Day 5

hihi! Its me again! helping my dear to post our taiwan trip day 5! lets see....

oh ya! we had Bo lo Bao for breakfast! the very nice bo lo bao which we da bao from shida..

好好味!
Afterwhich, we head over to our first destination! SOGO at zhong xiao fu xing station.. There are 2 SOGO there and we went to the green building one.. we first enter into the basement and saw many snack and food.
There are cute hello kitty designed cake, many different kind of biscuit which we seldom see in singapore. and dear's mother "favourite" Cow Tongue Biscuit 牛舌饼。 It has nothing to do with any physical part of a cow but just that the biscuit looks like cow tongue.. interesting ya?
Anyway, we tried a few of those snack and choose only the 牛舌饼 and lemon cake to bring back to SG!
We then went up the SOGO building and find out that... there is nothing much to shop as all the shops there are what we can see and find in Singapore departmental stores..
So.. we decided to skip that and head to 五分埔! a paradise for girl (during summer :X)

But before that, we had our lunch at this famous 鲁肉饭.

胡须张鲁肉饭!!
We order 2 bowls of 鲁肉饭, 1 soup, and 1 plate of 豆芽. It was delicious.. must try!!
During our meal, i saw this notice saying we use the best beef from Australia or something like tt.. then i told dear.. the lu ruo might be made of beef! She suddenly like lost her mood to eat.. o.0 but then we found out it was actually refer to some other dishes. We also bought the pre-packed sauces back for our family to try out! 

Next destination...

五分埔!
It seem like there is only buildings over there but when you walk between those alleys, you will see many shops.. We sometimes also get lost inside as it is quite big! Oh ya! remember to use the toilet before shopping because it is hard to find one inside and also in some other night markets. We walk around awhile before finding one public toilet located at a basement car park.

Shopping!

Shopping!!
Still Shopping!!! LOL..

After all the shoppingss! my dear bought quite a few stuffs as this is our last 2nd day to shop... we just try to spam our money.. :X In the end, she found out that she could not wear 2 pairs of jeans as the shop owner told her she sure can fit in one.. lol.. poor thing dear.. lucky its cheap! 2 for 350NTD only?
Okay.. we then walk a bit northward to....

饶河夜市!
This night market i would say is quite easy to navigate as its like all the shop and food stalls in the middle and at the 2 sides and in between got 2 separate lane for people to walk up or down.. However, it was quite crowded with people as maybe it was a Friday night.. We also try some food that we found online for e.g. the famous 胡椒饼. It is nice! and also this 爱玉冰 which the stall owner boost humbly about her Ai Yu Bing. Cute Auntie i would say..  Oh ya! we also try out the cheap 投篮机 there! :D
.
人山人海

many 分店


my first 槟榔 with my 槟榔妹 :p


After walking all the way up, we make a U-turn and walk back to the main entrance of 饶河 and decided to take a cab back to our hostel as we still have many NTD leftover.. :X


Day 5 of Taiwan!

by on 5:01 PM
Day 5 hihi! Its me again! helping my dear to post our taiwan trip day 5! lets see.... oh ya! we had Bo lo Bao for breakfast! the very ni...
My funny dear.. Modeling with his shoe box in the lift..

by on 12:19 AM
My funny dear.. Modeling with his shoe box in the lift..
Day 4

This very day we had to leave that very pretty motel and moved to somewhere near Xi Men Ding.
In the morning we got up and get changed, packed our last minutes stuffs and head out to get a cob to Taipei Back packers hostel.

Last photo at the motel. I seriously look fat somehow..

And our new hostel look like.. ...


It looks pretty nice from the picture but.. don't be deceived.. the living conditions are decent.
However, the location for this hostel is perfect. It is just situated in Xi Men Ding. And beside this hostel its an awesome KTV.

This day, dear had planned to walk around Xi Men Ding. After putting our luggage, we went off to start our shopping spree and our cam whoring activities. Xi Men Ding is just so different from the rest of the places. There's lots of young and trendy people, with branded shops so familiar to me. The roads are also different. It looks new. We took a photo at Xi Men Ding




After waking a while, we got hungry and so we went around to search for ah Zong mee sua. There wasn't a lot of customer and we got our food pretty fast. 


