Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 3

My aunt and I are always the earliest and the most on time pair in the group. Haha... Next day, our first destination was 忠烈祠, this is a shrine that commemorates the soldiers that sacrificed their lives in WWII. There are soldiers guarding at the main entrance and the main hall. There will be a marching ceremony whenever it is time to change the guard shift. We were there to watch the marching ceremony. I now can understand why Taiwanese are quite kin on not letting themselves returning to China. Over here at 忠烈祠, you can sense how strong the nationalism the Taiwanese has, you can't blame them on being stubborn over the China - Taiwan issue. They have used so many years to build up this country with a strong sense of nationalism, how could they so easily give up whatever they have built up. Just imagine if one day Malaysia insist Singapore is theirs, other countries must accept the one Malaysia policy, how would we feel. Will we be so willing to give up all we have built up all these years?


Thats not a statue, thats a REAL soldier, try disturbing him, all the police will charge at you



忠烈祠


The marching ceremony

For lunch, we went to 伍角船板 restaurant. This is a very special restaurant. It is a dream - come - true restaurant by a lady who dreamt of building a dream restaurant. The outside of the restaurant looks like a seashell, inside the restaurant, you feel you are inside a seashell, with special ceilings, special walls, special decorations and special utensils (Well, like in a cave as well). The only bad thing of the restaurant is that it doesn't have any lift for dinners and the restaurant is as tall as 4 to 5 stores high. The old lady in our tour group had a hard time walking up the stairs. Anyway, I took more photos than eating in this restaurant.



The walls


Her dream is printed on every chopsticks' paper wrappings






The utensils


Entrance to toilet


The ceiling



This is the lady boss of the restaurant



The outside view of the restaurant. Like a seashell right?



The princess of a native Taiwanese tribe

The next destination we went is the famous Taipei 101, we are allowed to decide whether to go up to the observatory on our own will, that is because going up cost you NT$400. My aunt and I however went up, you can see the whole of Taipei city in a 360 degree view on the observatory level which is on the 89th floor. The most amazing attraction is the lift going up to the 89th floor. The lift only takes around 37 seconds to transport us from the fifth floor to the 89th floor! You can feel yourself almost floating as the lift speeds up or down. Anyway, the view was quite magnificent although the weather was not at its best.







Inside the lift, the screen indicating how fast the lift is going up



松山機場







The world's biggest wind damper


小巨蛋


The world's fastest elevator

The next destination we went to 野柳地質公園, it is a beach full of naturally formed beautiful rocks. The famous queen head is also originated from there. The view there is just magnificent.




The famous queen head



Isn't that magnificent?



Finally, we went to the Yang Ming Shan Spring Resort for our stay that night. The resort was very nice, the dinner is acceptable (frankly speaking, besides Shi Lin Night Market, all the meals I had in Taiwan was only acceptable...). Every room has its own spring tub and a Japanese style shower with a magnificent view of the hills behind the resort. I had my first dip of spring water and had my dose of "康熙来了" before going to sleep. Haha...Thats all for that day, will update you all on the last day on another time, bye!


The super comfortable room!


The comfortable sofa~~~

Taiwan Trip 2008 Day 2

The next morning, we had hotel breakfast. The bad thing about being in a tour group is that you are forced to eat with your tour mates on the same table. The hotel food was a bit of a disappointment. After breakfast we set off for Taipei Zoo. On the bus, the tour guide told us of one interesting fact, in Taiwan, you are not supposed to throw your used toilet paper into the toilet bowl. This is because the sewage pipes in Taiwan are narrow, so throwing toilet paper into the toilet bowl might obstruct the pipe ways. So they will throw it in a little bin beside the toilet bowl (actually I think this is disgusting, haha...), anyway talking about toilets, toilets in Taiwan are so clean! (Even in Shi Lin Night market or places you will expect a dirty toilet). Singapore, "The Garden City" really needs to learn from Taiwan lor. Taipei Zoo nothing interesting leh... Just animals... Can see in Mandai Zoo mar, Mandai Zoo is seriously better than Taipei Zoo...


