Taiwan Trip 07 - Taipei (part 3 - Final)

11th September

Slept through the whole morning and took our own sweet time to have lunch somewhere near our hotel. Took a real slow walk nearby and decided to head down to Ximending (西門町) during the evening. It’s a place where you could easily find Japanese influences – from clothes to kawaii accessories and cosplay café.

It’s also where we stumbled upon this supposedly famous Japanese (amongst travel magazines) eatery where the food’s tasty and reasonably priced. Have a look at the pix below for what we had ordered. The bill came up to no more than S$11 (for 2 people altogether). Considering the location, it’s cheap.



Night. We headed back for one of Taiwan’s well-known ice dessert stalls. Luckily, we have one just near our hotel. And you know what? The business was so good that the crowd just kept coming…



The serving’s really huge so it’s best to have at least 2 people sharing a bowl! And depending on what you order, each ice dessert usually cost between S$5 to S$9. But because the serving’s really huge and there’s plentiful of fresh fruit toppings, you wouldn’t find it expensive to gobble down the whole bowl.


12th September

It’s time. Haiz…

As ours was an evening flight (and we overslept as per usual), we only had a few hours to shop area for mooncakes and local delicacies to bring back to Singapore. So we decided to head for the departmental stores instead (which was quite a disappointment coz’ things that were expensive and not quite what I was looking for).

And of course, since it was our last few hours in Taiwan, I just had to get my favourite milk from the nearest convenience store… it’s a brand you wouldn’t be able to get over here:



As the minutes passed by, it was soon time for us to leave and to end our vacation. The journey to the airport was exceptionally slow that day and we fell asleep on the cab. Then it was time for us to check in only to find out that we had exceeded the baggage limit by 2kg and we had to pay S$36 for that. And guess what? Who would’ve thought that 6 boxes of biscuits (太阳饼) would’ve weighed that much?

Haiz…

With a heavy heart (partly because of the S$36), we zoomed across a million miles (just a simile) and back to our homelands with our barang barang…

Till the next journey…

Taiwan Trip 07 - Taipei (part 2)

9th September

Ahhhh!!! Overslept again.
Didn’t get to try out the boutique hotel’s breakfast feast.

Never mind… decided to head to one of the famous beef noodle stalls near our hotel instead.



It’s nice but a little expensive. Each bowl of beef noodle can easily set you back by S$8 though. :P

What shall we do today?

To Tien Mu (天母)! It was there that we “accidentally” discovered this interesting café…



Doesn’t the setting looked kind of familiar? Think harder! This was actually one of the scenes featured in the Meteor Garden (流星花園) – the scene where Barbie Hsu and Jerry Yen first dated. :P We didn’t even realize it ourselves till we saw the numerous signatures on the board. There were signatures from S.H.E, Jerry Yen and many more!

Needless to say, we started taking “MTV” shots of ourselves again. Of course, there were only two couples, including us, in the café then (the other couple were tourists from Hong Kong). The owner must be thinking that we were a crazy bunch of people. Hahaha…

By the way, they served mainly pastas and spaghetti there. Quite reasonably priced as compared to Singapore standards – probably about S$6 – S$9 for a plate of pasta.

After lingering around Tien Mu for some time, we knew we had to head off to somewhere cooler. Hey! Tien Mu’s a high-class residential area and things could be pretty expensive around there. Plus, it was summer and not suitable to linger outside for long.

That’s when we decided to head over to Danshui (淡水).

Danshui’s well known for its beautiful sunset sceneries and the nearby pier (漁人碼頭).



We even attempted the local games (i.e.: shot the balloons with fake guns). The sound of the gun going off sounded real alien to me as I tried to steady myself with one hand and the other to cover up my ears. So, based on this scenario, my result wasn’t exactly brilliant but hey, I still managed a six out of ten score. So don’t play play. You haven’t seen my full potential yet.



Some of the recommended snacks/ drinks there included:
- Black beancurd (as per shown in the pix above)
- Sour Plum drink from the above featured stall
- Smelly Toufu

P.S: Don't be fooled by the black beancurd. It's not really black :P

Over at Danshui, you could also get cheap accessories and more if you look closely enough :)

But this… YOU MUST TRY…



The above’s the “lengendary” Jay Chou set of Danshui. The set consisted of a bowl of wanton and a really big drumstick. Not recommended for people with small appetite as this could be extremely filling. For me, I dived in straight for the wanton noodle. To put things into proportion, the wanton there was probably twice the size of those you’d ever eaten in Singapore (at least based on my experience). The ingredients were fresh and real filling. Couldn’t remember exactly how much it cost for a bowl of wanton noodle, but it’s definitely less than S$3. Guaranteed to make you feel full and satisfied!

