Taipei Trip (7)
Day 7Last day of the trip liao. We were supposed to wake up and met for breakfast by 9.30am, but I slept until 9am due to tiredness. Nekki couldn’t wake me up until Hua gave me a morning call. I told her to go down to the restaurant first while I quickly bathed and packed finished luggage. I was feeling sheepish when I finally went down to meet up with the rest.
The feeder bus, which was required to transfer us to another bus to bring us back to the Airport, reached much earlier than expected. Nekki and I hurriedly went to get the pineapple cakes that we had ordered from the receptionist and then unloaded our luggages on the bus.
Thereafter, we switched to a bigger bus and arrived at the airport by 12pm. Our flight was at 1.30pm, so after taking some photos at the departure gate, we proceeded to check in. By that time, there were lots and lots of people (mostly Japanese and Chinese tourists) checking in. The Chinese tourists were very rude, pushing here and there, trying to check in quickly. But I didn’t feel that such actions could have helped them to check in quicker as the speed is fully dependent on the custom officers, who slowly take their time to process the passports. After waiting for 20mins, we finally cleared the customs and walked about the departure area. I quickly went to the bookshop to purchase 2 magazines. One thing to note is that the service at the departure area is quite lousy as compared to the shops in Taipei. Perhaps they felt that we were only browsing, so they could not bother to serve us at all. What a spark contrast! Well, it could have help to maintain our good impression of Taiwan if their services are as excellent as other shops in Taipei.
The transfer bus
At the departure gate
We boarded the plane and found to our dismay that the entertainment systems were of the older version. Hence, the selection of movies and songs to listen to was much limited. I watched Superman Returns and Trick2 (unfortunately, the plane arrived earlier and we only watched the movie halfway through). And it was home sweet home!
Back in Sg!!
Afterthought: Taipei is certainly a vibrant and exciting city, one which I will go back to next time. Love the food and service there, and now starting to miss the XXL chicken chop and milk tea. Also got to know Hua and Ru better through the trip. Think my relationship with Nekki has also strengthened along the way. Now can’t wait to go overseas next year on such free and easy trip again!
Taipei Trip (6)
Day 6Since we knew that the shops do not open for business so early, this time we woke up at 8.30am. Thereafter, we got ready for breakfast. We went to Zhonghua Dunxiao as we wanted to have lunch at Din Tai Fung. Along the way, we went into a shopping mall. There I saw that G2000 was having a sale: any 2 types of shirts for S$80. The shirts were of better quality and design than Sg’s ones, so I was pretty tempted to buy them (I had taken a fancy to a black color shirt but Ru and Hua did not want to buy the shirts). Nekki then offered to give me 2 shirts as a gift for our 2 years’ anniversary. I was pretty surprised and touched by his offer. While happily choosing the shirts, the sales girl was very helpful. She would give me useful suggestions and gave me the correct sizes to try on. She even gave me 2 clothes hangers (with soft sponge on the handles)! While packing the shirts and hangers into paper bags, she asked me whether I’m a Hongkee, then I said no and told her that we are from Sg. Her face brightened up with an enlightened face and she exclaimed, “No wonder I don’t understand what your friends are talking about!” Hee it was pretty amusing to hear that. It must be our level of Chinese is so 没水准 until Taiwanese people (their Chinese proficiency level is very high) don’t understand our language haha.
We thereafter proceeded to Din Tai Fung. We were astonished to find there were lots and lots of Japanese tourists queuing up to get into the restaurants, the main reason being that day was a Saturday. It was pretty amazing to see lots of buses passing by just to load and unload the tourists. We had to squeeze through the large crowd just to ask the waitresses to reserve a seat for us. The waitresses told us to come back in 1 hour time. Thus, we explored the area from the restaurant. It was pretty boring because the streets looked like 老人区 to me. Moreover, we had done most of the shopping the day before, thus we only wandered along the streets. Nekki was very tempted to have a haircut, but he found the prices to be slightly high for his liking. While walking back to Din Tai Fung, we saw an old auntie selling lots of cute wooden magnets and stuffs. Some more the stuffs are very cheap (S$1 to S$1.50)! Hua, Ru and I started to choose and buy a lot of things. It was pretty hard to bargain with the auntie because she was very grumpy and adamantly refused to lower the prices. In the end, Hua manages to make her agree to lower the prices with a smile (wow…Hua is really good at bargaining).
Outside Din Tai Fung
Examining the souvenirs
When we reached back at Din Tai Fung, we realized that they had already called out our number. Hence we had to wait for another half an hour before we could enter the restaurant. We were pretty impressed by the waitresses who had to deal with all the complaints from the customers, who were irritated by the long waiting hours. They would always answer with a smiling face, while their voices sound very sweet and nice. Another plus point is that they all looked very pretty! Guess it played a part in pacifying angry customers.
So many people!!!
