Well, im drafting this blog post on the plane back, you will know why I am doing it later. I'm going to blog and share my experience at Taipei, of course. My virgin trip to Taiwan. I had mixed feelings about it because the planning wasn't as smooth. It was kind of hard because none of us have been to Taipei before and even if my dad went before, it was like at least a good 10 plus years ago, things have definitely changed. So this is planning a brand new journey. Initially at the end of this year my family planned to go some European country, well of course with the help of Ecclesia, but sadly she cant do it.. So we end up at Taipei. :) initially i was hesitating to go to Taipei because i wanted to explore more, like to go somewhere more 'magical', like Paris or something. Bt that is my dream destination, so probably i will save that till my honeymoon! :P okay, after talking sooo much, let me begin my actual blog post.

Day 0 and 1:

Well, there is a day 0 because it is a saturday, my flight is on sunday midnight, so me and jiaqi kinda went to service with our luggage and then dragged it to airport. The guys in the cg helped us! :) So the cg went to airport for fellowship and of course it is for our sake. Hahah! So after fellowship me and jiaqi haded to T2 to meet my parents.

 We thought that we were running late.. But guess that we are not. Hahah. As usual, we queued up to check in luggage, there wasn't any, of course. Waiting for the big SHOP. We were early, so we slacked awhile and walk around. Was texting grace and she was like all "help me buy.... Help me buy.." Hahah! So even before i reach Taiwan, i have already bought a perfume for her. Hahah! 

So the journey started. Well, not smoothly. Somebody was having some serious mood swing which obviously make everybody so sian. Sigh. Then i saw Clark and Peifen, they are taking the same flight as us. Surprised though. Hahaha anyway, the flight was smooth and we landed in Taipei about 5am. Yes, early in the morning. Not a very fun thing.. I mean i didnt actually sleep properly. You know how things can be, once you are excited, sometimes no matter how tired you are, you just cant sleep. Hahah! So we reached Taipei and I grabbed a bunch of brochures and then we sat down to have the first meal of the day (7-eleven) before we took bus to Taipei Main Station. Firstly, me and jiaqi were soooo amazed by the 7-eleven that was there. You know what I mean. Prior to the flight, we booked a cab with this guy called Meeky, he was introduced to me by Grace. The cab uncle took us to places and honestly he is very friendly, but i didnt talk much w him because usually when we travel to places, i would fall asleep on the cab. It is the end of the year, i was expecting Taipei to be cold, but no. Not on the first day. I could wear my sleeveless top without any jacket or anything. Hahah, anyway. The first place that we went to is Yehliu, there is a geopark there. 

Pretty cheap though. Probably it is a sunday also, the geopark is packed with people from all over the world. The geopark is basically about sand and rock structures that are formed due to the corrosion and all over the years. 

Some of the structures look like a person's head and that's why they called this particular one structure the 'Queen's Head' we didnt walk a lot before we got out. There was a market nearby and we walked. I bought more stuff for the cell group and keychains too. Then we walk around and i saw some fascinating stuff, REAL LIVE SQUID AND OCTOPUS. hahaha, we were so amazed! Lol~ just like a little kid. After Yehliu, we went to Jiufen to shop! Once again, many people. And from Jiufen we realized that people in Taiwan love to ride motorbike! I mean they are no afraid of accidents, in the most squeezy roads filled with people, they just ride it. Wow? So we went around shopping and looking for food. Settled down at one of the shop and ate something that remained as one of my favourite throughout the whole trip — 卤肉饭! I also found wifi, hahah! So was texting on Facebook! Anyway, the view at Jiufen was just.. Awesome. I never thought i would ever look out into an open ocean and no like what we all see in Singapore. 

You look out into the sea, you see ships and land nearby. Hahah! Anyhow, i didn't buy anything there, except jelly. For grace! Lolol! This lady ordered jelly from me. But the jelly was honestly nice lah. I also grabbed some pancakes with ice cream otw! Heheh yumz! Zilian-ed a little at the top because the view was awesome. Oh, we also realized that there are A LOT of dogs... Lol. After jiufen we went ahead to shifen to put the lantern.

