.::Taiwan 2012 Day 1 - Kending::.

Johnson and i are back from our taiwan trip!!! it had been a great holiday and i love every moment of it :)))

will be blogging about the trip in chronological order so here goes day 0 in sg and day 1 at kending!

Day 0 - 25th Nov 2012 (Sunday) @ Singapore

we are taking scoot for the 1st time, managed to get a promo price back in august at about SGD$300 per pax inclusive of baggage. our flight was actually past midnight at 12.55am which makes it Monday morning theoretically... spent the whole of Sunday packing and running last minute errands... 

bf came over to my house instead of direct to airport as he is borrowing my suitcase! lol he came with just a backpack and his clothes best! i was bathing when he arrived and i found my advanced birthday prezzie from him waiting for me on the bed when i came out from the bathroom yippie~ i was saying how come he didn't even bother to hide it and just place it in the open like that lol...

happy start to the trip~

my bro then drove us to the airport at 11pm. Checked in and had our supper at delifrance before boarding

The plane is not too bad as it is the bigger aircraft so there is more leg space compared to Jetstar or Tiger. We were lucky enough to be allocated seats at the 1st row so we had super lots of leg space :) it was comfortable enough but I was probably feeling too excited and thus had a pretty sleepless flight... the 4 half hours felt like eternity as i tossed and turned trying to sleep lol...

Day 1 - 26th Nov 2012 (Monday) @ Kending

finally we reached taoyuan airport! 1st stop was to the foreign exchange to get twd!!! was told the rate at tw airport is better so we didn't change in sg =p and the rate is really better! went to the basement to have our breakfast at 7-11... the 7-11 there is amazing, lots of instant and cooked food to fill your stomach. the instant noodles have real meat chunks yum!

got our youth card application done (just go to the information counter and fill in a simple form if you are below 30) before we took the U Bus to Taoyuan High Speed Rail (HSR) station. costs NT15 if i didn't remember wrongly and the ride was about 15 minutes

we already pre-booked the HSR train tickets so as to enjoy the early bird discount (must book at least 2 weeks in advance). have to be punctual for the booked train timing, if you miss the train timing you booked, you have to top up to full fare to change timing… love the HSR as it is very clean despite eating and drinking is allowed on the trains… we bought our drinks from 7-11 and I love the upsized yakult! The papaya milk is quite yummy too :)

our myla baby joined us on this trip also… she’s my usual travel companion! Haha I bring her along whenever I go on work trips so that I won’t feel so lonely in the hotel at night and can hug her to sleep =p

Our first route is Taoyuan HSR to Zuoying HSR station (a.k.a Kaohsiung) as we will take a private transport from there to Kending…

after a 2 hours car ride, we reached our Kending minsu! the sea is just right in front of us, very convenient if you wanna take a walk in the morning... our balcony has an awesome seaview too! weather is about 22 deg so it is very nice to just sit at the balcony and enjoy the coolness :)

freshened up after the yucky overnight flight before we head out for lunch. we have only 15 mins as we booked a private tour haha... must drink 50 Lan in tw~~~

the minsu owner brought us on a 5 hours Kending tour so we just went around visiting different attractions. honestly, i was quite tired halfway through the tour from the lack of sleep and we keep getting up and down the car... but pay money liao bo bian have to endure through the 5 hours lol... 

below is the gorilla stone haha they called it sail rock actually but which part look like sail u tell me? it look more like gorilla what! the sand on the beach is damn soft, our legs keep sinking in and the minsu owner told us that is shell sand

Saw some people playing with this hermit crab at the beach, we joined in as well, quite interesting. It will hide in the shell once you pick it up, the trick is to blow air at it and it will come out lol… but it looked pretty freaky to me so I wouldn’t touch it.

We then headed to e-luan-bi lighthouse next and entrance fee was NT40 per pax. It started to drizzle and weather start to turn cold with chilly wind. We were wearing shorts as weather was hot and sunny during lunch -_- garang la, cold die us! Johnson even more best, he totally didn’t pack a jacket for this trip as he couldn’t find his at home and he decided to heck it LOL.

