台北 19 - 22 Aug, 4D3N
It was hot hot hot! 37 degrees lor!
Haha..i have some unmatched expectation. See, this is my 1st trip to Taipei and my only impression of the people are the people that i see on variety shows. The commoners who attend the show are all like so pretty kind and so! I thought, taiwanese girls are all very pretty and dressy! Hahaha..but nah, they are pretty much the same as singaporean girls. Some are dressy while most are causally dressed. I find HK girls more dressy. hee... the food is great! there's like so many eating places and every restaurant is just so packed. Difficult to tell which restaurant is good. hahaha..thankfully, all the food that we tired was good! Our itinenary was quite standard.
Day 1: Shihlin Night Market
Day 2: Bookstore + Half day tour: Nanya Rocks & Jiufen + Taipei 101 + xmd
Day 3: Bookstore + Wufenpu + xmd
Day 4: Sat in cafe to read
We flew Jetstar! There was a 50% offer and we paid only 300plus for each of our tickets. I think buying the extra leg room for SGD20/way was one of the best decision I have made. Hahaha..totally worth it =)
we touched down at about 6:30pm. Was hoping to find some cheap transport to our hotel and TADA! there's this express bus that brings tourist to differnt destination in the city for like 7SGD, super worth it, the journey is about 45mins and it stops right outside my hotel! hee... the best part is, they provide 2 way transport, on my last day, they will also come and pick me from my hotel to the airport for another 7SGD. Wee...Sg should also consider such service. it's great!
Our hotel, tho small, is comfortable and conveniently located. We both felt that they could make the toilet smaller and have a bigger bedroom instead. Haha..
Shihlin Night Market was pretty intresting. It's big, hot, crowded and has a wide variety of stuff. The choices of food was amazing! Hahaha..the XXL chicken chop was yummy! The bubble tea was yummy! The many many kinds of snack was yummy!
Shopping wasnt really that great, the stores sell almost the same thing.
There seems to be a dog culture there, but only 3 types of dog were spotted. 1. toy poddle, 2 eh..the sausage dog, 3 Goldren retriver. They keep the dog in their shops and bring them to walk the night market.
Day 2, we woke up at 9am and went out to have our breakfast. Since we have time before our half day tour, we went to Eslite Bookstore. It's my fav shopping place in taipei! It has about 8 stories of lifestyle shopping, clothes, display items, electronic gadgets and books. It's all the nice nice pretty pretty kind. love it!! I briefly survey the place and had to go back to hotel coz our tour to jiufen is at 1pm. On the way to Jiufen, we passed by Nanya Rocks, it was a beautiful place. the rocks were in rather odd shape due to the volcanic activities years back. I TELL YOU JIUFEN IS A MUST GO WHEN YOU VISIT TAIPEI! it's such a pretty place, love the food, the street, the tea, the view. wish i had more time there man. half day tour was just not enough!!!! Meimei stayed there for 2 days and she said it was shiok!!!!
Taipei 101 looks good, but had to pay SGD20 to go up the observatory tower and hence the 2 stingy sporean decided to give it a miss and just took photos of the building. haha..we walked the surrounding area a bit and headed back to xmd for shopping coz Taipei 101 area is all the atas brand and we cant afford. hahaha..erm...again, shopping at xmd was a disappointment. nothing really interesting.
Supposed to visit museum on day 3 but it was so hot that i cant bring myself to walk outdoor. Then Jac read some info on the web saying that wufenpu closes at 8pm, so we tot they open early and decided to go there early instead. When we reach there at about 10am,we were told that the shops only open at 2pm!! and they actually close at 10pm!! See...how unrealiable internet info can be!!! So, i went back to Eslite again and spent the entire morning there. I think the amount of time spent also kinds equate to the amount of money spent. hahaha...i spent SGD100 there, bought a lomo, 3 books and many stationaries. haha..they are too pretty to resist!!! Wufenpu is their wholesale market and things there were supposedly cheaper, actually, same lor! coz we dun buy in bulk! the shop owner sell us the normal retail price. -__-
By now, my right ankle started to swell badly.. anyway shopping here is not exciting too! it's almost the same thing we saw in shihlin and xmd. hahaha... at 4pm we left and went to buy 太阳饼, a shop recommended by Jinhua. In the evening, we decided to go find Leftfoot Taipei and went to 东区. We found the shop and the surrounding area is actually quite nice, abit like haji lane. Again, things were too exp and we decided to leave. Jac continued to shop at xmd and i has to go back to hotel coz my ankle was swelling badly. On the way back to hotel. Saw singaporean singer! haha..
on the last day, i got a bit more panicky with my ankle coz the swelling is still there and i was afraid that it will affect my work on sunday. So, i tot, i better dun walk ard too much and rest my feet. So i found myself a nice cafe in xmd and sat there for a few hours before my fight took off.
Overall expenditure:
Flight + Accomon = OKS
Local transport + food = 100
Souvenir - 100
Skincare = 100
Eslite Bookstore = 100
Random shopping = 100
On the whole, i love jiufen, i love eslite bookstore, i love taiwanese tea. While taipei is great, i think i like HK more. haha..also dunnoe why. Maybe coz i watch more HK drama vis-a-vis Taiwanese drama? hence, stronger affiliation???? hahahaa...
