shu hui ling - travel buddies

Taiwan Day 6~~

Hey, here’s Day 6 of our Taiwan trip, which was a little more than a year ago. Wanna complete the rest of the trip to blog about our recent trip to South Korea! :)

Okie Day 6: basically, met up with my parent’s friends and son at Dan Shui station, and went to 漁人碼頭 and Fort Antonio. First, we ate lunch at a teppanyaki place. It was delicious and free! A treat from my parent’s friend. Hehe… prolly the day we spent the least amount of money since dinner was also on them. Haha, more on that later. Then, the 碼頭 next to the river was a short walk away. We walked around, looking, eating, drinking, buying some stuff, … Ohya, their pastry shops there a fabulous! they allow you to eat as much samples of their pastry as you like and they even provide you with chinese tea to 配 their pastry! how great is that and their sample serving size is huge compared to ours. Hehe… anyway, their pastry was great and bought some stuff! The pastry shop we went to is 三協成. Details below:
No. 81 Zhongzheng Rd.、Danshui
台北縣淡水鎮中正路81號
Tel: (02)2621-2177
http://www.sanxiecheng.com.tw/

Next, we went to the Lover’s Bridge (情人桥). We were told that if a couple were to hold hands and cross the bridge, their relationship won’t last. Hehe… if this is true then many couples would have split~ Then, at the pier, we did something we really wanted to do! Get our portraits drawn by an artist there! haha… it wasn’t really very cheap nor expensive. I think it was around 500NT? black and white portrait is around 100NT/ person. Colour i think add another 100NT. Then, we wanted to add some details in which had additional costs another 100NT.

Ta-da!! :) Seriously, I think doesn’t really really look like me. Shuling’s is better. Haha… btw, the details we added in was the aeroplane at the bottom.

Soon, it was evening time and my parent’s friend drove us back to our hotel to have a rest and came to pick us for dinner later. We had dinner at a place called “Tasty”. It is open by a big organisation in Taiwan, kinda like our Tung Lok. They open many different types of restaurants of different cuisine. Tasty offered western cuisine, a series of courses at only 500nt?!! it is superrrrrr worth it~ quite high quality food and if you’re unhappy with any food you can ask them to change because in Taiwan the restaurant industry is super competitive so they will do almost anything to make their customers happy. Haha… which is good for consumers.

After dinner, my parent’s friend brought us to 華西街觀光夜市, which was nearby. By then, it was quite late and we only had a limited amount of time to walk around before some of the stalls started to close. Then, we took a cab back to our hotel. zzzZzZzz…

I love this photo. Haha…

Taiwan Day 5!

Hi all, it is finally day 5 of our Taiwan trip from 11 to 20 May 2010. It is the day Shuling and I traveled via train (not the express train but their normal train) from Hualien to Taipei. :)

After we woke up and washed up, we were welcomed by… a delicious Taiwanese breakfast spread! It is nothing luxurious but it was fantastic to us! :) come to think about it, it was actually quite simple but I love it. It was basically sweet potato porridge and sides that went well with the porridge like pickles, salted egg and a Taiwanese brown thingy that was made of beans I think. Texture looks like “dao kua”. It was a little sweet and went very well with porridge. The spread also had bread and coffee/ tea.

After breakfast, we went for an exercise! Riding our tandem bicycle around the area and by the beach! First, we rode the bicycle to the place we had dinner the previous night. The main reason why we went back there was because we saw goats in a hut the previous night and wanted to see it in the morning as it was too dark to really see anything. Then, we rode to the 七星柴魚博物館 to take a look at how 柴魚 is made. It was actually a 柴魚 factory last time and was converted into a museum. But basically, I was busy looking for all the stamps that they had all around the museum, to stamp each of them into my notebook. Haha… they are memories to keep mah. At the end of the visit, we went to their gift store and Shuling bought a 柴魚-soup-making packet. They had samples for us to taste there and it was delicious. And it is GOOD even when you do at back home. :) great buy!

