Vancouver life: The Winter Farmaer's market

Vancouver is usually so cold and windy during a winter time, following by a long, dark night, thus, people only wanna stay at home rather than go outside for activities.

溫哥華在冬天的時候風大又冷，而且黑夜又長，所以人們通常都會只想要待在家裡不出門（路上真的連人都很少看到）

However, there are still some outdoor activities each week giving people some chances to enjoy the nature.

但是冬季仍舊有不少戶外的活動讓居民有機會可以接觸大自然！

One of the activity was "Winter Farmer's Market", and lucky for me, I got an opportunity to go there during the first month in Vancouver.

其中一項活動就是冬季農夫市場。我很幸運的有機會在來這裡的第一個月就遇到囉！

The winter farmer's market was located in the Riley Park-Little Mountain neighborhood of Vancouver, and it was also the home of the Vancouver Canadians baseball team. Near by the Hillcrest Park.

冬季農夫市場是位於Riley Park-Little Mountain附近，靠近Hillcrest Park

The entry sign showed the information of this market, lots of farmers brought their fresh vegetable and home make dishes to the market.

在入口處可以看到指示牌，很多農夫們帶著他們自己種的新鮮蔬菜和手工的食物來這裡販賣。

Grow fresh, eat fresh!!

這才叫新鮮啦～！

Actually, my main purpose here was those various food trucks! Food trucks are the special feature in Vancouver, especially they serve different kind of foods, such as Mexican Taco, Indian cuisine, delicious grill and my favor, the Latin America food!

不過其實我的主要目的是來吃的！溫哥華有名的象徵之一是餐車，各國特色料理都有可能在小小的餐車上變出來！像是Taco, 印度料理和拉丁美洲的食物！

This was the one! My first target, I came here for their delicious pupusas ! I even tweeted to them the day before to make sure they were coming!

這是這間！Guanaco Truck! 他們家著名的拉丁美洲食物 pupusas, 我甚至在出發前還特別Tweet 他們確定他們會出現！

Food Truck: Guanaco Truck

Cuisine: Latin America

Recommend: Pupusa

Price: less than $10 (Around $7.5 to $10)

Twitter: @guanacotruck

They served the best ever pupusas in town, and of course, people lined up when I got there during the lunch time. But unfortunately I can't taste their fires due to the facility was broken that day, thus they decided to give us a discount for the meal for $6 each from original $9.5.

他們有最好吃的pupusas，而且理所當然的在中餐時間排滿了人。不過當天他們的炸爐出了點問題，沒辦法提供薯條。所以，所有的餐點打折囉（原價$9.5, 打折後 $6)

Here it is! The delicious pupusas which was served with caggage salad and salsa sauce.

看看這個，超好吃的pupusas, 搭配著高麗菜絲沙拉和莎莎醬，絕配！

It was baked with mashed cheese, bean, all mixed together, best served with HOT!!

這是綜合起司，豆子泥混合在一起烤出來的餅，熱騰騰的最好吃！

Here was another food truck serving delicious Taco, which was my aother favorite cousin!

另外一台餐車也很讚啦， Coast Featro， 提供墨西哥Taco

Food Truck: Coast Featro

Cuisine: Mexican

Recommend: Taco

Price: less than $4.5-$6.5 (Around $7.5 to $10)

Twitter: @Coastfeatro

Must try: Salmon Taco

This Taco was as big as my palm, fulled of smoked salmon, Advocado, fresh tomato and cheese. Huge size with a very reasonable price ($4.5 each) !

這一個Taco 整整有我一個手掌大！滿滿的鮭魚，酪梨和新鮮蕃笳還有起司。超大一個 $4.5元，相較於其它餐車動軋$7起跳，很划算。

One more surprise was their hand cut fries, use a whole potato to cut becoming wave shape fires, served with mustard sauce, fantastic!

