to taipei and back.
back from taipei! okay i havent done any serious blogging, shall let the pictures do the talking first...
(updated! but not completed =P)
18 july clockwise from top left: all packed and ready to go! do you see the super obiang scarf? i've been tying it to my luggage each time i travel ever since i went to japan in 1999. and then there's me and wai on the plane. we flew jetstarasia (we budget la..) and i was astounded by the size of the plane. 3 seats on each side of the plane. finis. but the beauty of it is that we were guaranteed a window seat each time =) and of course, wai's camera started acting up and so that pose of hers fiddling with the camera was an often-seen one thru out the 4 days. and you see the advertisement? that's what it says on the back of every seat! and seriously, i think overweight people will have a problem, as well as long legged people. i'm this short and i already felt slightly boxed up.
the flight was really pleasant. it has to be the smoothest flight i've ever been on. and the lady beside us was extremely friendly! haha i've already forgotten her name though =X she was on her way back to taipei after arranging accomodation for her children studying in singapore. so typically, we ended up talking about education in singapore and she was asking about sec schs in sg coz her daughter would be taking psle next year. i think she's going to convince her daughter to go ny. hahahahaha well i was mostly silent because er, my chinese, is damn lousy. oops.
after reaching cks international airport, we were met by a representative from the taiwan-based tour agency. wai was gleefully pointing out that the guy didnt bother writing out my name coz its twice as long as hers. whatever lor... after we reached kilin hotel, we thought that well, for a 3 star hotel, the lobby looks quite good, so maybe the sucky reviews online were exagerating... until we entered the lift. it had a greenish tinge and shook way too much, i swear they can film quite a few horror movies in there. see the "no slipper walking in lobby" sign? its one of the many signs in bad english. this was my favourite. the corridors were honestly quite scary too, so wai and i didnt dare go alone to the water outlet to fill the flask with water. but it was livable though a bit run-down, just that the bathtub made funny gurgling noises, the tv volume system was slightly screwed up and there was hardly any soundproofing between rooms, as we discovered on the 2nd night when we could hear the tv from the next room, in addition to the sounds of the occupant showering. -_-"
so after dumping our luggage, we went out for dinner! we stopped at this fast-food-like restaurant selling noodles (forgot the name) and we quickly discovered that it was near impossible to act as locals because we struggled with the currency (what note is this hmmm... oh.) and our accent just sounds wrong. and on my part i cant read 繁体字 for nuts and relied on wai to read out the characters. but the food was pretty good! (or maybe coz we were hungry...) after filling our stomachs, we walked on further and taaa-daaa! after abt 20 mins of aimless walking in all, we stumbled upon 西门町! SHOPPINGGGGG~!!!! but i was mildly pissed because we were told that kilin hotel was a 10min walk to ximen station. but the prospect of shopping and more food was just too enticing to stay angry for long. there were loads of shoes, clothes, accessories, FOOD, those machines which you try to pick up stuff and of course, neoprint shop. and i must pause to say that the sg neoprint shops simply pale in comparison; see the pink building? 3 STOREYS worth of neoprint machines. so... when in rome, do as the romans do. neoprint time!
and of course, what's a trip without savouring the local food? sure, bubble tea's nothing new to us, but its er, an experience drinking it in its native land =P
on the stroll to ximending and back, i couldnt help but be very amused by the traffic signals. the green man is ANIMATED!! he WALKS! and at the last 5-6 seconds, he starts to RUN. and then we walked past Xi-Men elementary school, and i commented that take out the letter "i" and you'd have X-Men elementary school. wai was very tickled by the idea, and the photo's proof of it.
19 july: after having a pretty sucky breakfast (okay fine I'M PICKY.) at the hotel, we boarded the little van to 中正纪念堂. the tour guide had to drive and provide the commentary at the same time since his company deemed a 9-member tour group too small to provide an additional driver. =X i suppose this would be unthinkable in sg. then again, the driving in taipei was what one accustomed to sg road conditions might call downright scary. scooters (apparently termed 自杀车 by the locals) will just weave in and out of traffic, cars dont seem to bother signalling before moving in or out of a lane, (assuming they even bother abt the lanes). unless of course, you have ever been in a taxi in 深圳; in that case, no driving in any city will be frightening to you again. (i kid you not.)
and a word about scooters. they are ubiquitous. in fact, they were so numerous, wai and i started to wonder if a licence was necessary to ride one. it was mildly amusing (and a bit shocking) to see a scooter with daddy operating it, mummy sitting behind him and little son sitting in front of daddy =X and there were also females in skirts, males in long sleeved shirts, tie and leather shoes. but the one guy on a scooter who took the cake was dressed in a tuxedo complete with bow tie under the hot taipei summer sun. enough about fashion on scooters; there were special boxes for scooters to stop in at junctions, and some roads were only for scooters to use. amazing.