Bf taught me how to do a jump shot as well as how to take a photo of a jump shot (the exact moment to press the shutter, timing is key) lol… it was my 1st time and this sparked off a series of jump shots in various parts of Taiwan for the rest of the trip LOL damn spastic of us. When it was his turn to jump, I couldn’t get the timing right at first and always get shots of him in mid-jump, he had to jump 4 times before I got it =p

  

We then continued to hike on to the wooden plank trail. It’s built over huge stones and reefs. There are no safety barriers so if you fall and hit your head, bye bye to you~ lol… but the sea is just right beside so it’s a nice walk with pretty view… 

here we are at the end of the wooden plank trail!

Here’s a super tree at the lighthouse park, don’t you think it super look like a deer? It’s super OMG haha… we even saw some tourists climbing up and riding it like a horse -_-

bye bye eluanbi!

Next stop was the “most southern point” landmark. Geography lesson! Kending is located at the southern part of Taiwan, so this landmark at Kending marks the most southern tip of Taiwan

Our guide then brought us to this mountain where IT IS DAMN WINDY. Omg the wind is so strong until  it can blow us a few steps ahead when we are walking lol. I wonder those damn skinny people come here how! 

We wanted to go to Guanshan to catch the sunset but it was too cloudy so we dropped the idea. But as we drove past some beach, we happen to see the sun setting! So we quickly hopped down and took some photos before it is gone. It took less than a minute to completely disappear! For the period we were in Taiwan, the sun generally sets at around 5pm local time. Damn early lor! The sky will be completely dark by 5.30pm and we will be like eh how come this feel like 8pm instead of 5 plus lol…

Next stop was Maobitou (Cat’s nose), well it’s too dark for me to capture a decent photo but basically, it’s a stone that look very much like a cat lying on its stomach and looking out to the sea, pretty amazing if you ask me. It really does look like a giant cat!

At this point, I was sooo tired already after all the hiking and climbing lol… I was so glad when the guide said he will bring us to eat cheap sashimi! YIPPIE food + sitting down!!! He brought us to this fish market, the seafood are really fresh especially the sashimi omg! 1 plate of 17 slices only costs SGD$4.30 and the quality is damn good! We wanted to order the bigger serving of 40 slices (SGD$8.60) at first but they took a look at us and advised us to take the small serving. -_- what sia, we can eat ok! Haha… we also ordered an oyster omelette, steamed fish soup and fried noodles.

Last stoppp – Chu Huo. Hot geyser points on the ground which will emit natural gas and light up a fire on its own. We saw some people bringing sparklers and lighting them using the fire. So fun, but we dunno where to buy :( so we left the place after a short while cause look at fire nia and do nothing not very interesting lol~

After the end of the tour, we went back to our minsu before heading out to Kending street which is just a 3-5 minutes walk away. Plenty of street food and small shops there… Bf bought a jacket at Baleno as the wind is really too cold lol… Ate some of the street food and took a walk down the whole stretch of shops… We then went to this NT$100-per-dish restaurant to have our proper dinner. For NT$100 (SGD$4.30), the dishes are of pretty decent standard, quite tasty even! We ordered fried shrimps, bittergourd beef and chicken wings. Ordered Taiwan mango beer and the whole meal is complete =p

Kending is a pretty beachy place but the night market and streets were really disappointing :( I was expecting more but perhaps it is the low peak season and thus not much bustling activity going on. If we do come again, we will do so in summer so that we can enjoy the water activities (snorkeling, diving, kayaking etc.) that Kending has to offer :)

Anyway, it might be a good thing though as we do not really want to tire ourselves out on the very 1st day of our trip so I supposed a slower paced 1st day is suitable for us haha *self-consolation*

We were damn nua the next morning. Our transport to Kaohsiung wasn’t due to come till 1pm in the afternoon and the minsu serves breakfast in bed. Damn shiok to just eat and enjoy the seaview with myla :) by the way, the jap biscuit is very nice lol

We then watched some TV (they have AXN!) before going out to the beach for a walk. C-H-I-L-L, we were still in our PJs hahaha cause the beach is such a short walk away we didn’t bother to change =p

  

Checked out at 1pm and it’s bye bye Kending and onwards to Kaohsiung! I shall leave Kaohsiung for the next entry hehe :)