另外就是他們的手切薯條，整顆馬鈴薯去切成波浪形，搭配芥茉醬，超讚！

There were other two food trucks also popular and people lined up just for a taste, but I dismissed them. One was Le Tigre Cuisine Mobile Food Truck. It was more like Taiwanese famous fried chicken stand. I was sure their food must be so delicious, people crowded around the truck all the time.

另外有2台餐車我就沒去排了，一台是 Le Tigre Cuisine, 賣的東西很像台灣的鹹酥雞，生意好到人潮沒少過。

Another was a tank. Yeap, a TANK! The chef served a chili beef sauce with 2 pieces of toasted garlic bread, I didn't try it since I was so full at that moment, but it attracted many people and it has great reviews on Urbanspoon.

另一台就是坦克車啦！這輛坦克賣的是香辣的牛肉醬搭配烤過的大蒜土司。我實在是太飽了沒試，但是看到不少人去買，而且他在Urbanspoon上的評價很不錯！

Vancouver's weather is hard to predict and rains often, people really wanna go outside when the sun comes out. And I am a part of them, enjoy the sun and delicious food, what a wonder day!

溫哥華的天氣難捉摸而且常下雨，不過人們在陽光燦爛時都會出門去享受難得的陽光日。
我也在那裡成為他們的一員，很享受的一天！

Vancouver Life - First week

Time flies fast! I've here in Vancouver for 3 months now. So many things happened and ended up changing from my original plans, but I have to say "Never regret! "

時間過的很快，轉眼間我已經在溫哥華三個月了。這之間發生了許多事，雖然最後和我原先的計畫完全不同，但我必須要說 “不後悔！”

Vancouver is a very beautiful city when it's sunny and clear! Lucky me, most of my days staying here were almost the perfect weather for each day!

溫哥華是在天空晴朗的日子裡，是一個很漂亮的城市。我很幸運的，大多數待在這裡的日子都是這樣的好天氣！

I studied the EPE (Post Secondary program)  in KGIC (King George International College) , it's located in downtown Vancouver, just nears the famous Robinson Street.

我就讀KGIC的EPE 課程，而學校就位在於溫哥華市中心，著名的Robinson街附近

Any of the time when cheery tree blossomed, this kind of the view was the most beautiful painting for me to see each day!

而當櫻花樹盛開時，這種美景就是我天天可以看到的天然畫布！

Telephoning: Opening a call & Taking message

It is very important to illustrate your purpose and let the person who answers your phone can have complete information why you are calling. Here are some tips on calling/answering the phone.

Answer a phone:

Hello, ABC company, Financial Dept. Shelley's speaking.
Yes, this is Statistic Dept.

When you want to know who is calling:

Who is calling please?
May I know what is the connection with?
May I ask what it is reference to?

*******

Calling: 

When you make a call, you should include basic information while you're calling

External call: Company name, Dept. name, and your name.
Internal call: Dept. name and your name.
Then, tell your connector and purpose.

Hello, this is Shelley from ABC company.

May I speak to...
Could you please put me through...
The reason what I'm calling is
I'm calling about....

To leave a message:

Should be able to get a message to John.
Would you like to leave a message?

May I leave a message?
Could you take a message, please?

While waiting:

Just a second / Just a moment
Getting it! (Means you are writing on paper right now)

Ask for reconfirm:

Can you read that back to me?
Let me read that back to you.
So let me make sure that I get the name right.

EPE-Case study: Class Size and Academic Achievement (II)

This is an essay for academic preparation course. I'd like to have it been reviewed and welcome everyone's comments, especially on grammar and structure, thank you.

Is the class size relative to better academic achievement?

