Taiwan- Day 8

US! Very enthusiatically heading out for our countdown!!

Mayday! counting down.... Taipei 101

It's finally New Year's Eve!!! This is supposed to to be the highlight of our trip. To kua nian in taipei!!

We spent the day at the taipei train station underground mall, followed by Ximenting and I had finally tried the famous mee sua. FABULOUS!! We returned to the hostel thereafter to rest for the very exciting night ahead!! We left the hostel at 5pm and didn't get back till like 3am in the morning. It's totally incredible lah!!! And for 90% of the time, we were STANDING! hahaha... very very tiring and probably the experience of the lifetime kind. ahhahah... We saw a lot of familiar faces such as SHE, fan da tong, ah mei, su da lu, some other random hip hop peepz etc etc. But none as EXCITING AS MAYDAY!!!! hahahaha.... they came on after midnight. By then, I was really really really tired liao! hahahaha... think we were so tired till anything slightest provocation would result in us screaming at each other!!! hahahhaa....

Taiwan- Day 7

Modern Toilet Restaurant

Sink Table and Toilet Bowl Seats

THe toilet bowl lunch

Toilet Bowl Ice-cream National Palace Musuem or something like that... VERY HUAT Dinner at Wu Fen Pu

Woke up pretty late that morning. TOtally sianz.. Ended up we are fighting for toilets with the rest of the hostelites.... need a lot of strategising and communications one... kns.. hahaha....

Taiwan is very famous for its "themed" restaurants so we decided to go to one with a "toilet-theme". It wasn't as fun as we all thought it would be leh... just a lot of toilet bowls and "shitty" looking entities.. ahhaa.... I guess it was all spoilt by the pictures that we have seen on the internet so we knew what to expect lah... food wasn't very fantastic either... if you want my take, no point making the trip all the way there lah...

We visited the museum thereafter. HAHAHA... we were really like those "go-there-take-a-picture-to-prove-that-we-have-visited-the-place" tourist. hahaha.. so loser....

the highlight of the day had to be the girls visiting WUFENPU. hahahaha... HUAT!!! So many things that I wanna buy but I just don't have the luggage space/weight for things like that!!!! sianz.... before that, jilei took us to eat "ru ruo fan". DAMN NICE & SO CHEAP AS WELL!!!! The lout for the night includes: 2 new bags and 2 new jackets. hahah...

Taiwan- Day 6

GUESSx3

KTV room

the very "gao" milk tea..

And so we spent the day travelling back north to Taipei. Checked into Chocolate Box Backpackers which is pretty near the Shida Univeristy.

As per every trip, we will make it a point to have a round of Mcdonalds. =PpPp haha... Oh well, nothing could beat the Big Mac in Spain I guess.. hahaha....

We went to GUessX3 studio that evening. Huat! Got to see Wu Zhong Xian.. ahaha....and a couple of other celebrities which I cannot remember now.. hahaa..

Headed off to Partyworld KTV at XMT. It's probably the coolest KTV that I have ever been to. hahahah... It's like set in a hotel kind. THere's a reception area like those of a hotel. The individual rooms has a toilet!!!! hahaha....everything in that room is computerised, from the lights to the mic to the song selections. Cool! Even the food was pretty cheap!!! hahaha.... We paid about 500NT per pax for that session.

Taiwan- Day 5

This is probably the better breakfast that I had in Taiwan... hahaa...

Pacific Ocean

These clowns didn't believe that my camera could even work in absolute darkness. I NEED A TRIPOD!!!

The granite/carbonate formation...

Taroke Gorge Taroke Gorge The curtain cave I totally love the beach!!! All the pebbles were so pretty...

Coffin-bread

We engaged Mr Lui to take us around. However, he wasn't free that day and got a lady to stand -in for him instead. She brought us on a full day tour around Hualien. Saw the Pacific Ocean, the famous Taroke Gorge and the night market.

I totally love Hualien for being such a foody paradise. I loved the peanut muachi the most! but sadly, it expires in 24 hours kind. What a downer... Then the breakfast at the guesthouse was really good. We tried a few things that I didn't eat before such as "Big Sausage wrap Small Sausage" where they wrapped the chinese sausage in glutinuous rice. This very crispy pancake thingie which I cannot remember the name. Opposite of the stall, there's a really bagus milk tea shop!!! hahaha.... later that night, I tried the coffin bread as well. It is totally crazy can!!! so many things to eat!! hahahahaha....

Taiwan- Day 4

Ain't too much today. Just a morning sunrise walk, farm tour and some handicrafts work that I really sucked at. hahaha...