 I wrote some funny stuff on it cause i forgot how to write some words in chinese. HAHA! Oops! But letting it go was fun! Hahah! After shifen, the cab uncle drove us back to our hotel to check in. We all took a quick shower and got reading for some serious business of SHOPPING! We went to Shilin Night Market. It was kind of confusing at first, i mean the shops, the lanes split and split until you dont know where you have already walked. LOL! I was happy with my first buy, although pretty expensive.. It is a cute pink bag that shouts my name. Lol. Then we walked around and i ae fruits, omg the mango there is just PERFECT. awesome, sweet and everything. I want more of it! Then me and jiaqi saw this pet shop.. Well, what do you expect at a pet shop? Hamsters and bunnies and dogs? Well we saw cats, some animal like raccoon and snakes? We were like OMG did we just saw what we see. Hahah! Then we continue shopping, suprisingly didnt buy much, like nothing really comes off as something that i would love. So..yeap. Jiaqi amd i did some prawning, well the thing is this... you think that it is easy but it actually is as tricky as heck. It is TWD100 for 7 sticks. so if you catch the prawn, they will BBQ it on the spot. the tricky thing is that the string that is attacked to the hook is tied in a way that it breaks easily, and you cannot catch the prawn by the head. means it cannot bite the hook, but you are suppose to hook it up by its tail instead. my dad took over after i broke like 2 or 3 strings. they end up managing to catch 3 prawns. Lol, but had no time cause the cab uncle was waiting for us already, so we didnt wait for the person to BBQ for us, we just took the prawns back. How did we deal with the prawn? Put it in boiling hot water and cook it. Then eat it with instant noodles. Hahah! Well, not me, cause i dont eat instant noodles, but jiaqi. So that was the first day. 

We had a long day, but it was definitely fun! At night me and my mom were not tired, went opposite the hotel to the shopping area to walk a few round and bought my 鸡蛋糕. Yumz yumz! Cheese flavour is the best!

Day 2:

Woke up super early, about 7 plus going to 8. Washed up and then headed down for buffet breakfast. Our first breakfast at the hotel, it was yum! I toasted my own bread and ate it with jam! And of course had cereal and milk and also. And definitely, eggs! Hahah. So after eating, we decided to explore around the hotel area. The hotel we stayed in is Just Sleep, Ximending branch. It is a pretty simple and organized hotel. Though it does not have a building on its own (as in only level 5-9 belongs to the hotel) but it is still awesome! :) you can ask the staff at the counter stuff like "where is the closest shop to buy fishing stuff?" They will search and tell you and even call the company to ensure that they are open. Good eh? So today we went to Taipei City Hall station.. This is the first time we took the MRT and it was SO COOL. i mean the one time ticket. it didnt come in a card form, it came in a TOKEN form. 

which means that it is a coin. then i was thinking if it is a coin how do you slot the coin in and then come back up again? it was then i found out another cool thing and that is that the coin can be tapped! COOL OR WHAT! i have never tapped a coin before and this is way too cool. well, you tap in the coin to enter, but you slot it into the hole when you exit. Hahah! So we end up at Taipei City Hall, The shopping there too high class lah! 

Hahah! And it was raining like mad.. So we went back to hotel to rest. Okay anyhow, we went walking around ximending area after that but it is not the first time for me because like you have read, i walked there at night with my mom yesterday. But this time is more hardcore shopping, i bought shorts and tops from one of the shop. I refused to buy anything above TWD 100 (about SGD5) hahah! This time i bought galoshes! Lol! Cause it keeps raining, and i cant wear boots, so galoshes would do the trick. Of course we went around eating like rubbish stuff, lol!! But today was coldddd. Like super cold. It was 13 degree Celsius and i didnt expect this at all! Had a hard time trying to make myself feel warmer! It was so different from yesterday pls, it is like one day hot and the next day cold. Bt thankk goodness sunday was hot because we did all the tourist attractions on sunday! Heheh! So yeah, it is a pretty relaxed day.