To experiment with a specific outcome, in the late 1980s, a Tennessee-sponsored project called “Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio”, or “STAR” was designed to measure students’ performance through widened sample size and exclude the influence factors, such as students’ family background, the ratio of native English speaker. STAR use a different way to optimize the study result, which was assigned students and teachers randomly in different class size. Project STAR continued for four years and analysts conducted multiple records; generally, students have significant improvement in the first grade, even maintained the same performance after they have gone back to large class. Also, another notable result showed that ethnic minority students jumped in achievement impressively compared to previous records.
However, the other analysts have different view, they criticised that the study result did not provide clear evidence of the correlation between good performance and small class size. Despite the fact that, there was consensus among excellent students’ performance when they studied in a class with student number between thirteen to seventeen.

In spite of those remarkable finds related to the merits of small class size, different education styles implementing in Asia tell different stories in contrast to the benefits of small class size. For a long time, Asian schools kept large class size for each grade, usually more than forty students in one class, which is different from American schools, especially Japanese students, who hold the most remarkable achievement records. Those students highly disciplined and honored to be chosen. The teachers have strong established relationship with students. Although the flexibility in large class is not as much as it is in small class, some records showed that without considering the factors of linguistic and culture diversities, Japanese students can still hold high scores under standard test. 

Vancouver Life: Study and immigration

2 months ago, I finally decided to actualize my dream, to live in Vancouver, a city I fell in love since first time I visited, and to achieve my academic goal.

2 months later, the situations changed so fast and I can only try to grab every possible opportunity. To Apply to those so called "suitable" University is extremely giving me hard time, because of my uncompleted college degree, I only had senior high school graduated transcription, plus 2 years college Diploma.

















Eventually, 2 famous University here: University of Victoria, Vancouver, BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology). I was so glad that I can get into these acceptance letters, but later I realized the fact: there are too many Universities and college here, and Vancouver is an immigrants city, these academic programs are specifically designed for the international students and those people who want to immigrate here.

When my life came to this stage, I should really carefully outweigh both my desire and economical side of the future life.

It was difficult for me to make a decision between immigration purpose and go back my home country to find a job. Suddenly, it just liked someone lit a spotlight on me, there is an interest of mind, but for long time, I pursued something else and forgot it. Just at this moment, I saw it!

Interpreter, this is an amazing job for me and because of my passion on English, which is contributed to this interest. I am fortunate enough, there are 2 Universities run relevant programs: Business translation of Chinese - English. I truly believed that if a window was closed, God will open another window for me, only if I can find it and see the view through that window, future is brighten!

I'd like to share this experience because, there are so many international students here in Vancouver, no matter what purpose they have, go to Universities, immigration, working, or just want to stay aboard for a while, the first step is the most important thing, you have to be there than you know what exactly you want.

Don't be afraid, at least you've tried. Don't regret, because what you experiencing here is priceless.

St. Patric Festival, Vancouver

Granville Island Market, Vancouver

The most cheery flowers I've ever seen

2個月前，我終於決定實現我的夢想，到溫哥華住並完成我的學術目標，一個我在拜訪第一次之後就愛上的城市。

2個月之後，不斷改變的狀態讓我只能抓住任何申請大學的機會，一個我真的適合去唸的學校。整個申請過程真的很辛苦，因為我只有台灣五專的學歴，而不是完整的大學學歴。

最終，2間有名的大學，維多莉亞大學和BC省技術學院接受了我有條件式的入學。我很高興能夠拿到入學許可，但是隨後我就發現，溫哥華的大學很多，而溫哥華是一個移民居多的城市，多數的學術課程都是專門為了國際學生或是想移民的人設計的。

人生到了這種階段，我應該要小心考慮“想要”和未來生活的經濟效益的問題。

要在移民和回到自己國家找工作是對我來說很困難的決定。不過突然間，似乎有人打亮了燈光，我發現了自己長久以來一直都有的興趣，但是因為我一直在追求其它的事情而被遣忘了。

翻譯員，對於在英文上很有熱情的我而言是一件很棒的工作，而十分有幸的，有2間大學正好就有開設這門中英文翻譯課程。我相信，上帝永遠會在一扇窗關上後，再為你開另一扇窗，只要你能夠找到它，就能看到未來明亮的風景。

