last stop of our free & easy … taipei

well we have reached the final stop of our free & easy taiwan … so here we are in taipei - time for shopping !!!  having been here for quite a few times, i must say i m not a big fan of taipei. it felt pretty much like back home again, a city congested with people (partly because it's a weekend).

the only highlights worth mentioning have to be the followings:

• taiwan student protest - this was just at the street behind our hotel, we went for a short walk accompanied by our taiwan friend. the scene was beyond my comprehension and btw everything was very well-controlled and organized. 

sunflower protest 2014 (sharing a historic moment with taiwan)

• chongshan underground mall - longest underground mall that connect 3 subway stations from shuanglin to chongshan to taipei rail station. enjoyed a "dry" leisure walk away from the rain, done most of our shopping in a pintoo shop :) 

• eslite bookstore - opens 24 hours a day, perfect place for nite owls like me *wink* great place to browse from a huge collection of books and enjoy the serenity without screaming kids running around. how nice to have one like this in my home country though i greatly doubt the actualization haiz … in fact most of our bookstore chains are already closed in this current technology age.

• wu lao guo hotpot: my first ever supper at 2am in taiwan… conclusion is yummy but sleepy *slurp*

ok that's all … time to go home lo. it was a very fruitful trip, we did it !!! managed to complete most of our planned itineraries and venture to places beyond taipei. i felt accomplished \(^o^)/

bye bye taiwan -- 2014 --

highlights of "nine portions" and "ten points" :)

did you manage to guess the places from my subject title? well pretty easy isn't it *wink* yup they are 九份 and 十分 … prior the trip, my friend and i were feeling kinda torn over which b&b to choose from. we had a tough time deciding because of our concerns over the legality, cleanliness and safety of the 名宿. in the end, we decided to trust tripadvisor and go with good times b&b (美好时光). it was not too bad after all :) the place is clean and within close proximity to jiufen old street. however there are 3 pointers to be mindful about:

1. there is no tv in the room >o< … so make sure you are well equipped with your tablet if you are a tv junkie (like me). alternatively you may catch the un-cut "national geographic" channel live from your room window hiakz hiakz.
2. some of their rooms may have one side of the windows facing tombstones. if you find that disturbing, you may check with the b&b boss in advance to pick a more appropriate room. 
3. last but not least, the most traumatizing item for us … there is no toilet door !!! hahaha not sure if this is an intended design of the "bali" room meant for honeymoon couples. do let me know if you have inputs on the other rooms.

so here's the highlights for our last 2 days in jiufen:

• jinguashi: visited the gold ecological park, notable for its historic gold and copper mines (already depleted in current days la…), toured around the well-preserved 4-joint japanese residences. also gotta hopped on a tourist bus that drives us around jiufen mountains for only 15 NTD, definitely worth it !!! during the ride, you can check out the 金瓜石黄金瀑布, Cyuanji temple (with a huge Guan Gong statue *o*), yin-yang sea (with 2-shades of sea color) … and if you are lucky on a clear weather day, you may even find the 黑金刚 !!! heehee don't worry that's just a mountain with a shape that look like a king kong from afar.

jinguashi - gold waterfall

• ah mei teahouse: finally gotta leisurely enjoy a cup of tea with my book :) no worries on when to set off from jiufen since our b&b is just a stone away *yippee* this teahouse is known for its japanese architecture and rumored to look like the building of Yubaba in "Spirited Away". unfortunately i did not get to capture any picture as we were there quite late (you may check out this link for more details of the teahouse) and the night view is probably best viewed in person heh heh.

• houtong cat village: this station is a must for cat lovers … cats, cats, and cats everywhere!!! a lot of local/foreign photographers came here to capture the best moments of these cuties. 

houtong station - one of the stations along pingxi rail tour

十分瀑布 (note: quite a distance from shifen station)

• pingxi rail - pingxi, shifen: tired but fulfilling rail tour. visited the suspension bridge, pingxi old street, shifen old street, 十分瀑布 (yea another waterfall haha) … and the most important itinerary of the day has to be 放天灯咯 !!! sent all our well-wishes to ourselves and our family up, up, up into the sky … all-rounded wishes for family blessings, career, love and luck !!!!

