Going overseas without my parents also means having to pay for the trip myself :( BUT it is definitely worth it!!
Basically Tessa and I planned the itinerary. Being the Taiwan guru, she listed places to be included in our trip, while I, the 10x neater and more coordinated person as compared to Tessa, put stuff in order. Haha self-praise?
In total (air tix + accomodation + transport + food & shopping), I spent approx SGD2k for this trip.
The places we covered were Taipei, Jiufen & Shifen, Yilan and Hualien.
DAY 1: Singapore --> Taiwan (Ximending)
Our group pic at Changi Airport,
Introducing (from L to R) couple #1 Eldin & Regina, couple #2 Tessa & Nico, gaycouple #3 Jeremy & Davis, lastly me & Louis
Before the trip itself, I have been looking forward to taking this pic for some reason LOL. But it turns out so so only.
the budget fatty eating his nasi lemak that he dapao-ed from the airport LOL
mandatory clouds' pic. pretty clouds :)
ALASSSSSSS, at about 1.45pm, we reached TAIWANNNN. No airport pics cause I'm a lousy lazy blogger LOL
Our first night was spent in Taipei, Cityinn Plus Hotel Ximending
It's a pretty cute boutique hotel. Pretty cozy room, but a littleeee squeezy too. No pics again cause I suck :/
After checking in and settling down, we headed for early dinner at Ximending.
First meal in Taipei gotta be good! We had Le Ye steamboat & bbq (recommended by Eugenia)
us girls :)
No pics AGAIN -_- (I really suck at this blogging thing). Food was not bad. There was salad bar, Haagen Daaz ice cream bar, dessert bar, free flow drinks, free flow taiwan beer. Food for steamboat and bbq was ordered and served. Prefer this to those that we have to go pick ourselves. Nice environment too. Reasonably priced at approx 25SGD.
Didn't eat much since my tummy was upset, bleagh.
After dinner, the guys went for massage while we started shopping :D
my most anticipated part about taiwan - mega yakults!!!!!!!
my boyfriend Thor
After a very long shopping session (the guys took forever to find a massage parlor -_-), we went to Shilin nightmarket. 0 pics AGAIN (wtf this is getting annoying) partly cause it was drizzling. It was pretty late by the time we got there so we walked around briefly, had A Zong Mian Xian, and some other quick bites, then headed back to our hotel. Gotta get up early for our next day!
DAY 2: Jiufen --> Shifen --> Yilan (Luodong Nightmarket) + Prawning
breakfast from FamilyMart - Milktea & onigiris!
Got up early cause we're leaving the city and going to the countryyyyyyyy. Before the trip, we thought that spending 4D3N in the countryside is a waste of time blablabla. But now, I actually prefer the time we spent in the countryside! 8 days of shopping would definitely have killed me and my wallet.
We hired a driver to bring us around :)
Firstly, on our way to Yilan, we stopped by at Jiu Fen.
at Jiufen Lao Jie (old street)
We had beef noodles for lunch. Didn't like it although the rest loved it :/
Then the guys found this alley with some staircases and we spent like an hour there, entertaining ourselves, and having the time of our lives LOL. Pretty much the highlight of Jiufen, to us at least.
leggy shot of gina weet weet, there's a version of Tessa's too but I can't find it LOL
the guys, trying to act like gangsters from hongkong LOL
another gangster shot -_- (DSLR set to black & white 85% of the time)
And for my fave shot of the day AND of the entire trip........................................
HAHAHAHA we copied the movie poster
then someone came up with this idea to create our own movie poster shot LOL which has no meaning
We FINALLY left that little happy alley with stairs and continued our journey up to the top of the Jiufen Lao Jie haha
one of my faveeeee street food in Taiwan, TAIWAN SAUSAGE!!!!!
This is also a "Louis can you take a greedy pic of me" shot
Some other things that I recommend you to buy from Jiufen:
1) "Jiufen Huang Mama" jelly (in a small plastic ice-tray lookalike)
I recommend Lychee, Grape & Passionfruit flavour. They sell it at 6 for 300NTD which is like 2SGD for a pretty big and delicious piece of jelly. Tessa and I love it. We finished 6 of them by ourselves in Taiwan. And bought 6 more when we saw them in Danshui later on haha
2) Grape/cranberry/blueberry cordial
Louis got this when he went to Taiwan last year. It was reaaaaaally good. Natural, more flavourful and pulpy version of ribena. And when you add a little lemon juice inside (tipped by owner). Awesomeeeeee thirst-quenching drink!!! Not very expensive either!
3) TAIWAN SAUSAGESSSSSS!!!!!
Bits of fats that melt on your tongue, with tender pork bits. Drooling just thinking about it
After Jiufen, we head to Shifen. On the way, our very friendly driver, affectionately known as 太阳叔(Uncle Sun) stopped by at some places for us to take pictures!
enthusiastic Tessa in front of the Golden Waterfall
The rocks were supposed to be goldie brown, but it's pretty dry in the season we went, thus this non-gold colour
Yinyang Ocean, cause of the two different colours. This is the Pacific Ocean I think. Quite pretty :)
likey this pic hehe :D
nice scenery & my pretty babes :)
Afterwards, we headed to Shifen to put sky lanterns! All of them have been to Shifen except me haha. Unlucky us, it was drizzling (it was drizzling + typhoon-ing almost for our entire trip). We had fun nonetheless!
火车来了!!!!
