Happy Moo Year!

Wishing everyone a Prosperous and Healthy Year of The Ox!

Dad and Mom are now in Singapore and I am boarding at a horse farm. Will be telling you all about it in my next post. Keep a look out for it!

Meanwhile, have fun and enjoy all the yummy food!

What a wonderful surprise from Dr. Dog!

Look what arrived in the mail!


A personalized pillow and coffee mug of one of my best photos with Dad! Woohoo! And a 2009 Dr. Dog Calender too! It is a Lunar New Year gift from Dr. Dog!


Can you spot Dr. Dino here?

To everyone at Dr. Dog: Thank you so much for your sweet gesture, we are definitely looking forward to continue working with all of you to bring smiles, laughter and joy to all the people out
there!

Let's go to Jiufen (九份)!

It was a great day one weekend and we decided to go on a road trip again! This time we went to Jiufen, a quaint little town just one and a half hours drive from Taipei city. Jiufen is a mountainous town with steep, curvy and narrow roads and as usual, I got car sick and threw up in the car once we arrived.



Jiu Fen means "nine portions" in Chinese and the town was named so because it used to house nine families and these nine households would order nine portions every time shipments arrived from town.


The view was fantastic, it looked almost surreal.

Jiufen used to be a prosperous gold mining town, but it quickly declined after the mining discontinued. Fortunately, the quaint streets, tea houses and stunning views of the Pacific Ocean saved it from becoming yet another anonymous mining ghost town. In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien's film, A City of Sadness set in Jiufen became a big hit. The nostalgic scenery of Jiufen in the film attracted many visitors and Jiufen became a tourist attraction. Jiufen again came into the limelight in 2001 when its downtown was used as a model in the anime movie, Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki.


I will never visit Jiufen on a weekend again, the streets were all sardine-packed with tourists, it was very difficult to walk comfortably and I got molested several times. :(

There are so many things to eat in Jiufen!


Delicious beef noodles in herbal soup.


Desserts with sweet potatop and taro balls.


Spicy fried anchovies.


Fruit flavored jellies.


Yam cake (芋粿) and cudweed cake (草仔粿).


Some interesting snacks.


Many interesting alleys to explore.


Golden retriever stone dogs for sale!


Someone wants to get in the picture too!


So many stairs to climb!


And old stone houses to see.



This restaurant called City Of Sadness Restaurant (悲情城市小上海茶樓), was featured in the film, A City Of Sadness, which won the Golden Lion at the 1989 Venice Film Festival.


The famous flight of stairs.


What is everyone looking at?


Ah! A movie poster! Many period films were set in Jiufen.


Posing on the stairs.


Posing with a tourist.


Time for a coffee break!

Nice view of the mountain from the cafe.


Me and the mountain.



One more shot on the chair.



Shots with my favorite humans.


That's a cute Winnie the Pooh!


The gold miner and the golden retriever!


Saying hello to a little friend.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip to Jiufen with me!

Thank you all for your kind words about my weight, but it has been confirmed that I am overweight. 40kg/88lbs! I have put on 6kg/13lbs in a year! Shocking! Life in Taipei must be good! I better shed some of that excess weight before summer comes. Time to work out again!

How I spent the first day of 2009

I was already snoozing before midnight and Dad and Mom sneaked out to the roof top to watch the countdown fireworks exploding from the Taipei 101 Building.

The humans ate and ate non-stop during the holiday season and sadly, I did not get to enjoy their human food, but Mom did not forget to prepare a special meal just for me on New Year's Day!


What's for lunch, Mom?


Lamb, carrots, broccoli and rice!


How long do I have to wait?


Chomp...


Chomp....the bowl was cleaned up in no time!

After a satisfying meal, we went to my favorite dog park.


I got to meet some new friends.


We had a good little chat.


The vet says I am fat and need to lose some weight.


What do you think?

There is a cold wave right now in Taipei and I feel like cuddling up to take a nap, but before I do that, I would like to introduce a new friend, Sephy the Shiba Inu and Shania the Siberian Husky from California. Check out shibashake.com! There are many excellent articles there about the Shiba Inu breed, dog training and problem behaviors. Remember to stop by at their blog (http://shibashake.com/shibainublog) too! I am sure many of you will enjoy reading it as much as I did!

Keep warm, my friends!

Happy Happy Pug and a Happy New Year to All!

A very Happy Healthy 2009 to all my friends!!! I hope everyone is getting lots of love and good food!



For the first post of the year, I would like to share with you a happy story.

Remember, Puggy? The awfully emaciated poor pug that Dou Dou Mom rescued? Well.... Dou Dou Mom brought Puggy and Dou Dou the three-legged golden retriever to visit! First, a little background on Dou Dou, he was abandoned after an accident when he lost a leg and was a rescue too. When Dou Dou Mom rescued him, he also had a blow to his head where you can see white streaks of hair growing now.

Here's a "Before" pic of Puggy:



And, look at him now! What a drastic change after Dou Dou Mom's tender loving care for only two months!



Puggy has now been named Seven because he was rescued outside the 7-11 convenience store.

Big thank you to all of you who asked about Seven, thank you all so much for showing your concern. And a million thanks to Dou Dou Mom for giving Seven and Dou Dou a home filled with so much love. The world should be filled with more people like you!

Here's a video clip of Dou Dou and Seven, I hope you all enjoy it.



For my New Year wish, I hope all homeless animals will find their forever homes and be cared for like Seven and Dou Dou.

I will be back with more stories from my Christmas and New Year celebrations. Take care and keep warm, everyone!