As if that wasn’t enough, we rushed down to Shilin Night Market (士林夜市) for another round! :P

But first - a quick beginner’s guide about Shilin. Should you ever tell the cab driver to bring you to Shilin Night Market, they would most probably drop you at the Shilin Food Centre. But fear not, the food centre’s only a stone’s throw away from the Shilin Night Market. The food centre bustled with life too, especially on weekends.

And just to correct some perceptions over here… the famous chicken chop stall was not really Shilin, but Hao Da (as shown in the pix below) instead! :P



TIP to eating the chicken chop – eat it while it’s hot/warm to really taste the crispiness and goodness of it! But be careful of your tongue, of course.

And oh!!! Look out for the soda drink (弹珠汽水) too! Personally, I strongly recommend this Ruby brand (with the pink rabbit) coz’ it just taste soooooooooooo nice! And cheap too. The soda couldn’t be found in convenience stores and the only channels where you could stumble upon were the roadside stalls. Each bottle cost NT20, which is less than S$1! Remember, once you popped it open, you need to drink it. Otherwise, the effervescence would be gone and what’s left behind would be just another sweet carbonated drink.

TIP to shilin: It’s a good place to hang around and get hands on on the food. But definitely a no-go for shopping, especially on weekends. The crowd’s gonna crush you to death (almost). However, behold an interesting sight. Should the lanes ever get too crowded all of a sudden, it usually meant that illegal hawkers (from fashion to food stalls) were stationing on the walk lanes, obstructing the human traffic. And if the traffic became smooth again all of a sudden, it simply meant that plain clothed cops were there to arrest and give summons to the illegal hawkers! By the way, the hawkers there seemed to have very strong “networking system” over there. They would all disappear together and come back on again within minutes. :P

And if you happened to be pet lover, head over to the street opposite the action area (Shilin night market) and you could find yourself starring into the many cute faces of puppies and kittens. The pets ‘showcased’ there were usually a few weeks or few months old…

TIP (before I forget): The locals would refer to cabs as 小黃 (little yellow) from time to time. So the next time people asked you if you were looking for 小黃, you should know what it meant :P


10th September

Woke up at 6am. Tired. Lucky we had our Mister Donuts with us for breakfast. Rushed to catch the 7am train to Dou Liu (斗六). It’s another 3-hour journey from Taipei station again.

Finally! After 3 long hours did we reach Dou Liu. But hey! We got to catch a cab to get to the Janfusan Fancy world (劍湖山世界) as the next shuttle service was only available 2 hours later. The trip cost us about S$15. Reason? The amusement park was situated on top of a mountain.



Ahhhhh~!!!! So excited. Finally a “REAL” trip to a “REAL” amusement park. The tickets cost us S$50 though (per person). It’s only worth it if you took up both the land and water rides. None of us knew how to swim and we didn’t bring our swimsuits either. So as you could’ve guessed by now, we parted with the bills a bit reluctantly and with a short pang in our hearts.

As it turned out, G5 was under maintenance (Darn!) and we could only try out the usually roller coaster, inverter and etc. What a disappointment.

But the roller coaster was damn fun… in a way. Imagine. You were on the top of the mountain. Meaning, the roller coaster was too. So… if you ever fell from that, you wouldn’t land on concrete. You would tumble down the mountains as your screams fade in between the increasingly dense bushes and trees…

So… you could imagine the disappointment I had when we learnt that G5 was under maintenance. ‘Coz that particular ride was situated higher than the roller coaster, more steep turns and drops… wuuuuu~ a killer.

I was actually quite amazed to see the vomiting area (where they actually set up a basin for you to throw up after your ride) and the washing area side by side. And almost all the exciting games (including those that couldn’t make you stop turning around and faint from seeing too many stars) had one.

And oh! People do actually threw up. But I wasn’t one of them :p

And just a piece of advice - don’t try the ferris wheel as it stunk like hell. It was summer and all the sweat smell from previous passengers was trapped in a tiny container. Ventilation was bad and the windows were pretty dirty too. And if you thought that wasn’t bad enough, try baking yourself in an oven for more than 15mins. It felt that way as we rose up in the skies with the sun slowly toasting us to near absolute dehydration…

Ewww… another 3-hour ride back to Taipei just to get ourselves cleaned up. But nope. We didn’t ‘bomb’ the train with our smell. That was settled in the cab ride to the station as we pleaded with the uncle to turn up the aircon. Lesson learnt.



To be continued…