Taiwan Trip Day 8 (10/07/2009)

Now, moving on to my last destination for my Taiwan trip: Kao Hsiung! It is somewhat like a miniature Taipei, with all the metro and stuff. I was told that it is the only other federal territory apart from Taipei. So... it's actually quite urbanised haha. I arrived ar Kao Hsiung one day earlier than the Taipei gang as some of them have a presentation (if I didn't remember wrongly) on this day....

Hello Kao Hsiung!

The first thing I did when I reach Kao Hsiung is to check in to my hostel. I didn't quite expect the hostel to be fabulous, but little did I know that I need to climb something that looked like a trapdoor ladder to get to my room... It is about the width of my luggage bag and super steep. Thank God I didn't slip and fell throughout my stay there...

The treacherous ladder.

After checking in, I went out for a walk all by myself, since I didn't want to trouble the host so much before the others have arrived.

The lake in the Central Park, just beside the Central Park Metro Station

The pathway leading out from the Central Park Metro Station

The escalator up to the Central Park from the Metro Station

How I wish Singapore's MRT stations are this nice. But well... in a completely utilitarian Singapore environment, maybe it's not that feasible after all. Next up, I went to a Commercial District (in the afternon duh...) called Shinkuchan. It's some sort like a mini Ximending, with lots of trendy young people walking around (I saw a couple with dogs' ears walking past me!).

Shinkuchan Commercial District

After that, I walked aimlessly trying to link to the other night markets, and I came across this.

Bicycle rental! Soooooo enviromental friendly!

Bought this bull's horn bread which seems to be interesting, but taste normal to me

After walking around, I decided to visit one of the night market since it's about dinner time le. So off I went to Guang Hua Night Market. Nothing interesting happened, nor any weird food that I haven't come across back in Taipei.

Guang Hua Night Market

After that, I decided that I've been walking too much for the day and hence took a bus back to Central Park before walking back to the hostel for the night.

Taken just outside one of the Metro Station's exit

Look forward to an interesting day ahead, and the following day which we went to Kenting for water fun!

Taiwan Trip Day 7 (09/07/2009)

Nothing beats a walk down a hill in a wonderful morning, enjoying the morning breeze and serenity. Woke up at 6am in the morning, and it was too early to meet my friend in Tai Chung Train Station, hence I decided to walk down my hostel towards the city center.

My hostel is beside this University (中台科大)

As I walked along the road down the hill, these are the sceneries that I've came across.

大坑 (What the place I stayed in called)

Empty town roads (which have more lanes than my town -_-!)

After walking for about 1 1/2 hours, I decided to take a bus to Tai Chung Train Station for my breakfast rather than continuing my walk (I took 1 1/2 hours to cover what the bus covered in 15 minutes lol) Anyway, it was a good and relaxing walk. It has been a very long time since I slowed down and look at the environment around me.

After about 20 minutes of bus ride, I arrived at the train station. It's a old colonial looking building, which I think they've done a good job preserving it.

Tai Chung Train Station

After meeting Shao Wei at the station, we embarked on a journey to visit the universities in Tai Chung. Our first stop is 东海大学. It has this thick red brick wall around its campus, but little did we know it's super nice inside :) It seems like we're in a small town, away from civilisation (and I suspected that they can become a fortress during war time).

The school compound

The female hostel. Notice the barbed wire on top of the wall, which make it look like a prison rather than a hostel. Well, I think the only difference is that it is supposed to protect the girls from intruding guys rather than keeping dangerous criminals inside away from the public.

The lake in the university. Nothing extremely spectacular about it though. I think the park had seen better times

We've also tried this ice cream made from the milk that was milked from the university's cow! (Yes, they have their own farm and processing facilities)

After Dong Hai University, we went over to shop for souvenirs. I bought like 3k NTD worth of pineapple tarts and cakes la! Then, we went over to Feng Jia Night Market.

Feng Jia University, which is just beside the night market

Feng Jia Night Market! (Or rather, Feng Jia Business District)

So what did we do in Feng Jia Night Market? The usual lo, eat shop, eat shop. Too bad I didn't take any photoes since I didn't buy much things from here after the huge expenditure for souvenirs.

