day 8 - taipei to singapore

the last day was largely a waste of time...we spent a good part of our remaining time in taiwan wandering around the streets near our hotel and waiting to leave for the airport.

yummiest cup noodles i've ever tasted, in beef, duck and pork flavours respectively. the meat pieces were succulent and big, and the soup was sooo good and tasty. i miss them. singapore should totally import them for us; i know they'll be a huge hit.
i think these bigger cups were the delicious ones. luck-e and the girls tried some other ones and they said they were horrible, so we figured they tried the smaller cups which were not as nice.




stocked up on snacks and drinks at 7-eleven.
alright, i admit i took this picture because of that face on the left - for those of you who don't know, he is wu zun, possessor of the prettiest face and nicest figure in taiwan. his greatest talent is standing around in shows looking very good, and he earns big bucks doing just that. clever of him eh? cute, smart and rich...i like. :D

boyband fahrenheit endorsing drinks...i didn't try these.

nor these drinks endorsed by s.h.e. (s.h.e. = ewwww)

i tried this milk tea, and it was good. it looked familiar though, so maybe we have it here in singapore.

this is one of the cheapest chocolates i've seen. i think it was about SGD0.50 for one regular sized bar, and the quality wasn't bad too. we bought more than 2 dozens.

had lunch at yoshinoya. their yoshinoya's nicer than ours, and has one different meal. i think that's why i took a picture of the menu.

i like this street name; it means lucky.

on the way to the airport. i was reluctant to leave.

goodbye taipei!

at the airport, taking our last pictures with wesley. he's such a cutie. it's kinda sad that he would have completely forgotten us by now. oh well.




delicious snacks. fried yam chips on the left and mixed fried crackers on the right. there's fried jackfruit, apple and green bean chips.

some snack made of honey coated pumpkin seeds all stuck together on the left, and iron eggs on the right.


tai yang bing. i love it! one of my favourite taiwanese snacks.


stones liyan and i picked up from chichsing tan (seven star lake).

hotel room card key that i forgot to return, from the hotel in taichung. pretty card isn't it? it's PURPLE! :)

some cheap, nice perfume. i want to get more next time.


so that's all. i really want to go back to taiwan, to see more of it, and mainly for the wonderful food and cheap shopping. :D

day 7 - taichung to miaoli to taipei

after we bade goodbye to taichung, we visited some fruit orchard in miaoli in the morning, and the place was really quite pathetic. we were all expecting a huge flourishing orchard with fields of green and healthy, robust trees brimming with fruits. what awaited us, however, was a netted enclosure, somewhat like a greenhouse, with rows of plants with pitiful, thin branches straining with the weight of half ripe, small and mostly still green fruits. it was a huge disappointment, so i didn't bother taking many pictures.

we took a trip to the martyr's shrine in the late morning, to view the guard-changing ceremony, which was held hourly. the place was very grand and rather pretty, but the sun, oh the terrible noon sun's merciless rays were beating down on us and making me quite miserable.





this is one of the young men doing their national service - standing and not moving an inch at various parts of the shrine. the poor things looked so hot in their starched, stiff uniforms, and the only body part they could move were their eyelids. they reminded me of the english guard. many people were taking pictures of them and with them, and trying their best not to giggle and tease them as well. i heard that if they moved, they would be punished...sent to detention or something like that.
see how this guy valiantly avoids my camera, preferring to simply stare resolutely ahead.

the guard changing ceremony.


we went to taipei 101 world building after that, taiwan's tallest skyscraper and one of the tallest buildings in the world. we passed on going up to the viewing gallery to see the cityscape from the highest floor, and just wandered around below. it's just like a huge shopping mall inside, nothing special. i want to go up to the top the next time i visit taiwan though...and at night, too, because that would give a nicer view.


we moved on to wu fen pu wholesale centre (i prefer to call it shopping heaven). there were thousands of shops with the cheapest clothes, and i went slightly crazy. we didn't buy too many things though, because the mothers were controlling the purse strings. never mind, there's always next time.

day 6 - tainan to chiayi to nantou to taichung

in the morning, we left the farm and proceeded to the alishan (mount ali) forest recreation area in chiayi county. apparently, its sister ponds, located 50m apart, are supposed to be the manifestation of two aboriginal girls who died for love. i like alishan primarily because it's cold up there, like having natural air conditioning. it was a great respite from the freaking hot summer we had to endure everywhere else. we had a nice leisurely walk through the trees, and because i don't usually go on nature hikes, it was a nice experience, but only something i'll do in cold weather, never in the disgusting weather of singapore. it wasn't anything special to luck-e and the girls though, because they have already taken many walks through forests similar to this one back home.

at the top of the alishan, ready to walk among the trees.


the sister ponds, one larger pond was called the elder sister pond, and the smaller one was the younger sister pond. i think this is the elder sister pond.


there were cool looking trees in the forest, like trees that grew out of the same tree stump, or extremely gnarled trees, etc. i really like this one, because it's heart shaped! it's such a pretty tree, and the heart is my favourite shape.


we walked out of the forest and saw the most adorable puppy on this path.

if only i could bring it home...

there was a school and a temple further down the path. there were also stalls selling souvenirs and snacks. the mountain is famous for its production of wasabi, and stalls were also selling that.


and so we left the cool, cloudy mountain after lunch and travelled down back to the scorching, humid lowlands.


i believe it started raining cats and dogs as we left alishan and headed for sun moon lake in nantou. i guess that was kind of a pity, because it was still pouring when we reached the lake, and nobody felt like leaving the warm, dry bus to venture out into the heavy rain. that, and also because the lake wasn't pretty that day. there was some work being done and water was drained out of it, so you could see the ugly brown banks all around; not the least bit scenic. so all of us decided to just go on to taichung and attack the feng jia night market.
on the way there...

mummy pointing at one of those silver water tanks that many of the buildings in taiwan have. i think the tour guide explained something about them; they have some use or symbolism besides the obvious storing of water. if there wasn't, i don't think i'd taken a picture of them. unfortunately, i honestly cannot remember what it is.

we reached taichung at sunset.

it wasn't raining but the sky was still very gloomy.....just the way i like my skies to be. hehe.

this was part of a doughnut queue that stretched down a long street and even snaked around the street corner. i guess singaporeans aren't the only insane ones who queue for hours just to get fat. i was, however, more interested in the cardboard cutout of mike he, my favourite taiwanese male actor.
there were so many cutouts and/or advertisements on buses of various taiwanese celebrities endorsing products, and i liked seeing them, because i don't see many in singapore (we mostly use our own local celebs, and i don't really like them).

the lift buttons in our hotel.
i noticed that there's no button for the fourth floor. in fact, there's no fourth floor. the fifth floor is the next floor after the third. it's obviously because 4 is deemed as an unlucky number as the sound for it in mandarin is similar to the sound for the word death. i thought it was interesting that the taiwanese went along with that superstition; i'd never seen that on lift buttons here.