Next, we decided to just ride the bicycle along the beach before returning the bicycle to the bicycle shop. The beach is super pretty in the daylight! :)

and as we rode along the path, guess what we found? A stall selling COCONUTS! but hor, there wasn’t any coconut trees there leh… where did the coconuts come from? hmm… its a mystery. anyway, we decided to buy 1 to share and the uncle gave us the BIGGEST one in his cart. -.-” while happily drinking the coconut, we saw a lady approach and bought a smaller one from him then it dawned on us, “omg, this coconut is too big for us man… how are we going to finish… and we’re due to return the bike and go back to the inn for our ride to the train station…” so we sucked on the straw like mad…

Finally, we sort-of finished up the juice in the coconut, returned the bike and went back to the inn. The friendly inn owner drove us to the train station! super nice right? but she said that it is part of the package… haha… if you remember from the previous post, we got our train tickets (NT441) from the train station itself the previous day. It is quite easy to buy the tickets from the automatic machine (it is in English). It is better to buy your train tickets in advance unless you don’t mind altering your travel plans a little, just in case you cannot buy the tickets at the last minute.

The lady inn owner dropped us off at the famous Hualien 麻署 (muachee) shop but shucks, I forgot the name and I am lazy to get the namecard. Hehe… after tasting and buying tonnes of muachee and stuff in the shop, we walked to the train station that was very near by. When we reached Hualien train station, it was just about time to board the train. It was our first time taking their train so we were a little “kan jiong” but we also wanted to buy a 便当 and eat on the train for lunch as the train ride was relatively long, I think around 2+ hours. hehe… So I rushed off to the 7-11 (Taiwanese call it “Seven”) in the train station, while Shuling waited with the luggages. I bought a 哇沙米鲑鱼饭团 and a 油鸡便当. The 便当 was placed in a heated glass cabinet so that it can be kept relatively hot. So nice huh…

Omg, doesn’t the 饭团 and 便当 look delicious? The 便当 had quite a lot of 料 lor… haha… then after the train left the station, we realised that they sell 便当 on the train. But luckily we bought them outside, because those sold on the train was quite expensive and sold out quite quickly. Like upon leaving the station and the announcement was made, the 便当 was sold out. Haha…

After around 2+ hours, we finally arrived at Taipei Main Station. We reach Taipei at around 1pm (We took the 10:45 train from Hualien). At first, Taipei Main Station seem a little messy to us, especially coming up from the “countryside” Hualien and Taichung. So we decided to take a cab to our hotel in Ximending.

More info about our hotel: 紅菱閣旅店 Address: 台北市萬華區峨嵋街80號
Website: http://www.redcabininn.com.tw/ 

Actually, its just at Ximending. Not at the central very happening area but at one of the quieter street. But it is walking distance~ We decided to stay there because it is at XMD! and it is relatively cheap, 980NT per night. But, don’t expect too much from it bah, since it is not a luxurious hotel. the room is quite small but you can try to ask for a larger room because some of their rooms are larger than others. it is just a place to sleep and shower and rest. haha… but i think that it is not bad for a budget traveler.

After putting down our luggages and rest for awhile, we walked to the Modern Toilet at XMD for a meal. Haha… I was actually kinda disappointed in their cleanliness. I know that it is a toilet… but it is NOT a real toilet right… but I think that their food is not bad on the whole.

It is quite “refreshing” to be in such a restaurant as Singapore does not have much theme restaurant. Haha… The hot pot is in a modern toilet bowl, the baked rice is in a bath tub and the ice cream is in a traditional toilet. Hehe… but the cutest thing is this…

 

This is NOT a toilet bowl!! This is actually a wash basin… hehe… cute hor, but the water in the “bowl” is kinda er xin.

