Extra! Extra! (10:40 PM)
Ohkay. Shall pin down the series of incidents throughout the 5 days in taiwan before I start to forget all the details. Here goes..
Day 1 - 18th May
Stayed over at Joce's place the day before, along with shilei. Got up 6am in the morning. Dorcas, Sl, Joce, and me, we cabbed over to the airport and bumped into Chester at the entrance. awkward scene later on. Yixin were with her family inside.
Board the plane to HK, transit to TW. Plane ride was quite tiring, just eat and sleep non stop.
Finally reached TW at about 5.30pm, got out, looked out for our transfer guy with the vehicle, nowhere to be seen. Supposedly arrange by Farmosa holidays. Then we went to the reception to get the lady to help us check.. wait and wait.... in the end error happened, no idea which end. our order was being forgotten, sent a last min chauffeur over to fetch us to our hotel at 115 Cheng Du Rd, Taipei.
We planned to book transport for day 2 to go around all the far end places in taipei, but Chester predicted that the driver would prompt us (to earn the money of course). the driver then phoned his 'renowned friend' and bargained 'hard' for us and ended up 6000NT for one whole day, 12 hours. about SGD50 each. okay lah i guess. going to so many places, total 12 hours. However we wondered how many times did our driver 'bargain' and act the scene out to the passengers already. haha.
Checked in, managed to get 1 connecting room and 1 double bed room. the girls took the connecting room, me and chester took the other.
We asked around for directions towards Hsimending. I swear the people there are really friendly and warm. I wish Singaporeans could be more like them. Taiwan is a rather safe place as well!
We went on to bian suo, the toilet restaurant in Taipei after we finally checked in, shopped around abit in Hsimending before heading back to the hotel for rest to prepare for the crazy day ahead.
Day 2
We visited the places at the borders of taipei, not easily accessible by train.
Had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, v simple fare but not bad. had porridge and stuff. non western bfast. hahaha.
First stop was Jiu Fen! It was kind of a Chinatown thing, so mostly cultural stuff, nice scenary, dried food stuff and local products. Highlight was the magician uncle thr who taught Andy Lau magic before. hahaha! We bought a few magic tricks from him. damn worth in my opinion cos in Sg they literally scam you for tricks. damn ex. The magician uncle said if i cannot learn the tricks come back to him he pay me 3000NT. walao, i go back sg already by then, still go back to jiu fen. fortunately they worked. heh. Chester was very fascinated as he kept talking and performing magic like randomly, including using yx's jacket sleeve to tell ppl he disappeared her arm.
Next was Ye Liu. We probably paid some money to get into the park and took random photos of the scenary. Nice but kinda weird. Oh well. We tried to took photos but THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE cut in front of us wanting to take photo. Think they made of glass. When their tour guide asked them to let us take last pics before they started, THEY TOOK PHOTOS OF US. Eh, go and fly your kite, understand?
Left the place, headed to Dan Shui. We ate the 30cm tall ice cream thr, walked around and Jocelyn and gang bought quite a few wooden postcards, apparently to be given to their friends and colleagues. the ice cream apparently cannot be finished before it starts melting and dirtying your hands. Jocelyn even bit an opening on the biscuit to enable the cream to flow all over my hand...........
Okay, then we went to Fisherman's Wharf (Yu Ren Ma Tou). Took a lot of photos there, ate the Crispy Chicken (Uncut), just one big piece and Dorcas bought her second serving of fried mushroom. lol.
Went back to the vehicle and headed to Shilin Night Market, the last stop of the day...
As depicted by Shi Zi Lu Kou, Shilin market really has alot to eat. We bought pearl milk tea and this sausage thing that nobody liked but I thought was o-kay. The pepper bun was really good, in my opinion. It was foodstall after foodstall after foodstall. Probably the next thing to heaven.
Went back to the hotel via cab and rest. Really damn exhausted for day 2.. i ate my dabao-ed sausage while yx and chester left their half eaten ones thr. haha. abit gross though, cos the dish is damn oily. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack after i swallowed it down.
Day 3
Woke up and headed for Ding Tai Feng. The Xiao Long bao thr was delicious, and I ordered the shrimp wantan soup which apparently not many people shared with me.. ended up finishing quite a bit of it. then when we left the restaurant I started feeling sleepy already. hahaha! I should have eaten more, bought a bit of snacks to put inside my bag.. because little did I know..
next stop was WU FEN PU with 4 GIRLS!
if you asked Chester, this was probably a nightmare to him. Was quite taxing on me too, but apparently it didnt suck as bad because I enjoyed shopping and observing retail activities. We accompanied the girls through this stretch of shops that consisted of tons of clothes every small store carried. it even seemed repetitive towards the end. Chester and me particularly preferred to shop at shoe shops, because they offered chairs (resting places). My bag was damn heavy with all the shopping stuff and with the long walk without resting I began to think route march in NS might be easier.
Went back to hotel to put down stuff and headed out to buy dinner, dropped by STAGE hsiemending awhile. Was prepared to spend abt SGD 200 thr, but they had nth for me to buy. :(
We walked until we couldnt find any toilet or even exits! It was that bad. managed to escape the place and headed back. Our dinner was Ah Zhong Mian Xian from Hsimending** and KFC, with KFC's PORTUGESE EGG TARTS. Da bao all back to hotel. the KFC we each paid only about 3 dollars sgd. the sinful food in taiwan is really a few levels above us, I swear. at least in my opinion. I seldom splurge and reward myself with so much junk food.
Day 4
Went to long shan shi temple, Shinjuku plaza (which sells alot of branded goods) and bought alot of face masks (the girls) and foodstuff. brought it back to the hotel before headed towards Ximen train station again. Bought Luo Zhi Xiang's new album along the way. The train rides are not cheap! 20NT for nearby places, which is abt 1 sgd per ride and we kept taking it.
then we tried to walk to taipei 101 instead of taking the shuttle bus, ended up randomly shopping. Saw agnes b. tee.. liked it but not willing to spend on it. 90 plus sgd, actually quite okay leh got 20% discount but couldnt bear to part so much for a t shirt. ended up i had abt 2500 NT on the way home. Zhao Zhi dao spent the money thr. tsk tsk.
played the basketball shooting game at one random shopping mall non stop, chester and dorcas both got addicted to it. shop at daiso for awhile, took pics with taipei 101 and headed to rao he night market.
rao he night market is quite different from other markets because it is simply very food oriented. we sat at the roadside stall to eat beef noodle. walao sibei shiok. I ate beef noodle and another portion of this sesame sauce noodle that jocelyn didnt want cos she described to me that the owner cutting the head of the cow and digging the eyes out grossed her out (while I was eating), which I call fear factor.
it was really a long shop, highlight was shilei's 'burberry' rabbit bag. Joce back suddenly hurt pretty bad. got me pretty worried so I sent her back to the hotel and we stopped shopping.
went back and she felt better so started packing luggage already.
Day 5
Woke up and chiong to ah zhong mian xian for breakfast.. i last min shopped. finally bought sth for myself which is the nike sneakers and a nike cap. Love the 2 items though...
headed for the airport and we finally left taiwan. :(
I wanna go back there again.
sorry if some details were unclear. it is v tiring to write about the trip. haha. the pictures are too much i'll prob put them on flickr or sth and link them again. :)
- Sylvester
