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.

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

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!

17th Sept - YangMingShan阳明山

YangMingShan

Bright but non too cheery, we went to Yang Ming Shan. We waited for the bus for like 1hour? I would probably scream bloody murder and write one million complain letters to SBS, TIBS, SMRT if i had to wait this long for a bus in Singapore! Whilst waiting for the bus, i saw a yanzi bus:


When we went to YangMingShan, it started to drizzle...and then super bad weather.. started to rain real bad and fog came in and we cant see any - Absolutely NO scenery at all.
Sibei sian ji pua - cos we heard the views from yangmingshan totally rocks... and we came a long long way from Taipei City to Taipei County..to fogs,cold winds and rain? CRAP!
this was Yang Ming Shan for me... flowers in a telephone booth

We went back to Ximen, and my friend went to shop in the shopping malls, which I kindda gave up shopping after awhile cos... the stuff there were so expensive!! I went to 7-11 and bought myself this:


Papaya Milk! My favourite! 'Cos of its alleged prowess in increasing CUP size. What Cup? What Cup?!! Shh!!! Secret* "nutritious value"!!
arbo how come Jolin got G-奶？

I watched TV in the hotel room till dinner time...and news reports were blah - they reported that Typhoon Waipa is hitting Taiwan, bring incessant rain and strong winds... which will pretty much sum up our time in Taiwan - stranded in hotel.

Desserts
Haven't you heard? Besides "diamonds are a girl's best friend", desserts are!
To offset the unhappiness due to the typhoon, we went to buy some desserts - which were delicious. They were introduced to us when my friend went to G2000 to buy some work clothes. The sales ladies were very helpful, and told us what to do, where to go in Taipei.. and where to get great food, what not to be missed. So ppl, when you go to Ximen, you can drop by the G2000 shop there and patronise the shop... and get some good and free touristy news!
Yeah, I know donuts are the craze in Singapore now, but this is nothing like the shits they have in Singapore. This donut.absolutely.rocks. Cos -
they have this - "pon-pon" Which is baked donut and not DEEP fried donuts. I love this pon pon donut.. i eat it every morning and supper ok! Smitten with it. totally. MUAHAHHAHHAHA!!!

this is mochi. not normal mochi though.
look at the inside! Blackforest flavored creme!! HOOTS! Very Oiiishi!!!

Have I got your mouth watering for more? Heh heh!

Laters! i LUBS papaya milk
! (not cos of the alleged prowess la!)