Hotel breakfast buffet


Taipei 101



"Whacha lookin' at???"




Cute sleeping Koala Bear


Energetic little monkeys



Another monkey?


The guy next to me is our tour guide, Kevin Yu

The next destination we went to is 大溪浪漫花海, this is the filming location for 天國的嫁衣 and 我的祕密花園Ⅱ. It is a flower orchard. We had our lunch in their own restaurant there, the restaurant looks very nice but food was not very great.



After lunch, we went to a D.I.Y lesson for making our own 香草香包, I bought one for my mum too! Then we went out to the flower orchard to admire those beautiful flowers~~~


Kim Samsoon's pig! Shu Mei, sorry, I can't bring it back to you. Haha...


Different 香精 for our 香包


Making my own 香包



Lavender garden





Do I look like the lead actor??? AHAHA...

We then proceed to 士林官邸, this is the old resident of 蔣介石 and 宋美齡. They have a enormous park open to public but their house is not open to public. 宋美齡 likes roses when she was alive, so she had one park of her park planted with 1000 roses, but when we were there, the roses are not that pretty, I think its because its not spring and before that the typhoon might have made the flowers look tired.


In front of their house


1000 roses garden


The car given by the US as a present for 蔣介石 and 宋美齡, they used to use this car to travel around.


The protrait of 蔣介石 and 宋美齡



The last stop of the day was 士林夜市!!! The most looked forward destination for me!!! However the tour guide told us not to put too much expectation on the food. The reason she gave was, firstly Hong Kong is the true food paradise, Hong Kongers knows all about food, how to cook and are very picky about food, steam a fish also can steam it better than other people. Secondly, Taiwan food is more towards oily and sweet, might not be what we Hong Kongers like. The tour guide allowed us to not follow the tour bus back to our hotel, so we are free to shop and eat until late late. Since we were not hungry, we went to shopping first!!! Haha... There were so many variety of clothes there sia!!! Kai En, you should come lor. Shop until you siao. Things are quite cheap also, we did bargain and while doing that we realize a lot a lot of Taiwanese understands and speaks really good Cantonese, this is due to the fact that a lot of Hong Kongers go to Taiwan for holiday, the Taiwanese are already so used to Cantonese already. (Our tour guide is also a Taiwanese, but her Cantonese pro until... You won't even know she is a Taiwanese unless she tells you). We shopped for almost 1 hour plus lor, went around comparing prices, never felt so happy shopping before leh! At last I bought 4 clothes, 3 pants and a belt over there and guess how much they cost??? Just S$100 plus only leh!!! Haha... After that, its finally FOOD!!! There are so many food different kinds of food in the night market lor. 炸雞排 that are bigger than your face, 大餅包小餅 lar, 生煎包 lar, 花生糖 lar, 蚵仔煎 lar, Tempura lar,檸檬愛玉 lar, 青蛙下蛋 lar, 珍珠奶茶 lar, 臭豆腐 lar, beef steak lar, sausages bigger than your arm lar, 滷肉飯 etc... See until eyes tired lor. At last we ordered 滷肉飯, 臭豆腐, 蚵仔煎, fried bee hoon and the famous Taiwan mango ice just for S$6 plus!!! The 滷肉飯 super nice, 臭豆腐 not bad, but like what the tour guide said, the 蚵仔煎 and fried bee hoon is kinda sweet, I don't really like it. I still prefer Singapore's 蚵仔煎. Haha... Now I can confirm, the real food paradise is still in Hong Kong. Anyway, after dinner, we took the metro back to our hotel, when I was in the metro, I noticed a lot of funny comics of Taiwan's courtesy campaign. When we reached the hotel and entered the hotel lift, there was also a comic about the courtesy campaign. From this, can see Taiwanese are really very creative have a good sense of humor. The next day we moved to a spring resort, so we have to pack up. To be continued...




士林夜市!!!


滷肉飯, 臭豆腐, 蚵仔煎 and fried bee hoon!!!


Mango ice!!!