Saturday, December 15
MY Taiwan Trip
Checked in T1 with much excitement..
Finally NO WORK!
Saw the beautiful sunset from the plane..
Very nice..
First time to TW, I was impressed by their Metro Line.
Loved this little blue plastic coin you used with a "dit" sound to enter the station..
Very efficient, very user friendly..
The frequency of the trains are definitely faster than our very own..
But the 士林夜市 was sort of a culture shock to me..
Every food you find there is upsized.
Taiwanese are a petite group of people but they like to make food servings BIG.
The chicken cutlet is huge, the bubble tea is huge, their desserts are huge!
Kinda made me wonder, where's the quality and hygiene?
Furthermore, the hope of finding good quality bargains diminished the very minute we stepped into this night market.
Things are far more expensive than our expectations, and the lack of quality did nothing much to induce buying..
*****
Went 龙山寺 the first thing in the morning..
The waterfall was pretty nice, and the fishes were really fat..
Since 西门 was just beside on the Metro Line, we went there for some shopping hoping that I would get some good deals.
But again, aint any..
I cant really fathom the fetish of putting GOLD chains or shimmers on every piece of clothing.
Colors can vary from bright pink to bright green, prints can vary from leopards to disastrous stripes.
Rather, 西门町 was a place for kids.
But but 西门町 had Dunkin Doughnuts, to which the variety was defintely much more than SG's Munchy..
After having a bite or two, we proceeded to the underground mall..
Seriously speaking, I'm spoilt rotten by the online sprees.
Because I got really good deals online, my expectations were sky high..
The clothes here were really damned expensive.
Then we tried to shop free and easy through 中孝, walking without an aim and ended up getting lost.
After having the dessert recommended by Jacky Wu, we were still lost.
After non stop of more aimless walking, we finally found a MRT station..
*六张犁 station*
(Where the hell is that)
Upon returning to the hotel, dear was munching on chips cos we did not really eat much at those places which we visited.
*****
Went 新北投 for our first experience of hot springs..
At least this was something new to us, but still the expectations of how a hot spring should be were not really met.
Still, we felt refreshed but sleepy..
And finally had a taste of white sulphur..
Had a nice tea break after that.
Enjoyable.
Off to 淡水鱼人码头..
Dressed in a tee shirt beneath, the wind still managed to pierce through my thick wool turtle neck and stung my hands.
We were very underdressed.
It was freaking cold..
The violent and merciless wind hit us vigorously..
We went there in hope to watch the Sunset, but the sun was sleeping..
-,-
*****
We had Starbucks for breakfast.
A nice one.
Loved my green tea latter and cinnamon pie.
Then it was up the tall tall swaying tower..
We were awed by the speed of the elevator..
1010m/min
Again, the outdoor observatory was freakishly cold at a low of 6 degree celsius..
The shopping area near 101 reminded me of Suntec City..
Then they happened to have this IT show nearby..
The show girls were really hot and pretty..
Plus the response of the crowd to the promoter was awesome..
Unlike the dead cats in SG..
五分埔, the place I had been dying to go.
Albeit a complicated place, the things were slightly cheaper..
But I ended up being so in love with this trenchcoat that I bought it regardless of it being priced at NT2000
-,-
Felt guilty when dear's legs gonna break..
I made him walk so much..=(
*****
Overslept and missed the hotel breakfast..
We originally had wanted to go 九份, but the lazy us decided to go for another round of shopping..
Or rather a place where the Metro Line could access to..
After having a sumptuous breakfast at Dante Cafe, we went 五分埔 again..
We chilled out at another Cafe..
This cafe amazed us with a HUGE mug of milk tea..
Like I said everything was horribly huge..
After an hour, the tea was not even half finished..
We shopped for a bit at Sogo, and went to da bao vegetarian at the food court..
Went back to 士林夜市 after dinner, nope, not the food section, but the clothing section.
This was the second time I tried to look for the mango milk dessert but they told me the mango season was over..
-,-
Dear finally bought something..
At the Puma shop..
*****
Weet.
Finally got my mango milk dessert at 西门町, but aint fresh mangoes.
Still, better than nothing..
Proceeded to the airport and shocked to find a super long queue..
It led to Jetstar.
-,-
Went T2 in such a rush that we had to stuff our dinner down to catch our flight.
We made it to the gate just in time.
*****
On the overall..
Not as expected.
We went to TW full of great expectations.
These rosy outlooks derived perhaps from the overrated commercialised TV variety shows, perhaps from my brothers and friends..
TW seemed a place for good food, play and hot chicks.
Perhaps it was poor planning on my part too..
We kept turning in circles amongst those areas that were accessable..
Overwhelmed expectations actually oozed slight disappointment.
On fashion
There was too much benchmarking in this industry..
They loved to benchmark the designs of branded stuff and then sell as their own at a not much cheaper price either.
On food
Maybe they really need to appreciate small varieties of quality food, not huge quantities.Not that the food is inedible, just that they like to make everything sweet.
LOTS of seasonings and spices are used to make the food taste stronger.
The bottom line: SG food is still the best.
Of course there were things that I appreciate there..
Travelling to foreign grounds is always fun..
The weather is something you can never squeeze out of SG.
I missed the weather, I missed the walking, I missed chilling out in the cafes with dear..
I missed walking down the quiet streets in a chilly weather.
I would walk the whole day and still be energetic at the end of the day.
I missed not having to work =p
*****
irony @
2:07 PM