This is the legendary MEE SUA from Taiwan! 

I saw some foreigners standing there to eat me sua as well and some of the locals even ordered a second bowl! I know, the mee sua looks like any plain jane on the street. But once you had it in your mouth, you can never forget the taste. The mee sua does not have lots of mee but it the sauce! The sauce is so delicious that i can even eat it without the sotong or oyster. Dear and I stand at the shop and finish up our food. We put the empty bowls into a tub and went off to linger around ximending.

There clothes are pretty but i did not spend much at ximending as many of my friends told me that it is pretty waste to spend your money there. The clothes are quite expensive. Dear told me to hold on to my shopping spree as we were still going to other places still. 

And so i listened to him and so, we went to Taipei underground shopping as planned. My dad told me that Taipei underground used to have lots of chicks and it was really a dirty place to go. But that was 20 years ago when he went Taiwan for army training. Things have changed now. Taipei underground shopping is now a place for zai nan and gamers and for people who looking for normal cheap clothes. The place is very big and as we walked, i got very thirsty and had wanted a warm drink. We passed by a maid cafe and psycho my dear to go in with me. But horribly, we had to spend a minimum 200 nt. For a while, i wasn't happy cos i had just wanted a simple drink. I had almost wanted to get out of the cafe but in the end, we stayed on.. So i order a cake and warm latte. Dear wanted to leave his stomach for ShiDa night market and hence he only ordered a drink.




This is their back view.

Dear wasn't really happy cos we were going to ShiDa soon and we ended up here. I guessed all maid cafe there is a kind of fetish thing going on. The lady's voice is very sweet though but she wasn't exceptionally pretty. Dear was kinda angry cos we spend so much and yet the 'maid' wasn't pretty. Dear was saying: If the lady is pretty then never mind, but wah liao, they are not pretty and have to spend so much... He was shaking head and nagging at me all the way to ShiDa night market. :x 

Anyway, we finally ended up at ShiDa night market... ...




At shida, we did not take many photos because it was more of a shopping paradise rather a food heaven. I did not spend much also cos dear was going to take me to Wu Fen Pu the next day. So i just look around but i still bought some things. We ended up our night market shopping early and we went back to Xi/mending to have our hair cut.

Back to XiMeng Ding!

Dear had also did some research and recommend me some salon. We entered a salon called " Luan Jian', in lay man terms, its called 'Anyhow Cut'. But the service was really good for the money we paid. In Singapore, we paid a heft price of $70-$100 for a very salon with so-so services. But there, i just had to spend a price of $440 NT for a good salon. What they did was first washed and massage our scalp before they began the haircut.



The lady who cut my hair is really a beauty!
Her name is Vanessa. A very gentle lady.

We walked out of the salon with our hair like this:

Well, i liked my hair. Dear looked handsome too!

We had not ended our activities yet! At 11.30pm, we had booked a K session just beside our hostel!!
The rates are cheap and we were able to sing up to 5 hours! 



The KTV was spacious and the sound system is damned good!

At 4.30am, we were too tired and so we went back to sleep... ... 














Day 4 of Taiwan!

by on 2:26 PM
Day 4 This very day we had to leave that very pretty motel and moved to somewhere near Xi Men Ding. In the morning we got up and get chan...
Day 3

Our third day in Taiwan was one of our spoiler mood day. Morning was fine but the rain spoilt our mood in the evening. In the very morning, me and dear get up to get changed and we are all set to go to put lantern at shi fen.
Took a photo of myself while waiting for Xiong to be ready.

Dear and I walked to the nearest train station to take to Sogo and we took a bus all the RuiFang station. As the bustop had changed its location, we stayed at the bustop for 5 minutes to goggle the new bustop. Meantime, there were many taxi trying to distract you from taking the bus. As we insist our stand, the taxi driver felt fustrated but had no choice.

The bus was quite empty and it was really to get empty seats.
See the people in this photo so happy ^^

The bus ride was long as it took 45 minutes to get to the train station. Along the way, dear and i just chat about common stuffs and our itinerary. It was already the third day and both of us agreed that we had been taking our time slow here. We had 4 more days in Taiwan. Xiong was afraid that i would get tired of Taiwan. He was also afraid that i would be bored with him. 

