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24+25/12/07: Day 6/7 - Taipei

By
Jhui
on June 16, 2008 3:19 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Day 6 of Taiwan trip, which fell on Christmas Eve =D

The Mi Le Fo statue which was placed right in the middle of the hotel lobby. Speaking of the hotel, when we were leaving the hotel, there was like 2 big groups of Japanese high-school students there as well. To be a little clearer...Japanese high-school boys. Almost went up the wrong bus. Heh.


Went to the National Palace Museum first thing in the morning. I love going to the museum because there are lots of nice artefacts to look at. Freaking amazing. I used to like going to the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore =D Anyone wants to go with me someday?


Had lunch at this restaurant called Wu Jiao Chuan Ban, which was built in a rather unique manner.


And for some reason, there were lots of statues with saggy boobs...wtf?!


The food there was pretty good, especially the milky muah chee.


My dinner group. We were always the first one to enter the restaurant but always the last one to leave because we erm...talked too much. Heh.


The little girl who sat behind me on the bus. Damn cute right~although I don't really like little girls. I got a feeling that little girls dont like me also. Why like that?!


After lunch, we visited Taipei 101, the freaking high-end shopping mall. Didn't buy anything simply because I couldn't afford any of the branded stuff. Didn't bother to pay money to go up the tower because I didn't see the need to spend money to have a bird's eye view of Taipei since I dont really like Taipei that much...and partly because I was stingy. =D


Made an error in the previous post. Apparently, we went to the Tianlu place on Day 6 instead of Day 5...whatever la, like anyone cares like that. Tra-la-la~


Had dinner at Shilin Night Market and it was fucking dirty okay! Sat down at a stall and ordered Teppanyaki and while waiting for our food to be served, a cockroach ran across the table like no one's business. I admire how the lady next to me could freak out a little and then continue eating her food like the cockroach never existed or something. Then again, I also admire myself for not kicking up a fuss about the hygiene of the place with the chef...who was wearing yellowed clothes by the way. Eew.
Also, I saw one of the stallholders cooking soup over an open fire next to like 5 cans of oil. WTF?! Isn't that like dangerous or something?!


After dinner, shopped around Shilin where we witnessed illegal vendors running away from policemen. So.freaking.cool. I've only seen scenes like those in Hongkong dramas and I didnt know that they existed in real life. Woo~ Next, we took the subway to Ximending. Ximending's like a damn nice place to shop lar! Made actual purchases there but too bad we arrived a little late as many shops were closing by then already.


Returned to Shilin later and ate supper. The ice kacang was nice but the oyster mee sua was blah. Walked around the dirty streets for a while before returning to the hotel to do packing. Arrr...hate doing packing.


Went to the airport the following day to take the plane back to Singapore~And that's how I spend Christmas 2007. wtf...so sad.


And...that's the end of my Taiwan trip~!
Day 6 Pictures: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=114.
Day 7 Pictures: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=115.

23/12/07: Day 5 - Kaohsiung/Taichung

By
Jhui
on June 14, 2008 1:23 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Day 5 of Taiwan.

Went to this place where there were many peacocks first thing in the morning. All the peacocks there must have had been damn sleepy or something because all of them refused to spread their tail feathers to wow at and take photos. Not even one! The tour guide tried to sound his loud-hailer music(which was Für Elise by the way) so as to make them spread their tail feathers(he said that it used to work...-_-) but to no avail.


As the peacocks couldn't be bothered to spread their tail feathers, I couldn't be bothered to look at them too and so...I went to play with the cat which was lurking around the place and it too, ignored me. Wa lau eh.


Next, we went to this smelly hotel that survived the earthquake or something before proceeding to Wen Wu Temple. Apparently, you can have a good view of the Sun Moon Lake from the top of this temple but I was just too lazy to climb all the way up to do so.


Our tour group haolianed to us that his name's engraved on this slab because he donated money to the temple for reconstruction purposes. Erm...okaaaaaay.


For some unknown reason, I did not take a single photo of the food we ate on this day. Must had been quite unappetising I guess. Can't remember what I ate anyway so I shall continue blogging about the places of attractions we went to. Next we went to the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village which was basically an amusement park with a cultural touch.


