i love taiwan'08 part 1 - taipei

goodness, how do i even start talking about my taiwan trip?? there's sooooo many things to say! i've got more than 300 photos inside my camera - even had to delete the older photos as i went along...my second time in taiwan in less than a year, i still love the place. i'm glad i went, all the travelling (not talking about the 1-hour flight to taipei) on those buses and train was very much worth it, i got to see different parts of taiwan this time round. i'm a happy girl =) and it was a really good journey to "purify" the heart. haha. you'll see what i mean...

alrite, maybe i should do this in chronological order then... =)

Day 1
i found myself in a mad rush cos i had some work to finish before i could leave, and what's the best thing? my interviewee pangseh-ed me so in the end, i dint finish my article anyway. i had to keep telling myself that it's okay to go away for a while, i will do the work when i get back. really had to convince myself. rushing here and there is bad for the heart, seriously. i was on the airport bus at about 3.30pm. the journey would take an hour, and my flight was at 5.45pm. imagine that. hahaha =P i had some errands to run at the airport some more, like sending a letter, topping up my prepaid card AND buying DOUGHNUTS for shuhui =/ i had a shock when i realised that i still had to take a skytrain to my boarding gate. i was thinking, oh no, will it take long?! i got to the gate with almost no time to spare - but as usual, they don't do things so punctually one lah. haha =P
the flight journey was really short, like 1hr 15mins?! i couldnt even finish watching an episode of a variety show -_- anyway, i was greeted by this when i walked out of the arrival hall:
i was thinking, ehhhh how come it looks very different from what i rmb?! am i at the right place?! hahaha. seriously, i even doubted i was at taipei alr. lol =P well, it's cos i was at terminal 2 last year, but this is terminal 1. super pok. haha =P
i took the guo guang bus to taipei main station. i dint even take time to look at the other services cos that's the one i am familiar with so to save time, just jump on it. haha =P allow me to say some stuff in chinese now.
在桃园往台北的途中，我望着窗外的异国风景，虽然一片乌漆抹黑，但我还是不禁对自己笑了。当时的我不敢相信自己真的到了台北。第一次一个人背着背包出国、第一次一个人搭飞机、第一次一个人旅行，就算只是一小时的短暂车程。原来一个人旅行的滋味是这样的。已经不是第一次到台北，仍然按捺不住心中的兴奋。
both at the airport and on the bus, i kept trying to call shuhui but i couldnt get through! i dunno what's wrong, but i was soooo worried that she would be waiting for my call before she got out of her hall. i said i will give her a call when i reach the airport since my journey takes 1hr, hers will take 40mins. but we did set a time to meet the previous day, so i was just hoping that she will stick to the time. along the way i was thinking, alamak what if she was really waiting for me to call. =/ anyway, this is the underground mall at taipei main station - i've reached familiar territory.
when i got to ximen station exit 6, i dint see her. i was contemplating if i should wait at the station or climb the stairs up to street level...in the end i decided on the latter then I SAW A FAMILIAR BACKVIEW!! shuhui!!!! hahaha. i was soooo happy that she did stick to the time we set. hahaha =P
anyway, we walked 3mins to my hotel, checked in, dropped our stuff and came back out in less than 15mins i think. haha =P cos i said i must make full use of the night - i wanted to go shilin. for what? FOOD lah, what else? haha =P
me with the famous chicken cutlet thing! haha. YUMMY! yah you see, the ji pai is that big...like as big as my face can??
and this is 棺材板, literally translated as coffin plank?! haha =P i dint try it last year, i'm so glad i did this year!! hahaha. DAMN NICE ALSO! it's basically deep fried bread with fillings inside. ours was bacon and cheese - there are quite a lot to choose from, just that i cant rmb now what they have. haha =P
and strawberry 雪花冰, something like our ice-kacang but then their ice is much finer and they also have quite a few flavours available. =)
oops. she's going to kill me if she sees this. haha =P but yah, that's shuhui the glutton for you. haha =P with one hand on the bowl of ice and the other with 葱油饼. i vaguely rmb her saying this photo must be deleted. LOL =P