Next, we took a subway to the Taipei City Hall Metro Station from XMD station and took a free shuttle bus to Taipei 101! More information about this shuttle bus can be found in the Taipei 101 website. We went to level 5 of 101 to buy our tickets (NT350 to go to the top floor and top up NT100 to go up a few more floors, provided the weather is good) up to the top floor (which is not 101…). But, the sad thing is that the weather wasn’t fantastic on that day and was quite foggy but we didn’t want to come back again so we decided to go up. We didn’t know it was that foggy… but nevermind, this gives us another reason to go back to Taiwan! We learned more about the Taipei 101 building and how it can be build so high! :)
 

I must warn whoever that reads this blog and wanna go to Taipei 101. There will be groups and groups of tourists from a specific country and they are super rowdy and LOUD. They are inconsiderate and shouts in other people’s ear when they are “talking” beside you. YES, SHOUT! omg. and yes, they push people, as if other people are invisible. if you ever see them, please pleas please wait for them to advance before you go to see whatever you wanted to see. Ok, actually they’re at most tourist places in Taipei so when you see them please AVOID them. thank you very much.

After our hear drums got burst at the top floor of Taipei 101, we decided to go for supper at 华西街夜市, which is at 龙山寺站, to have our fix of Taiwanese snacks!! Let me let the photos do the talk…
 

Seems kinda little hor… no worries! because we wanna save some stomach space for XMD food to da bao back to the hotel room to eat and watch telly. hehe…

Hehe… on the way, day 5 was a little tiring due to the travelling but fulfilling enough, food wise. haha… but the Taipei 101 was kinda disappointing… but nvm~ :) happy anyway…

Taiwan Day 4

Day 4 already! :)

I think that it is one of the more boring days of all, because most of the time was spent on the car travelling from the Cing Jing Farm to Hualien. We set of at around 9+am and only managed to reach Hualien at around evening time? But we managed to catch a glimpse of one of Taiwan’s best sceneries! 

First thing in the morning, we woke up and took photos of the scenery. We really didn’t want to leave the place. The scenery is great, the air is great and most importantly the people was great too~ even the dog. Haha…

Then we ate their fabulous breakfast! Looks great right? I am salivating already…

Soon, the driver (简先生) that is supposed to drive us to Hualien arrived. We squeezed our luggages into the car and was on our way to the windy expressway. Some parts of the journey was kind of boring. I shall pick out a few interesting parts. :)

The first stop was at the highest point of the expressway, Wuling at 3275 m above sea level. It was COLD. And we didn’t expect it to be that COLD so we were only wearing a t-shirt and a jacket. We were shivering and our teeth were chattering… haha!

 

Next, we stopped at the 慈母桥. I have forgotten why it is called 慈母桥, all I could remember was that the scenery was magnificent. It is maybe my first time seeing such a scene. A river was streaming and meandering underneath the bridge Well, I live in Singapore where the only rivers are either the Singapore River or the “long gao”.

Next interesting part of the trip: We had a short hike at the Lyushui Trail. It was refreshing to take a walk after hours of travelling in the car. However, it was not just a walk in the park! There was signs saying “Beware of rockfalls!”, “Fragmented hanging wall, please move against the rock wall!”.

Really, we didn’t want to fall down into…

!

Then the route lead to this…

a cave…

I was so scared… but actually there is nothing to be scared of. Just stand behind your friend and force her to walk while you just close your eyes and follow her. While your friend keeps pressing the camera flash button for some source of light. Simple! Waha!

Then the route lead to a bridge, which looks scary but not at all scary.

Then it was almost the end of the route. Interesting right? :) Next up, the famous. Taroko Gorge.

Soon after, we reached Hualien and was brought to the guesthouse (七星海民宿）. We did not expect much as the accommodation was arranged by the driver. However, the accommodation was great (the room was huge and the scenery from the balcony was fabulous… the sea!), including the owner! She was so friendly and nice… she sort of forced the driver (whom I believe she never met before) to drive us to the train station to buy our train tickets back to Taipei. We were planned to go back to Taipei the next day and the guesthouse owner said that we might have difficulties buying our tickets. But we didn’t… so everything was ok! :)

Anyway, back to Hualien. We went to rent a tandem bicycle to cycle along the coast. The owner of the guesthouse told us that we can tell the owner of the bicycle shop that we are staying at 七星海民宿 and we can keep the bicycle until tomorrow morning so we don’t have to rush to return the bike to them before they close.

