Taipei is not as cooling as I expect for a winter period as compared to 7 years back.... Brought a few jackets there but end up keep wearing an ADIDAS jacket I found there. Happy though but those jackets I brought sure takes up a lot of space in my backpack.
This was purely a shopping and feasting trip with Winnie. 2 ladies combing the streets of Taipei... cool eh? We walked, shopped and eat whenever we see something interesting... Our itinery was just shopping districts and night markets everyday. The 1st day.... reached Taipei around 545pm and the sky was already dark. Reached our cosy Royal Castle hotel around 830pm. Put our bags down and proceed straight to our 1st night market - Gongguan night market. Was a small night market but with a lot of sports shops. There was where I found my ADIDAS jacket... hehe... Really happy for the buy. :) It was there where we stumbled upon the best shaved ice in Taiwan (to us at least). The plate of mango ice was fabulicious! The mango was soooo sweettttt, much much better than Singapore's "Xu Liu San". It was the best of all the shaved ice we tried in Taipei. Ahh.... never forget it....
2nd day was a packed day for us. Woke up early to go Beitou for a hot spring session but ended up realising that the shops don't normally open until about 11am. Went wandering around the area searching for a nice-looking hot spring hotel... Finally decided to settle for one japanese-styled hot spring. The room was small but the amenities were sufficient for the both of us. Soaked in the hot spring water for 20mins and got a bit giddy after sitting up. Lied on the wooden bed and was so relaxed that I wish there was a real bed there for me to sleep for another 2-3 hrs... After our bath, it was time to leave the place for some mountain called Yangmingshan. Had a short trek on the mountain to enjoy the cool weather uphill. It was accompanied with sipping hot tea in this really neat tea house before we went down the hill for Shilin night market. Shilin was huge! There was this eating place with hundreds of shops selling all sorts of Taiwanese 'xiao ci'. Tried the famous Taiwan omelette but i don't like the sauce. My verdict - Not nice. Keep searching for the chix chop stall but couldn't find... only to realise that there was another part of Shilin night market across the road! It was so crowded with people and so many shops selling all kinds of things. Managed to find the famous Shilin chix chop but it was nothing special in my opinion. Don't know what's the craze over it...? Anyway, Winnie and I bought quite a lot of things at the market. We were so tired that we decided to turn in early for that night.... It was only the 2nd day and our legs can't take it already....
The 3rd day was a city tour day. Went to see the Taipei icon Taipei 101 building. Was not really impressed by it though. Reminds me of Petronas Tower in KL. Took a few pictures just to show we've been there, done that. Was in the heart of all the major shopping centres and star sighting! Saw Taiwanese super model Lin Chiling doing catwalk for a jeans company. After snapping lotsa pics of the super model, we went on to the wholesale fashion district Wu Fen Pu. It was something like Bangkok's Chatuchak but a lot more spacious. But the clothes there were a bit too old for my liking and the place is stuffy and hot especially when we got into the inside of the clusters of shops. When night falls, we went to another night market, Raohe night market. The place was awesome! Bought a lot of Minna No Tabo stuffs and they are real cheap as compared to Singapore! ...Was grabbing every Minna No Tabo things in sight. =)
This was purely a shopping and feasting trip with Winnie. 2 ladies combing the streets of Taipei... cool eh? We walked, shopped and eat whenever we see something interesting... Our itinery was just shopping districts and night markets everyday. The 1st day.... reached Taipei around 545pm and the sky was already dark. Reached our cosy Royal Castle hotel around 830pm. Put our bags down and proceed straight to our 1st night market - Gongguan night market. Was a small night market but with a lot of sports shops. There was where I found my ADIDAS jacket... hehe... Really happy for the buy. :) It was there where we stumbled upon the best shaved ice in Taiwan (to us at least). The plate of mango ice was fabulicious! The mango was soooo sweettttt, much much better than Singapore's "Xu Liu San". It was the best of all the shaved ice we tried in Taipei. Ahh.... never forget it....