Day 2
i forgot to take a photo of our room before it's all messed up, so here it is before we checked out. haha =P anyway, we stayed at this place called futurestar hotel that's on the 7th-9th levels of a building just 3mins (or less than that) walk from the metro. if you can get past the fact that it doesnt have a ground-floor lobby, it's actually super value for money cos the location is good, the room is pretty spacious and it's 50SGD a night per room. yup, cheap cheap! good for people on budget lah. =) i asked shuhui to bunk in with me cos i was a bit scared it's some hideous place. LOL =P
this is ximending. i actually took a similar photo last year, but from a different angle. haha =P really felt so at home there you know. like even though it's been a year (about 11mths actually), the place felt soooo familiar for some odd reason. maybe it's all the tv i watched. haha =P
and goodness me, pls check out the amount of stuff i'm carrying as i walk through the streets of taipei - i brought a backpack cos we were going camping, and then i dint want to check anything in at the airport...and i had a smaller bag with all the important / essential stuff, then i had a bag of a dozen krispy kreme. woah. tiring leh. the fact that it rained on the first night and second day dint help. -_-
this is the famous oyster mee sua at xi men ding. i think we were like among the first few customers. they open at 11, tells you how late we woke up. haha =P and yes, that's shuhui busy slurping up the mee sua. haha =P feels like we are always eating? well, that's not the end. haha =P
then we went to dan shui...aim of this part of the itinerary - to find JAY CHOU'S HIGH SCHOOL WHERE THEY FILMED SECRET! shuhui went there before, so i asked her to bring me there....but it was a super long walk leh. imagine walking more than half an hour with that super big backpack weighing down on your shoulders. =X
en route to the school...真理街. and we had the supposedly authentic 文化阿给！！it's like tau gua with tang hoon inside....very yummy! had their fish balls that were like fuzhou fish balls cos there was meat inside also - can tell it's handmade de! haha =P so happy so happy! woohoo~!
and i had a pork bun at the same shop. lol =P you know what i like about taiwan? EATING IS SO CHEAP!!! hahaha seriously, after staying in hong kong for a few months where cost of living is so high, taiwan is just cheap. LOL =P like my pork bun, which was quite big, was only 16NTD, that's about 75 cents in sing? haha =P
ok anyway, just a few more steps from this ah gei, fishball and pork bun place is our destination alr!! 淡江高中 in the movie! WOOHOO~! hahaha =P
these will surely ring a bell in your heads if you watched the movie. but somehow, i think the school looks better in the movie. hahaa. they made it look so big and nice. =P nonetheless, i was pretty excited to be there!! hahaha =P
some more shots of dan shui...
the bored me while waiting for shuhui to take a toilet break =P
and us, about to leave for the next stop - send wooden postcards! haha =P
and shuhui was happily taking photos of herself WITH MY CAMERA while i was writing the postcards. this was the only photo she dint delete. no wonder my camera battery barely lasted the trip. TSK. LOL =P but ok lah, this photo is really not bad. haha =P
we took a ferry over to the opposite side, a place called bali, as in 八里, not the place in indonesia. haha =P both of us have heard about this place before, but nv been there so we went. it was quite funny that when i arrived, this uncle asked me how come i go ba li need to carry backpack. er....hahaha =P had to answer in the simplest way possible, which was, oh cos going to kenting later, without going into specifics. and when we asked him what's there to do at ba li, he said in 台语／闽南语 (cant tell which is which, but i think it's the latter since it sounds more like hokkien and i got what he was saying) without thinking, nothing much, only got a 左岸公园 (park on the left coast) -_- thanks for being so frank leh, uncle. LOL =P
no tall buildings, no busy streets filled with people....just low-rise residential, theme cafes, a park that stretches on and on to we-dunno-where, and a mountain as the backdrop.
shuhui with a more-than-half-eaten doughnut. haha =P i think we ate like 4 doughnuts in total?? wanted to finish off a box so that i will only have to carry the other 6. haha =P
and back at dan shui....more food. LOL =P this is like a prawn roll thing lah...heh =D
then we went on to our next stop - maokong via gondola, which is cable car lah actually. =P
sidetrack a bit....nope, macs dint pay me to help them advertise. LOL =P but you know, i was on the train but the moment i saw this from above, i recognised it IMMEDIATELY - the macs that appeared in MVP情人~!! you know the part where 小希 (angela chang) splashed water on 太子 (tony sun)?? haha does it ring a bell?! well i think if i had taken the photo in the day, you will be able to see better lah. i recognise it cos of the big open space in front of the entrance - i think tony sun walked through that space to get to his big car that was parked on the road. hahaha =P shuhui said i very lihai, can tell even from up there - cos the metro track is elevated one mah...hahha =P sorry lah, i am a tv junkie mah =P
and so we took the gondola - i think it's more for the "been there, done that" literally cos a one-way ticket only costs 50NTD, which is about 2.50SGD?
and this was what greeted us when we walked out of the station. seriously, i was thinking where is the good night view that the info booklet was talking about?! hahhaa. we tried to venture a little further, but ehhhh dint see much lah. basically, this is a concentration of tea houses lah...so since we werent there to drink tea, there wasnt much to do actually. =P and the rain certainly dint help. haha =P
we were supposed to meet the rest of them at the bus stop near their school at 11pm. by the time we bought dinner, and got back to shuhui's hall, it was about 10pm. one hour of mad rush - we had to finish our food, i had to settle some work through email, shuhui had to pack for the following days and we had to bathe - cos it's an overnight journey. -_- oh by the way, we were late for 20mins. LOL =P
anyway, this is what their dorm looks like. i feel a bit bad, but my first reaction was, and i said it out loud, omg! damn pok leh! hahaha =P really leh...although it's bigger than what we have here in hong kong, they have 4 in a room, and it feels really really really basic. like not as cosy as ours. haha. and they don't have attached toilet. heh =P gwen thought we had to wash our own toilets, but nope, we dont have to =P but ok lah, they pay only about 400SGD (right?) for accommodation for the whole sem, while ours is like about 3.5 times of that. haha =P but seriously, i really dun mind the fact that my room is small now. haha. and you know, their hall is actually the best hall they have there already. cant believe that's almost my room (rmb i wanted to go to taiwan??). LOL =P

alrite everyone, let's take a break here. hahah =P check back for more updates okay? =P