Being the chicken that I am, I didn't take any of the exciting rides because I didn't want to get myself killed...whether of a heart attack or because I got thrown off the ride or something. My sister on the other hand, tried all the crazy rides. -_- I can't believe that we're actually related...


Heng Ling.


Denise.


This is the tian lu which supposedly protected the smelly hotel I mentioned above during the earthquake. The tour guide was trying to convince us the wonders of tian lu because I guess he gets a fat commission if we buy tian lus from the place that he brought us to next.


On the way to the Feng Jia Night Market, we stopped at a few stores that sold betel nuts...because the tour guide wanted to show us Bin Lang Xi Shi, betel nuts girls, or just simply girls who wear very little to sell betel nuts. Managed to get one to board our bus but she had a cant-be-bothered-dont-waste-my-time attitude the whole time...even though we bought something from her. Service in Taiwan sucks seriously. The only polite/nice salesgirl that I saw in Taiwan was from the Kaohsiung Kinokuniya branch.


Reached Feng Jia Night Market and I totally HATED that place. Too many people, similar stuff being sold and the worst thing was that cars and motorcycles drove behind people as if they wanted to kiss them or something...freaking close can...and they don't bother to horn you but just wait for you to realise their presence with a big shock. Urrgh...bah.

Anyway, end of Day 5. More pictures here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=113

22/12/07: Day 4 - Kaohsiung

By
Jhui
on June 11, 2008 11:50 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
After blogging about my Korea and Hiroshima trips, I guess I'm going to continue blogging about my Taiwan trip...which occured half a year ago. Wtf, my blog is starting to look like a travel blog. Anyway, here's day 4 of the Taiwan trip.

Meals in Taiwan are just like the ones you have during weddings back here. 10 people to one table filled with dishes of fish, meat and vegetables. Oh, and not forgetting rice too. All I remember about the food of Taiwan was that I didn't really like eating them.


As lunch wasn't that wonderful, my sister and I stopped eating after a few mouthfuls and went to a nearby shop to look around. By the way, we were at Fo Guang Shan Temple so the shops there sold mostly religion-related stuff.


Sis bought the salty ice-cream, Babao(Eight Treasures...wtf is this anyway?) flavour. It must have had been sucky because she threw it away after less than 5 licks.


Ventured into the temple and at the place that there was a wishing well, everyone stopped and starting throwing money inside...except me. I couldn't squeeze my way through to do so and anyway, didn't really want to do it also. The temple was really pretty with all the gold/bronze statues in it.


Model of the temple. Wasn't supposed to take photos inside this place but since there's a picture, I guess that whoever took this photo did not follow the rules~Lalala


Why does this picture look so obscene to me?!


Next, we went to this wholesale place to buy all those Taiwan mochi and jelly. The place was packed and it was so not fun trying to squeeze your way in and out of that place. Damn tiring. After purchasing, we went to the Spring and Autumn Pavillions for sight-seeing.


GAH~. (I don't know how dragons sound like so I just wrote "gah" for convenience's sakes.)


Hsuan Tien Shangti temple.


Went to Love River next. Seriously, I didn't feel the love. The river was smelly and there was nothing to see! Okay, maybe the scenery's prettier at night but since I went in the afternoon, it pretty much sucked. In short, the ride was a total waste of time.


The lady who was explaining to us how to put on the lifejackets. Nobody listened to her and she was kind of pissed of by it. I heard hear complaining to the boatman that nobody was paying attention to her in an angry tone. Paiseh lor~ Everyone was damn sleepy already and somemore the boatride wasn't fantastic, can't exactly blame them for ignoring you.


Had lobster for dinner...or rather, around two miserable 3cm slices of lobster.


It was Winter Solstice that day so we also had tang yuan for dessert.


Went to the Liu He Night Market at erm...night? All the night markets in Taiwan look the same to me and they sell about the same thing so it was getting kind of boring to keep visiting night markets. Dirty somemore lor! Anyway, so instead of shopping, I got my fortune told! Whee~ Apparently I will be rich in the future and my future husband will be someone who's a little pudgy~That means...no Domoto Koichi? =( Go put on some weight lar, Koichi!