Ohmy… the beach (七星潭)was so pretty! The whole shore was not filled with sand but filled with pebbles of various sizes! :)

Lastly, was the fabulous dinner!!! While we were wondering around, looking around for dinner places nearby because we didn’t want to go to the night market. We saw the owner of the guesthouse. She told us about a place nearby that had great food and great atmosphere. It was actually a farm… haha…

I think the dinner set wasn’t expensive at all and it consist of soup, bread, drink, main course and dessert! woah…

Delicious right?! Haha… we found some goats in the farm but let’s leave that for the next day…

Overall: I have to say that the driver wasn’t great, such that I won’t recommend him to my friend. Actually, we approached another driver but he wasn’t free and passed us to this driver. However, to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think that he was new. He tried his best… ya… Haha… but overall, the day was great. Especially Hualien! :):)

Get ready for day 5~!

 

Taiwan Day 3

Alright here comes Day 3! haha probably Shu Hui’s favourite part of the trip!! Had sandwiches for breakfast (Courtesy of Love Home’s owner) then proceeded to bus station to take a bus from SML to Puli. From Puli, we’ll have to take another bus to Song Gang.

Having reached there, the Starry House owner came and fetch us. The guest house we are staying in is located at 2089m above sea level! Probably the highest you can find there. It has really nice scenary and the owner is really really hospitable. Our room was huge! We had 2 queen size bed all to ourselves! He then made us coffee and tea and treated us to some biscuits (Peacock biscuit it’s called). A nice snack to get us going!

The owner’s Husky. Friendly dog with different coloured eyes!

He then drove us down to Cingjing Farm where you can find all the cute sheeps. Before proceeding into the farm, we were told that there is another area where we would probably see even more sheeps as the sheeps are kept there. We decided to proceed there before going to the farm and indeed there were some sheeps grazing around! Shu Hui was getting excited! haha..

Upon entering the farm, we walked around trying to look for sheeps and darn it! There were cases of sheep being infected with some sort of virus and we were not allowed to go near them. There wasn’t any sheep around to speak of though. We were disappointed! So we just walked around exploring the farm, went to some souvenir shops and went for horse-riding. 

We had lunch there and bought some really sweet peaches. nice! Bought some postcards as well and we each sent 1 back home. (Guess what… it only came about 1 week after we’re back in SG!) We continued to walk and after a while it started raining. We hid in a small shop and we were lucky! We saw flocks of sheeps running to somewhere haha.. The sheeps were quite close to us… Shu Hui was so happy!!! haha her favourite animals!

We walked to the Small Swiss Garden after that and bought some souvenirs.

The Starry House owner then came to pick us up for dinner at his place. It was complementary steamboat dinner!! It’s really delicious and they are so generous with the portion they gave us.

After the dinner, we were lazing around the room. We then received a call from the owner.. he told us to come out quickly as the sky was full of stars!! That’s why it’s called Starry House! We were lucky that the sky was clear that night and he started pointing to us the different stars. having grown up in a city, we have never seen so much stars in the sky even before!! Seriously i think that’s the best part of the trip! This place is highly recommended for anyone who’s going there!!

Shuzzies
Day 3 photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=181500&id=677426992&l=1b5e0d28d2 

Taiwan Day 2

Rise and shine!! Haha.. we had a simple but nice and satisfying breakfast at the hotel. Can’t complain too much since we did not pay much for the night’s stay but we liked it!

Bread missing.. haha they’re still toasting it. Comes with nice coffee or tea as well.

After our breakfast, we walked to the bus station nearby to get tickets to Puli.Then from Puli we bought tickets to Sun Moon Lake. We checked in a place called Love Home. Don’t be deceived by the name! haha it’s a very cosy place actually and the owners are really nice. The stay actually comes with ferry rides and pottery making session. We went for the ferry ride first and visited several places at Sun Moon Lake.