Inside the restaurant, we ordered the famous 小笼包，云吞面，shrimp dumplings, 排骨面 and 蛋蛋面. I find that they all tasted fantastic, but I don’t know whether they tasted better than Sg’s ones because I have never ate in any of Sg’s branches. The meal does not cost very expansive (S$16) too. After that, we went to Taipei K Mall, which is situated opposite Taipei Main Station. The interior of the building resembles Sim Lim Square, with lots of shops selling electronics and laptops. My younger brother had told me previously that there is a level whereby there are lots of Gundam’s models, hence Nekki and I went to explore the level. Meanwhile, Ru and Hua went off to explore other areas of the building. Well, I found the scale of the shop small as compared to Hong Kong’s one. So, I only take a brief look before we went to Muji shop. The Muji shop is much much bigger than any of the Muji’s shop in Sg. There were also much more apparels and I found them to be cheaper than Sg’s ones! After buying a few items, we thereafter went to meet up with Hua and Ru.
Prawn Dumplings Noodle Soup
Beef Ribs Noodle Soup
Dan Dan Noodle
Over there, we saw the infamous 静坐 at the area outside the Taipei Main Station. It looked more like a mini carnival with people, who are wearing red shirts, singing and cheering. There were even a few rows of stalls with stall keepers capitalizing on the event by selling 倒扁 T-shirts and stuffs. Hua and Ru had earlier went over to collect free “souvenirs” (a倒扁 fan, the political party’s newspaper and a red ribbon to wear) Initially I was abit scared to go over, because you don’t know whether they will be rowdy or not. However, after seeing that there were several policemen guarding the area and several reassurances given from Hua and Ru, Nekki and I went over to the静坐 area to look around. I felt like whipping out my camera to take photos of the protesters but was afraid that they might scold me as it would be very obvious, so I quickly abandon the idea. As for Nekki, he could afford to take some photos using his phone camera as it is not very obvious. Among the protestors present at that time, there were many elderly and disabled people around. I was thinking that actually the youths and young working adults do not care about politics.
After that, we continue to explore Taipei Underground City Mall. Ru and Hua continued to shop for presents for their family (at the same time, they also shop for themselves). As for me, since I had already done most of my shopping, I accompanied Nekki to find a suitable present for his superior. Actually he has been eyeing a souvenir figurine for quite some time liao, but he wanted to see whether there are any other alternatives. In the end, since he can’t find any other better substitutes, we went back to the shop to purchase it.
By the time we explored the area finish, it was 5pm. So we went back to TS hotel to put our things and rest a bit. Meanwhile Nekki and I ordered 黄梨since we are too lazy to walk to find the shop that my younger bro recommends.
For dinner, we went to Ximending to see whether there are any other nice restaurants to eat. Since I was tired, I suggested going to the restaurant above Rainbow Hotel since exterior looks not bad. Hua found the price to be a bit on the high side, and was thinking of leaving the restaurant but upon seeing our tired faces, she relented. I was quite apologetic about it because the food doesn’t taste very nice and it was quite difficult to cook (there were 2 portions to the meal: one a barbecue part and the other a mini steamboat). Fortunately, there was free flow of Hazgen Diaz’s ice-cream to make up for the minus side. Each of them, excluding me, ate at least 3 cones of ice-cream! As for me, I only ate 2 cones hee.
Thereafter, Nekki and I went to play our favourite game there, shooting bballs into the hoops at the arcade. It seemed like basketball is their favourite game as lots of teenagers loved to play the game. We only managed to make it to the 2nd round (there are 3 to 4 rounds if you are able to hit the qualifying score) We played for 2 to 3 rounds before meeting up with Hua and Ru again. Thereafter, we split up to walk about Ximending. Nekki and I bought 奶茶 and chicken chop again before we went back to the hotel to rest.
Taipei Trip (5)
Day 5
After a “shiong” day, it was time to reward ourselves by going shopping!!! This time, we woke up at 8.00am and went down to have our breakfast at 9am. (Hua and Ru overslept again hee). The first part of the day is to go to Wufenpu to look for clothing. However, while asking for directions to go to the area, we found out that the shops only start their business at 1pm (it was only 10 plus when we reached there)! So we decided to switch to Sogo instead since it is just one MTR station away.
It was drizzling when we arrived at Zhonghua Dunxiao. We found that most of the shops in the underground city mall will only start business at 11am, thus the mall is pretty deserted. While we were trying to find the Sogo building, we saw my favourite Japanese restaurant (which is very famous in Japan): Watami!!! Nekki and I were really very happy to see it, so we decided to eat our lunch there later. Coincidentally, the Sogo building is just right opposite the restaurant. When we reached there it was 10.50am. We were told by the security guards that we could only go to the supermarket as the rest of the shops were not ready for business yet. So, we went to walk walk and to our surprise, at 10.58am, there is a voice announcement which goes something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to get ready for business soon. Pls ensure that your make up is immaculate and pls put on ur best behaviour when you see our customers later”. All of us were pretty astonished to hear it as I originally thought the announcement was for the customers. This shows that the level of service in Taipei is really up to mark as compared to Singapore. At 11am (which is the store’s official opening time), the staff started to bow and greet us: “欢迎观迎” since we were the first customers. At that point in time, although we felt like kings and queens, we were pretty embarrassed as we were not used to being treated like that. So we quickly went into the lift so as to explore other stories.
