TaiWan ^ TaiPei & TaiChung
Here is my holiday @ Taipei... A full summary about Taipei.. It is a shopping paradise ^_^ The Night life there is wonderful who nite owl. haha ^_^ After a few months of planning, searching around the web and forums, I finally came out with my itinerary which is written on the right hand side. We decided to take Jetstar and stay at TS Hotel.
Hehe ^_^ Finally, my holiday to taipei came... We took Jetstar airline and reach Taipei Airport around 5.45pm and took public bus to TS hotel which is at XiMenTing. The journey from Airport to Hotel via Bus - took at least 1 hour. We reached the hotel at about 8pm. Took a quick rest and we start our shopping journey - First stop, ShiLin Nite Market !
ShiLin Nite Market (Day 1)
ShiLin Nite Market is considered the largest and the most famous night market in the city. There are two parts of ShiLin: one is the food and at other side across the street is the clothes, shoes, games. The most famous food is the XXXL Fried chicken steak, it is very big potion for one person. Next is the bubble tea - there are many other different flavours that you cannot even find in S'pore, the best is the pearl milk tea.
This is the shoping side of ShiLin Nite Market. There are loads of clothings, shoes, bags and accessories. Things sold at ShiLin Market are for everyone, Guys, Gals, young and old. There are super duper large variety of clothings, bags and etc. Really can shop till you drop. Inside of ShiLing, there are also food stuffs like Smelly TouFu, Ah Zhong Mee Sua, Juices and many more. Mango Ice and Soy Beancurd from 3 Brothers are the tastiest in ShiLin. ShiLin is much like a tree that has branches stretching out.
My advice, if you see somthing you like, just buy it. Do not think that you will come back to the same shop again the next time. You will never find the same shop again unless you start from the begining. " THIS APPLIES TO ALL NITE MARKETS "
Taipei 101 + Wu Fen Pu + Rao He (Day 2)
Next stop, Taipei 101. On our way there, we took a train and change to cab as we do not know our way to the place. But actually is a few street away from the train station we exit. At there, most of the shops are selling branded goods like those we saw at Paragon. Prices are almost similiar in S'pore. On one of the floors, there is a open space with projector showing their favourite spot match in Beijing. Everyone cheered as Team Taiwan won the match. The roar was so heart warming that we could feel the excitment in every Taiwanese. Basement is a food court, lots of variety of choices. Below curry is sold by a stall named "Sentosa Noodles"
Next to the Taipei 101, we notice that there are a big queue outside some exhibition hall. All of us got curious and we went inside with a admission fee of NT100 per head. Anime lovers you will love this. It is the 9th Comic exhibition. We spent the whole afternoon inside the hall, thanks to the heavy rain outside. We brought back lots of stuffs from there. From our trip to the exhibition, we realise that Taiwanese are also a big fan of Anime. We carried the heavy loads and left the exhibition hall and proceed our way to XinGuangSanYue (Shin Kong Mitsukoshi).
Shots from and at XinGuangSanYue (Shin Kong Mitsukoshi). There is nothing to shop at there. Its almost the same as Takashimaya. Afther that, we went back hotel and change to our casual/loose clothing for night market at WuFenPu and RaoHe Nite Market.
At WuFenPu, there most of the clothings are for girls. Men go there is to help girls carry their shopping bag. Pity the guys that go to the night market. Quality of the clothings are insaint. Some of them are really thin. Very suitable for casual wearing and for the extream hot weather there. We had a quick bite at the stall that sell DimSum, across the night market. The noodles is surprisingly green in color. Total cost for the bite was NT400+. The MaJiang noodles taste weird. But the rest is not bad. The DimSums are really value for money.
This is RaoHe market. A stretch of road that leads to the end. Both sides are selling clothings/accessories and the middle road sells food stuffs. First Strawberry BingTangHuLu is tasted from there. Its red and juicy, sweet and nice. As usual, we got stuffs from there. We ended our day with a cold mango shaven ice. Took a stroll at the nearest 7-11 and found out that the drinks advertised by Taiwan Artist. Its a great way to advertise.
XiMenDing + DanShui (Day 3)
Breakfast at a 4 levels MacDonalds in XiMenDing. In our horror, Chicken MacSpicy is found there. In S'pore its already extinct. There is also corn soup to suit with the meal there. Its so special that we actually ordered 3 bowls of corn soup. Yummy. We proceed down to the shops at XiMenDing. We took a group photo and hurried our way to Danshui.
We have to change train in order to reach DanShui. Took a quick picture and we are on our way to DanShui. Its quite a distance to reach there. The weather is so irritating that we got a tall ice-cream to cool ourselves down. The street is packed and sometimes we have to squeeze our way through. I think its because of a weekend. A quick game from Mr Leong, he won a 5 finger blue hand (photo at the very right side) using NT550. (wondering is the Hand worth NT550)
Going To TaiChung (Day 4)
So sleepy on that day... We woke up very early in the morning to rush for the first HSR to TaiChung @8.15am .. The ticket from Taipei - Taichung is about NT630. With the HSR, we reach Taichung @9.15am. It only took about 45-60min, it is very fast (200Km/h). After we reached "for HSR - it is TaiCHung station but for TRA- it is WuRih Station so we need to take TRA to Hou Li station which is closer to Yamay Resort Theme Park. We brought the TRA ticket at NT43 for 9.45am slot, We still have some time for breadfast @ Mos Burger. The breadfast set at Mos Burger only cost NT50-90. It is so rare in Singapore. ^_^ . We continue our journey to TaiCHung..
