Day 1 - Taipei Holiday Trip - 85 Degrees Cafe

 

While we were still searching for the shop which sell yoga mats and yoga attires, we accidentally found the famous ''Ma La Huo Guo" Restaurant. It was in our must-try list but we will save it for another day.

 

Passed-by the temple, we went in and prayed. The temple is a very old temple and it is sandwiched between two new buildings.

Finally, we found the Police Station at Xi Men Ding and we knew that we were very close to our destination. The building structure of the police station is quite special. We will have missed it out if we didn't saw the police cars.

Funny enough, we even stopped-by at the police station and took some photos. I think we will never do it in Malaysia.

Located next to the police station, there is another old building which looks very special.

Yoga Mats at Bourdance

According to the direction given, after we saw the police station, we should turn right. Then, we will find some shops selling yoga attires and yoga mats. True enough, we found a quite exclusive shop which sell imported goods from USA. We bought some sport bras and few yoga mats from the shop which included the Hot Yoga Mat (NT$1280) and Recycle Mat (NT$670). Thought of taking some photos of the shop to give our gym members some ideas of the goods available in the shop but we were told off by the shop assistants (as if that we were going to steal their ideas).

Address above is where we get our Yoga mats and attires

Believe it or not? First we had lunch at Yak Rou Ping, then, dessert at Three Sisters, followed by Japanese food at Da Che Lun and finally, we stopped-by at 85 Degrees Cafe for dessert again. All this were done within 3 hours. Our stomachs were almost burst out but we couldn't resisted ourselves when we saw nice food.

Self-service counter

85 Degrees is actually a chain store which available in Taiwan, China, Australia and USA.

Delivery Motorcycle

Layer Cake

The Layer Cake was quite nice. Smooth cream were sandwiched in between the layers of thin pastries. It tasted more like pancake with cream.

Sorry that I couldn't translated the name of this cake. Anyway, it wasn't good. The cake was too dry and the pastry was not crispy. Not recommended to order this.

Mango Mochi

Fresh Mango mixed with delicious cheese, covering with QQ and soft mochi, unbelievable rich and irresistible attractive. Yummylicious!!

85 Degrees Signature Coffee

Today's Meditation

There is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

George Bernard Shaw

It may seem a little harsh here on the people who spend their time whining and complaining that life isn't fair and that there's nothing to do, but when you consider just how high the stakes are it seems that harshness may be the most effective way to pull some people out of their complaining mode and into an active one.

There is so much to do in this world, so many ways to contribute. And we don't always have to be actively contributing, sometimes finding a quiet place and reading for a few hours is the best thing we can do for ourselves and others. We all have purposes for being here, one of our most important tasks is to find the purpose or purposes that we can and should be fulfilling now, and get to it. That's how we find happiness, by doing something that brings us fulfillment and that serves other human beings. Happiness doesn't just come to us when we sit around in the same spot, waiting for it to come and do its thing in our lives.

I'm not a professional runner, but I do like to run in races. And one thing that I know is that at the end of any race, I want to have nothing left. I want to know that I gave my all out there on the track or on the course, and I know that the more I have left in me when I finish, the faster I could have gone, but didn't, while I was running. I know that once the race is over I'll have time to recover, but I won't have the chance to go back out there and improve my performance.

Life is like that. We get one shot in the big picture, but in the little daily picture, we get chance after chance after chance to excel and to make something special of our lives and of the people we are. When my life's over, I want to look back and smile and say "I did all I could, I think, with what I was given, and even more than others who were given similar situations. I truly believe I gave life the best I had to give it."

The need to make wise choices encompasses every area of our lives. Since we have time for only a limited amount of stuff, we need to choose wisely what stuff we're going to allow to take up that time. Since we have only a limited amount of time to spend with friends or to engage in leisure activities, we need to choose our friends and our activities wisely.

Elaine St. James