Soph's version of Taipei vacation read about it!

Day 1
We checked in to our hotel, TS hotel, Da Shun Da Fan Dian around XiMenDing area. Its such like a hotel/motel style. We travelled to our hotel by a tourist bus transfer. Upon buying our tickets, the guy asked me which hotel we were heading to. I answered Da shiiiin Da Fan Dian! notice i said shiiin instead of shun.. okayz, that was the very first joke. Yuki and the rest were laughing at how fantastic my chinese was. Even the guy's response was "Da Shun bu shi Da shiiin"!

Incident no.1: I was sharing a room with Perch and i got a shock when we went in. I exclaimed how am i going to share this room with you!! just one small double bed and no space to walk! the room was extremely small and narrow. There wasn't even a wardrobe! Just a pole for you to hang clothes. To me it felt like I was going to live in a prison cell. Our immediate response was "change room! i dont care!" wahaha and then we quietly left for the reception (because we didnt want to alert the other two) to upgrade to a suite. We just wanted to play with them. Let them be surprised that they would knock on the wrong room when they want to look for us.

Our first dinner in Taipei at 蛋蛋屋! look at our smiles so bright and full of energy. whaahha it started to diminish as the days went by. You'll see it later..
For me, it didn't feel as if we were in Taipei at that time probably because I was travelling with the gang for starters and it felt like we were still in Singapore. Imagine the adjustment I had to make. Like Friday and Saturday in Perth, Saturday night in Singapore and then Sunday night in Taipei. I guess I was sorta lost. But I did adjust well after the second day.



Below is a very first pair of shoes I bought there! At a very reasonable price for NT 390.


Day 2


Above are also pictures of Taipei 101 building. We couldnt find our way to the shuttle bus stand that afternoon so we ended up walking all the way to the NewYork NewYork shopping centre opposite 101. We were complaining of the heat and bright sun rays! gosh.. but it was windy at least.
The Fishy Fish (or rather I named it Fishy Affair) bubble tea house. Sat on swings which had a view of the XiMenDing street from its second storey.


I happily sipped down my first mug of bubble tea! tastes really good lots of taiwan cow's milk and less tea flavour with bubbles that had the QQ bite. Got standard!
Kat and her original bubble tea .. tooo

Evening views of Danshui 's Qing Ren Qiao.




Lovers ... muahhhahaa
Loverless... muahahaha
After the sun had set and bummed around the place, took a new version of our so called F4 video, we headed back to the MRT station. From there we managed to find out the location of Danshui's night market. Its an open air market that had some food stalls along the street and some clothing stores. We ate at some 小 吃店! or wa jian and shui jiao to share. my first bite of that odd coloured looking sauce!

Day 3

This was the biggest joke of our trip. On tuesday night, we decided that we should go check out the hot springs the next day since we decided to remove one destination spot from our itinery. We sat at our hotel's computer searched till like 1 plus am trying to search for a nice hot spring inn. CCCC its so hot in Taipei yet these 3 maros plus 1 maro thinking we're nuts decided to go soak in a hot spring tub under 35 Deg temperature. Mannn!!
So anywayz, first stop of the day was the minature museum somewhere ulu. Let Perch, Yuki and Jen fill you in with its photos.
Lunch was at our long awaited restaurant 器車屋! car themed restaurant.

I had lasagne and beer...
Perch posing with lavender tea. she chose it because it was good for health!
super cheesy lasagne..

After lunch, because we checked with the waitresses at PS BuBu that we can take a 小 黄 (cab but jen kept calling it small yellow for direct translation and perch called it NT70 in chinese) to BeiTou (hot springs area which is a top a mountain) and it would not cost alot, we decided to do so.
Goodness knows it turned out to be a big joke! As we did not have the chinese name of the a few hot springs inn that we had chosen, we just told the cab driver we were heading to BeiTou. He alighted us at the first public hot spring and it was a very lousy and cheap one. So, these 4 maros were lost! How were we going to hunt for one that we would soak in to? We were at crossroads as we stood between the junction of 2 roads that would take us to 2 completely different stretch of hot springs.
We just walked up hill till we saw one inn. Went in and I got completely freaked out. The person told us the pricing for one room and that each extra person costs blah blah. She took us to view the room first and i can still picture it till now. It's freakingly scary. Imagine an old hotel room plus a toilet that had a tiled bathtub. That was supposed to be that inn's so called 温 ! yuck!!

SO nevermind, the person said that there was another type but you'd have to go in nude. Its one of those Jap/Korean hotel's hot sauna tubs. But this version is super ugly and old. For sure, we thanked them and continued on our unintentional hike up the mountain's roads. Hiked some more till we saw this old fashioned Jap inn that was on our to check out list. Yay! But when we went in to ask about it, we realised it wasnt what we wanted. We wanted a hot springs that could oversee the mountain views in an outdoor environment.
In the end, we wanted to give up as it was about the time we set that we'd give up if we couldnt find one. It was so hot and we were getting roasted. Then I prayed for a yellow vehicle to appear to take us out of this place as at that time there was no taxi in sight. Then on came this bus that was yellow in colour! an angel had appeared! initially, we stood there, asked her as she opened the window to tell us that she was going uphill before heading downhill to the MRT station. the bus driver was a nice lady! she was friendly and also let us alight off for a few snapshots before heading downhill again. These were the pictures we took from the top.

By the time we got down from the bus and at the MRT station,we were sleepy and worst of all legs were killing us! Well, it didnt dampen our spirits to continue searching for our next destination spot.

