It is post holiday week 1, and I am still not able to cope with the fact and reality of life; - work :( All of us started to miss Taipei as early as during our last day of the trip. "mega cries!"
So anyway, since today I am not scheduled for work today (surprisingly and pretty much am upset about it because I was so lost of what to do), I spent the whole afternoon re-sizing the photos I took at Taipei and uploading them and the backdated HongKong photos into Facebook. Speaking of which, I have yet to blog about the Hong Kong Trip which was due 5 months ago :/ But they are already up on facebook though!
So here's the first day of our Taipei Trip Day 1.
Met the girls as early as 7am for our morning flight and upon checking-in, we were told that our bookings had some problems and that we only purchased a 15kg check-in baggage for 5 persons!! How is that possible? Oh well... thank god the lady at the service counter was nice enough to help us as much as possible to reduce the penalty we had to pay and surprisingly, it was cheaper than what the airline website offered.
However, we had to pay the same amount as the airline website for our return flight.
Despite the minor hiccup, we are still all ready and excited for the trip :D
In the plane before jetting off.
The 4 hourish flight was kinda quick. Spent the time, chit chatting with Lu and han, gossiping (as usual), napping and most of time on poker cards. Soon enough, we finally touched down safely at Taoyuan International Airport.
And a group shot while waiting for the bus (Evergreen Bus) which is gonna take us straight to our hotel located at ShuangLian.
Another 1 hour bus ride for only 150NT per pax.
While waiting to be checked-in.
The notice in the hotel lift.
And the first one made me laughed hardly.
haha!
Pepper buns!
This was the first food that we bought in taipei while we were on our way to the mrt station.
Honestly speaking, it was quite a disappointment. I dont know how it was supposed to taste like, but I hate the hard bun and the over-spicy pepper meat fillings.
ShuangLian mrt station was just a 5 mins walk from our hotel.
The cute token which is something like our standard ticket here in Singapore.
And surprisingly, these technology-efficient tokens are meant to be tapped like normal cards! Impressive!
I am pretty sure the Taiwanese girl was quite reluctant to help us with this group shot.
oh well.. better than nothing though.
In their Mrt which is also known as "jie yun" towards our first stop; Shilin Night Market.
The pretty and happy lulu smiling widely !
First thing we saw as soon as we stepped into Shilin night market was Hot Star fried Chicken !
And because we were kinda early, some of the stalls are not open yet.
We bought the honey bitter gourd juice which we were told it is bitter but able to remove heatiness in the body. But apparently, it wasn't bitter at all and instead, really refreshing!
The shopping area of Shilin night market.
However, things are pretty much expensive in this market because it's one of the most famous tourists' attraction and prices are all marked-up.
But the best thing is that most of the shops sell different items and it's not easy to spot repeatitive things.
And oh yes, taiwanese do really have a thing for dogs/puppies. Almost 2 out of 5 shop owners bring their dogs/pups into their shop to work. And i'm kinda surprise that they are even allowed to enter big supermarkets like those we have here in Ntuc/Cold Storage.
In direct translation: Frog lay egg.
I dont know what has this drink got to do wth frogs since it's only like milk with some toppings like pearls, ai-yu jelly etc, but then I heard the boy mentioning this to me before so yeah... just a cup for all to try :)
Wide varieties of fresh fruits and from afar, I could already smell the sweetness of the fruits, especially the pink guava!
Cheese potata at Shilin Night Market was one of the must-try in our list.
Look at the generous amount of ingredients and cheese !!
Sinful but definitely worth the few grams of fat!
Authentic Taiwan sausages that tasted so different from the usual ones that we get from our local neighbourhood pasa malam.
The BBQ squid that we never get to try because we were kinda full. We thought we could have it at other night markets but unfortunately, we couldn't.
What a pity :(
The mango shaved ice that is oh-so-yummy!!
Not only is the shave ice flavouring that was sweet, the mango was fresh and sweet too! Best for sweet tooth like me and definitely the best shaved ice I ever had thus far!
Fried fresh milk that tasted like fried marshmellows.
Doesn't taste really good, but definitely something special that worth the try :)
And another must try, wild boar sausage!
The boy told me that their wild boar meat is a must try at Taiwan but we couldn't find it anywhere:(
So sausages will replace the meat:)
And on our way back to the hotel, we spotted this young boss selling Samsui chicken. So we got one packet back alongside with the cup noodles for our supper.
All washed up, ready to crashed into the other girls' room for supper and some pillow fight. hehe!
And that sumed up my first day inTaipei:)
Finally, a dream country striked off from my list :)