Sunday, November 4, 2007

23 sept - Hello Singapore, Goodbye Taiwan(and US)

5am, we left taipei for taoyuan airport.
145pm, i touched down at changi airport.
我看到了我家人来接机,
脑海里幻想中的‘久别重逢的拥抱’并没有落演。
我们是很传统的家庭。
回家的途中,看到的很多景象- 陌生又熟悉。
好奇怪的感觉。
--------------------------------------------
this is my wanderings done for US and Taipei.
I will STILL continue to wander though I'm in Singapore.
Stay tuned, yeah?

22nd Sept - last day of adventure in Taiwan - Yehliu

野柳 - Yehliu
Its a Eco geological park that has weathered rocks.......
As u can see, its VERY windy!
And has rocks in weird shape
AND now missus is bored....so:


101 things u can do with a float:
Act like a sailor
pretend its a photo frame
Ahh...the famous queen's head:

Saturday, November 3, 2007

21st Sept - 九份, 金瓜石,美丽华, 士林夜市。Jioufen, Gold Ecological Park, Miramar, shihlin night market

We took the train at Taipei Train Station to....Ruifang.

At Taipei Main Station

Gold Ecological Park

Admission ticket to... Gold laundering!
My POT Of GOLD


After...sieving for gold (dust), we went around the Park to see see look look.... but it was all hazy...This old railway track you see was actually a real thing, not pas fiasco. The gold diggers used this railway to transport crates of gold....but it was shut down in 1971. But the rail remains,


Real block of Gold.
Touch already please let me huat HUAT HUAT ah!
Then we took a bus to Jioufen

九份 (Jioufen)

*click on hyperlink if u wanna read more about this place!
听过陈绮贞的歌的人一定听过她以九份为背景写的一首歌。当时我还在念中学,听了听,也不知道九份是什么。就单纯的觉得,这位歌手是非主流的歌手。她的音乐让人觉得。。莫名的舒服。现在路过九份,忽然想起当年的这首歌,感触- 良多。
It has been raining cats and dogs, mice and cats, lions and tigers these past few days. A bowl of 'ginger taohuay with yam and sweet pumpkin' is very welcomed.
If you peeps trust my taste in food - (cos im the self proclaimed food connoisseur, mah!)
Well, this bowl of taohuay is a saving grace against the cold winds and peltering rain. 暖到心底!
Scenery of jioufen:


After staying a short while in Jioufen, we took a bus back to taipei.
AND i realised I opened a shop that sells.... shoes. Abit upmarket one... not those night market one pair TWD 400 one ok!
And then we went to Miramar shopping mall to take the Miramar Ferris Wheel!

now you see me,
now you don't!
In a VERY, VERY RARE occasion that I am acting cute. PUI!
Night view from the ferris wheel.

Shih ling night market


Literally translates to coffin
Coffin is a thick slice of toast, fried, sliced open and the stuffings stuffed inside.. Shown here is some peach fruity flavor. NICE!
I tell you, arcade basketball game is the craze here. "everywhere i go, everywhere i see!!"
BUt its good la, walk to where,sian can play.. somemore its EXERCISE mah.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Tea Brewing

This is host Daphne presenting on how to brew tea ala mock host show. Please enjoy>>



Video is in Chinese, people who needs translation are welcomed to ask me!

20th Sept - Taipei

The rainy days and dark skies made us thought that the day hadn't break yet.Thus we slept till like 11++am?
We got dressed and went to Taipei Train Station.
Our plan of the day was to buy tickets at Taipei Train Station (Different from the taipei MRT, ok!) to Taroko National Park (太魯閣國家公園) which is in Hualien.
But we met with difficulties...... as the coming weekend is the Mid Autumn Festival (long weekend holidays), thus alot of people will be coming back to taipei to visit , vice versa. The tickets were TOTALLY sold out (for the next few days!!) So, in the end, we were kind of 'stranded' in Taipei. So suay hor, got typhoon kena stranded in hotel room, after that no train tickets kena stranded in Taipei.
Anyways, so we couldn't go to Hualien to Taroko Gorge. BOOOOHOOOOOHOOOOOO! Its a tamade beautiful place that I want to visit lor.....cos its those country country side place, and you peeps know how much j'adore backward countries where fresh smell of grass and flowers (sometimes with cow dung! heh heh), breathtaking scenery and serene places reigns!! So I was super disappointed when I learnt that I would be stuck in Taipei - PUI! But the blessing in disguise was that I could change my air ticket to go home one day earlier!! That means instead of 24th sept, i can fly back on the 23rd! Whheeeeeeee! Haha, Limpei is homesick already ok!

