Water Planet

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Back From Taiwan!

Finally back from Taiwan. And its a really great place!! I was contemplating emigrating there to stay for good.
The weather's good and breezy. And the people there do speak like how you hear them on TV. The girls really do have that high tone and soft voice that makes every things that comes out from their mouth sound like they've just taken a roller coaster ride. The people there are damn nice as well. Especially to Singaporeans...I don't know why. Well, then again, maybe its just me. :)

Training in Hukou was okay. But I'll probably post more about the R&R section.

First stop at a wholesale centre where we bought some "tu chan". I think that translates as local produce if I'm not wrong... Bought some "tou gan" and "hua sheng gao" for my mommy.

Lunch at a local restaurant was pretty bad. Ten people has got to squeeze around a tiny round table. Out of like 5 dishes or so that were prepared, only one was a meat dish while the rest were veggie. Oh, the soup sucks too. Dinner wasn't any better. SAF is really budget... tsk

We checked into a motel. Still thought they would let us stay in a hotel. Haix... But nvm, since we would probably be out the entire day.
They were saying that there was a porn channel on the TV. We had everyone practically scanning the 100plus channels once we opened the doors to our room. In the end, we found some kinky channels but nothing hard. -_-

The night of the second last day was the beginning of a one and a half day of FREE N EASY!! We cabbed to XiMen Ding and ShiLin YeShi.
XMD was a shopping area that is a must go for everyone touring Taipei. Had originally planned to take our time with XMD on the next day when we had more time. But the darned people there were to be holding a demonstration the next day and so our officers declared it OB. (out of bounds) BOO!]
Bought a bag at XMD. And the heavy point is the lady shopowner was damn shrewed. We just had to enter her shop and walk a few rounds, she counld guess that we were Singaporeans and she even knew the time of our flight that I myself had no idea about!

Shilin was a night market. But we treated it more like a shopping area that an eating area. With only an hour to spare after XMD, we took our turns with our buys and left only like 15mins for a quick takeaway buy.

The next day was fine too. Started the day with 101. Taipei 101 is really farking high. Wanna take picture of the whole building also hard. We went up to the observatory for a cost of about S$20. The view is totally breathtaking. From the north, you see the urbanised area of Taipei. From the south, you see an intersection between the city and the mountains. The little details of the scenery were special too. Like our the tunnels through the mountains look from up 101. Bought loads of gifts there too.

Went to WuFenPu later in the day. It was like an enlarged Bugis Street. Was told that the place had a nine grid layout of about 300+ shops. Bought shirts there as well.
In total, spent about NT7500 for the entire trip.

I am SO going to Taiwan again.
Anyone wanna go with me?!?!?!?!?

mE posted at 3:53 PM