Feng Jia Night Market's surroundings

That marks the last day for me at Tai Chung. Moving on to Kao Hsiung, the last unique city I visited during the trip in Taiwan. Stay tuned :)

Taiwan Trip Day 6 (08/07/2009)

Day 6 of my Taiwan Trip! For once, I stopped and look at the Shan Dao Temple which is just 1 minute walk from my hostel. It's actually quite a nice building :) Here's the main building.

Shan Dao Temple

After taking pictures of Shan Dao Temple, I moved on to look for the famous soya bean shop just opposite the temple. Not sure how to pronounce it though, look at the green plate in the picture below.

The 油条! 油条 is like super long in Taiwan -_-!

The 厚蛋饼, which they made through baking it in a 瓮, something like how people make 马蹄酥. It's soft and nice.

The 豆浆, hot and not so sweet. Tried the salty one on day 5, now the normal/sweet one.

After the breakfast, I went ahead to check out from my Taipei Hostel and head towards Tai Chung.

Taipei Hostel (Ya that's the name of the hostel)

The bus I took to Tai Chung. It's like a 14 seater! Super wide seats with attached screen and entertainment suite. You can even adjust the thickness of the neck rest and back rest! All this for just 188 NTD, which is like less than 10 SGD!

After arriving at Tai Chung, I went to "look" for my hostel. I was like -_-! when I cannot see my hostel on the full Tai Chung map. Luckily I research beforehand and managed to find my hostel, which is super ulu, and the last bus back from town centre is 7.40pm!

My hostel in Tai Chung.

The beds. Simple and clean, but with lots of stealth mosquitoes which doesn't produce the ringing sound when flying.

After settling down at the hostel, I went on to contact Shao-wei, a friend I got to know from APPS, and we went to 一中商圈 in the city center for food and shopping!

Yi Zhong Business District

The super large papaya milk

Small sausage inside big sausage (literal translation)

半月烧, a pancake-like dish which looks like a half-moon. Super nice!

Chicken Chop (again!)

After hours of eating and shoppping I went back to the hostel to rest up for my souvenir hunting the next day :) One thing is that my hostel is so ulu that I need to walk through a mini forest before I reach the hostel, and the path is like quite dark.... When I walk through it I can feel shivers all the way up my spine..... Feels unclean around the bush area at night... Well, I have the authority over all unclean spirits! Thank God for His authoriy and protection!

Stay tuned for day 7, my last day in Tai Chung!

Taiwan Trip Day 5 (07/07/2009)

Day 5 :) I'm amazed at how I manage to find the motivation to continue blogging since I'm lazy to upload photos haha. Woke up quite early in the morning and ate some 豆浆. Went to the bus terminal to buy my tickets to Tai Chung since I'll be there for my Day 6 and 7. Was quite surprised that the bus ticket is only 188 NTD for a super luxurious bus! More on the bus that I took in Day 6.

The bus terminal for express buses

Met up with Jian Wei and Jia Wei to go 龙山寺 in the evening. It's supposed to be the most famous temple in Taipei I think. I just went to take photos haha, with lots of people looking at me as if I'm someone weird as I'm taking photoes everywhere. I would say that the architecture of the temple is quite unique :)

The center building of the temple

They had this artificial waterfall in the temple which makes the whole temple cooler. Downside is I can't take a close up photo as I didn't want my camera to be exposed to the waterfall's every spashing water lol

After that we went to Hua Xi Night Market. We're supposed to see people kill snakes on the spot and eat them. Maybe because we went too early, we didn't see any, since we didn't want to try it ourselves haha. One interesting finding is there's super a lot of shops which sells *ahem toys here. Now I know why they say this night market is 龙蛇混杂, because it really gives me those underground gang sites kind of feeling which I always see in HK dramas.