We left the farm at around noon for Hualien! hahaha..

We checked into Rose Garden Guesthouse for the next 2nights. Huat! We got the top floor with 2 rooms and a living room. Very nicely decorated..... LOVE IT!

DInner was even better with the shui jing baos and the handmade muachi!!! ahahaha....

Taiwan- Day 3

This is my favourite picture!!!

hahah... alw is damn funny lah....

The 1983 pigs... ka-ching $$$$ my dearest friends in one of their "retard" moments.... handmade, organic soaps.... it's damn good lah...green tea, charcoal etc...

Starbucks just forced itself into Taiwan's National Cultural Centre!!

random picture on the "fake" streets...

the ladies had to prove their "kiln-building" powers....

Fishing for dinner

Jilei with our first catch of the day...

This is classic leh... Alw blowing into the bbq pit!

bbq-ing

1399 making lots of noise while we were having our dinner...

Our 天凳

Fireworks... LOVE

Fireworks... HOPE

Fireworks... LOVE

Breakfast was provided by the min su owner. It was incredibly filling siah... It was drizzling in the morning. We boarded a bus that takes us to the National Cultural Centre. It's quite boring leh.... Not much exhibits to see. Just a tourist trap. But like I always said," It doesn't matter if the place is boring, it's the company that makes it interesting." Seriously, my odac friends never fill to liven up the whole atmosphere. And so my buddies started the whole series of cam-whoring all over the place. *faintz*

I was relatively shock when I saw starbucks in the National Cultural Centre. Tsk tsk... Everywhere is turning more and more American liao... ahaha...

At about midday, we left for the train station to depart for Yilan county, our 2D1N farmstay.

The farm was a modern entity. The rooms were very well furnished and clean. We started our farming programme by building a sweet potato kiln. Pretty huat leh... it's our first time seeing such a thing. After that, we went fishing at the pond. As usual, I was too noisy to have caught anything fish. Or rather, the fish outsmarted me. KNS......we had a bbq dinner which was pretty decent. However, a few of us didn't want wear our sweaters (last thing we need at the beginning of the trip was a smelly bag of clothes) and it got reallly very cold. The night ended with a "天凳" making session. That was seriously fun leh. I got to read a couple of my wishes on it. HOpe it all come true. ahhahaha...... *winkz*

Taiwan- Day 2

Breakfast near the hostel: The carrot cake was awesome!! hahaha...

At 11am, we got hungry again... Aquarium-themed restaurant in XMT

Our favourite Bian Dan in the entire trip!!!

Toucheng Night Market. The store behind us sold one of the best bbq bacon...

We left our hostel early next morning and strolled to "Ah Long San" Temple. hahaha... private joke.... It was a pretty drastic change from an young, hippy street, we were brought back to in time to an old-folks-infested street. Got pretty tired walking. So ended up in an aquarium-theme restaurant. Chose to sit next to the window on a swing. It was totally a wrong choice can! it's an almost instant nausea-inducing chair... hahaha.... There was an interesting gadget on the table where you dropped a coin into it and it generates a fortune reading. I thought it was quite an innovative idea to place such gadgets on the table. I mean, it is a cafe afterall. Then people will sit around and talk. Then when you run out of topics, you start to examine and play with that toy on the table. Interesting... Later that day, we took a train down the east coast of taiwan to Toucheng, Yilan County. That was just a stopover area for us to hang around before our farm stay. We visited our first homestay (min su) and our first night market for the trip.

Taiwan- Day 1

Waiting for the bus at the airport

The hungry girls at the beef noodle house

We flew out at a decent timing and arrived at a disgusting timing i.e. dinner time!!!!! YEAH! by the time we settled down, it was LIKE 8+.... still need to wait for the guys, buy train tickets etc etc.... with gastric juices growling, we headed to our hostel in XiMenTing, XMT Backpackers, for an overnight stay. Thankfully, it wasn't difficult to look for. It was overall clean but I had to say, there's too little space in between the beds.. It's like some refugee camp... haha... but I like the location, near a lot of food establishments. =P

blog is not dead...

Dan Shui, Taiwan: Sarah, Jilei, Nx, Sophia, Alwyn, John.

I was just bein lazy in my updates. Okay. Lazy was an excuse. I was really really busy with work, on top of the endless gatherings with friends for the xmas and cny period... A short update first.... After the Melaka trip, I went to KL for IPTC- International Petroleum Technology Conference in early Dec 08. Celebrated my birthday... Spent XMAS and New Year in Taiwan. Am currently planning an "all-girls-only" trip for our dearest bride-to-be, Sarah...