Next morning, I woke up and had my second round of spring bath, after the morning bath, my aunt and I went around the hotel for photo taking, how can we miss such nice sceneries. Breakfast was ok, but the great view compensated everything. After that we set off to our 2nd last destination of the tour, the famous town on the hills, 九份!!!
The view outside of our room
The view you will get while spring bathing
Japanese style bathing with magnificent view
The overall view
The outer spring pools and a normal swimming pool
The overall view of the hotel
The outer spring pools
Swimming pool
Good weather!
The spring water, the rocks have turned brown because of the sulphuric contents in the water
Breakfast with an awesome view!
Ready to set off for 九份!!!
九份 is a town on a mountain, I am going to tell some interesting facts about this town. 九份 name came about because there was nine families living on this mountain long time ago, so every time, these people go down the mountain to buy things, they buy 九份, so this is how the name came about. Because of its beautiful scenery and interesting streets, the town was used as the filming location for the famous movie 悲情城市 whose lead actor was 梁朝伟. 宮崎 駿 when coming up with spirited away, used the town as a model of the town he was going to create in the movie . Shocking? 九份 is a beautiful mountain town with a lot of souvenir shops and food! Next Taiwan trip, please suggest this place, its a attraction not to be missed!
The streets in 九份, they look very Jap style, don't they? For those who have seen "Spirited Away", does this look like the street where the girl's parents turned into pigs?
Look at the name of the stall, shen keng, shen keng, like some thing deep from the toilet bowl and its still smelly toufu, haha... But its nice leh... AHAHA...
Shan zhu sausage, nice!
The beautiful scenery on 九份!!!
We had our lunch over there and I bought tie dan, come back share with you all. Hehe...
Ru rou fan, ru rou chao cai and fu zhou yu wan~~~ This is Zhang Ji, quite a famous food stall on 九份, but the ru rou fan is not as good as those in Shi Lin.
Beef noodles~~~
The final stop for the tour is 西門町, a famous shopping district for youngsters, you can find all the most fashionable, most trendy stuff over there. It is also a place where singers always hold their album release events. I bought a few clothes over there and finally ate what the tour guide introduced, mian mian bing!!! Mian mian bing is also ice, but they are ice that looks and feels like snowflakes. Before we headed for the airport, my aunt and I shared a bowl of Mango mian mian bing!
Ximen station
The street will be crowded with fans when singers hold their events over here
Mango mian mian bing~~~ Woho~~~ Kou gan chao zan!!!
Let you all look at the details. This is how the ice looks like. Mian mian de
The bing stall at 西門町
We then headed to the airport. The terminal we used was terminal 2, the newer terminal and the base for EVA Air, few other airlines that uses the terminal include Cathay Pacific and Dragonair. It is like terminal 3 of Changi Airport, mainly for Singapore Airlines and only a few other airlines join in using it. So the terminal was not that packed. But for a new terminal building, I think the design and facilities needs serious improvement. Firstly, the floor was full of dirt marks, making the terminal tired looking, the air side seriously lacks push carts for hand carry items, the toilets were pathetically small, which should not be the case for an INTERNATIONAL airport, and the duty free shops and eateries are seriously lacking at the air side.
Our tour guide, Ying Jie
Taipei Zhong Zheng Taoyuan International Airport (Departure Hall)
My boarding pass
Time to go in
Where are the push carts???
They have a eatery selling local delicacies, but no one there de leh. I wanted to eat the orh ah mi sua, but my aunt say since there is no one eating, the food might not be fresh, so suan le lor. But this very local signboard contrast greatly with the modern terminal building, so quite interesting
Our return flight was on an A330 -200 plane, not my favourite plane and not what I would prefer to fly with. Due to the width of the A330, seats in this aircraft type have to be narrowed and many airlines including Cathay Pacific would squeeze more seats into the aircraft sacrificing seat pitch (leg room) (More seats means more money). Therefore every time I am on an A330, its like seating in a very squeezy space for many hours. However, EVA Air gave me a pleasant surprise! The seat pitch on their A330 is ENORMOUS!!! Even though the seat width was still the same, the legroom was unbelievable! You can seat cross leg or stretch out your leg without ramming your knees into the seat in front of you, making the A330 very comfortable to seat in. The dinner on the flight was better than the lunch on the flight to Taipei, but still, quite disappointing, we had ji si liang mian, I didn't see any chicken, just ham and eggs on top of gray coloured noodles... Service was again great! The cabin crews are all very pretty. Haha... There are PTV on this flight, the IFE is still AVOD, but not as fantastic as Cathay Pacific's. I watched "康熙来了" again, haha... Got to take a photo with the ISM (Inflight Service Manager) before I alight the plane.
A330 - 200
Bye bye, Taiwan~~~
See that enormous legroom!!!
Stredded chicken cold noodles, where is the chicken??? Again another sub standard airline meal, bo bian, who tell us to be on such a short flight...
The beautiful cabin
Photo taken with ISM, the in charge of all the other cabin crews on the flight
Conclusion
This trip changed my impression of Taiwan, even though Taiwan has its rotten media culture and bad politics, this is where we get our feel of Taiwan. Taiwanese actually are a group of very passionate people. As I hear from the tour guide about how the government comes up with solution to solve traffic problems in Taipei, I actually feel that Taiwan in a sense is also quite systematic. Taiwanese are also a environmental friendly kind of people, you can see obvious traces of it everywhere, in Taiwan, they don't provide plastic bags, in Taiwan, you can only on your car's or bus's air-con 3 minutes before driving off, in Taiwan you don't see beautiful packaging, but more food if you buy simple packaging, less food and more expensive if you buy beautiful packaging. And the Taiwanese really follow the rules set. Taiwanese is a group of people that love cleanliness, go visit the toilets anywhere in Taiwan, even those in night markets, there is only one word that can describe them, "clean". Although Taipei did not met my expectation of a modern capital city and the food, even though a lot of variety is really not that great as I expected, but the good points compensated them. There are still so much to explore, but that can't be done in a 4 days tour. I will surely go to Taiwan again in the future!