end of scooter talk. we reached the memorial hall before it was opened and i think wai and i were most trigger-happy there, shooting picture after picture after our one kodak-moment where she managed to capture our faces with the main building in the background. lovely. the central square was very big, and in the words of the guide, was a suitable place to hold demostrations as it could accomodate many many many people. the memorial hall itself was flanked by 2 buildings, the concert hall on the left and opera house on the right. i wonder how it looks like inside, but sadly it was still closed by the time we left.
btw there are 89 steps leading to the main hall itself: they represent the age of chiang kai-shek when he died.
oh, and if you noticed that wai and i were trying to imitate the stone pi xiu (dunno la!), congrats. the male one has an open mouth, while the female one has a closed one because at the time of their creation, there was still gender inequality, so in general the males speak and the females had to shut up and listen. but we all agreed that times are different, the females today talk and the males listen. muahahahahaahaha
next stop, martyrs' shrine. we arrived too late to watch the start of the ceremony, but i guess it was sufficient. as the name suggests, the shrine honours those who died for taiwan in the wars. the guards at their posts didnt move at all, and the marching was impeccable. taiwan also has compulsory ns for their guys, and if a new enlistee was more than 1.8m and didnt wear glasses, he'd be part of the guards before he realised what was going on. the display was something like the display put up by the military police during national day, but on a much smaller scale and with more fanciful uniforms to go along. u could see sweat dripping off the soldiers. and no wonder! it was at least 34 degrees that day. (and i thought it would be better than sg... noooo...)
the number plate is there because i found the 台北市 at the top interesting. most of the vehicles either had that or 台湾省.
next stop, 故宫博物院: national palace museum. no pictures, because photography is not allowed, so the picture of the apartment opposite it will have to do =P the treasures were fascinating. one of the most popular pieces was a white and green jade piece carved in the shape of a vegetable. it was commisioned by er, some emperor as part of his sister's dowry, signifying to her husband-to-be that the princess was "青青白白" and something else carved on it (i dunno what la, couldnt hear) was to wish the couple 子孙满堂. the other piece was a stone which looked like a piece of meat! seriously, i felt hungry looking at it. i was also fascinated by this ivory carving of 17 balls, one inside the next. the entire thing was made from a SINGLE piece of ivory. amazing.
lunch was steamboat at a forgotten location. good food =P
and then it was up and away to 九份! the name came about from the nine families who originally stayed there, so anyone who went down to town always bought 9 portions of whatever he was buying. then gold was discovered, and people flocked up the mountain. all that's left today is the remains of the ever-busy main street, where it now sells food galore and souveniers for tourists, as well as stuff from a bygone era. this was the place where we bought most of our souveniers and i got an oceanrina (whatever you spell it) to add to my "weird wind instruments" collection.
i like the temple picture. acc to the tour guide, there are ten thousands of temples in taiwan, and that's just the large ones.
after 九份 it was a loooooong deary ride to the hot spring, which was completely different from my expectations. i was thinking along the lines of some pond-like place lined with rocks but nooo... it was just partitioned rooms for 2 with a shared bath with 2 taps for hot spring water and cold water. it was quite funny because the assistant turned on both taps to maximum, but the cold water jet was larger and much stronger, so after a few minutes i stuck my finger into the pool of water and asked if a hot bath is supposed to be that cold. for obvious reasons, we then turned down the cold water tap and waited for the hot water to fill up most of the bath after that. and obviously, it felt very weird bathing with someone else but we managed to work round that anyway. hahaha i think it would have been weirder if someone we weren't so familiar with came and joined in. (which nearly happened) after a while we got out... to realise that everyone else in the tour group had ended their bath a long time ago and all waiting for us -erp for the nth time already- but we reasoned that we did time ourselves properly and so the rest of them were early. which was right, because one of the aunties then asked us why we spent so long in there when people had peed in the bath before. upon further enquiry, it turned out that they didnt actually see someone pee, but SMELT something weird like pee. er well... hot spring... got sulfur... which smells... so...
(no pictures because i stupidly left my camera in the bus)
then it was to 士林夜市 for dinner and (what else) shopping. dont think there was anything really eventful about it, apart from me buying -cough- a bag and trying NOT to wander down snake alley by mistake. not as if the night was entirely snake-free at the end though, because i saw a man in a pet shop playing with a baby python. gross.
20july: our "free and easy" day! well, since we were determined not to waste the day away, we arose bright and early (as much as we could, anyway) and headed down to... (whatever this temple is, anyway. i forgot.) the outside could do with some repainting works but the inside was pretty. there was a prayer session going on so we vamoosed pretty quickly.