2nd day was a packed day for us. Woke up early to go Beitou for a hot spring session but ended up realising that the shops don't normally open until about 11am. Went wandering around the area searching for a nice-looking hot spring hotel... Finally decided to settle for one japanese-styled hot spring. The room was small but the amenities were sufficient for the both of us. Soaked in the hot spring water for 20mins and got a bit giddy after sitting up. Lied on the wooden bed and was so relaxed that I wish there was a real bed there for me to sleep for another 2-3 hrs... After our bath, it was time to leave the place for some mountain called Yangmingshan. Had a short trek on the mountain to enjoy the cool weather uphill. It was accompanied with sipping hot tea in this really neat tea house before we went down the hill for Shilin night market. Shilin was huge! There was this eating place with hundreds of shops selling all sorts of Taiwanese 'xiao ci'. Tried the famous Taiwan omelette but i don't like the sauce. My verdict - Not nice. Keep searching for the chix chop stall but couldn't find... only to realise that there was another part of Shilin night market across the road! It was so crowded with people and so many shops selling all kinds of things. Managed to find the famous Shilin chix chop but it was nothing special in my opinion. Don't know what's the craze over it...? Anyway, Winnie and I bought quite a lot of things at the market. We were so tired that we decided to turn in early for that night.... It was only the 2nd day and our legs can't take it already....
The 3rd day was a city tour day. Went to see the Taipei icon Taipei 101 building. Was not really impressed by it though. Reminds me of Petronas Tower in KL. Took a few pictures just to show we've been there, done that. Was in the heart of all the major shopping centres and star sighting! Saw Taiwanese super model Lin Chiling doing catwalk for a jeans company. After snapping lotsa pics of the super model, we went on to the wholesale fashion district Wu Fen Pu. It was something like Bangkok's Chatuchak but a lot more spacious. But the clothes there were a bit too old for my liking and the place is stuffy and hot especially when we got into the inside of the clusters of shops. When night falls, we went to another night market, Raohe night market. The place was awesome! Bought a lot of Minna No Tabo stuffs and they are real cheap as compared to Singapore! ...Was grabbing every Minna No Tabo things in sight. =)
The 4th day itinery was to find Ah Zong Mian Xian (noodle house) in Ximending for our brunch. It was so much talked about that we decided we must try and give our own verdict. It was a very small shop with no sit-in tables available but you can see a throng of people queuing up and standing along the street sipping a small bowl of noodles. There is no chopstick, just a spoon to scoop the noodle. The noodles was quite tasty though but i dont see the fuss over it. Anyway, the small bowl was not enough to fill our stomach and eating another bowl seems to be too over.. so we walked around Ximending and start our daily food-tasting activity again.. When I watched Taiwanese variety shows, they always mention about duck tongue and that day I had a taste of it.. and I LOVE IT!! It about SGD$0.60 for 1 piece of duck tongue.. it doesn't look like a tongue to me at all! It resembles the branch of a tiny plant. Till now I have yet to find out which is the tip of the tongue and which part is connected to the duck throat. I just chew on every part of the "stick" with the tiny meat attached on the side but it was really tasteful! I almost wanted to buy 1 whole box back to Singapore but the thought of bird-flu refrained me from eating too much. Also, managed to find 1 'sai-wei-ma' (chix burger in Taiwan style) stall which Superboy insisted I try before I left for Taiwan. Well, my verdict - the chix burger stall at Keat Hong market taste better.
After that, we visited the famous tourist attraction Longshan Temple. A lot of devotees there; comparable to our very own Waterloo St Temple on CNY. Huaxi night market was nearby and it was really a disappointment. It was a short street selling all the wild animal food which did not appeal to us. Thought we would have spent the whole night there at first. Made a quick plan B to go Shida night market which is next to the Shida University hostels. It was a great choice! The crowd was more like our age and we saw the Taiwan actor He Ren Dong there. Haha! Star-spotting number 2. The night market was not as crowded as the rest... and there were a lot of good food and... shuai ge & mei mei around. The most unforgettable of the snacks we tried was munching lean meat sandwiches in the cool night... the 'liu ding' (looks like orange) juice was an excellant thirst-quencher too.
Did I mention that Taiwaneses will never be bored? They have 100+ TV channels! Of cos there are some very boring channels like political news and stock exchange studies... but then they have some very interesting channels that are not seen in Singapore... adult movies.. haha! It makes downloading porn on the internet "excite-less". Oh well, to sum up. Taipei was a fun place. I may consider going there again with Superboy if the airfare is as cheap as this time's. Maybe after our Hongkong trip in June... ;)
The things I bought from Taipei. (my fave ADIDAS jacket not in pic :)