Had our lunch there and the food was nice as well. Some food we ate.

We did not particularly
like the tea but it was ok. 

This is nice!! It’s carrot cake.

Wild boar sausage

Haha their famous tea leaf egg. It’s probably so popular because she the only one there i guess.

We then took a bus to get to the pottery place (called Handmade Kiln i think). There are 2 methods for you to choose from. The free tickets we had was for the “self-moulding” type. (It’s like playing with playdoh basically). So we had to topped up a bit to get to do our pottery on the potter’s wheel. It wasn’t easy and after do it for a little while, the instructor helped us with it.. guess they think that we are too slow or that we are just too lousy. I made a bowl while shu hui made a vase.

 

Potter’s wheel                     Our work! Hehe.. 

We asked them how long it will take to do the glazing as we wanted to bring home. If i remembered correctly they mentioned like 2 weeks? It was too long and by then we’re not in Taiwan already. So we decided to just bring the half finished work along with us.. hoping that it will last till we get back. (Mine broke into half when we got to Taipei… haha… Think shu hui still has hers at home… maybe a vase does not break as easily as a bowl? haha)

Anyway, we took a bus back to the hotel. We shopped a bit around the town and had a simple dinner.

Bought the famous Ten Ren milk tea.

Tiger noodle (Super spicy   Dumpling soup noodle
noodle)

Was really full after the meal. Went to walk around the harbour and it was beautiful! Haha on our way back, we went to the family mart to buy their beer (super cheap!), bowl noodle and some fruits. Nice supper to end the day!!

 

Look out for Day 3!

Shuzzies
Day 2 photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180904&id=677426992&l=3b1f529c8d 

Taiwan Day 1

Oh my god! It’s been almost 1 year since the Taiwan trip and I can’t believe I’m only doing this now!! Ok taking a break off all my studying. Great way to de-stress by reminiscing happy memories!

Hopefully I can remember what happened day by day haha.

We arrived at the airport at around 4.30am for our 6.30am flight. I know I know it’s early considering that we had already checked-in online but boy.. we were excited! 

We flew by Cathay Pacific and had to stopover at Hong Kong. And guess what, we found Kinder Surprise. Don’t know why we were so excited but we still bought it in the end. Haha the toys were disappointing though. But who cares, it’s for the fun. Oh ya and guess what haha we saw Patricia Mok.. while checking in at the cathay counter the person was telling us that we were on the same flight as patricia mok… haha

Some photos taken from the plane!

 

After we arrived at Taoyuan Airport, we went to the money changer called 兆丰.  The rate was indeed better. (It’s the first money changer that you should see before collecting your luggage.) We then went to apply for the Youth Travel Card but apparently we did not have to use this at all.

We then bought bus tickets to Taoyuan High Speed Rail (HSR) from the the UBus counter.  First destination was to Taichung for 1 night before proceeding to Sun Moon Lake on the next day. 

Having arrived at Taicung, we checked in our hotel and went to nearby places to get some of their local products. We went to the places below:

A) Good Ground Hotel (國光大飯店)
台中市中區光復路58號

B) 台中美珍香：鳳梨酥
台中市中山路87號

C) 太阳堂饼店
台中市自由路二段23号
This shop was closed so we went to the one nearby instead.. can’t rmb the shop name but seems quite popular..

D) 洪瑞珍三明治
台中市西區自由路1段122號
This is the famous sandwich shop recommended by the Taiwan food shop. The sandwiches are really soft and nice!! Haha.. worth the longer walk there.

E) 中华路夜市
We had dinner at this night market. Did not go to the more famous one (Fengchia) cos it was quite far away.. Don’t want to waste time travelling.

We did not take any public transport to all the places mentioned, we walked! Haha other than the sandwich shop which was further, the rest are quite ok from our hotel.

After our satisfying dinner, we went back to hotel to rest! Getting ready for the next adventure!

Shuzzies
Day 1 Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=180517&id=677426992&l=28ab4e9de6 

Coming coming…..