My impression of Sogo is that there are always some goods that are quite affordable even though some items are pretty expansive. However, when we walked around the fashion’s level, we found that the prices are pretty exorbitant. Thus, after merely 10 minutes, we decided to leave the area and proceed to Zhonghua Dunxiao’s underground city mall. There, we started on our shopping spree since we discovered the prices to be pretty cheap. This was mainly because the period that we went to Taipei was coincidentally their sale period. Hence, the shops over there were trying to clear past season’s clothing by offering at very low prices (30 to 40% off!). We also found that the shoe shops sell very cheap and pretty shoes (S$10 to S$16). Ru and I each bought one pair of covered shoe whereas Hua bought 3 pairs! Nekki found the whole experience of girls trying to shop for shoes to be pretty amusing as he kept “psycho” us to buy more shoes. One thing that I wanted to comment about Taiwanese service: their service were really good! They would greet you with a smile (except for those obasan) and even if you don't want to buy the goods, they wouldn't show a grumpy face. And they would always give lots of free gifts along with the goods purchased.
Underground City Mall
Time did fly pretty fast while we were busy shopping for our clothing. So it was with much satisfaction when we proceeded to lunch at Watami. While waiting at the counter, I found that the waiter at the counter is pretty shuai. He resembles a Japanese actor (the guy who plays the hockey goal keeper in the drama starring Kimura Takuya as a hockey player). Then when we entered the dining area (which has a very nice ambience with all the soothing lighting), Hua and Ru found another waiter to be very shuai. Wah..must be Taipei has lots of shuai ges ah. Ru ordered a beef bowl while the rest of us order ala carte dishes to share. The portions are large and the whole lunch cost pretty cheap as each of us only paid S$13.
My fav Jap restaurant!
Hmmm....what should we eat??
Okonominyaki..nice!!
Meat abit tough but still okie
Prawn salad: the mayo tastes good, while the vegetables are sweet and crunchy!
After that we went on to walk from Zhonghua Dunxiao to Zhonghua Fuxing since the underground mall is linked together. We found the underground mall to be much, much longer than Sg’s city mall, so it would be quite impossible to go into every shop within one day. We proceeded to go to Taipei 101. It is a major tourist attraction as it enjoys the honor of being one of the tallest buildings in Asia. Hence, there were many people at the building. The shops within the mall sell much more expansive clothing i.e. 600 sing buck for an Esprit leather jacket. At the same time, my contact lens started to make my eye painful, hence I had no mood to explore the shops and asked the rest whether I can go back to the hotel to remove it and wear spectacles. They agreed to do so since they also wanted to deposit their shopping stuffs, hence we took more photos before walking back to Taipei City mall station to take the MTR back to our hotel.
Taipei 101: very impressive!!
Interior of Taipei 101
After putting our stuff at the hotel, we went to Ximending to eat 阿中面线 as it is very famous in the area. Nekki doesn’t really like to eat pig intestines, so he passed all his portions to me to eat heehee. The dish was not bad, since I have gotten quite used to the local taste. We also bought XXL chicken chop to eat again plus 奶茶 to drink. I also bought Yakult to drink. It was only 8.15pm by the time we finished these. Hence we set off for Shilin Night Market (the shopping area).
The famous 阿中面线 stall
Mee sua!!
The stall where we buy the XXL chicken chop in ximending
It started to drizzle when we reached there. As a lot of people were carrying umbrellas, the streets became quite narrow and “squeezy”. We saw a lot of discounts at Baleno, Bossini etc. The clothes looked nicer than that of Sg’s and they were also of better quality since Taipei is a temperate country. I bought 1 top and some stuffs for souvenirs. Nekki finally bought a pair of jeans that he liked too. Then I also helped to bargain for Nekki over a hp casing. It was pretty interesting to bargain with the shopkeepers. If you are a gal, you just simply had to be more “teh” and the shopkeeper would oblige with more discount hee. Hua was super good with bargaining. She would chat with the shopkeepers until they felt too embarrassed to refuse to give further discount. Next time must jio Hua along when we go shopping at night markets. Hee. I was wondering how come Sg dun have such long stretch of night market whereby you can walk for hours and hours and at the same time able to bargain over goods. Sigh, what a big contrast.
One of the shops in Shilin Night Market
The stuffs that I bought
By the time we finished the whole shopping trip, it was 10 plus pm. Thus we headed back to hotel whereby we rested up. As usual I watch abit of "fan fan mo fan sheng" before sleeping.