Day 3 Late afternoon/Night
Miramar Ferris Wheel

Yes, its just a ferris wheel but its atop a shopping centre! Probably on the 5th floor or something. This Miramar shopping center had a nice powder room with complete dressing tables and chairs for these 4 maro hikers to rest their feet whilst touching up make up.

These are some of the stuff that I bought from the night markets. The white blouse and blue shorts from Danshui's night market store. At a very reasonable price. Shoes were from this shop at XiMenDing.
The bag and green shorts were from Shilin night market. The pair of green shorts i felt i got ripped off. Paid NT250 for it. The story is this: I bought it from one of those stalls where these are owners that had no license to sell. They'd run off everytime there's a police raid which can be a few times a night. The man told me that he charges NT390 for it usually but would charge me NT300. So its a discount. Then.... I bargained for NT250 and he said okay, dont tell any one about it. What the %^The bag and green shorts were from Shilin night market. The pair of green shorts i felt i got ripped off. Paid NT250 for it. The story is this: I bought it from one of those stalls where these are owners that had no license to sell. They'd run off everytime there's a police raid which can be a few times a night. The man told me that he charges NT390 for it usually but would charge me NT300. So its a discount. Then.... I bargained for NT250 and he said okay, dont tell any one about it. What the %^The bag and green shorts were from Shilin night market. The pair of green shorts i felt i got ripped off. Paid NT250 for it. The story is this: I bought it from one of those stalls where these are owners that had no license to sell. They'd run off everytime there's a police raid which can be a few times a night. The man told me that he charges NT390 for it usually but would charge me NT300. So its a discount. Then.... I bargained for NT250 and he said okay, dont tell any one about it. What the %^The bag and green shorts were from Shilin night market. The pair of green shorts i felt i got ripped off. Paid NT250 for it. The story is this: I bought it from one of those stalls where these are owners that had no license to sell. They'd run off everytime there's a police raid which can be a few times a night. The man told me that he charges NT390 for it usually but would charge me NT300. So its a discount. Then.... I bargained for NT250 and he said okay, dont tell any one about it. What the %^$&$*$ !!! After buying it i thought.. what!! he's over charging me! Who would pay at that price when shops there are charging like NT290 for a pretty skirt in a proper shop? okay, only me as i was so blur. Cant help it! these people know that we're tourists so they'd jag up the prices. The brown bag was a very good bargain also from one of the illegal stalls. for NT200! super worth it!
amp;$*$ !!! After buying it i thought.. what!! he's over charging me! Who would pay at that price when shops there are charging like NT290 for a pretty skirt in a proper shop? okay, only me as i was so blur. Cant help it! these people know that we're tourists so they'd jag up the prices. The brown bag was a very good bargain also from one of the illegal stalls. for NT200! super worth it!
amp;$*$ !!! After buying it i thought.. what!! he's over charging me! Who would pay at that price when shops there are charging like NT290 for a pretty skirt in a proper shop? okay, only me as i was so blur. Cant help it! these people know that we're tourists so they'd jag up the prices. The brown bag was a very good bargain also from one of the illegal stalls. for NT200! super worth it!

Day 4 Leofoo Village Theme Park

Perch was on the phone with her Bob while we sat and wait to ride the 3D adventure ride at a certain timing.
Jen and my reaction to Perch's phone call was blatantly like this!! whahaha


That night we pigged out in the hotel room by stuffing ourselves with prewtty cakes such as these below. Each only costs around NT 36- 40 ! supercheap!! Joke no.3: I was holding one slice of cake and wanted to let jen try it while she sat on the bed and i was standing up. Accidentally, the cake slipped out of my hands and unto the bed! and we all burst out in laughter. Following that, Yuki also dropped i think a part of her cake on the floor or her PJ's too. And jen left the bottle of drink lying on the bed (pic below) and it leaked ! imagine me and perch had to use that soiled blanket that night!! wahhhhh.... good thing we had to change rooms the following night already. And that whole time i was saying ah u all ar typical singaporeans! dono how to clear up the mess after eating blah blah whahahaa

Day 5
This morning, Perch and I overslept! we woke up soo late that when jen came up to ring our doorbell only did we wake up then. If I remember correctly, it was this afternoon that I dashed out of the MRT at the wrong stop. Being so blur, this is joke no.4! okay, this was it. 3 of us sat separately while Jen stood up i think. I asked her which stop we were going to alight at. She said city hall. I was very blur. As jen and yuki moved to another 2 sits behind me, i did not notice them moving and i thought they had alighted the train! I got so panicky and thought that they left without me and perch who was sitting directly opposite me! i asked perch where were they and she said duno. So i dashed out as the final alarm sounded while perch followed suit. Then as i stood on the platform, i looked into the train and realised that yuki and jen were in it! ahhh!! i ran out like a blur head! this had become a big joke!
Went to JiuFen. I was rather scared on the way there as we were so lost with the railway system. Didnt feel safe as we were heading out of the city area. Bought some snacks at the stores there and we had traditional fishballs soup for lunch there!

At night, we went to Taipei 101 's 89 storey to get a view of Taipei by night! Then headed off to Shilin night market for our last round of crazy buying..
This gold ball is called Damper baby system. Built to sorta balance the wind mass and its mission is to protect the 101 building for it to withstand the earthquakes and storms or whatsoever.
See this two small bags of fruits?! how much do you think it would cost? let me tell you how much i paid for it. NT390. ridiculous price or worth it? you tell me. Post your comments!!

Day 6
unfinished...
In our next blog, look out for our list of food we ate and the clothes we bought as well as our red and black list of the places we visited!