Taiwan 09 – Day 4

DAY 4 – 23 Jun 09 (Tue)

The day when we headed to Tai Zhong via Gao Tie (HSR).

Left: waiting area to board the Gao Tie. i find their train system quite confusing with too many platforms and many destinations.
Right: our eyes could hardly open.

Left: our t0 and fro tixs over at the reserved seats cabin.
Right: the seats are really comfy

the traditional railway bento which we bought before boarding HSR – not that yummy in our opinion.

Left: scenery from HSR – plantations mainly.
Right: arrived at Tai Zhong after an hr journey.

Right: took free shuttle bus from the HSR station to the city area.

Left: Bing Lang Shop w/o Bing Lang Xi Shi
Right: super mini car on the road!

Left: Tai Zhong is really so much less developed as what i thought.
Right: Finally reached Yi Zhong Shopping Area after another long long bus journey.

things in Tai Zhong are relatively cheaper than in Taipei. however, there are too many similar shops in Yi Zhong Shopping Area. hahhaa.. but the prob is we can still buy different things from the shop which was similar to the one we visited earlier. tsk tsk.. passed by a building where we saw how tuition centers can be a v profitable biz in TW, cos they are too many ppl who loves and need to attend tuition classes =XXX

Left: had macs before heading to our next destination – i ate the grilled chicken burger!
Right: quite surprised that they have curry sauce over there (tho not v fresh), but still no chilli sauce as usual. we die die have to remind ourselves to bring some over should we have the chance to visit TW again. lol

Left: should have invested some money over here and try our luck. hee hee
Right: our next destination – Feng Jia Shopping Area. took a cab there cos there seems to be no other alt., there is no MRT at Tai Zhong and bus is just too complicated for us.

Right:  Zhu Xue Gao aka Bloody Rice Cake which i totally dun have the guts to try.

Left: taking a rest after shopping at Etude House (again).
Right: Q-ing to buy Chuan Qi drink, i love their drinks but too bad they dun have it in XMD anymore.

bought overly-raved chicken which is grilled using charcoal

desserts before leaving Feng Jia back to HSR.

back to Taipei, we went back to drop our shopping bags and headed to the nearby Party World and sing thrgh the night. totally worn out can! i fell alslp while holding the mic halfway thrgh out the song. hahhaha

Taiwan 09 – Day 3

DAY 3 – 22 Jun 09 (Mon)

visited Taiwan Storyland on this day – cos we thought there is youth discount for the entrance fee, but we realised later that the discount is for Taipei Storyland not Taiwan. hurrhhhh…

the entrance tixs which includes coupons which we can use inside.

basically, the storyland just exhibits those oldies vintage stuffs in Taiwan. as for us, i think the main purpose of us gg there was photo taking.

Left: we are not allowed to ride on the bike actually… but we did it secretly~ sssshhhh

ordered the above using the coupon which came with the entrance tixs.

horrible dou hua in weird syrup.

after the tour at Storyland, we went Shinkong Mitsukoshi which was just beside for shopping.
made a call to enquire about I guess recording but too bad they don’t have any recording for the 2 weeks when we were there.

ordered local food from Li Yi branch over at TMS underground mall and requested them to be delivered to our hotel on our last day of the trip.

finally found Hua Yin street which was located quite a distance away from TMS.

bought some cheap and good sushi on our way there.
Hua Yin Street is a area with shops doing wholesale, we got accessories at wholesale prices and pf & i each bought a big toy bunny at cheap price.

cabbed over to SOGO at dong qu for dinner. oh my.. imagine pf and me lugging our “dead” bunny around. lol

dinner at Dian Shui Lou

Left: fried rice with prawns and some green peas/bean sprouts which i love
Right: Cong You Bing – super filled with cong you

Left: Xiao Long Bao
Right: Yam Xiao Long Bao which we waited damn long for. and becos of this we got a complimentary dessert. heh heh

shopped at SOGO and they bought their longchamps. left the departmental store ard their closing time and OMG-quite a shocking scene for me to see those SA lining up along the escalator and bow to us when we’re leaving. hahhaa but i think this is somehow a v common scene in Jap?

asked around and strolled at dong qu, at last we found Dong Qu Fen Yuan.

