Taiwan Trip Photos II - Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Place

The first stop on the second day was Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Place a.k.a Zhi You Square. Its scenery was simply breath-taking and due to time constrains, we ran God knows how many kilometres from the entrance to the building and then hurrily climbed the flight of stairs to reach the top of the building for camwhoring. At the end of the photo sessions, I felt heat enveloping me although it was really windy out there. Phew....

Taiwan Trip Photos I

Snacks and local delicacies are one of the attractions in Taiwan. We tried to taste as many as we could during the night market visits.White flesh bitter gourd juice. I had never seen bitter gourd of this kind. That was really an eye-opener. This stall was the first stop upon arrival at Xi Men Ding.

The lady boss was very friendly and humorous. Upon seeing us camwhoring in front of her stall, she offered 2 bitterguards for us to pose with ;)

Ah Chung Mee Sua. This stall was a must-try by merely looking at the long queue. The 3 of us could not tell what's so special about this Mee Sua. Perhaps, it's the gravy. If you love pork intestines or stomachs, you would definitely enjoy this Mee Sua.Chinese sausage. There were a lot of flavours to choose from. I went for the original flavour. Taiwanese likes to add pepper and spicy powder to its snacks. Again, I prefer to go for the original ;) My sis and Jolene posing with the sausages. Jolene's sausage was not meaty at all. It was made up of glutinous rice. Yippie! My turn to pose. Borrowed Jolene's sausage. Hehe. Yikes, let's pose together :) In case you are wondering, this is a cup cake made up of eggs and is filled with sweet potato.Stinky Beancurd (Chou Tofu). The smell was indeed provoking. Nevertheless, the tofu tasted surprisingly bland. We were expecting the taste to be as provoking.Next, we went to Jiu Fen. It's a nice place which is situated on the hill top. There were lots of shops and stalls lined along the sides from the bottom of the hill right up to the top. Jimmy (the local tour guide) recommended us to a quaint shop which sold fish ball noodles. Being Mandarin illiterate, we requested Jimmy to place order for us. Jimmy ordered different type of noodles for us - meehoon, mee, and kuey teow-like noodle. The latter had a great texture which I like the best. The mee was also good. I may sound mean but I can't help to notice this strangely dressed lady at a stall in Jiu Fen. She was selling sausages. You should have listened to how she spoke as well. Put it in a nice way, there're entertainment and food at one stop. Not bad. Apparently, a number of celebrities had stopped by her stall previously, according to photographs neatly posted around her stall. Er,....I am not exactly sure what this is. My guess would be its made up of glutinous rice flour and stuffed with vegetables. It looked like a sweet delicacy until you take a mouthful bite into it. Another interesting snack we found is Yam cake. Unlike the ones we have here, the cake/dough was springy and Yam of bite sizes were found all in one piece. Although I am not a huge fan of Yam cake, I would give a thumb up for this. It's not heavily flavoured - just a slight tinge of pepper and salt. Time for dessert! The colourful cubes were made up of sweet potatos. Though it's rather cooling up on the hill top, we opted for the chilled one (there were a selection of hot and chilled ones). The black pearl-looking beads were bubbles a.k.a black pearls! My favourite! They were chewy and springy - excellent to be chewed upon ;)This is a random shot. Scenery of the yard behind a restaurant where we had one of our lunches. It's rare for a city girl to see such a huge piece of greenland.

Dishes we had in the Charcoal Resort at Guba. Most of the dishes had charcoal elements. I like the sandwich and "mantou". The charcoal noodle was kind of salty. Perhaps it was due to the mussles? *shrug*

Okies, the above all are the photos on food I have with me. I am awaiting others to send or post them in Facebook for grabs ;p

Taiwan Trip during Spring (26th April - 2nd May 2009)

A destination is now being scraped off from my "To-Go" list. Yay! One of my New Year Resolution is accomplished =)

I like the weather in Taiwan during Spring- cooling, refreshing and chilly. However, since my return, I notice that it's rather windy in Malaysia despite the mighty sun showing no mercy on us.

The trip wasn't one of the greatest but looking through the photos taken did bring chuckles and grins, which clearly showed that I did enjoy the trip nonetheless. Perhaps, it wasn't the places we went but the people we went with. I must say Jolene deserves the credit. She made the entire journey fun and enjoyable. Thank you, Jolene! Having said that, the others in the group also added fun to the trip. Thank you!

There were 2 tour guides accompanying us throughout the entire trip. They were Chris (tour leader from Malaysia) and Jimmy (local tour guide from Taiwan). Although my command in Mandarin language isn't all that good, I noticed that the pronunciation of some words spoken by Jimmy weren't that accurate due to his local accent, I believe. He spoke the exact same way as Rainie Yang in the drama "Miss No Good", which then stirred some laughter from me. I had been holding my laughter on the first 2 days.

I am uploading photos to Facebook (while awaiting another batch of photos from Jolene). So, those of you who have added me in Facebook, kindly check them out ;) At the same time, I am trying to organize my posts and photos on this blog. There are too much to talk about and I am trying my best to lay them out well. Right now, I am not sure where to start. Hehe.

