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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

4D3N in Taipei - Warning: Long post ahead!!!

So, as you know from the last post, daddy was on leave last week.

As there was a long weekend coming up (HK handover to China day) , we did a spur of the moment thing and booked a holiday to Taipei!!!

Daddy bought me a Trunki suitcase! Here we are, at HK International Airport :)



Love my Trunki! (but refuse to say Thank you to daddy still!)




We have arrived in Taipei!!! Waiting for our car pick up... Turned out to be a Merc! What a great start to the holiday!Since we arrived bright and early, we checked in to the hotel and decided to go sightseeing :)

First stop, Hello Kitty Sweets at ZhongXiao FuXing.
There's a nice couch right in front!




The shop was Hello Kitty from top to bottom!




Mummy bought me this chocolate tart! It looks a lot nicer in real life!

Couldn't get a seat in the Hello Kitty cafe. We were there at 12pm and were told to come back at 4.30pm!!! Couldn't be bothered so went searching for the famous mee suah place! Ah Zhong Mee Suah!

Out of curiousity.. I decided to try it and wow, it's so yummy!

I helped mummy finish the whole bowl!!! Greedy me.

Daddy also ordered some Or Chien!

Seems like most people speak either Hokkien or Hakka in Taiwan!

After that, since the weather was nice, hot and clear day, we decided to go to Taipei 101.

Took some night view shots hehe.


Day view shot.. ok ok I'm sure you know it's not the real thing, just a poster!


I get to enter for free! Woo hoo! The perks of being a shorty!


Pretended to ride a bus :P


Actually the whole time we were there, I just wanted to sit on the bus...

Anyway... here's the view of Taipei and beyond!



Did you know, Taipei is shaped like a sweet potato?

Picture perfect!





Then, we went to see the Damper... some gigantic ball that keeps the tower from swaying I think!

At night, we decided to be adventurous and check out the Shilin night market (in between Taipei 101 and Shihlin we also visited the Wu Feng Pu shopping district... !!! so Kiasu, was worried it would rain the next few days (per the weather forecast) so we tried to SQUEEEZE as much into the first day as possible)

Queuing up for the famous XXL fried chicken.. hmm.. OK OK only lah.


Check out the long line...!!!Bought a drink while waiting coz the weather was very hot. This drink was pretty good, some Ai Yu Lemon Jelly thing

As you can see, there's not many English signs and people only speak Mandarin, so we had quite a bit of language barrier. Mostly pointing and grunting haha.

Here's the chicken.. finally reached the end of the queue.

Actually, tastes just like Uncle Bob lor!

Walked around the night market and bought these cute Egg cakes... animal shaped! This was my dinner coz there was nothing else I could eat.

SAusages! POrk King!

The next day we were lucky to still have good weather, so we headed to the Sun Yat Sen memorial in the morning.

All pictures with both mummy and daddy are taken by ME! So, they look fat since I'm short and the camera is angled upwards haha. Too bad.



Me, with cap, sunblock, electric fan and mozzy repellent. Got bitten on day 1, so mummy got paranoid. Managed to catch the changing of the guards and the Salute.


They have a change every hour. Quite serious and solemn affair.



View of the fountain outside the memorial.
Can see Taipei 101. Stopped by a nice bakery round the corner, called Bread Societe. But wasn't hungry so didn't eat anything. Just enjoyed some free air con haha.



DAddy trying to steal the buns!
When in Taipei, think it's quite a must to visit Din Tai Fung, so we walked to the nearby branch on ZhongXiao E road. Reached at 11.30am and no queue. Left at 12.30pm , the queue was stretching to the road!!!

Mmmm... yummmieee! MY favourite!


After that, we went back to the hotel, as we had booked a tour to the North East Coast + Chiufen (an old gold mining village turned tourist attraction).


First stop, Bitou cape trail. The northeastern-most point of Taiwan... I think.I fell asleep on the way there, was a bit grumpy to be woken up.


After that, we stopped by the coast to look at some famous rock formation that supposedly looks like a bamboo shoot? Honestly, I can't really see the resemblance lor!


Then, last stop... Chiufen! Ahhh FOOD! NOW we're talking!!!
Had the famous taro ball dessert... yumyumyum! Followed by some beef noodle soup!


There were SO MANY stall selling all kinds of FOOD!






View from the top... every house in Chiufen has ocean views!


Nice!










Houses by the cliffside...At night we went to a night market near the hotel, called Tong Hua Lin Jiang night market. But no picS!



Day 3, we went to Ximending.. another shopping district. On hindsight, should have gone at night. Oh well.
Saw some action... lots of reporters... and fire engines...



Turns out, the cinema burned down!

Shattered glass panes.

Nothing much to do, so we went to check out the National Palace Museum.

All the people we spoke to in Taipei told us NOT to take taxi, as it was quite far away and better to take a MRT to Shihlin then take taxi to the museum from there.

Argh... what a bad idea that was! From Shihlin we paid NT180 to get to the museum. We caught a taxi from the museum back to the hotel and it was NT250! Not a huge difference actually!

Motto : Just taxi everywhere in Taipei! Especially if you have a young one + stroller!!!


Anyway, not allowed to take photos in the museum, but the main attractions was a jadeite shaped like a cabbage (bak choy) and a jadeite that looks like a piece of meat and some famous paintings of landscapes lah.

All the exhibits were things belonging to the royal families.

The only part we could take photos were in the courtyard, so this is what the museum looks like from the outside. Quite grand, mountain views.

Again , taken by me, so they look fat.


In the evening, we went in search of "yu tiau" and soya bean.

I google translated the soybean.com.tw website and found a branch on FuXing South road. No. 102 I think. Very very nice!!! The dough was SO fluffy!!!!

Check it out, made fresh on the premises!

I get to ride the MRT for free haha.

On our last day, we only had the morning, so we walked around the Taipei 101 mall.





Then off we went to the Airport.

Didn't realise the Taipei Taoyuan airport was full of Hello Kitty things!

Here's the Hello Kitty nursing room...
Hello Kitty telephone booth!




Hello Kitty shop
Hello Kitty PLAYGROUND!
And Playroom! Spent like a good 20 mins here!


Sadly, it was time to go back to HK. But all in all, good trip. Managed to do lots as the weather was good the whole time.

Flew EVA AIR, which was quite pleasant. There were cartoons to keep me entertained :)

Hope you all liked the post.

1 comment:

louiseho said...

Wow, I am so proud of you. You managed to snap some photos of mummy and daddy, although they complained that they looked fat!!! So glad that you guys had a nice break... all looked so casual and happy, and of course food had to feature prominently for daddy. You look nice and sweet in the pink decor of the Hello Kitty outlets.