Day 3:

As usual, I had breakfast in the hotel's cafe. After that, we didn't know what to do. So we kinda fell back asleep after eating till about 11.30am! Hahaha, then we decided to go to the Modern Toilet Cafe. Well, it is basically a themed cafe, and of course the theme this time is toilet. The place is pretty hard to locate, so I would suggest if you are looking for that cafe, it would be good to ask the staff at the Visitors' Counter at the MRT for directions. The person helped us quite a lot, I mean the map really helped! So locating the place was the number one hard thing. The rest was okay. I realized that at cafe or restaurants with a bigger pool of customers they will have a minimum amount that each diner will have to spend. Anyway, so I ordered dessert since I am still full from the breakfast while my dad ordered some.. mini 'steamboat' served in a mini toilet bowl.

 It's pretty cute isn't it? And what more, the seats (those that we sit on) are real toilet bowls. Hahah! I mean, covered, of course! We also bought some candies from there, it's in a shape of nothing but... shit. :p Meanwhile I was using my iPad and was texting Jiayong about where we should go, because it seems like there is nowhere that we can go. The weather there is like rain then drizzle, then rain and drizzle, and repeats this process the entire day. How boring.. After that we went around walking Ximending (again) and I found the ORIGINAL Koi stall! Hahaha! This is the original original KOI! Hahah! and I definitely couldn't miss out on this, and so I ordered one and had it all to myself. 

While walking and slurping my awesome milktea, I saw an epic scene. THE CARPARK AUNTIE! Well, the funny thing is that nobody realized that she is there and she is putting tickets on almost every single vehicle there. Hahah! 

Then went back to hotel to rest awhile and to also search about where to go, and so we decided to go down one station the opposite side from where we usually go. Longshan Temple Station. We had no idea where to walk and there were some underground shopping so my parents shopped there. It doesn't really interest me and jq because they mostly sell jewellery like jade and all those, and the target audience of all those stuff they are selling are the elderly. Anyway, so we came up and then my dad went to the temple. We saw quite a few monk standing by the railing and holding out a 'bowl'. They aren't really begging, but just standing there and hoping that people would drop some money in. 

Me, my sis and my mom stayed outside the temple, but my dad went in. So after he came out we went and walk around the area. According to the sign on the streets, there is a night market nearby. Huaxi Night Market. But it was daytime, so not many shops were open. 

And it was a small night market, nothing much. Mostly food. and GROSS food. Omg, I can never imagine myself eating snakes.. or turtles. I mean, those turtles look so cute. Although the snakes don't look cute, but still.. it sounds so gross. So we had nothing much to walk already, we went and took mrt to Shilin station. This was kind of a mistake, we thought that the Shilin Night Market was closer to Shilin Station but no.. it's kinda in the middle of Shilin and Jiantan MRT station. SLIGHTLY closer to Jiantan station. Okay, so we went to Shilin Night Market the second time, hoping that we will be able to find a suitcase that will store all our 战胜品! HAH! and we did, it was pretty.. okay. Not too cheap, but cheaper than usual. I also went down to the basement where all the food stalls are located. And one thing I don't understand is why they put the food stalls in the basement? I mean if you cook there, the smoke gets all trapped inside. Unless you have a super good ventilation, which I don't think they have.. :/  And of course after coming out of the food street, I smell like FOOD! yuck D: I had some nice hotplate pork chop for dinner! It was yummmm and cheap! I also ate my fav braised pork rice! :D 

okay, of course, I got mango for dessert at Shilin. It is very SWEET and... slightly cheaper than Singapore. Then took MRT back. And while on the MRT i played Bejeweled, and for the first time I hit a 400k score! LOL! Okay, that was ranodm, but yeah went back and i KO! LOL! I guess I was tired.. 