After the Hou Li station, we took a taxi to Yama theme park, it is quite deep inside so it is not easy to take a bus to reach there. Finally we reached our destination... We spend half our the day inside the theme park to try all the exciting games... It was so fun but scary... to play. The games there almost all are turning 360 degree in the air. It spin and spin till I feel giddy ^_^ Nice... scare away all my worries.
Next place we are going, is the biggest nite market in Taichung which is FenJia Ye Shi. Wow! When you are there then you will believe it.. it is really very big.. all clothings there are different from Taipei.. More suitable for office wear.. The cheapest Nike slipper that I get there was about SGD22 (NT490). GIve you some tips, if you want to get cheap price for sport brands like Nike and Addias, you should go over there^_^. Haha at there, i also took a picture of their car summon on the road, a piece of paper which is bigger than spore. The right most photo was taken at the TaiChung station, while the train delay about 20mins.
while waiting for the 9.05pm HSR, my sister went back to Mos to buy green tea .. the bottle was so pretty as you can see in the picture. Their green tea drink is nice.. We are so tired and sticky... We still need to stand all the way back to Taipei on HSR.. That is the we are so unhappy about, we paid so much but no place for us to sit... As usual, our hands are full of bags... But we bring back a wonderful memories in TaiChung... We reach Hotel @ about 10pm+. very hungry ! so we plan to go for another round of nite market which is HuaXi Nite Market.. I really saw a big snake just lying infront of the shop... Wow.. first time in my life... Spore never allow this to happen.. There are selling alot of snakes and frogs dishes ... but by this time, my camera already went to bed. So i never had a chance to take the picture of it. After a quick bite at the roadside stalls, we went to have a quick shop at that area. Nothing much. About an hour later, we are all dragging ourselves.. in the end.. we gave up and head back to hotel, a quick shower and went to bed..
YangMinShan + HotSpring + ZhongXiao FuXing + SHiLin (Day 5)
Here comes a new day in Taipei, We go even more places after a nite of charging. We wake up very early in the morning, took a bus ride to YangMinShan- the tallest mountain in Taipei, the scenary was so beautiful over there.. We also got a chance to taste the wild boar meat...Its tasty and very delicious.. haha The weather is very hot, over 37 degree. We are all sweating like mad... After YangMinShan, We went to JingDou(Inn) for Hot Bath @ NT590 for 2 person. It is at Xing BeiTou area.
Wow ^_^ So relax.. after an hour of rest, we start our shopping @ ZhongXiao FuXing. But First we need to have our dinner, You guess where we have our dinner? haha ^_^ It is at the Hello Kitty Theme Restaurant.. Everythings in the restaurant are display with Hello Kitty, even their cake and jelly. So cute.. The price is also cute. 4 pax for NT1980. Frankly speaking I am not a Hello Kitty lover, but I like the design of the shop... I even bought 2 pieces of their cheese cakes. Anyway, enjoy the pics below.
After our Kitty dinner, we went to walk around ZhongXiao FuXing.. There are many shopping centres just like our orchard road...It is all high end shopping.. so we only walk awhile and headed to NingXia Ye Shi where we can buy even more things (that isnt it our purpose to Taipei). haha It was around 8pm when we reached NingXia... It is only a small street - selling more food than clothing. We get to try XiaoLongBao @ the street. So we never waste our time, pickup some speed and went back to ShiLin. This time, we manage to buy more than the first day.. Jerry finally pick up his courage to buy the Smelly TouFu. Leyong got his supper at his favourite "Eat till Full" buffet at NT195 per person. Its outside the ShiLin Market.
XiMenDing (Day 6)
Last day of the trip, early in the morning we had a quick walk/shopping at XiMenDing again. Next, we find our way to the next theme restaurant. Its hidden somewhere in XiMenDing. Toilet Theme Restaurant. 1st level displays a toilet bowl with roses. Restaurant is situated at the 2nd level. Everything in the restaurant resembles what we always do in the toilet. There are toilet bowl (chair), bath tubs (table), mini toilet bowl to put our food. Even its in the toilet, we still enjoy the good food there. Its is much more cheaper than Hello Kitty.
Back to Hotel after our lunch. Took our last picture at Taiwan and the hotel that we stayed. At about 4pm, we chartered a 9 seater cab (NT1300) to ferry us to the Airport. It took about 45min from XMD to Airport T1. All of us doze off in the cab. Luckily he never bring us to sell away. We boarded the plane at 6.30pm and touched down at 11pm. No one came to fetch us home ='(. End of our 6days of enjoyment but torturing to our 2 beloved legs.