After the fortune telling session, we walked around shopping centres where I managed to find Kinokuniya and bought a few Japanese books =D wtf, buy Japanese books in Taiwan...-__- Anyway, although it was winter in Taiwan, Kaohsiung was freaking hot! Even hotter than Singapore somemore and I was amazed to see that the Kaohsiung girls were actually wearing winter jackets and high boots. I know it's fashionable and winter' the only period for them to show off these stuff but still, not hot meh?!

Decided to go sing karaoke in the night but firstly, we had to find a karaoke place. We stumbled upon this ktv and the waitress was apologetic because they had no "xiao jie(hostess)" to serve us. We then realised that this wasn't the karaoke place we had in mind so we took a taxi to a nearby Partyworld instead. Sang till 4am and by the time I got back to the hotel, showered, dried my hair...it was almost time to assemble for the next day's tour le. -____-


End of Taiwan Day 4. More pictures here: http://mizu-kioku.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=112

21/12/07: Day 3 - Lingzhi Place/Da Lu Shan/Beach/Hot Spring Hotel

By
Jhui
on March 15, 2008 12:52 AM | | TrackBacks (0)
Day 3
 
-First stop of the day was the lingzhi shop.


 -Listened to a talk on Taiwan's lingzhi and deer fetus which is supposedly good for people with asthma. (eew! wtf?!)
-My sister bought so much stuff that I almost thought that she's going to open a lingzhi shop in Singapore or something. (kidding)
-Wanted to take a photo with the shifu there and somehow the salesladies there thought that I said that the shifu was handsome. -_-
-The shifu then asked me if I 'shui xing le ma' (Fully-awake or not) =D

-Next stop was this place called Da Lu Shan. Damn pretty and the water was crystal blue!


-Ok, doesnt look that pretty in the picture. Cant comment on the photography skills because I wasnt the one who took them.
-Got on the bus and they drove for a relatively short while before reaching the next place. Not sure if it's still Da Lu Shan though...the colour of the water looks the same to me.
-(Note to self) Stop sleeping immediately upon getting onto the bus and listen to the tour guide more!


-Was brought to the beach next but as I have an immense dislike for beaches and sand, I chose to wait...near the toilet... for the rest of the people while they frolicked on the beach.
-My sister was one of those people and she came back with sandy feet.
-Luckily she was wearing my father's Ronald MacDonald shoes. (Crocs)

-I dont see the attractiveness of beaches at all. I'm so totally unromantic :(

-Somewhere in between those places that we went to, we had lunch. Not really tasty I must say but the quantity made up for the quality.
-All of us were divided into groups of 10 for lunch.
-My group was the one that bonded really well I think. In fact, all of us talked so much that we were always the last one to leave the restaurant although we were the first ones to enter.

-Was brought to this seriously lousy hot spring hotel that smelt really bad.
-There were too many tourists from ******* that made me give up the idea of entering the hot spring.
-Aircon was seriously noisy because it kept leaking. How freaking old is the aircon?!


-Wanted to go shopping around that area in the night but there was nothing to see at all.
-While waiting outside 7-11, I saw lots of dead flies. WTF. There were seriously enough flies to make up a parliament.


-Tried mao xie(hairy crabs?) at this little restaurant that was quite a distance away from the hotel.
-Hate eating crabs because it's so troublesome. Have to crack open the shell, eat the meat and get your hands dirty.
-Reason why we chose to eat at this particular shop among all the others that were selling the same thing was because of this uncle who was singing and dancing at the same time. Damn cool!


-It was at that shop that I sang in front of a whole restaurant for the first time in my life! Damn scary.
-On the way back to the hotel, we saw this:

-Is he shitting or is he showing his...erm...yea, you get the idea?
-Reached the hotel at like 11.30pm so didnt enter the hot spring in the end.

Yup, end of Day 3.

20/12/07: Day 2 - Yehliu / Chiufen / Nantien Gong / Hualien

By
Jhui
on March 13, 2008 12:25 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Day 2
 
-Ate breakfast and went down to the hotel lobby.
-Was told that we couldnt go up the bus.
-Imagine my horror when I realised that 99% of the tour group was already on the bus when we were finally allowed onto the bus.
-The horror got worse when I realised that my seat was just right in front of two little kids.