another great b&b stay away from the city hustles-bustles and a step closer to the mountains and blue-blue sky \(^-^)/

bye bye yilan, i will miss you

after staying over for 2 nights, it's time to leave yilan and head towards ruifang/jiufen ... 好舍不得啊 T_T

this morning, the rothenburg boss specially made us sandwich for breakfast for fear that we would get sick eating the same stuff as yesterday. 好贴心 :) as usual we were stuffed !!! this is my first b&b stay and i m definitely loving it!!!

pre-collected train tickets

after breakfast, we were planning to call for 阿庆 to drive us to the train station to catch 1015am train to ruifang. however the rothenburg boss is very kind and knowing that we are leaving to ruifang, offer us a ride to the train station instead.

bye bye yilan, bye bye rothenburg, i am quite sure i had my best memories of taiwan trip here. thanks to 热情的宜兰人, the awesome homestay and breakfast, the fresh air, the green fields, the hot bath and many many more ...

for those who are planning to visit yilan, you may wanna checkout homestay at http://www.rothenburglodge.tw :) excellent service, clean rooms and yummy breakfast. i will rate them 5/5 stars *thumbs up*

day trip @ yilan

this morning, i had the best breakfast of all my travel stays *yum*. the food served were the usual egg, salad (wafu dressing), corn soup, bread (croissant, soft bun and raisin bread), fruits, coffee ... but these stuff has never taste better probably because they were homemade and the ingredients used were soooo fresh!

arranged with 阿庆 to set out from rothenburg at 10am, he arrived punctually as usual. our first stop of the day - 传艺馆 recommended by him since it's along the way. initially i was kinda skeptical if it's one of tour group gimmick when the guide bought you to pre-arranged places to earn commission ... but i was proven wrong, the place is decorated like old streets and each of the shops carries an interesting range of products. i bought a mini-ocarina and a 'pandora' bracelet heehee. we also caught a live performance featuring 廖添丁 - it's kinda like a taiwan version of robin hood?

next stop is 小笼包！every dumpling was freshly made and steamed after ordering, so we gotta wait for quite a while for the food. but it is definitely worth the wait. unlike the ones we had back home, the dumplings are stuffed with spring onions and marinated pork. the soup within each dumpling is so sweet and we dont have to go with vinegar and ginger because the ingredients are fresh and well garnished. i will definitely miss these *slurp* very much regretted only ordering 10 of them to share... strong word of advice, if u ever visit this place, having 10 of these per pax is the bare minimum!

正常鲜肉小笼包@五结分店

after food, we next went to 几米广场, jimmy was known for his picturebooks and some of them were used as movie themes ... commonly known ones are "向左走，向右走", "地下铁", "星空". as part of urban uplift, jimmy (yilan native) has collaborated his artwork as part of the preserved historic domitory near yilan railway station. a quote that i like on the signage reads "希望生活的意义能被不断思考，希望多点笑容，多点想像，多点希望". i will have to say that the park is rather small but has a few of his iconic artworks, can u recognise any of these?

after taking pictures after jimmy square, we hop onto our next stop - 五峰旗瀑布. the waterfall is known to be named for the five peaks which look like triangular flags and there are three layers measuring approx. 100m from top to bottom. 第二段and 第三段 were pretty near, will take less than 15mins to reach. the viewing pavilion at these places were also packed with many visitors taking pictures. 第一段 took us probably 30mins or so to conquer. the endless flights of stairs finally lead us to this:

unlike the previous 2 layers, this layer had relatively less visitors. it felt so 'zen' admiring the works of nature =^_^= and over here, we met up with an elderly couple from taipei and had a pleasant chat with them. after the tiring climb, we head for our next caffeine dose up the mountain. we drove up to mr. brown coffee castle and the sea view from above was superb. if chance ever permits, i will love to be up here again on a fine weather day and just spend the day with a good book and my coffee.

mr brown coffee castle

on our way down from the castle, we dropped by toucheng old street and had a three-scoop ice cream (阿宗芋冰城) for just 40 ntd *cheap n yummy* gelato cannot fight muahahaha...

the day ended with a fabulous hotbath at jiaosi 森林风吕 and an awesome hotpot dinner at 美富海鲜火锅 ... everything was awesome today ^_^ according to 阿庆, we only covered one-third of yilan which means we have to come again!!!