(updated! but not completed =P)
18 july clockwise from top left: all packed and ready to go! do you see the super obiang scarf? i've been tying it to my luggage each time i travel ever since i went to japan in 1999. and then there's me and wai on the plane. we flew jetstarasia (we budget la..) and i was astounded by the size of the plane. 3 seats on each side of the plane. finis. but the beauty of it is that we were guaranteed a window seat each time =) and of course, wai's camera started acting up and so that pose of hers fiddling with the camera was an often-seen one thru out the 4 days. and you see the advertisement? that's what it says on the back of every seat! and seriously, i think overweight people will have a problem, as well as long legged people. i'm this short and i already felt slightly boxed up.
the flight was really pleasant. it has to be the smoothest flight i've ever been on. and the lady beside us was extremely friendly! haha i've already forgotten her name though =X she was on her way back to taipei after arranging accomodation for her children studying in singapore. so typically, we ended up talking about education in singapore and she was asking about sec schs in sg coz her daughter would be taking psle next year. i think she's going to convince her daughter to go ny. hahahahaha well i was mostly silent because er, my chinese, is damn lousy. oops.
after reaching cks international airport, we were met by a representative from the taiwan-based tour agency. wai was gleefully pointing out that the guy didnt bother writing out my name coz its twice as long as hers. whatever lor... after we reached kilin hotel, we thought that well, for a 3 star hotel, the lobby looks quite good, so maybe the sucky reviews online were exagerating... until we entered the lift. it had a greenish tinge and shook way too much, i swear they can film quite a few horror movies in there. see the "no slipper walking in lobby" sign? its one of the many signs in bad english. this was my favourite. the corridors were honestly quite scary too, so wai and i didnt dare go alone to the water outlet to fill the flask with water. but it was livable though a bit run-down, just that the bathtub made funny gurgling noises, the tv volume system was slightly screwed up and there was hardly any soundproofing between rooms, as we discovered on the 2nd night when we could hear the tv from the next room, in addition to the sounds of the occupant showering. -_-"
so after dumping our luggage, we went out for dinner! we stopped at this fast-food-like restaurant selling noodles (forgot the name) and we quickly discovered that it was near impossible to act as locals because we struggled with the currency (what note is this hmmm... oh.) and our accent just sounds wrong. and on my part i cant read 繁体字 for nuts and relied on wai to read out the characters. but the food was pretty good! (or maybe coz we were hungry...) after filling our stomachs, we walked on further and taaa-daaa! after abt 20 mins of aimless walking in all, we stumbled upon 西门町! SHOPPINGGGGG~!!!! but i was mildly pissed because we were told that kilin hotel was a 10min walk to ximen station. but the prospect of shopping and more food was just too enticing to stay angry for long. there were loads of shoes, clothes, accessories, FOOD, those machines which you try to pick up stuff and of course, neoprint shop. and i must pause to say that the sg neoprint shops simply pale in comparison; see the pink building? 3 STOREYS worth of neoprint machines. so... when in rome, do as the romans do. neoprint time!
and of course, what's a trip without savouring the local food? sure, bubble tea's nothing new to us, but its er, an experience drinking it in its native land =P
on the stroll to ximending and back, i couldnt help but be very amused by the traffic signals. the green man is ANIMATED!! he WALKS! and at the last 5-6 seconds, he starts to RUN. and then we walked past Xi-Men elementary school, and i commented that take out the letter "i" and you'd have X-Men elementary school. wai was very tickled by the idea, and the photo's proof of it.
19 july: after having a pretty sucky breakfast (okay fine I'M PICKY.) at the hotel, we boarded the little van to 中正纪念堂. the tour guide had to drive and provide the commentary at the same time since his company deemed a 9-member tour group too small to provide an additional driver. =X i suppose this would be unthinkable in sg. then again, the driving in taipei was what one accustomed to sg road conditions might call downright scary. scooters (apparently termed 自杀车 by the locals) will just weave in and out of traffic, cars dont seem to bother signalling before moving in or out of a lane, (assuming they even bother abt the lanes). unless of course, you have ever been in a taxi in 深圳; in that case, no driving in any city will be frightening to you again. (i kid you not.)
and a word about scooters. they are ubiquitous. in fact, they were so numerous, wai and i started to wonder if a licence was necessary to ride one. it was mildly amusing (and a bit shocking) to see a scooter with daddy operating it, mummy sitting behind him and little son sitting in front of daddy =X and there were also females in skirts, males in long sleeved shirts, tie and leather shoes. but the one guy on a scooter who took the cake was dressed in a tuxedo complete with bow tie under the hot taipei summer sun. enough about fashion on scooters; there were special boxes for scooters to stop in at junctions, and some roads were only for scooters to use. amazing.