Baby.... How can it be?!

I just hoped that our Taiwan stay will last even longer and that i can see you everyday when i wake up. Time flies and in a blink of eye, we reached Rui Fang Station. We went into the counter to buy the tickets to shifen there to put our lantern. 二话不说! Photos first. After buying the tickets and looking at the time that we had some time to spare, we walked out of the station to walk about and took some photos again.

Dear is getting to take the tripod out!!
I agree: Tripod is our good friend in Taiwan trip.

The place is pretty old but the ancient structure of the building brought charm to the train station. We were taking photos everywhere. Obviously we were touriests. After some photo taking, we entered the platform to again take more photos. I really appreciate the transportation in Taiwan, In Taiwan, there are all sorts of public transport, from scotter to cacrs, to buses, taxi, train, high speed railway and ferry. It was really an  experience. The train station is undergoing some renovations but nevertheless, it was really the scene where you can see many celebrity take  the mtv there. 


A photo of me and you !

The train was pretty new, with aircon installed in it. I thought it might be really old but surprisingly, it wasn't. The train was not very spacious but there's enough space for all to board. There's lots of young people or i should say, young couple going to shi fen.I guessed we shared the same aim: to put 天灯。Along the ways, we saw nice scenery and some plotted lands. A beautiful sight. 

Shifen had lots of souvenirs. But sad to say i did not buy any.
Finally reached.

Smile smile!!

We roamed around that area and slowly, we getting hungry. We stayed inside a shop for half an hour as dear was trying to get souvenir for his brothers. When we walked passed a small stall selling meat, we grab the chance to buy just one stick of pork.

The meat is juicy.


We stopped by a shop selling 天灯 and we began asking for the price. Different colours of the lantern symbolises different matters. To fulfill all out wishes, we decided to get a multi coloured :D



Beside the clips of the tian deng, there are calligraphy pens to draw anything on your lantern. So... we began drawing. We had all sorts of funny things on our lanterns. Once a while when the train was approaching, the people who were standing on the tracks had to jump off to the safety land. 

I started drawing my wishes.

Putting off the lanterns take a bit of patient and luck. Some lanterns did not fly off nicely and some almost hit the roof of the house. But for ours, our lantern flew off peacefully.

Getting ready to let go... ...

See our lantern flew off

Drawing on the lanterns did take up much of our time. Without further a do, we headed to the handging bridge to take some photos. With the help of our "friend", we were able to take lots o nice photos.


Nice doggy backside, you spolit our photo.

It was beginning to rain around evening after 放天灯. However, the rain did not prevent us from going jiu fen because my dear wants you! 太阳饼!! So we made our way there to order the sunny biscuit ^^ But it started raining when we were on train.... and gradually, 

We did not took much photos in jiu fen because t was raning really heavily. We went back all the way to shi fen and took a cab from RuiFang station. Jiu fen seems pretty far away as it took us 20 minutes to reach there or slghtly longer. Perhaps the rain had slowed us down. Taxi uncle was winding up the road to the highest point of jiu fen. The rain made our trip uneasy. It was almost impossible to see the road in front. But the skilful taxi drive drove us safely to our destination. As the rain was getting heavier, we had no choice but to buy poncho to walk aout jiu fen. There were some foods we gotta try and they are: 



This is really good. Wrapped with peanut and ice cream! Never had such taste before. 

After dear had ordered his sunny biscuit, we continued to walk a bit further until the road became deserted. We paused our journey at some tea house at jiu fen. The tea house was also rather empty. We walked into the shop and the owner directed us to the second floor. 

Raining at jiu fen.




Our high tea ....
After our tea session, we walked all the way back to the sunny biscuit and took a cab back to hotel. 
We missed our 庙口夜市 because of the rain :( 
Dear went back to hotel sadly that day... ... 






    


Day 3 of Taiwan!

by on 10:52 PM
Day 3 Our third day in Taiwan was one of our spoiler mood day. Morning was fine but the rain spoilt our mood in the evening. In the very m...