-The horror worsened when I almost fell through the emergency exit. Who builds emergency exits that are so dangerous anyway?!


-Went to Yehliu, the place with pretty impressive rock formations like this one, the map of Taiwan.


-And this, Nv Wang Tou.


-I have a love-hate relationship with bridges. Bridges are nice because they are damn romantic and nice to look at but I hate them because once I ascend a bridge, I can take an eternity to get down. I was practically sliding down the bridge I climbed up in Japan. In a skirt somemore!


-The sexy peek-a-boo toilet. One can practically see through the door lo! Although it's a guys toilet but still, wtf?! The toilet at one petrol station was even worse. The guys toilet had no door at all! As in for the urinals portion. I was originally very sleepy when I walked to the toilet and was immediately shocked awake by the toilet.


-Ate this fried seaweed snack there. Salty but good. I love anything seaweed.


-Saw Ayase Haruka at Yehliu!!!! Okay, not exactly her in real person but rather her poster. Tried to find Hiraoka Yuta's poster but to no avail. :(

-Next stop was Chiufen which I didnt like very much.
-Too many tourists, too narrow roads and too many large vehicles on the road. I really hate the traffic in Taiwan.


-Everyone had to run into a shop when this vehicle passed by because it was just impossible for someone to walk on the street without getting killed with this vehicle on the street.


-Ate fishball, meatball, sharkball, and whatever balls they had in this shop which was opened by a seriously narcissistic lady. I mean, who practically plasters her shop's walls with her own pictures?! I've finally found someone who is more narcissistic than Tony Khoo. Hahaha.


-Loving this woman's outfit.


-Next stop was Nantien Gong.

-Had to take a 3-hour long bus ride to Hualien.
-What is a 3-hour long bus ride compared to the 4-hour long bumpy bus ride I took before in China?
-It was worse because of the fact that half the bus ride was on a winding road.
-Seriously felt like puking in the middle of the bus ride.
-Contemplated getting some medicated oil from my sister but she was asleep.
-Felt that someone up there likes me very much when the lady(Denise) in front of me used her medicated oil. So, although I wasnt directly using it, the smell alone was enough.

-Had a great dinner at the hotel. In fact, it was the best hotel I've stayed in during this whole trip...and it had nothing to do with the cute bellboys/waiters in the hotel.
-Ate spaghetti, salmon and mango ice-cream. My favourite food~
-Traumatised the sushi guy because I chose like 2 out of the 6 ingredients I think he was supposed to wrap in the temaki sushi.
-The sushi guy traumatised me even more when he handed me my temaki sushi...without rice.


-Wen dao-yu told us that there will be a 7-Eleven near every hotel that we will be staying in.
-Felt damn cheated by him because 7-Eleven was like miles away from the hotel that we stayed in.
-Didnt help that a dog tried to follow us back to the hotel.
-Traumatised the dog by screaming because it appeared all of a sudden in front of me. Paiseh, who asked you to traumatise me first.


-H Alien City. Sounds damn wrong can...in Japanese.


-Caught the hotel people laughing when I was taking this photo. What?! Cannot box reindeers arh?!


-Have a habit of leaving the electricity on when I leave the hotel room so we originally used this book to hold the key in place because it kept popping out of place. Our always helpful tour guide, Victor, had a more indigenous idea of using the toothbrush in place of the key. Eh...what am I going to use to brush my teeth?

Walked around the hotel and I saw men wrapped around in bathrobes coming out of the spa place. Normally men in bathrobes are sexy...if they look like Domoto Koichi...but it's just wrong when their bathrobes are not tied tightly enough.

So yup, end of day 2.

