probably done this over five times in my entire three years in Taipei.

Afterwards, I was so tired. Must’ve been the amount of food we ate or whatever, but I was just tired.

Regardless, I mustered enough strength to go bowling with Amy, and got a score of 111 on my last game!

That’s a huge improvement from my score of 18 the last time (my average is around 60), and I was just lucky mainly because I got two strikes in a row and one spare after that!

You should’ve seen my form though — I have no form whatsoever.

But I daresay it’s quite fun, especially since it’s the FIRST time I’ve ever scored over 100!

Yahoo!

Sunday on the other hand was spent wallclimbing with new friend Steven and his friends Rebecca and Joan at Shipai.

Australian Rebecca and Joan are just really nice sincere people; it’s fun hanging out with them.

Steven and I also hit it off. I met him wallclimbing two weeks ago, and he invited me to go wallclimbing with him this week.

He just ended a 2-year relationship 2 months ago, so we had quite a lot in common (yeah, we’re still healing from our emotional scars). Really nice guy too, not very pretentious and we had fun teasing him since he said that he liked girls who didn’t wear makeup (are there still women who don’t) and will not “force” women to ever wear high heels since it’s so barbaric.

Weird, I find it amazing that he was able to guess that I was Filipino-Chinese! Everybody thinks I’m from California because of my accent, but he straight-out said, “No, you’re definitely NOT Californian. Though your accent is Californian, you don’t act Californian and that’s a compliment.“

Umm… okay, I think.

You’ll hear about Steven in the succeeding entries… he seems to be a cool guy to hang out with. 😉

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Some updates:

* Aussie guy texted me yesterday saying he’s on the way home back from Manila though he’s pissed his flight got delayed. He bought me a huge bag of dried mangoes and hopes to convince me to let him make up for disappointing me last week. We’ll see if we ever meet up…

* Work has been crazy. I’m up my neck with work and I’m now in panic mode with all the deadlines. Argh, thinking about it is just giving me a headache.

* I’ve finally decided not to torture myself any longer and start seriously distancing myself from those who are making me unhappy. As my friend Elizabeth had advised me last Friday, “Okay, so shit happens, but you always have a choice — you can choose to be sad or happy. Think positive and positive things will follow.”

* Steven advises me not to be much of a busybody and start prioritizing what’s really important in my life instead of treating each and every person fairly. As he has said, “I care, I can…I change.”

Meaning, if you really care about something, and you can do something about it, well, change your plans to accomodate that something!

* Okay, this is weird… for some reason, I keep on attracting mostly cancer males (those born end of June to mid-July). My ex was a Cancer, so is Aussie guy (that’s why he’s a homebody) and so is this other potential male. Okay, so let’s not place too much trust in the horoscopes, but technically, Librans and Cancers aren’t that compatible. Oh well, let’s see how this goes…

* Something to cheer up all those single people in the house (Didn’t write this btw)!

The happier you are single, the more chance you have of finding the relationship of your dreams.

Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it?

But who do you think would be more interesting to go out with?

The girl who does nothing much except wait around for a man to fill the big, empty hole that is her life — or the girl who’s so busy getting on with it, she only dates really special guys because she’s got far better things to do than hang out with losers?

This applies to both sexes.

Energy, enthusiasm, sheer love of life: that’s what people find attractive.

It’s got little to do with looks, money, what car you drive or how big your boobs are.

What it has got a lot to do with is how much you like yourself.

If you look in the mirror and see a nice, attractive person with lots to offer the world, people will see you that way too. If you don’t like yourself, no-one else will.

Yup, love yourself and live life the fullest! Till tomorrow!

C’est la vie!