day 7 oftd
the initial plan was to go to 野柳, 九份 and then 十份 for 天灯 but we woke up slightly later due to the clubbing and decided to skip 野柳. went for breakfast at 阜杭豆浆 (Shandao Temple mrt station Exit 5 - Hua Shan Market) this was recommended by the hotel and the queue is horrendous on a weekend. the stall is on the 2nd floor and the queue can snake till the 1st floor and out of the building. we reached at 11.20am and queued for about half an hour even though it was already past the usual breakfast time.
this is too much for breakfast i know but we wanted to try everything after queuing for so long =p
we then tried to take the public transport to go to jiufen but it was too chim for us and we had to keep asking around. the train is the confusing part as some trains only go to certain stations and we could not find the route map lol. only got this map below of which we dunno how to interpret the train types haha
waited for 20 mins for the train transfer at badu station and the platform is open air kind. it was windy and cold, so we hid at the stairs to get some warmth haha. i wore 3 layers and still felt cold T_T
finally reached jiufen after an arduous journey lol it was up the mountain and hence damn cold!!! rainy foggy sadz.
walked along jiufen 老街 and tried various food :) this is my favourite sweet potato and taro balls. must go for 阿柑姨芋圆, the rest of the stalls chiong one not as nice! it's near the end of the street of which you must make a climb up a steep flight of stairs. there will be a signage to point you up the stairs
we then had fishball soup for tea break. the lady boss damn narcissistic, her photos are everywhere lol!
after combing the entire jiufen street, we decided to skip shifen as it was raining and our 天灯 will most likely not fly far. i was so disappointed cause had been looking forward to play with firecrackers at shifen as well.
keelung night market next. took a bus and the bus ride took about 1 hour plus, i slept like a baby throughout =p shiok max. at this point in time, bf start to feel sickish, probably due to his raw steak the night before. he said he felt like a fever is coming and had some stomach discomfort. but we still braved keelung nm to look for comfort food for him.
found this bee hoon soup that look so unassuming but very comforting in the cold weather. the soup is fab! i finished the whole bowl including the soup haha. had some pork and sharkfish to go along with it. we tried pig blood cubes too and they are so yummy. love this stall!
went back to hotel early after exploring keelung nm so that bf can eat medicine and rest. we changed room type and this comes with a bathtub! but i still prefer my 1st room type (2nd picture) because of the cute bear bear
Day 8 - 3rd Dec 2012 (Monday) @ Taipei (淡水, 渔人码头 and 士林夜市)
had a late start to the day again as bf ate medicine and slept longer. walked around ximending and went to taiwan bank to change currency as we ran out of NTD =x had our lunch at this risotto place. the resident dog there is too cute!
the funny thing is we passed by a different outlet of this risotto restaurant and there was another golden retriver inside too as the resident dog. how cute!!!
headed to 淡水 next. wanted to go 北投温泉 then 淡水 but due to our late start, we realized we have no time for 士林夜市 after that so we scrapped the original plan. it was a long train ride to 淡水 as it's the last stop of the red mrt line.
the fried mushroom is very nice!
the must-buy snacks/souvenirs here is 李义鱼稣 and 阿婆铁蛋 :) we did not explore the place very thoroughly as we still wanna go to fisherman's wharf, go back to hotel to unload our foodstuff and then go to 士林夜市. time is quite tight so we only went to look for the recommended food, buy to try and then zao haha. the following lantern street is too pretty to miss though
danshui is known for fishballs so you must try this 可口鱼丸. it's like the 老字号 there so don't settle for other fishball stalls!!! it tasted like our singapore's fuzhou fishballs, those with meat filling inside. yummy. perfect type of food for bf's weak and sick stomach
next stop: fishermen's wharf. very very cold omg the wind. you can either take a ferry from danshui or take red bus 26 from danshui bus terminal. sorry for the spam of photos here haha.
cold still wanna do jump shot haha. the camera lighting is weird though. made us look like we disappear behind the bridge lol
at the other end of the bridge
went back to hotel to unload the heavy foodstuff and head to shihlin night market. take mrt red line to 剑谭 station exit 1.
the must-have chicken chop at shihlin nm
very nice 鸡蛋糕 we tried below but sad that it's our last night in taiwan and i didn't get to eat my 地瓜球 for 1 last time!!! the 2 stalls selling 地瓜球 were closed by the time we were there SIGHZ i miss it so much now!
we bought more things here compared to anywhere else and we shop + eat till about 1am hehe. love that the night markets close so late! this gives us more time to explore other places during the day :)
back to hotel to pack our luggages, hehe the food stuff we bought is massive! managed to pack all nicely in our luggages and 1 hand carry for the fragile stuff. slept at 4am after packing *sweatz*
Day 9 - 4th Dec 2012 (Tuesday) @ Taipei (Ximending & Taoyuan Airport)
my favourite breakfast joint in taiwan, JSP! pork floss egg crepe, hot lemon tea, pork burger, pork baguette and hash brown!
went to shop around ximending after that and did some last minute shopping. mostly shoes though. check out our luggage yo!
HEHEHE i think more than half of that weight is food =p
feeling the christmas mood at the airport
it's so fluffy i am gonna dieee~
sunset
bye bye taiwan, we will be back again 1 summer :)