end of scooter talk. we reached the memorial hall before it was opened and i think wai and i were most trigger-happy there, shooting picture after picture after our one kodak-moment where she managed to capture our faces with the main building in the background. lovely. the central square was very big, and in the words of the guide, was a suitable place to hold demostrations as it could accomodate many many many people. the memorial hall itself was flanked by 2 buildings, the concert hall on the left and opera house on the right. i wonder how it looks like inside, but sadly it was still closed by the time we left.
btw there are 89 steps leading to the main hall itself: they represent the age of chiang kai-shek when he died.
oh, and if you noticed that wai and i were trying to imitate the stone pi xiu (dunno la!), congrats. the male one has an open mouth, while the female one has a closed one because at the time of their creation, there was still gender inequality, so in general the males speak and the females had to shut up and listen. but we all agreed that times are different, the females today talk and the males listen. muahahahahaahaha
next stop, martyrs' shrine. we arrived too late to watch the start of the ceremony, but i guess it was sufficient. as the name suggests, the shrine honours those who died for taiwan in the wars. the guards at their posts didnt move at all, and the marching was impeccable. taiwan also has compulsory ns for their guys, and if a new enlistee was more than 1.8m and didnt wear glasses, he'd be part of the guards before he realised what was going on. the display was something like the display put up by the military police during national day, but on a much smaller scale and with more fanciful uniforms to go along. u could see sweat dripping off the soldiers. and no wonder! it was at least 34 degrees that day. (and i thought it would be better than sg... noooo...)
the number plate is there because i found the 台北市 at the top interesting. most of the vehicles either had that or 台湾省.
next stop, 故宫博物院: national palace museum. no pictures, because photography is not allowed, so the picture of the apartment opposite it will have to do =P the treasures were fascinating. one of the most popular pieces was a white and green jade piece carved in the shape of a vegetable. it was commisioned by er, some emperor as part of his sister's dowry, signifying to her husband-to-be that the princess was "青青白白" and something else carved on it (i dunno what la, couldnt hear) was to wish the couple 子孙满堂. the other piece was a stone which looked like a piece of meat! seriously, i felt hungry looking at it. i was also fascinated by this ivory carving of 17 balls, one inside the next. the entire thing was made from a SINGLE piece of ivory. amazing.
lunch was steamboat at a forgotten location. good food =P
and then it was up and away to 九份! the name came about from the nine families who originally stayed there, so anyone who went down to town always bought 9 portions of whatever he was buying. then gold was discovered, and people flocked up the mountain. all that's left today is the remains of the ever-busy main street, where it now sells food galore and souveniers for tourists, as well as stuff from a bygone era. this was the place where we bought most of our souveniers and i got an oceanrina (whatever you spell it) to add to my "weird wind instruments" collection.
i like the temple picture. acc to the tour guide, there are ten thousands of temples in taiwan, and that's just the large ones.
after 九份 it was a loooooong deary ride to the hot spring, which was completely different from my expectations. i was thinking along the lines of some pond-like place lined with rocks but nooo... it was just partitioned rooms for 2 with a shared bath with 2 taps for hot spring water and cold water. it was quite funny because the assistant turned on both taps to maximum, but the cold water jet was larger and much stronger, so after a few minutes i stuck my finger into the pool of water and asked if a hot bath is supposed to be that cold. for obvious reasons, we then turned down the cold water tap and waited for the hot water to fill up most of the bath after that. and obviously, it felt very weird bathing with someone else but we managed to work round that anyway. hahaha i think it would have been weirder if someone we weren't so familiar with came and joined in. (which nearly happened) after a while we got out... to realise that everyone else in the tour group had ended their bath a long time ago and all waiting for us -erp for the nth time already- but we reasoned that we did time ourselves properly and so the rest of them were early. which was right, because one of the aunties then asked us why we spent so long in there when people had peed in the bath before. upon further enquiry, it turned out that they didnt actually see someone pee, but SMELT something weird like pee. er well... hot spring... got sulfur... which smells... so...
(no pictures because i stupidly left my camera in the bus)
then it was to 士林夜市 for dinner and (what else) shopping. dont think there was anything really eventful about it, apart from me buying -cough- a bag and trying NOT to wander down snake alley by mistake. not as if the night was entirely snake-free at the end though, because i saw a man in a pet shop playing with a baby python. gross.
20july: our "free and easy" day! well, since we were determined not to waste the day away, we arose bright and early (as much as we could, anyway) and headed down to... (whatever this temple is, anyway. i forgot.) the outside could do with some repainting works but the inside was pretty. there was a prayer session going on so we vamoosed pretty quickly.
posted by ger @ 3:49 下午