Hua Xi Night Market's "gate"

We tried this 肉羹, tastes like dumplings without the skin though

After that, we went over to Xi Men Ding since Jia Wei says she wanted to cut her hair. After visiting a few saloons, we decided that it's not worth the money to cut a fringe in Taipei. Hence, we went to the computer street to find Samsung's service centre so that Jian Wei can fix his phone. However, we didn't send in the phone for servicing since it's going to cost money, and Jian Wei can't live without his phone by his side XD Hence, we went to 八方云集 to eat. It's black soy bean milk is so so in my opinion, but the dumpling and 锅贴 are nice :)

Me and Jian Wei with the food (and the shops's name)

That's for day 5 :)

Taiwan Trip Day 4 (06/07/2009)

Before I became lazy again, updates for day 4!

JW X 2 need to work during the day, so I became a lonely traveller until late afternoon :) Went out to eat 永和豆浆 in the morning before heading back to the hostel for a short nap (Pig sia, but what to do, Taiwan shopping areas only open after 11am for most of them). Set out for Xi Men Ding around 12pm. I literally walked around Xi Men Ding until I met Jian Wei in the afternoon. It's the most in place in all of Taipei, with lots of 帅哥 and 美女.

Xi Men Ding is very Harajuku-like, except minus the funny cosplayers. I saw a quite good looking couple wearing wolf ears though...

Met Jian Wei after his work, and we went over to Shida Night Market for more yummy food :)

We tried this 鲁味, quite nice imho, but JW X 2 was saying the other neighbouring shop tastes better.

We went for some Mango Ice before we head back to our respective hostels. That's before Jia Wei bought a super nerdy pair of specs though. For more info, refer to her blog XD

That's another day gone :)

Taiwan Trip Day 3 (05/07/2009)

It's a Sunday! So where will the good little Chern Yih go? To the Church off course :) I visited Taipei's New Life Church on this fine Sunday morning. It's main service is held in Fu Xing Primary School's Hall. Feel welcomed when I was there looking for seats, and the ushers were kind enough to give me a seat nearer to the door :) And I forgot to buy the new album that they've came out with ..... argh!

Taipei's New Life Church

Fu Xing Primary

Inside Fu Xing Primary

Met up with Jian Wei, Jia Wei, and Susan in the afternoon to go Wu Fen Pu. The things there were cheap for girls, not really so much for guys though. Luckily I didn't suffer much damage there. No pictures as we were busy shopping.

Hou Shan Pi Station, where we walk to Wu Fen Pu from.

After much shopping, we decided to eat some sushi, so in we went into 争鲜Sushi. It's 30 NTD per plate, including the sashimis. Sounds cheap right? In the end I ate 10 plates lol.... That concluded the day and we went back to sleep, since the rest have to work on the following day.

Stay tuned for Day 4 :)

Taiwan Trip Day 2 (04/07/2009)

Before I lost my blogging urge, I shall continue to day 2. We (me + Jian Wei + Jia Wei) went out with Po-min and Devin to Jiufen. It was a nice morning :) On the way to Jiufen

First stop of the day - Jiufen Old Street. Now that they erected the signage, looks super touristy la...

We also tried things like ice cream crepe, abalone mushroom, and had beef noodles for lunch. All shown below.

We also ate the yam ball (literal translation), which is chewy and yummy yummy. See what happened to Jian Wei and Jia Wei after they've tried it.

Went crazy hahaha. Or more accurately, transformed into Domo-kun! After the yam ball, we went further up the mountain to look at the scenery. It's super beautiful la!

Before I left Jiufen :)

After Jiufen, we went to Jin Gua Shi, where it is previously famous for being a City of Gold (okla just a gold mine lol). Look at the gold bar below. It's worth a whooping 218 570 000 New Taiwan Dollars!

Ok dreams aside, we went to Kee Lung in the evening by bus (a super zai driver on board), just to eat the super famous nutritious sandwich! (It doesn't look like a sandwich though, but the taste is extremely addictive)

After a whole night of eating and squeezing in the night market, we departed for Taipei through train. Well, I think this is the first train that I've ever boarded (MRT excluded). Stay tuned for Day 3! (It's gonna get shorter and shorter due to laziness to post photos haha)