Day 5:

The trip is coming to an end soon! My dad wanted to find his fishing stuff, so we took train to this weird station which the name I couldn't remember... Anyway, things weren't really that well. So.. yeah. spend the morning pretty much looking for the shop and getting nothing in return. Then we took mrt to the Taipei Main Station. Firstly, it was a HUGE station and there were TWO underground shopping! But we only went to one. Initially there were quite a lot of things that I could buy, but I didn't buy as much, so I gained only a pair of shoe (which by now I kinda forgot how it looked like because I didn't wear it since I came back to Singapore). It was a very very veryyyyy long stretch of shopping. We shopped until we were tired and we sat down to eat my favourite braised pork rice and jq had her noodles. I forgot what it is called, but it sure tastes yum. It is something like Singapore's hokkien mee, but without the praws and it is more dry. I was feeling a little 馋嘴 and i continue to have ice cream after my main meal. FAT FAT FAT! Hahaha! 

And over there, we saw some really dope machine. Introducing to you, the DIY COTTON CANDY MACHINE. Me and my sis were almost like Sophia Grace and Rosie that went "Cotton candyyyy!!" Hahah! It's pretty cool, it works like this. There is a row box containing packets of sugar on top of the machine. Basically you just take one packet, pour it into the center of the machine and then put in 30TWD and the machine will start spinning. Take a stick from the side and start collecting your cotton candy! Well, integrity! I believe that if you put this machine in Singapore, all the sugar will be gone. The reason? The box is not locked and it cant be locked. So basically I had cotton candy and ice cream for dessert! LOL! So after walking to the END of the entire underground shopping (i think it was about 1km plus) the exit was SOMEWHERE near our hotel. So my GPS mode turned ON! I bring everyone to walk back to our hotel! Hahah, i was like I HOPE WE DONT WALK THE WRONG PATH, but i am just good. And when we are almost there I saw the shop I have been looking for my ENTIRE TRIP! Yes, it is a freking MUSIC SHOP! HALLELUJAH! Hahaha. It has become a thing that we buy musical instruments every time we go overseas. Of course, I dashed in and went STRAIGHT into the strings section. I looked and Violin. so stoked. I saw one that is in the 'not bad' price range! Heheh! <3 but we end up go back to hotel first.. showered then go back out to shop around ximending. and of course, went back to the music shop and got the violin! then we started to play the violin in the hotel room! heheh! initially we were thinking how much resin to put, then we just keep applying until the bow is able to make a decent sound! LOL! 

I tried playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Amazing Grace! (: Awesome night. Hahah! So eventful! It's time to try out on something new! JQ can play it slightly better than I do, but I believe that I will improve! (: we also went and buy my favourite 鸡蛋糕 together! 

last night already~~ hahah!

Day 6:

LAST DAY! Woke up late.... late.. I mean i am getting used to the room so I can sleep well! Hahah! :P anyway, morning had breakfast at hotel as usual. Then we checked out and got on a cab to the airport. Well, as usual, on car rides, i always sleep! the rain is awesome especially when you are in a car. looking outside and thinking back on the past few days. it was just bliss. and then here's something that kinda shock us, we thought that our flight was at 5pm! but no it was 3pm!! Thank God that we actually planned to be at the airport earlier. So we realized that our flight was earlier while we were eating at the airport and I ask my mom to take out the printed 'receipt' and then check the details then she saw that the flight is at 3pm! LOL! we quickly then went and queue for the flight check in and everything. phewww! And i saw cute stuff! HELLO KITTY AIRLINE! I mean everything is pink! and hello kitty! cute or what! It is by Eva Air! 

I will have to sit on the Hello Kitty plane at least once in my life! hehe! and then the flight was delayed due to the weather in Taipei, heavy rain.. so i kinda almost fell asleep while waiting. then when the plane is in the air, i fell asleep once again! Haahah, and i kept staring at this particular air steward. he's good looking, but i was guessing if he is a chinese or malay or what. cause he have the angmo plus malay look, but he can speak mandarin fluently. LOL! when I woke up, i saw one of the most beautiful sunset ever. It definitely was a wonderful end to such a trip! (: