10:08 PM
Taiwan Day 6 - National Palace Museum & Shi Lin Night Market
We girls had breakfast at 85° Cafe while the guys went elsewhere since cake isn't really their thing for breakfast haha. The chocolate truffle and the pudding cake was really nice compared to the other two! This cafe should be really popular because we saw one in every city! Plus there's free wi-fi hehe.
We went out to buy 50嵐 which is also Koi in Singapore. I bought the lemon yakult green tea... and half the time my face was spasming because of how sour it was, even at 100% sweetness!!
We alighted at Jiantan Station 劍潭 to take 红30 bus to National Palace Museum. Sadly no pictures were allowed inside :( Yuxuan and I had to pay 160NT since we didn't bring our student cards :'( Tried to use my driving license to fake but damnnn they understand english LOL. The rest paid 80NT but we ended up dividing the price instead yay :D
Headed on to Shi Lin Night Market by taking 小18 bus. It wasn't that bad compared to what everyone has been saying! We ate outside instead of at the underground market.
We totally gave this supposedly most famous chicken stall in Shi Lin a miss since we can get it in Singapore already. Walked down a few more stores and we saw this really crowded stall so we went in for our dinner!
Had this codfish with mixed sauces - black pepper and mushroom. It was quite good heh :D We also had smelly toufu at a stall beside but it was pretty bad :( We went back to Shi Lin Night Market another day and had the smelly toufu at one of the basement stalls which was x100 better.
I had this 大肠包小肠 at this basement stall with Wu Zong Xian's photo promoting it, and I think it's really quite delicious :D It's quite funny when I see other shops elsewhere trying to translate it into english as "big intestine wrap small intestine"!! It's supposed to just be "sausage wrapped with glutinous rice" haha.
We walked out of the night market, and the guys bought chicken at this stall, which was pretty average despite the long queue. Maybe because I was pretty tired of eating fried chicken almost everyday there haha.
Played many of the games alongside the road till the shopping area. Being mahjong players we were pretty addicted to the mahjong game hahaha! It was just like bingo, we have to draw 15 tiles in total hoping to make a line in order to get a prize. It's surprisingly really hard to get just a line :(
I'll never forget this departmental-looking store near the MRT cross junction because they sell Victoria's Secret body mist at 290NT only!! :D That's like $13SGD for one bottle yay. They also have lotion, body wash etc. but body mist for the win heh.
Just a few blocks back (between Shi Lin Night Market and the departmental-looking store) was the Prince Potato stall. I think they have a branch in Ximending which we also had, but I still think this branch's potato with all the ingredients is the best. Mouth watering as I think about it really.... T_T THE PICTURE ABOVE DOES NOT DO IT JUSTICE!!!
We went shopping after that, and actually ended up shopping there three times in total because the clothes there were much nicer LOL.
Labels: taiwan
1:45 AM
Taiwan Day 5 - Taipei 101 & Wu Fen Pu
We went to Taipei Main Station to order our sun biscuits and pineapple tarts first. I ordered yam pastry for my mum because it's really nice and my mum loves yam :D Best thing about 李儀饼店 is they deliver any day ^^ Speaking of which, I was forced to finished all my food from this store today because it's expiring T_T
I really love my patterned tights :P I hardly wear them out in Singapore though sadly!
Had our lunch at one of the random shops at Taipei Main Station. 福寿村 or something. All of us had the curry omu rice thing, which was pretty normal and nothing much.
Made our way to the Brazilian store near Taipei 101 to buy their havaianas, and we saw this weird guy mumbling/singing to himself. We were looking at him and he noticed, and he started coming towards us and talked to me!! I freaked out hahaha. He was saying that me wearing shorts will flash others when I cross overhead bridge/climb stairs!! What nonsense right. He was there and approached me again of all people on our way back to the MRT T_T
The best thing of the day.. Ella of S.H.E. was having her autograph session beside the shopping mall we needed to go!! :D I get to see an overseas celebrity close up for the first time :') And she's really pretty :D
We saw a lot of people street peddling along the way for our havaianas. The little kids there were surprisingly sporting enough to take part with whatever they were trying to perform! I highly doubt those kids were hired though, they walked off with their parents once they had their part done and received a small gift from the performers.
Went off to Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 for our shopping! (Alight at Houshanpi Station 后山埤站, exit 1. Walk along Zhongpo North Road 中坡北路 to Yongji Road 永吉路, crossing the road and turn left.) I was pretty disappointed with the girls' clothings because the designs weren't as nice as last year's :/ The guy clothes were nice though quite a bit on the expensive side :( I ended up not even getting a single piece of clothing for myself!! :( Maybe partly because those designs I liked I already had something similar so I decided not to buy them :P I bought a lot of clothes as gifts though.. I don't know if I'm quite stupid or what because of the price T_T
Went on to Formosa Chang 鬍鬚張 opposite Wu Fen Pu for our dinner! I had the chicken rice and it was really good!! I remember the Lu Rou Fan I had last year there was damn good too hehe. A definite must go to eat if I ever go back Taiwan :D
Headed back to Ximending and SzeLi and I decided to do these drawings for our families. I think I remember the uncle was at the same spot last year! Except that I did not patronise him haha. He was having a promotion, 100NT for an A4 sized drawing yay ^^ Added 200NT for the frame. 300NT in total, a good deal for me!! :D The A3 version costs 400NT with a frame.
Labels: taiwan
4:32 AM
Taiwan Day 4 - Hua Lien
Sadly he's hard of hearing else it'll be good to communicate with him more. He still remembers me from the last trip!! :') And as usual, he made us do a lot of jump shots hahaha.
First stop, breakfast! This was the same stall as the one I went to last year. Really hungry so I ended up buying 卤肉饭 and 阿扁 which was a wrong choice. 阿扁 is enough to kill my stomach :'( It's actually just called wanton in Singapore hahaha.
So after taking photos here and there, we had 1 hour to climb the mountain! Best part of Hua Lien to me heh. Too bad twice I did not get to climb the whole mountain :( But this time round we actually ventured down to the river and took lots of photos hehe.
There were a lot more trees at the mountain this year though, and the water isn't as pretty without the blue :(
Our guy models for the day hahaha.
Yuxuan the new guy model! Hahaha. After he jumped to the middle of those rocks, he got stuck there for a good 10 minutes because he couldn't get back on land. He ended up wetting his shoes hahaha.
Us girls! :)
Our first attempt of 那些年，我们一起追的女孩's poster pose, standing up hahaha.
Polaroids taken there yay :D
Our second attempt of 那些年，我们一起追的女孩 hahaha. Behind us is supposedly a head of indiana jones! We spent almost an hour here with the uncle asking us to take lots of jump shots, both together and solo.
Then we went on to the 慈母桥 that I don't know why they have been wanting to go to haha.
Most of us were hungry after this, so we went on to eat fresh sashimi!! I was pretty sad cos I didn't get to eat enough hahaha and it was raining, so the stalls that had no shelter did not open for business. I still remember I had the best popiah skin + peanuts + ice cream at Hua Lien!! :'(
The uncle brought us to buy 葱油饼 (Scallion Cake) at this stall and this is really the bomb!!! One of the best food we've ever eaten in Taiwan, and this got us buying a lot more scallion cake the next few days haha.
We went on to Hua Lien's night market for more food!
This is 棺材板, which is just toasted bread with fillings inside. We had butter crab and gong bao chicken which was really yummy :D
春卷 was surprisingly popular there. It just tasted like normal popiah in Singapore, except with meat inside.
Strawberry with malt candy is daaaaaamn sweet but nice! We girls had it everyday whenever we saw a stall haha.
They played at the mini arcade while waiting for the uncle to come back and fetch us to the stone house. We set off fireworks there and sang Yuxuan a happy early birthday song! :D Due to money constraints we only bought one firework to set off :( We wanted Kong Ming lantern but sadly it was raining so we didn't have the chance :(
We had 15 minutes to paint everything. I had the idea to do it for Clique5&BBM, which i guess is a wrong choice because I ended up rushing through all my stones and couldnt even decorate it because we had to rush back to the train station for our train :'(
The uncle bought us this muah chee that had to be eaten on that day itself (just like last year) and it still tastes good :D Most of us went to buy those that can bring back to Singapore to give our large groups of friends hehe good way to save some money ^^
Labels: taiwan
3:19 AM
Taiwan Day 3 - Taipei, Ximending
We had a hard time trying to find Taiwan Backpackers Hostel at 113 Kunming Street because we didn't contact them to fetch us (my fault hahaha oops). Took probably at least an hour before we finally found the place to check in and they brought us to our room. We actually had to open the door that was halfway up the stairs to get to the check-in area.
Sadly it was raining that day so I ended up being drenched despite buying a raincoat. I used it to cover up the havaianas I bought near Taipei 101 because the paper bag broke :(
We had free and easy until 7pm, so I travelled around on my own.
1. Went to find out where 李儀饼店 at Taipei Main Station is, to buy yummy sun biscuit and pineapple tarts (Front Metro Underground mall or something)
2. Had my life explained through my name at a stall at the underground mall
3. Bought havaianas near Taipei 101 (exit 3, turn right and walk all the way straight for about 10 minutes, enter the shopping mall with a cinema and find a shop called Brazil something. Alternative, buy at "In Playground" at Ximending or Shi Da Night Market 市大夜市)
4. Shopped at the underground mall from Zhong Xiao Dun Hua station to Zhong Xiao Fu Xing station. Sadly the underground mall was half closed D:
5. Went to Bo Ai Street (博爱路) near Ximending to buy cheap princess and coloured polaroid films. I went into every shop and asked for the price, so ended up the cheapest 240NT (SGD$10.50) for the princess film and 280NT (SGD$12.20) for the coloured films. I can buy cheaper plain films at Gmarket though!!
Turns out that they went to explore Ximending and played at the arcade etc together for free and easy haha. We followed part of this blog here for what food to eat!
1. Ah Zhong Mee Sua 阿宗 (exit 6 of Ximen station, turn right and walk until the first right turn)
2. Zhang Ji Fried Dumplings 张记 (exit 4 of Ximen station, walk straight and turn left at Taiwan Cooperative Bank, it’ll be on the right at Lane 101)
3. Snow King (from Zhang Ji Fried Dumplings, walk back to main road, turn right and walk straight)
Their 水饺 was out of stock sadly, so we only get to try the 锅贴 which was quite delicious!! Everything else we ate was so-so.
Snow King had 73 flavours in total, and we weren't daring enough to try those exotic flavours like curry or pork trotters haha. I had the sugar cane flavour which was good at first bite, but the taste was bad after a few bites. It tasted like cream or something after that :( The rest of them ordered white grape, honey, kao liang wine and lychee I think? All of them tasted ok at the first bite too.
We went back to Ximending and the night life there started. Spotted this ice cream stall and had to buy it no matter how cold/full I was. I loved it since my last visit and I can eat it everyday!! T_T Sigh I still miss this ice cream :(
The owner of this huge dog opened a store in its name :D He'll respond when I call him 阿毛!!! I ate at the cafe last year and the food was good :D
This was how our hostel for 6 looked like. I think it's a pretty good deal! Toilet, kitchen, mini living room, lots of cabinets, plus they have water for us to drink everyday (: SGD$23 per night, not bad!
Labels: taiwan
12:38 PM
Taiwan Day 2 - Taichung & Miaoli
Had free breakfast at the hotel before dragging all our luggage and go to Kaohsiung Train Station to catch the TRA to Taichung. Yuxuan went to meet his cousin instead so didn't join us for the day :(
Reached Taichung at about 11.30am and we headed to Lo Fu Hotel for our one night stay. The hotel was pretty rundown and old and scary in my opinion :'(
Dropped by a random Japanese shop in the vicinity for lunch, before we headed to Miaoli by the TRA! We wanted to take the bus to Dahu but we didn't want to waste time waiting so we ended up taking a cab there. The bus fare was 75NT, and the cab fare was 100NT each. $1SGD more, so we just ok lah take the cab and save time hahaha. I still remember the cab was playing oldies and the cab driver was shocked that we all recognised the songs lol. He thought we were 17-18 years old hehehe.
We went to the Strawberry Culture Museum first. Took pictures, bought and ate their local products. I bought this strawberry egg rolls that some guy was making on the spot and it's omgwthbbq good heh.
Wenjie and I bought this strawberry sausage to try but there wasn't any strawberry taste at all :'(
My darling Sze Li and I bought this strawberry ice cream mochi to try and it was pretty good!! Really liked it :D
We headed off to the main road and saw many people picking strawberries. We just had to choose one that doesn't have too many people else we'll probably won't be able to find any good ones!!
The strawberries we picked(:
Took the bus back to Miaoli Station, then we trained back to Taichung. Dropped everything at hotel before heading on to Feng Chia Night Market (逢甲夜市). The bus journey seemed long so we decided to cab there instead. We got ripped off again by agreeing to the price stated (50NT) instead of going by meter. We went by meter on the way back to hotel and we only paid 30NT per person!! :(
Top left hand corner: 黄金贼. Top right hand corner: Scallops. Bottom left hand corner: Porky Box 猪宝盒. Bottom right hand corner: Gold Leg 黄金右腿.
Being typical Singaporeans, we saw a lot of people queuing up to buy these food so of course we just had to ^^ and boy these are really good! The meat was really tender for Porky Box and Gold Leg :D 黄金贼 was deep fried squid with glutinous rice stuffed in the middle which was too much for two person to finish surprisingly. Maybe because they already had other food before that!
The street that we bought all the food above from (:
Shopping at Feng Chia was good, I regret not buying more there because everything is so much cheaper than anything I found in Taipei! :'(
Labels: taiwan
11:47 PM