Well, let's start from the basic information. The trip was a 7 days trip and it costed MYR 2396 inclusive of flight fare, accomodation (hotels ranged from 3-star to 4-star), meals, entrance fees to 2 theme parks, train ride, bullet train ride, boat ride at Sun Moon Lake, and tipping.

In terms of scenery, Taiwan indeed has a lot to offer. There are many mountains and temples. For those who are more adventurous, extreme water sports and mountain climbing are the options one can venture.

Taiwan is a shopping paradise to most women. Most night markets have quaint stalls selling cosmetics, accessories and clothings, apart from local delicacies. We did buy some masks to re-hydrate our dried skin. It's indeed very hydrating and the price is very reasonable, I must say. A box of mask (10 pieces/free 2 pieces) was only priced at NTD200 (about MYR22).

Taiwanese ladies know how to groom themselves very well. Most ladies I came across applied make-up and they dressed relatively fashionable. They also had very good complexion.

To food-lovers, there are a wide variety of local delicacies and specialties one must try. Just to name a few, "Smelly Tofu", Mee Suah, Oyster Mee suah, Fried Oyster, Bubble Tea, Fruity Ice Blends, Bittergourd (white flesh) juice, Chinese Sausage, Spring Onion Cake, Pork Chop, Pineapple cake, Taro cake, Salty soya milk with Youtiao (Chinese cruller fried bread stick or Chinese doughnut) and Pork organs (blood - in the form of rectangular blocks and black in colour, stomach, intestines, tongue and ear). Interesting?

I am not sure about you, but I am rather particular about restrooms/public toilets. They are not very impressive in Taiwan mainly because they emit foul smell and some designs are really down to the basics - no sign of toilet bowls. What was found was an approximate 15cm width of drain for the discharges to flow into a waste respository. At one point of time, I was under the impression that I was in China. I also noticed that rubbish bins were scarce in the 36191 square kilometres island. Fear of bom attacks/pranks? *shrug*

The highlight of this trip is the hotspring spa. I really enjoyed it very much. With the help of the water pressure and 21st century technology, an ordinary looking pool is turned into a spa and "massage machine". They were meant to "massage" shoulders, legs, thighs, bottoms and spine/back. The water was only luke warm, which was more acceptable to a majority of people. Hopping into a hotspring gave a different sensation. The water was hot and if you are sensitive to your body reaction, you could probably feel you heart is beating faster and blood is circulating quicker. It was a pity that we only stayed for a night at the resort.

Two years back, I vowed to myself that I would not go for rides at theme parks that would make my heart skip a beat, after braving through rides that tossed and turned me 180 and 360 degrees. Two years had elapsed and I found myself entering another theme park - Leo Foo Village. It was relatively small compared to Sunway Lagoon. Most rides in Leo Foo Village were rather short although about 99% of them shared similarity with Sunway Lagoon. Anyway, there were a couple of the rides which caught us off guard. One actually tossed and turned us around up in the air once we reached a certain height. It was no wonder why there were 2 safety measurements taken for the ride - an overhead buckle and one in between the legs. That's a good surprise ;)

All in all, the trip did not actually meet my expectations. Perhaps, I had set high expectations owing to the extensive advertisements by the Taiwanese tourism board. I was warned by a friend previously that Taiwan was a boring place. It's actually not a boring place. If you love nature, there are plenty to do. If you are adventurous with food, Taiwan has plenty to offer. There's no need to reiterate how many night markets, departmental stores and shopping malls throughout Taiwan if you are there for shopping. The shoes are worth buying as I notice that the quality of the materials used as the sole were good - they are not slippery and the prices were fairly reasonable (about NTD 310 to NTD400 per pair, approximately MYR40 to MYR45).

Childish?

You would be surprised how you acted childish at times. It's really an act of simplicity and innocence, to a certain extent. While I was playing with 5 year old Shirley (a little girl I met during my recent Taiwan trip), my friend pointed out how childish I was. LOL. I reckon you would need to think like a child to click with one, just to ensure the wavelength is of the same frequency.

Probably I was really bored while seated in the bus and I suppose you could imagine what a bored person can do. I realised how easy and simple a kid can be pleased. Perhaps not all kids demand the same level of fun and complexity but Shirley can be warmed up pretty easily. A few simple tricks (and repeating ones) were enough to tickle her laughing buds. It took me by surprise how much I missed the gleeful laughter of a child.

Looking at Shirley reminded me the life of a child. It's usually care-free, innocent, simple and fun. Perhaps becoming childish once in a blue moon would free up one's mind for a while. At least, we remember to breathe and laugh =D

Greetings from TaoYuan, Taiwan

It feels good again to be able to blog after some time =) I am now at TaoYuan airport, awaiting to board. Apparently, we need to be in the airport two and a half hours prior to departure. I didn't know why at first. Now, I do. The security checking on luggages is pretty "manual". Officers would demand passengers to open luggages if they did not go through the screening. Passengers were told to wait at the counter until the luggages successfully went through. So, you can pretty imagine the queue at the counter.

I am not really looking forward to doing my laundry =p 7 days of laundry!! Argh! Anyway, I will try to post photos as soon as I get them downloaded to my laptop.

Okies, signing off.......Not used to blogging with people walking behind my back.