Taiwanese shrimp farm sexy girl

A video, that will make your shrimps explode

Would she be too hot for your shrimp farm?

This video was shot at one of the plenty shrimp farms 釣蝦場 (pronounced diào xiā cháng) in Taiwan and became very popular on YouTube. The sexy girl is dancing like she's at a night club and all the men seem to be amazed how direct she is. The best part of the video is at 3.02, when she grabs a young guy's head and gives him a... well, you better see it for yourself! :-P I have to say I heard about this for the first time today and although it was new to me, I somehow wasn't shocked. You see a lot of crazy things in Taiwan and this one is one of the harmless ones.

What are shrimp farms?

These farms allow you to fish shrimps from their pools and the ones you catch, you can either bring home or barbecue them there and eat them right away. You only pay a certain hourly fishing fee. The prices vary, but they usually start at 150NTD per hour (that's around 3.5 Eur). Some farms differentiate the price by the gender of the shrimp, fishing at the pool of male shrimps is more expensive (not sure, if that's sexism or because the male shrimp is bigger). Some farms, like in the video above, hire hot girls to dance in order to entertain the men and attract more of them in the future. I have to say the marketing strategy is very simple, but highly effective.

Here are some photos from few years ago. My wife and her friend went to a shrimp farm:

My wife's friend caught a shrimp, yay.

And then they barbecued it right there at the farm.

That's how a shrimp looks like after it's done. It looks delicious.

My wife told me that a lousy fisher may only catch 1 shrimp in two hours, but there are people who catch over 30 in one hour. I'm not really that crazy about shrimps, so I probably won't be seen at some of these farms, but who knows. Maybe I'll go to see a hot performance.

How about you? How do you like the girl's dance?

[My UNIQUELY TAIWAN page][My TAIWAN page][All photos by LilyChen, 2007]

Prohibition in Taipei Public Parks

Culture specific prohibitions

While walking around Zhongzheng, Taipei's old center, I went to a small park and came across these park rules and regulations. What was interesting to me were the culture-specific bans, such as "no gambling", "no vendors" and "no fireworks". I can hardly imagine these things being listed in public parks in my country Slovenia.

Do you have any specific bans in your country?

Cosplay in Taipei, 2010

Check my girlfriend's photos

Ok, I have to admit that she probably isn't an MKL fan. I used a team of very skilled photoshoppers to put that logo in there. Doesn't she look cool? :-)

In case you're interested in cosplay, check my girlfriend's awesome photos. She went to a recent gathering of cosplayers in Taipei and took plenty of pics. The cosplay subculture is in recent years very popular in Taiwan and the Taiwanese teens are as good as Japanese, when it comes to dress up like their favorite manga characters. You can also see what the girl above really held in her hand. Have fun browsing pics. More here:

✰ Cosplay in Taipei, 2010 via Flickr by LilyChen>>

[My TAIPEI page][Photo by LilyChen, 2010]

That's how Slovenians make coffee

With some useful phrases in Slovenian for you

I've traveled around the world and I've tried a lot of coffee, from Austria, Italy to Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Korea. I love coffee. I've seen the kopi tiam culture in Malaysia, the coffee house culture in Vienna, I've tasted Italian espressos and cappuccinos and American filter coffee in the famous coffee chains around the world. But how about Slovenia? What kind of coffee people usually drink in Slovenia?

Well, as much as we want to be seen as a central European country, our coffee culture has been adopted from the Balkans. While at home we mostly make and drink Turkish coffee (turška kava), in bars and cafés we drink espressos, cappuccinos and coffee with milk, all made by various coffee makers and machines. But so far we don't have big American coffee chains here, thank god for that.

Let me show you how I prepare my coffee at home every morning:

I put water and a spoon of sugar in the džezva (pronounced "jaz-vah").

I wait for the water to get hot, then just before boiling I add 3 spoons of ground coffee and mix.

The coffee starts to rise just before boiling. Have to be careful not to spill it over.

When it boils, I turn off the heater and let it calm down. I mix it a little and then
pour the coffee slowly in the mug. I add milk, personally a lot of milk.

I usually add more sugar (2 spoons afterwards), some don't. This is called kava z mlekom
(coffee with milk). If you don't add any milk, it's called črna kava (black coffee).

And voilà... the Slovenian coffee is ready to drink. Variations of this kind of coffee are drunk in the Middle East, northern Africa, Turkey, Caucasus and the Balkans. Slovenia is probably the most Western European country, that commonly drinks Turkish coffee at home. If I would host you at my home, I would probably make this type of coffee for you.

Here's some vocabulary for you, if you come to Slovenia and order coffee:

turška kava [pron. toorsh-kah kah-vah] - Turkish coffee

kava [pron. kah-vah] - general word for coffee

črna kava [pron. cher-nah kah-vah] - black coffee

bela kava [pron. bella kah-vah] - white coffee

kava z mlekom [pron. kah-vahz-mlay-come] - coffee with milk

kava s smetano [pron. kah-vahs smay-tah-noh] - coffee with whipped cream

kapučino [pron. capoochino] - cappuccino, just written in Slovenian

podaljšana kava [pron. poh-dahl-shah-nah] - extended coffee, more coffee inside

sladkor [pron. slahd-core] - sugar

s sladkorjem [pron. ser slahd-cor-yem] - with sugar

brez sladkorja [pron. brass slahd-cor-ya] - without sugar, no sugar

brezkofeinska kava [pron. brass-co-fe-in-ska] - decaffeinated coffee

z [pron. zer], s [pron. ser] - with, brez [pron. brass] - without

prosim [pron. pro-seem] - please or you're welcome.

hvala [pron. hvah-lah] - thank you.

If you order coffee in Slovenia, these phrases may be useful to you:

1 For one cup of coffee: One _______, please.

Eno ______ (fill in the blank: kavo z mlekom/črno kavo/belo kavo/kavo s smetano/kavo brez sladkorja/brezkofeinsko kavo...), prosim.

2 For two cups of coffee: Two ______, please.

Dve ______ (fil in the blank: kavi z mlekom/črni kavi/beli kavi/kavi s smetano), prosim.

3 When waiter brings you the coffee, he may say: Izvolite. (Here you go)

4 You say: Hvala. (Thank you). If he's polite, he should say: Prosim. (You're welcome)

How do you drink coffe in your country?

[My Slovenia page][All photos by MKL, 2010]