So, after a foiled up morning, we seeked solace in shopping. We went to the nearest shopping mall - shinkong mitsuka and had a delicious brunch at the food court. After that we went shopping!! I got a TITUS AUTOMATIC watch!!! I have been lusting for an automatic watch for the longest time!! The way the second hand doesn't tick but move in a constant motion is just so.... sensuous! Well...after burning a hole thru' our pockets, we went to Taipei 101 to see see! The world's TALLEST buildling mah! Must do touristy thing and take pictures ma!>>


As we didn't bring a tripod out, we were resting the camera on top of our bags and then taking timed shots... we shot like 100 pictures before getting it correct. Haha, exaggerate only la! 100 shots the camera would have died liao! About like say, 8? Hehe..
Soon we were hungry (or to be exact, I was super hungry... as usual!) And we saw....Mister Donut!
Look at the wide range of delectable donuts. *drOOls*


After photo taking at the tallest building in the world, we decided to visit "Huaxi Night Market"
this was a night market where selling snake food is most famous. By snake food I mean that the food comes from snake,and not the food that snake take!
So there were abundance of snake soup, snake galls,snake blood dunno simi EEKKKKSSS! The snakes were locked in cages, u can just pick which snake u want and end then end its misery....


Bo la, Bo la, no pictures of snakes in cages la! Phototaking is prohibited one!
On a totally irrelevant note,
heres some nice shots of sunsets:


photo courtesy of my friend

Thursday, November 1, 2007

18th and 19th sept

18th sept
was spent in the hotel room 'cos it was red alert... and it was dangerous to go out.... and i was cooped in the hotel room watching devastating news on tv.
typhoon waipa was hitting taiwan full steam... and floods at other county looked scary... gushing water overflooding water beds, people threading thru water up to chest level?
AND one horrific news. METAL GATES at Yangmingshan was gnashed to....like crippled? Imagine taking a piece of paper and crushing it. That was the picture of the gates that were presented on air. Blardy scary. To think we were there just yesterday...heng ah! 大难不死,必有后福!HUAT AH!

19th Sept - CKS Memorial Hall, MaoKong, Wufenpu
CKS Memorial Hall

Don't even think of LOL! Who wanna guess what I am doing?! Hint: Look at whats written on top of my head..

And then we got bored....and decided to try something that i ALWAYS used to do:
StarJumps!
Jump#1 - too late!

Jump#2 - too early!

Jump#3 - jump finish already!

Jump#4 - just in time!

Then we decided to change styles:
NG#1

NG#2

NG#3

NG#4

Good take -

Dunno will kena sued anot...cos doing starjumps in front of a memorial hall doesnt seems to be prim and proper behaviour?Hmmmmm

After a string of jumps, we got tired and decided to call it a day...and we went for food! We took the MRT to Gong Guan...had KFC and!! Went to NTU! My SCHOOL! No la, not Nanyang Technological University, but National Taiwan University (NTU - 台大) the BEST University in Taiwan.
A walk into the campus made me feel....relaxed. The past few days left me miserable.....'cos the weather was freaking bad and worrying.... 'cos missus here has never been stuck in a typhoon before... and leaving US was a very sad thing. It reminded me of my ended fairytale, and that I have to face 'adult life' when I go back to Singapore - welcome to the the real world...where adults scheme against one another - PUI!
After NTU, we went to Maokong. There was this story behind this maokong place. Maokong(猫空) which translates to "empty cats" in English. This place is a land where people plant tea leaves, grow them, and harvest them....I also can't remember why in the end there were no more cats left... heh heh *sheepish* missus here getting senile. But I saw some dogs here! haha!
And ONE cat!
招财猫!! HUAT AHHHH!!
Inside the Gondola


Reached the...Summit..
i HAVE an EXPRESSIVE face ok!
We took a bus at the summit, and decided to rest our feet at this tea-drinking....place茶馆
see Taipei 101 from the tea drinking place
taking a picture with the lady boss who taught us how to brew tea.
YUM!!! Cha!

and soon it was dark.....
taipei 101 in the dark.

We went to wufenpu after maokong.. and shopping shopping! Haha!