Hoho… 14days now… exactly 2 weeks!!! Can’t wait… But it’s only my first paper tomorrow…. So sad… So near yet so far…

Shu Hui will end her tomorrow so she will be the one working on the itinerary! hoho… 

SL

16 days…..

studying is so tiring…

SH

Countdown

Countdown to Taiwan: 18 days… tired from studying…

SL

Countdown

Countdown to Taiwan: 21 days!! Woohoo…

SL

Hotels Confirmed!

*Initially wrote on Wednesday, 31 March 2010

*** Some changes to make to Day 4 and 5 after speaking to Mr Jason Chen (supposedly our driver and guide)***



Finally got the brief itinerary confirmed and have booked rooms in most of the hotels that we are staying!

Day 1: Arrive in Taipei and will be travelling to Taichung via THSR - staying in Good Ground Hotel Taichung (台中飯店─國光大飯店) for 1 night. We booked through Agoda since it’s cheaper.

Rate for 1 night (Double Room): About S$58 via Agoda. From the hotel website itself is NT$1440 ~ S$65. Both includes breakfast.


Day 2: Travel to Sun Moon Lake early in the morning. (Hotels not confirmed as they reply really slowly…)


Day 3: Travel to Cing Jing Farm early next morning. Staying in Starry House (觀星園景觀山莊). The owner is really very nice and for foreign tourists, he has offered a cheaper rate and free breakfast and dinner for us. He will also be fetching us from the bus terminal to the minsu and will also drive us down to Cing Jing farm (the minsu is one of the highest up in Cing Jing). 

Rate for 1 night(Double Room): NT$1750 ~ S$80 for tourists, NT$1850 for Taiwan citizens


Day 4: Hire a cab to drive us to Hualien and stop at places like He Huan Shan and Taroko Gorge. (Still trying to hire a cab for that). Wanted to engage Mr Jason Chen recommended byStarry House (觀星園景觀山莊) but apparently he is not available on the day. So he is going to send someone from his team instead, 簡先生. I hope he is friendly and good as well.Arrive at Hualien Train Station. Travel to Taipei via the train. Will be staying in Red Cabin Inn(紅菱閣旅店) for 6 nights thereafter. The guide suggested that we should stay in Hualien for 1 night instead for it will be very rush if we want to travel back to Taipei. The last train is about 9.30pm but by the time we finish touring Hualien, it will be quite late already. We decided to take his advice so that we can enjoy the scenery on the way and we will be staying in this place recommended by him called 湘荷居. We wanted a budget place to stay and this indeed is budget.

Price for cab from Cingjing to Hualien: NT$4500 ~ S$205
Rate for 1 night(Double Room): NT$800 ~ S$37 (aircon charge not included but shouldn’t be a lot)

Suggested itinerary during the drive from Cing Jing to Hualien:
觀星園出發→合欢山、往太魯閣與花蓮前進碧綠神木→天祥→
岳王亭→慈母橋→九曲洞→燕子 口→長春祠→七星潭 

Day 5 - Day 10: Will tour Hualien a bit and leave for Taipei by train in the afternoon. Will be staying in Red Cabin Inn (紅菱閣旅店) for 5 nights thereafter. Touring around Taipei for the rest of the trip!

Rate for 1 night (Double room): NT$980 ~ $45 (Strongly recommended for it is really cheap and located very near Ximending)

Taiwan Trip (11/5/10 - 20/5/10)

* Initially wrote on Monday, 29 March 2010

Can’t wait for our Taiwan trip! Much more difficult to plan compared to Hong Kong! Realised that Taiwan is so big… Regretted booking the flight for 10 days only.. hoho.. Our itinerary keeps changing here and there.. so many places to cover in so little days… Will update again when the itinerary is up.

Shuling

first post!

Hi! This is our travel blog. We hope to share all our happy and memorable experiences here! =)

* Actually we moved to tumblr from xanga (http://shuhuiling.xanga.com/), because i think tumblr is nicer! :)

and our Hong Kong trip and Cambodia photos are at the xanga site.

- shu hui