4 of us shared 1 4-colour lantern. Our lantern was yellow + red + purple + white combi. Which, if I remembered correctly, represented wealth, health, studies and future respectively. However this stupid Louis Saw put some DOTA thing on the health part -_-
Jem and his "1919" obsession
Louis and his dota obsessions
mature me ^^
LOL candid me sulking at Louis' dota page
LOL 369 logo drawn by Nico, as requested by Jeremy LOL
haha we all look so happy like little kids
Guys if you go Shifen, you MUST walk further down. There is this guy selling THE BEST FRIED SOTONG AND SOTONG BALL ON THIS PLANET!! Despite the irritating drizzle, Louis and I went in search of the legendary fried sotong LOL. It was awesoommmmmmeeeee. It's just a little teeny temporary stall thingy, so keep you gotta keep your eyes opened wide! We chose the seaweed flavour, but I'm pretty sure other flavours would taste great too :)
Next, we headed to LuoDong Nightmarket at Yilan
Before that, some self-entertainment while waiting for Jeremy the burden LOL
Tessa and her fried squid which cannot compare to the one at Shifen
didn't buy much here except my trusty minion pouch which I used everyday :D
Jeremy aka the Minion Master, caught SEVEN of these handphone dust cap dangling minions. Super cute and fat hahaha
Then, lazy us got tired and decided to go back and rest and our minsu. This minsu is my favouriteeeeeeeee of all the places we stayed at. Super pretty super comfy super love!!!!!! And the owners were very nice and friendly!! You can google Traditional Arts Villa Yilan to search and book. They don't have their own website. You can also call 0928-406-676 instead!
how it looked like when we arrived haha. We all "WHOAAAAAAAA" when our driver drove in
how it looks like in the day. Around the villa is a garden designed by the lady boss herself. Very relaxing and comfortable. I miss it :(
strong poor Louis carrying two huge luggages (mine) haha
one of the swing at the villa's garden
Then, we went prawning! It's a mere 10 minute stroll from the villa. The prawning place is owned by the villa's owner's father. Pretty cool and heartwarming part of the countryside.
They have 2 dogs who have to go "work" at the prawning place. Work for their food HAHA super cute
the only pic taken at the prawning place
The boss treated us to one huge plate of prawns, and taiwan sausages. We BBQ-ed the prawns that we caught, then happily strolled back in the dark to our minsu. On our way the owner scooter-ed past us and told the dog to follow "jiejie gege men" back hahahahah TOO CUTE. Love country-life.
Day3: Yilan (花田村 + Sophisca Candy + 烏石港外澳沙灘 + KAVALAN Whisky Factory + 幾米廣場 + Betel Nut experiece)
This day is practically sight-seeing and more self-entertainment haha.
at the villa :D
breakfast prepared by the owners :) looks so appetizing!
First stop, 花田村 where the popular Taiwan drama 下一站，幸福 was filmed at.
pretty good drama, I watched twice! haha
plus a stroll around the pond (?)
Next stop is Sophisca Candy Factory! Loads of pretty candy all around. Regret not taking any pictures :'(
Louis & I in our couply NBs haha
wall of pretty chocolates that you can use to customize a message
Cute & sweet haha. Gift ideas for you, boys! (There's also a branch at Changi Airport T3)
We had AMAZING sugar-coated waffles at the cafe beside the shop
a random pic at the roadside that turned out quite nice too haha
Next we went to waste some time at Kavalan Whisky factory -_-
Self entertaining again
action mama louis
LOL we are a bunch of retards trying and failing to do a jumpshot
The walk of worms to the factory
the guys with our driver!
We kept bugging our driver to stop over and get these Betlenuts (bing lang) for us to try. They're extremely common especially in the country side. There's like a stall selling betlenuts every 5m or something.
So it's just this red nut, which you have to peel its first layer off, wrapped in betlenut leave I think? It's supposed to wake you up, sort of like coffee and red bull.
Tastes horrible, but gotta try once since we're there!
It's kinda like chewing on spicy grass.....
Finally, time for lunch! We went to this place that specially does this special chicken dish, slow roasted in the huge heat-retaining pot or something.
Nothing fancy in my opinion, just pretty tender chicken?
Then, we went to 烏石港外澳沙灘! Spent quite a lot of time there, entertaining ourselves as usual haha. The sand is gray but ultra soft and fine. The sky so blue (mostly gray clouds due to typhoon season), sea so blue :')
Pictures!
love this pic. taken by me LOL
a pack of stray dogs enjoying the beach like us LOL
To explain why most of us were in shoes at the beach....... We were supposed to go paragliding. But sadly, due to the weather and the wind's direction, we weren't able to. I think that's one of our biggest regret of this trip.
On our way back to our minsu, we stopped by 幾米廣場 to take more pictures! Jimmy is a Taiwan artist. His art works often comes with a thought-provoking quote.
The park is smaller than I thought. Not too crowded either.
"向左走,向右走"
"Is this the end? Or is it a new beginning?"
behind the scenes LOL
behind the scenes 2 hahah
At night, we played with sparklers and fire-crackers, courtesy of our really nice driver.
Sparklers like the ones we play in Singapore, but longer. Fire crackers on the other hand are really pretty! You place them on the floor, then light them using your sparkler. It's shoots up, pretty much like a firework on the ground haha
That's all for part 1! The next day, we continued our journey, to HUALIEN, which will be saved for part 2 because blogging is too tiring T-T
Gotta quickly finish the rest since school is starting next week! D:
