Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 9 & 10

Day 9, we lugged our luggage across the platform, took the metro to Zuoying and managed to board the HSR high speed train just about 5 minutes before it departed. Phew... Pictures of the interior, green fields as the train sped from Kaohsiung to Taipei in a mere 1.5 hours. Took us a grand total of 8 hours to get from taipei to Kaohsiung via hualien with the normal TRA train. wow..

Its aerodynamic head. actually we found out from this aunty in Kaohsiung, if you don't book allocated seats, meaning free seating ones, the prices are cheaper. We paid abt SGD 60 each for ours.

Back in Taipei and broke. Made one last attempt at the Taipei Underground Mall, but I didn't buy anything. Most of the nicer designs were gone since the last time we went. but still cheap! can still find stuff if you look carefully :) Saw this touristy place in our attempt to walk from Taipei Main station back to Ximen. Met this group of students who wanted our receipts for an environmentally-friendly project, I couldn't understand so I dropped NT10 into their box. They looked stunned and fished out the money for me.

Taipei 101 at night, we made one last dash to ShiDa night market, near a Taipei University. I liked the atmosphere there, a lot of students on a friday night, shopping, eating and doing demonstrations. The stuff here is quite nice too, got bags at NT200! (sgd less than 10) but because we were broke, we couldn't buy much. Bought a lobster flavoured and a sesame chicken flavoured one for supper. Regretting why I didn't buy the sesame one, think my mum would have liked it. haha!

Next morning, I spent my time watching Mean Girls in the room and because we didn't draw the curtains open, I didn't realise how late it was until the reception lady called to remind us about check out before 12 noon. Managed to bargain for extra 3o mins to pack up, wah we moved extra fast..

After we deposited our barang-barang, made one last dash at Ximending, ate Ah zhong mian xian again, still prefered it when we ate it at shilin, when it was chilly and freezing. Eating it on the hot day, wasn't really v enjoyable. Returned back to the hotel lobby, I attempted to repack my hand carry (again!) then we took the freego bus to the airport. luckily we met this couple we met earlier at hualien and gave us a hand with our luggage, which is simply uncontrollable by this time. Haha.

Home sweet home!

Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 8

At the wholesale area next morning., this whole sale area was less crowded than wufenpu, but the prices not that cheap too. Cheapest stuff still in Bangkok! Everyone kept asking us if we were going Kenting, a seaside area. But Kaohsiung's weather was really blisteringly hot!

We took less than 2 hours to comb the area and we went to the Lotus Lake. The taxi uncle didn't want to turn on the air-con. He said he had been waiting for business since morning and the petrol prices were very high. Wah...difficult being a cab driver too. And we melted at the back of the cab. haha.. Looks nice right? Wait till...

You see what happened to the water... Why didn't anyone tell us they pumped out the water out to prep for some sort of Games in 2009?? Anyway, after the renovation, i think you can canoe, do all sorts of water in the lake. But for now, it's a desert. haha..

Another temple with a digital clock

The weather was too hot to walk anywhere, so we took a cab (SGD 20 plus) from one end to the other end, to the biggest mall in Kaohsiung, Dream Mall. This is my lunch, I see this everywhere in food courts , I think the people in TW like to eat Jap curry?

Ferris Wheel at the top floor

There was a Converse exhibition going on..

The tallest building in Kaohsiung, we didn't visit it, sort of similar to Taipei 101.

Night-time at Cijin. We took a bus and then a ferry. NT10 per person, motorcycles can go directly on to the lower deck. Asked the uncle at the pier where to go eat seafood, and he recommended as the place below.

Aparagus NT100, nice home-cooked taste

Crabs NT800. once again I had a field day eating up all the onions, spring onions and chili. The taste of jiu ceng ta was very strong..There was one more fish dish NT280, which was very very fresh (just killed) and had a very very tasty gravy. Haha...the aunty here was really careless.

A shot of the water feature after we moved out of the restaurant at exponential speed. At Cijin, I bought the most amazing prawn crackers, which withstood manhandling back to Taipei and back to Singapore, and stayed prawny and crunchy for a week and a half after i bought it.

After Cijin, we took the ferry back to mainland and a bus to xin Jue Jiang night market, which is way better than Liuhe. The stuffy are more trendy and more young people here too. We bought a lot of bags here for NT200 each, due to a misquote by the seller which he has to honour. Original price was NT250, which was reasonable too.

Back to Kaohsiung. This is the platform ticket that everyone has to buy to get from the front station to the back station. The railway cuts the area in two and the platform ticket is the only way you can access both areas. Of course, there is a free underpass somewhere, but we heard that it wasn't safe.

Walking across the platform back to our hotel.

Supper, 2 cold noodles and one lobster flavoured one on the right, which I liked the most. Pity I didn't buy any to bring back to Sg.

Accounting slips meticulously maintained by our trip accountant, Lynda! Thank you vv much!

Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 7

They have free internet access at the Minsu too :) Ms Liu was very nice to knock on our door to wake up as up, even though we were awake already.

