Welcome 2 Taiwan!

5 days in Taiwan. 20-25 August 2011. our pre-PNU exchange trip. haha.

Day 1:

our lunch meal on china airlines:

After about 4h of flight, we reached Taiwan. After settling down in our accomodation "Taipei City Hostel", which is quite a nice and clean cheap accomodation, we roamed around the streets of Ximending.

Our first dinner of the day was at this stall which sold lots of unhealthy food. haha

duck tongue:

甜不辣, 大肠包小肠, 七里香, crispy chicken:

wanted to go the this restaurant called 'Modern Toilet', but heard from friends that the food isn't fantastic. so we didn't go in the end. just took some photos outside the shop:

and then we decided to buy subway card, coz for the next few days it came in really handy. and u could do a full refund if u do not want it anymore.

if u go taiwan, u HAVE TO GO to their night markets.

our first night market for the trip: 万华 night market. before that, we visited the temple that was beside the night market. but I shan't post pictures of the temple here since I'm not really interested in that.

after the night market, we went back ximending, which is near our hostel, for some snow ice. the weather at that time just makes us want to eat something cold all the time.

Day 2:

we went to this shop in ximending for breakfast. it had the nicest breakfast we ever had for the whole 5 days in tw.

carrot cake:

most awesome 卤肉饭:

oyster omelette:

after which, we went to 中正纪念堂:

had to climb up a flight of stairs to the top to witness their guard changing ceremony.

but because there were many people in front of me, I couldn't really see. the ceremony was also taking so long, so after awhile we went off.

since it was hot, we order 粉圆豆花 and ice jelly:

next was the 故宫 in tw. we went into the museum to see the famous 翠玉白菜(jadite cabbage)

lunch was at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi. at the foodcourt:

after that we went to Taipei 101! NTD370 was a discounted price for us students. just show our student pass (yes student pass from singapore):

awesome view from on top:

and yes they have the world's fastest elevator:

and they are the only building to show to the public their damper (huge device which helps keep the building stable). thus they have cute little mascots which resemble the damper:

after the awesome view on top of taipei 101 we went to every girl's dream street. haha wufenpu fashion area:

however, because we intended to buy everything at korea, we walked through the fashion area in about 15-20min? HAHA! record-breaking!

after that, we walked to raohe night market, which is quite near wufenpu:

looked for this 熊手包 (bear palm pao) which I saw the guess show featured:

one of my aim here is to try their STINKY TOFU. and so I did.

and I'm so freaking proud of myself! its not really that stinky as people say. some can tolerate the smell while some can't. but what we ate was ok. but I didn't want to stay at the stall for too long coz it stinks up my clothes. actually the tofu, being crispy, was quite nice. but not nice to the extent that I will eat again. haha

me and anqi tried this tall ice cream, and 冰糖葫芦:

the 冰糖葫芦 not nice....but kuanliang thought otherwise. so we gave him the rest of the stick after tryng 2 of them.

this is pepper biscuit. has a very long queue:

lots of food for that day. BUT that's not all. because we have to walk through ximending everytime we went back to the hostel, we looked for:

they are VERY famous for their mian xian. and I think its really nice:

Day 3:

day 2 was tooo tiring. luckily we went for hot springs today.

for quite a cheap price, we got to go to their hot springs (not naked but in swimwear) although the waters weren't really clean due to fallen leaves and insects in the water...but they had many different temperatures of hot springs and different kinds of water for different effects. there is also this sumptuous lunch:

after the delightful dip we went to 淡水老街. a must go for some of the best food.

山猪香肠:

a must-try in this street: '啊给'(A-ge)

this is actually tofu stuffed with vermicelli. with some special sauce:

OK. HERE COMES THE NICE PART.
the world's most awesome muah chee: (sesame)

and with peanuts, which is even MORE AWESOME: do u know why? because this is totally different from what u can always buy. the muah chee practically MELTS in your mouth. I MEAN IT. up till now, I still crave for this. how I wished I bought back this. too late alr.

but if ur there, PLS do try this. 麻吉奶奶 鲜奶muah chee.

after that we board a boat to the fishermen's wharf 渔人码头.

this is one of danshui's produce, 铁蛋 (iron egg, which is really hard)

at night, we went to tw's most famous night market. shilin night market:

there was filming going on! at last I manage to see live filming in tw. but its not my fav host jacky wu.
the guy with tall hair on the left is one of the members of pop group Da Mouth.

the VERY FAMOUS crispy chicken:

one of my fav tw snacks, crispy mushroom:

snow ice:

this is the crispy chicken:

ribs soup:

the crispy mushroom:

went past this small stall by the roadside selling cubes of milk...FRIED MILK! quite nice!

Day 4:
went to the yehliu geopark to see the famous queen's head:

mushroom rocks:

due to constant weathering, the queen's head neck is thinning. so they made a small replica of it:

and here's the real thing. because it was TOO HOT, we didn't even have the energy to climb near the queen's head to take pic. I just use my awesome camera with 10x zoom to zoom into this:

and I forgot to mention. the queen's head is not as huge as I imagined? I thought its like huge like as if its a few stories high. BUT NO. its just 1 small rock.just slight taller than a normal human being...zzz

after exiting the geopark, we went lunch. this is such an old-school drink rite?

sotong:

oyster omelette yet again:

some shell food:

after the torturous hot outing to the geopark, we shared a cab with 2 other singaporeans to jiufen old town.

a must-try, peanut ice cream wrapped:

lol. huge balls. not bad quite bouncy:

the famou ahmei tea house. the place which inspired the author of the japanese movie 'Spirited Away':

my cherry alcohol drink:

coconut chocolate snacks:

after that was dinner at keelung night market:

some simple baked butter crab. yumm. oily but nice soup:

 see the HUGE OCTOPUS! we ate the small round ones u see on the left. for someone who doesn't eat octopus or sotongs, THIS IS NICE!:

bubble tea! the one in the middle is mine. the one on the right is huge!

while walking over to the train station, there was an event going on. they were letting people put lotus flowers with candles into the river:

Day 5:

went to our favourite breakfast place:

猪头皮:

mian xian:

fried rice:

had to take train to shifen. to go there we needed to change trains at Ruifang station. while waiting for the next train, we decided to eat some beef noodles...

but it wasn't nice......so disappointing.

off to shifen to see their waterfall. this is the ticket for the trains along the pingsi (train) line:

luv how this town is so close to the train. and theres this nostalgic feel to it.

tix to see the waterfall. apparently the trees all blocked off the view, sooo in order to see the waterfall, U HAVE to buy the tix. smart of them rite? haha

this is it.

while walking back to train station, we decided to 放天灯. this is what I have always wanted to do, ever since watching people do it on tv. LOL. anw, there are lots of combinations of colors for the paper lantern. 1 color, 2 colors, 4 colors etc. there are many combinations for 4colors too. we chose 1 that is most relevant to us.

light pink for studies

pink for happiness

red for health and family

white for future

something like that. I forgot the exact.

we added money to attach firecrackers below the lantern too!

saw this boneless chicken stuffed with rice. not fantastic. but ok lah:

last day in taiwan. and we went back to a shop close to our hostel.

curry rice:

cold noodles:

jajiangmian:

pig intestines:

initital plan for last day for to go clubbing and come back at 3am to prepare to go straight to the airport. but I fell sick with flu and decided not to go. we slept for a few hours and cabbed to the airport at 5am.

after which, it was onboard china airlines....to KOREA!

posts on korea next!