19/12/07: Day 1 - Arrival / Raohe Street Night Market

By
Jhui
on March 11, 2008 1:10 PM | | TrackBacks (0)
Damn outdated but going to post bit by bit about my Taiwan trip...last year :D

-Was supposed to reach Changi Airport at 1.15pm but was late because the taxi driver was so slow. Ok, not exactly the taxi driver's fault. Dily-dallied too long at home was the real reason.
-Short briefing by Victor, the Singapore tour guide.
-Laughed because the first hotel that we would be staying in had a really mafia-ish sounding name 'Taiwan Brothers'. Result of watching too much 'Yi Nan Wang'.
-Proceeded to check-in.
-The guy who led us to the check-in counter was fierce and I was damn scared of him. He reminded me of my strict Korean teacher.
-Luckily he wasnt our tour guide.
-Proceeded to enter the gate. The guy checking passports at the gate was so freaking cute.
-Sister was chased out of the gate for eating ice-cream. Apparently ice-cream is considered a liquid because it can melt and it might contain dangerous liquids. Seriously, would anybody be eating it if it really contained dangerous liquids.
-Waited for sister on the other side of the gate and had to listen to the lady who chased her out rant about people eating ice-creams.
-The same lady kept calling 'Mei mei, mei mei' for no reason at all.
-Realised she was calling me to siam to one side when she patted me on my shoulder.
-Flight was delayed so we had to wait among noisy kids.
-Saw this Singaporean guy who looked very Korean. Saw him a few more times on the tour although he wasnt in my tour group.
-Was sceptical about China Airlines because of the not-so-nice rumours I've heard about them.
-Pleasantly surprised by the service and the spacious seats in the plane.
-It helped that the air stewardesses were damn pretty.
-Sucked that I didnt see any cute air steward.

-Reached Taipei at 8pm.
-First thought was 'Shit, why is it so fucking cold? I didnt bring enough warm clothes.'
-Was diao-ed the whole time by this Malaysian woman who was standing in front of me at the immigration counter.
-Realised that Taiwanese are actually quite kiasu too because when a new counter for Taiwan passport holders opened, people from the other queues dashed there straight away and in less than 2 seconds, the queue was snaking already.
-Never seen middle-aged men dash that fast before. Da Kai Yan Jie.
-Met the Taiwan tour guide, Wen dao-yu (dao-yu here meaning tour guide in Chinese and not that the guy's name was dao-yu).
-Sister made 2 new friends Naina and Jimmy while I was still staring into space at the hotel lobby.
-Realised that my sister makes friends damn fast along the whole trip, unlike me. I've never made friends on any other tours I went on before. Yes, I am anti-social/shy, something that my friends scoff at when I tell them so. They keep telling me that I cannot possibly be anti-social/shy because I am so 'bagua'.


-Went to Raohe Street Night Market with the two new friends.


-Taiwan is like filled with dogs or something. Somemore is that kind of large dogs that are not cute at all.


-Of course, there were also cute little dogs too la.


-My Korean class classmate from Taiwan kept telling me about the wonders of Taiwan's bubble tea so I decided to try it.
-I think I seriously traumatised the guy selling bubble tea with my weird questions like 'Which is the most delicious item here?'
-Couldnt read the Chinese words of the drink I wanted and tried to point it out to the guy and he probably thought that I was an idiot or something. How do you read konnyaku in Chinese anyway?!
-Bubble tea was damn delicious. The guy who made the bubble tea looked delicious too. Fu-fu-fu~ :D

-Ate taiyaki there and felt like as if I were in Japan like that. Reminded me of Toukasan.
-Ate 'cong zhua bing' (some onion pancake that tasted like roti prata).


-Saw people selling cannabis. Or rather cannabis incense...Can meh?! Isnt cannabis a drug?!


-And this is Rilakkuma meh?

-Saw Victor eating with that funny tour guide that I never got to know his name. The same guy who told us not to go to Raohe Street Night Market...Why was he there then? :D
-Tasted my first chou dou fu. Smell was horrible but the taste reminded me of Thai sweet-and-sour sauce. Yes, my tastebuds are weird.
-Back to hotel to sleep. Hate bathing in hotels because everytime I do so, I get reminded of the horrible things John Martin Scripps used to do in hotel bathrooms. I should really stop reading real-life murder stories for leisure. It was horrifying to know that I knew almost all the murder cases that they talked about in Forensic Science class. Is this normal? Anyway, this ends my first day in Taiwan.
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