Taiwan Escapade Saga 1 & 2

this shall be a photo log of my taiwan trip in day 1 & 2.. did not edit much of my pics becos i wanna show e original effects from my beloved Olympus cam... n also becos im lazy to edit...

day 1, we din take much pics.. onli during our late lunch after a major saga that happened at our hotel...
i decided not to bring the camera to 五分铺 for fear of the heavy load back.. n I WAS RIGHT.. cld barely carry my stuff back without the help from rain, xuan n shi..

day 2: we decided we reali did not take much photos.. hence we have to make up for it.. so i tried to camwhore whenever i can... its reali tiresome bringing along a non-compact camera while shopping..

DAY 1:

#1

we took a cab down.. cab driver was commenting how tourists like to eat at 鼎泰丰 but the locals dun fancy e food there at all.. he claims there r much better food outside than all the touristy place we r visiting..

#2

i tink crystal jade SG does this drunken chicken more justice than 鼎泰丰 did..

#3

this i must say is reali not bad...

#4

fried rice there is way much better than the SG version..

more taste unlike e bland bland taste for SG version..

#5

this is pretty and good too.. though i am not a v big fan of siew mai..

#6

tis is also good.. much much better than 猪排饭 in SG..

DAY 2:

Places of Interests: 西门町 &  士林夜市

#7

this is where we take our train daily...

our hotel is very near to 士林夜市 which explains why we cld go back there for 3days..

#8

not many self camwhore pics.. i did not reach my target of camwhoring myself in my daily outfit n hair.. becos there is no full length mirror in e hotel room T__T

n in taiwan, like very little ppl take camera out n self camwhore.. i felt weird camwhoring there... which explains e lack of many self taken pics..

whenever i took out my camera and wan to camwhore, i felt e whole taiwan eyes r looking at mi... so after a few shots, i hastily put my cam back...

#9

interesting sign in e MRT.. n its exactly what we did not do according to the sign... their MRT is almost similar to ours.. except ours can linger at e gangway (gateway?)... if i am not wrong, e design n works were done by SG..

they called it 捷运 there.. e 2nd day where its our first time wanting to take MRT, we asked for directions n said 地铁.. the locals's immediate reaction was no 地铁 nearby.. we were like 'HUH?? i tot there supposed 2 b MRT near our hotel.." luckily rain corrected to 捷运 den they understood what we had been trying to say.. so REM 捷运 there!!

#10 西门町!

#11

trying the infamous 阿宗面线...

i din quite like this for my 1st visit becos i rem there were a lot of weird weird ingredients inside that i dun eat... surprisingly, i tink they hav "improved" on their recipe.. i dun c so many weird ingredients inside anymore.. juz alot of 面线.. may not be good news for many as it may mean 偷工减料... hahaha but its reali not bad now that i hav tried..

#12

trying to eat up the bowl as well..

#13

eat, eat, eat non-stop in taiwan.. we tried the MUST-EAT 小吃 in taiwan... our FAV 锅贴! that's, erhmmm, i tink our lunch for tat day... just in case u r misled that we r v big eater, 阿宗面线 was onli one small bowl shared by e four of us...

八方云集 has not bad 锅贴.. worth giving it a try if u r visiting taiwan..

#14

#15

before our 锅贴 came, we tried the 酸辣汤 plus e 黑豆浆... again, i tink 酸辣汤 in crystal jade is much better... but their 黑豆浆 is reali gooooooooood!

#16

#17

needless to say, presenting the most awaited 锅贴.. the 原味 is the best...

#18

the nicest chua bing in 西门町.. actually is the onli chua bing we tried in taiwan la.. but den its already v nice.. e ice melts in ur mouth.. v soft, reali like snow (although i haven touch snow before..).. tat's why it has its name 雪冰.. n it was flavoured with milk.. so its v sweet.. if you ordered choc or sth, e ice is choc flavoured..

SG ice loses handsdown to TW ice... if ice kachang is made with such snow ice, i tink it mite hit some bestseller in SG.. quite an idea rite??

#19

yummy yummuy... mango snow ice :D

#20

so nice until we finished every single drop of the ice..

have u ever seen ppl finished the ice in ice kachang?? i tink it wld hav melted away while ppl r dilly dallying whether 2 eat or not.. so eventually we drink e ice instead of eating it..

#21

#22

the expert at work

#23

the extremely long ice cream we found... xuan wanna try this for the longest time.. becos i tink we went past ard 2-3times.. n she had been eyeing it..

we decided if we nv try, we nv will.. try it n can say we experience it in taiwan.. hahaha..

#24

so long until i got a bit sick of eating tat ice cream...

#25

what does it look like im doing??

#26

the amount of toiletries we have bought from one Watsons and one Cosmed... the bulk of it comes from Shi, the WINNER.. hahaha

i lugged back FOUR bottles of hair conditioner becos a fren recommended mi tis and the whole SG is out of stock islandwide.. FOUR bottles equated to approximately 2kg of my luggage weight T__T

i cldnt post e things tat i have bought for the past two days becos they are reali too much.. Rain was pretty sure that we cldnt get much things in 西门町 because the things there r generally more ex.. i beg to differ n proved her wrong wif e amt of things i can buy...
although more expensive, the items r nicer n more fashionable as compared to nite markets..

#27

Next: Food in 士林夜市

#28

i was so excited when i saw this gigantic hotdog stall... i tot i cld finally laid my teeth on nice yummy big big hotdog... felt so cheated when e hotdog is finally fried n realised the top part is juz bread... not hotdog! e hotdog was actually quite small wrapped inside that big big bun.. xuan told mi its corn dog... not gigantic hotdog.. so disappointing..

#29

taiwan has a different phenomenon from sg... no queue doesnt mean e food is no good.. if u r holding the typical sporean mentality n tinking of giving tis stall a miss becos there is no queue to it.. u r gg 2 have a lifetime regret of missing the opportunity to taste fabulous n marvellous 鸡排.. becos once u hav missed it, u definitely will not try it on ur 2nd visit unless like us, we hav gd recommendation from our fab tour guide, Rain..

in taiwan, no queue doesnt mean no gd.. tis is a marvellous tasting 鸡排 i have ever ate.. so much so that we packet another 3 more packets back to hotel to continue our gluttony..

but i did not get 2 eat it one more time on our last nite in TW due to e heavy rain which is another of my regrets for this trip.. all because of the stupid rain - no pun intended :P

#30

we din try.. juz take for fun onli.. according to Rain, its supposed to be not bad too.. selling fishballs in some 台湾卤汁..

#31

#32

#33

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And lastly, a pic for guys to rem...

i miss taiwan a dreadful lot.. almost wished i can live there for mayb one mth??? but i tink i mite b peniless if i reali stayed there for one mth...
reali hoping to go back next year... n 2 catch some of e scenery that i hav missed..
the next time, i wan to go 台中，高雄，花莲 n prob 台南...