我想分享這個經驗是因為溫哥華有許多的國際學生，不管他們的目的是為了什麼，上大學，移民，工作或是只是想要待在國外一陣子，踏出第一步是很重要的，你需要真的到當地了，才知道自己想要的是什麼。

別怕，至少你試了。別後悔，你學到的經驗是無價的。

EPE-Case study: Class Size and Academic Achievement (I)

This is an essay for academic preparation course. I'd like to have it been reviewed and welcome everyone's comments, especially on grammar and structure, thank you.

Is the class size relative to better academic achievement?

The importance of education is the core value of all human society. Thus, how to improve the performance of students is the heated subjects of endless debate. When class size is mentioned, most studies refer to 20 students as a small class, and a large one is more than 20. In Asia, large class size is common for every level of school. In the elementary school that I studied, the classroom was usually full of approximately sixty students. Under this situation, our teacher did not give us any free time to discussion nor provide feedback for individuals. The whole school year followed by tight schedule; standard and frequent examinations were the effective ways to test student’s performance. As a result, students tried hard to continue high scored, otherwise, harsh punishment would occur. Considered the improvement academic achievement, there is common consensus among the beneficial ways of class-size reduction in many countries. To be sure, there have been numerous studies in the U.S. concentrating on this topic. This essay will discuss the relative benefits of both small and large class sizes.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to students’ performance. Overtime, the performance of students is widely better as a result of class-size reduction; numerous studies also indicated those benefits following by reducing the class size.  According to these conducts, some major key points are worth to be addressed as: more interaction between students and teachers, encouraging group discussion and these students are more likely to become healthier in their later lives.
First of all, unlike large classes, fewer students in class can avoid interruption from peers, and also give teachers more opportunities to focus on individually. Students are encouraged to team up together and have more discussions, which not only gives teachers more room of flexibility, but it also modifies education style by the ways of examining the students closely. Meanwhile, because the students are well educated, they may have sufficient knowledge to maintain healthy lives and avoid unnecessary medical cost.
In addition, some analysts agreed that those students in kindergarten prosper good study habits and it is likely to persist for long time. However, as maintained by existing records showed that since 1969, over 28 years, the United States has experienced relative decrease in student-teacher ratios dramatically, despite a negligible increase in academic performance.

TJB Cafe

This is a lovely restaurant, which is located near <Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall> MRT station, blue painting wall that you can easily spot it just around the corner. Through the window, there are some adorable merchandises such as tower or mug, and those make here become a popular restaurant for tea time.

They not just have beautiful decoration but also yummy brunch, and they serve "huge" brunch!

Chicken taco salad
they made some change for this tradition Mexican food, fire wheat tortilla to make it crisp and as a folder for rich chicken salad, with red onion, lettuce, tomato, baby corn and tendency chicken breast.

TJB roasted turkey panini
well, this panini was nothing special, the toast was over baked, made it hard to have it a bite 'cause that stuffing just fell over the plate, but the chip tasted good though.

My favour, Omelet!!
Bacon & cheese makes life wonderful!!! (I probably shouldn't say that 'cause I'm vegetarian now…)

I missed the chance to take some photos while I cut that creamy omelet, I just can't wait to taste it, and eventually, I only left this wonderful moment when it was served.

The price range around NT$ 180 to NT$ 300 (with drinks or side dish), at average price level of cafe in Taipei, but it's always crowed and they don't take reservation!!! (You can only wait outside the restaurant...)
If you don't wanna waste time, suggest to avoid lunch or dinner rush hour!

Name: TJB Cafe
Tel: 02-2776-2527
Opening hours: 7days, from 9AM - 10PM
Address: 1F., No.23, Ln. 260, Guangfu S. Rd., Xinyi Dist., Taipei City 110, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
(台北市光復南路260巷23號1F)


檢視較大的地圖