Our breakfast, my choice of pork burger, very nice and filling, but not too good because we were going to watch dolphins this morning. Totally forgot we could get seasick.

The ship that will bring us out to the open sea to watch dolphins

I didn't get seasick but I had a shock especially when the ship was leaving the mainland and in the open sea. The refractory waves were huge and I spent all my energy clinging onto the benches, which explains the shaky video i took. Very thrilling but a little scary...

Back at the MinSu again, a photo of its facade and another very pretty room.

We still had some time left, so we painted some stones.

Lynda and I, together with Ms Liu and her husband.

The garden

Before we left for the train station, we asked Ms Liu about this chao shou that was recommended and she first brought us to the bank to change more NT dollars and then took us to this store to "wai4 dai4" to eat on the train. It was good and very fragrant, there was also a free drink included.

We had quite an adventure on the train, because Ms Liu bought the tickets for the wrong date. We were departing Hualien on 14 May and she bought the tickets for 13 May, I was very careless not to check too. Luckily, we met a very nice train conductor who allowed us to remain on board and he also told us where there were empty seats which we could sit. Wanted to thank him when we reached Kaohsiung, but couldn't find him. This is our hotel at kaohsiung, the location was very good. :) close to the train station and MTR station, and importantly a clothes wholesale area. Haha!

We walked to the famous Pi2 Xie2 Jie1. Nothing here to see, can give this a miss.

At the Liuhe night market

Look at the bowl, it's so small! That's my hand on the left.

Fish stew, I didn't quite like this, not really a fish fan :P

Pet piglet! The second one we saw :)

Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 6

After I think merely an hour of sleep, we woke up around 6.30am plus to make it time for the train to Hualien. Here I got a bit delirious and almost identifed the wrong train, luckily yiting was more clear-headed. haha..

View from the train

Arriving at the Hualien Station. We met Ms Liu and Mr Chen and another group of Singaporeans from NTU outside the station. Ms Liu took our luggage back to Stone House and we started on our Day Tour!

A first taste of the Taroko Gorge

At the back of the cab

At the organic vegetable farm restaurant, to cleanse the bowel after all the street food in Taipei. haha!

Rice sprinkled with black sesame seeds and a preserved plum, the plum was good!

San Ba Chicken, I didn't like this at all, but ate a little because our guide bought it.

Vegetables and more vegetables!

Preserved plums, preserved for about 1-2 years

Sort of like a cold plate. Starting from the left, I think some sort of melon, in the middle, yellow flower petals and pickled lettuce.

Vegetable Hotpot

Stewed Pork

Pork with Preserved Vegetables. This was good, not too oily at all.

Prawns in herbal soup, very herby and very nice.

Fish with soya sauce based gravy. The gravy was very tasty! I had a field day eating up the spring onions. haha

I liked this very much. This was I think black sweet potato, very sweet and it was chilled like texturous ice-cream. I gobbled mine up in seconds. (Bought this kind of sweet potato again in Singapore but couldn't get it as moist as theirs)

To round the meal up, free flow preserved plum juice which was said to be able to cleanse the bowl, dispel gas and help with stomach distention. The taste was very good. :) And the total cost of the meal in air-conditioned comfort, NT 250 per person, about $12 plus Sing dollars, reasonable i say!

After lunch, back to Taroko

These are the Yan Zi Kou, but Mr Chen said that the swallows do not stay there anymore because they can sense some instability in the environment. They have migrated to the side we are standing at.

Can you see a Red Indian face among the rocks in the centre of the picture, his chin just above the river?

Another face here

This place is really magnificent, left me greatly awed by the wonders of nature.

The group of rocks in the middle is said to resemble a fish swimming against the flow of the water.

A dog drinking water from the river on the left of the picture, can spot?

Ci Mu Bridge

The drawbridge that only allows 8 persons at any one time on it.

Seven Star Lake ( It's an beach facing the ocean actually)

Help my hair is flying away!

At the Hualien Fish Port to eat sashimi and fish balls. Very nice, thick slices of sashimi and very dense fish balls, not the springy ones we usually eat.

Mr Chen's cab with his name on it

Our room at Stone House, very pretty and comfortable.

Playing with fireworks. My camera wasn't fast enough to capture the aerial ones, but it was really fun watching others ignite the fireworks. This was a smaller firework.

Ms Liu brought us to watch a cultural performance, this was free. I couldn't get a nice shot because the dancers were moving too fast and my hands were too shaky!

I think the girl on the right is very pretty!

Ms Liu brought us to the night market to eat the NT100 beef steaks. This stall was more costly about NT120, but quite nice, especially the spaghetti in the middle. The night market in Hualien is much more quieter than in Taipei and it had quite a number of stalls with old-fashioned games, such as shooting moving balloons with air pistols.

Back at the Minsu, where the other people were writing their wishes on their Kong Ming Lanterns (NT200 each). I wanted to watch them light up their lanterns, but was too tired and 'KO-ed' instead. Slept the earliest since we reached Taiwan. Haha!