yilan we are coming :-D

after a well-rested night, i woke up pretty early and was greeted by the morning sun and the lazy lemurs :) took a stroll out to check the other 'folks', the giraffe were already up, happily nibbling on their breakfast. check out their morning stretch routine (right) heehee.

prior to moving onto yilan, we have planned to head out to leofoo theme park again as we did not get to explore the safari zone. it was quite a rush to complete the safari tour and the steam train within 2 hours as there were quite a few 国小学队 on school trips.  the wait for the safari bus was quite excruciating with fleets of school kids screaming around us. well luckily it's a worthy wait, we get to see black bears, tigers, lions and lots of monkeys on closeup *wink* the steam train ride took almost 20mins where we get to see the less ferocious animals like ostrichs, emus, hippos, zebras, goats, antelopes, etc etc. all in all, the safari zone is like a mini-zoo housing quite a variety of animals especially monkeys!

after the steam train ride, we then hurried back to our resort for checkout. the walk took at least 10mins and we were sweating away under the afternoon sun... the resort should probably consider offering shuttle bus service between the resort and theme park. after checkout, we got to meet our driver 阿庆 from yilan, he looks young and was neatly dressed (with a tie), a very soft-spoken driver :)

on our way to yilan, we arranged to stop by at 大溪老街. initially we thought of visiting 大溪花海花园, but it was unfortunately rather out of the way so we have to gave it a miss *sob sob* ... gonna save that for next visit! at dasi, we got abit of lunch at old street - 阿麽豆干, 爱玉冰... we also did some souvenir shopping. the old street is lined with a lot of ancient architecture and the highlights are mostly along 和平街 and 中山街.

dasi old streets - 和平街

warehouse cafe

amidst of the rundown buildings and houses, we found a warehouse-theme cafe and rested our feet with a good dose of caffeine refills, 赞!!!

we set out of dasi by 2pm and continued the ride to our first b&b stay at 宜兰羅东. the entire ride took approximately one and a half hour and by the time we reached the place, it's about 330pm. stepping into the place was like entering into fairytale land. the boss gave us a very warm-welcome and even provided us with 抹绿茶 and 茶点. check out our cottage stay └(^o^)┘

rothenburg @ yilan

since we are still rather early for the night market, we went for a mini bicycle trail as suggested by the driver. the rothenberg b&b loaned us bicycles for free and shared with us the trail to the nearest park 冬山河亲水公园. i had a really good time on the trail with the serenity and fresh air ... my favourite was riding along the green fields where the saplings had just been laid. life is indeed simple pleasures :)

after the 'workout', it's time to feast hahaha last stop of the day at 羅东夜市. we had 老王葱油饼, qq地瓜(yes again),卜肉, 盐酥鸡块, 鱼丸汤, 煎蛋, 干面, 卤肉饭, 米粉羹, 芒果冰, ... was stuffed (*>.<*). aside from eating, we also had a great time shopping, spurging on zakka mit bags. wat an awesome day!!!

theme park & theme park

monday is always busy ... somehow even for holiday :-0
for an early start, we checked out of hotel kuva at around 830am and head towards our next stay at leofoo resort by cab. the ride took abt 30mins and we were greeted with a pleasant surprise. guess what? well check it out:

leofoo is a safari-theme resort, where animals like giraffes, lemurs, rhinos, flamingoes are allowed to roam freely in an open central field. as and when each guest can check out the animals directly from her guestroom's balcony. but of course the room rates differ accordingly depending on the animal you wanna see.

after recovering from the oooo and ahhhh, we proceed to our first destination of the day - windows on china (小人国主题乐园). the main attractions of the theme parks are miniatures of historical buildings and famous international landmarks around the world. the landmarks are segregated into 5 continents namely taiwan, china, asia, europe and usa. so in a day, we managed to travel around the world *wink*. the best of these worlds has to be taiwan where some of the miniatures are actually 'animated'. so we can actually spot moving trains on tracks, moving airplanes on runway, cargoes loading on pier etc.

we completed the park by around 2pm and set out to the second theme park of the day - leofoo village (六福村主题乐园). i am an all-time fan of theme parks, but sadly for the first time, i can't say the same for leofoo theme park. the park is currently celebrating its 35years and some of the rides are certainly indicative of this age. the rides are not well maintained and the park somehow did not manage to exuberate the usual liveliness and perky spirit of theme parks. visiting this park does help me appreciate how disneyland and universal studio manage to upkeep their parks over the years.

screaming condor - this is
just one tail of the ride

nonetheless we still get to try a couple of rides - wild wild west crazy roller coaster, aladdin 2d motion theatre, alibaba treasure jeep, flying horse etc. the best and iconic ride in the park has to be this - screaming condor, we are not going onto that !

oh, did u notice something different with today's blog? yea, there was no mention of food. cos we did not have any food that was worth blogging *hiakz hiakz* so we will take a break from that for this round.

the best way to end a busy day has to be a cozy room and the kenya sky room fits the bill :) reminds me of our 2-storeys east coast chalet, but a posher version. not forgetting 24-hour lookout to the lemurs house.

ok dok ... good night lemurs *yawn*

date with the lavenders

sun rises early in taiwan, it's already bright by 7am ... we did try to keep up but only make it out for breakfast at around 930am heehee commendable effort I would say for a holiday mode :) first thing first and that's ... food. here's what we had, ok but kinda oily.

after breakfast, let's burn off some calories! so we decided to take a stroll at the nearby park. check out what we spotted - are these sakura?!?!

next on our itinerary, we began our rail excursion. took a cab to the nearest train station - zhongli (approx. 5min), the rest are all by rails. check out all the stations that we have visited!!! oh zhudong was a blooper though :-p. we thought that we can change to a 'retro' train ride to neiwan on this station, but apparently it's already out of service *disappointed* well at least we still manage to board back the same train that bring us to neiwan, otherwise we will have to wait for another hour.

located in hengshan town of hsinchu county, neiwan is a beautiful destination surrounded by hills, mountains, and waters, with mostly hakka people residing today. the famous neiwan old street is a vivid street lined with traditional wooden architectures and stores, where visitors may savor traditional hakka eateries and shops by the old neiwan railway station. 

rail cat mascot

as usual, we were happily snacking along the streets *slurp* tried the 招牌综合冰, 草莓冰, 鱿鱼酥, 高粱香肠, and last but not least neiwan tradesmark - ginger lily-flavored glutinous rice dumpling ... there are many other hakka specialty that we have to give a miss due to limited stomach capacity like hakka tea, hakka rice cakes. aside from eating, we also manage to visit some interesting sites of neiwan namely the suspension bridge (located near the train station) and the lavender forest (approx. 20 mins drive up the mountain).

lavender forest

suspension bridge

on the whole, it's a frutiful day. we completed all the stuff that we had planned out *accomplished*

first night in taoyuan

ever since i joined my current company, i have been flying around for quite a bit but mostly for work. so finally after a 'dry' 2013 (doing up my house), myself and friend manage to plan a free & easy trip to taiwan. been looking forward to it as we will be visiting a few new places out of taipei ... will share in later posts *wink*

upon landing. here's our first coffee at the airport (mr. brown is supposedly a common chain here in taiwan). the 'hokkaido cream' is a sponge cake with cream in the core ... interesting but not my cup of tea.

after our caffeine dose, we started making our way to the hotel by cab approx. 25mins drive and tadaaaaaaa here we are - first stay in taiwan. decent hotel at a rate of approx 3000ntd per night.

the hotel is at close proximity to the sort-of known night market in zhongli. it's like a super mega pasar malam hahaha... aside from the usual taiwan snacks, there are phone accessories stores, toy stores, tikam games stores (balloon shooting, fish catching, etc. etc.), even lingerie *wow* oh and they even have some stalls selling snake soup with live snakes on display *scary* of course we try to keep our distance from these...

so here we go, starting our food feast - 食字路口. we had so much snacks ... i am not sure if i can recall all. in order of consumption - 鱼旦, 辣饼, strawberry, chicken-thai roll, 排骨酥, QQ地瓜球, lemonade, 臭豆腐, ...

our favourite have to be these ... can u guess which are these. in fact we like it so much. we had a second round after the 'smelly' beancurd.

after a fulfilling feast, its close to 930. we then started making our way back, with the usual stop by .... yessss our all time favourite convenient store ;-)

good night taoyuan ... zzz