SUPER YUMMY! those pearls and flavored balls (they have so many flavours!) are all so QQQQQ!!!

cabbed over to the 24 hr Carrefour nearest to our hotel where we met a bunch of fools guys from homeland. lol.. anyway, wide varities of everything they have over there but we just have to control our buying cos we totally dun have the strength to lug our stuffs back to the hotel.

back to hotel where we tune in to BBT almost every night.

——

it’s family visit day tml and im gg to OCS to visit my bro!

Taiwan 09 – Day 2

my hectic life has officially started. i can totally foresee the worsening of the dark circles v soon.

alright, we’re now moving on to Day 2 of the trip (ie. 10 more days to go…)

DAY 2 – 21 Jun 09 (Sun)

as usual, im the first to wake up for the entire trip. so ke lian right…sobsss

headed to XMD for brunch

ate some local food over at Xiao La Jiao. i don’t like their fish balls cos they are all stuffed with meat inside.

our must-have in taiwan – San Xiong Mei Dessert.
their xue hua bing and pearl bean curd are super yummy! oh pls just look at the amount of fresh fruits toppings they have, where to find such in SG?? tell me tell meee!

shopped at Watsons cos they were having a one day only special discount. i was trying so hard to resist myself to lug all those products which can’t be found in SG and kept reminding myself that i have alr like S$250 worth of stuffs waiting to be collected frm 7-11. i thought i bought quite little but seems like i still spent the most among us. =X

Left: this pink house located in XMD caught my attention
Right: on a closer look, i realised that it is endorsed by Lee Min Ho – Gu Jun Pyo!
i was quite sua ku and have no idea that Etude House alr exist in SG before i was there so i totally went gaga when i saw the store for the first time. i couldn’t resist my temptation this time round and went in the shop to ask the SA to intro their best selling products. btw, i love their SA uniform.. so KAWAIII!

their testers are so clean unlike those in SG.

Left: LOL. one of the better ones after trying out many angles
Right: Miss Ballerina also quite cute right

found our way to Bigi Bag Store – Wan Nian Building Branch which is located somewhere near our hotel. glad that they have a physical store now cos it is a kinda dreadful having to wait ard 3 mths for your bag to be shipped over if you were to order it thrgh the web. moreover, the price of their bags are the same and they offer discounts for purchases of 10 bags above as well. Bigi Bag Store AKA the “Hit 10” Store, we always buy above 10 bags to get entitled for the discount.heee heee

unloaded our barangs at the hotel and travelled to TMS to buy our HSR tixs in advance.

some highlights for the upcoming Flora Exhibition in year 2010.
there were many Filipinos q-ing for the photo.

outside TMS, the sun was so strong and i could hardly open my eyes.

Left: Buying our 30% off Gao Tie tixs to and fro Tai Zhong and Gao Xiong frm the priority counter. hahha look at peifen and my standing pose.
Right: Lunch at Jap restaurant at TMS underground mall before setting off to Dan Shui.

after a long journey – train from TMS to Dan Shui, tiring bus ride from Dan Shui… we finally reached Dan Shui Fisherman’s Wharf. the place is crowded with tourists and many locals.

sun setting~ supposed to be a highlight for the tourist attraction but we just dunno how to appreciate.

loads of photo taking and it is a skill to capture the tip of the bridge into the shoot.

a really friendly family helped us took the group photo. they were really spontaneous and welcoming and even asked why we chose to visit Taiwan and recommended other attractions for us to visit blah blah blah. its really great to meet such souls when you’re in a foreign country.
ah… it makes me wonder if i will ever get to meet such outgoing and friendly stranger in our lion city. hrmmmm…

super cutie dog rolling on the ground.

tried out the food at the highly raved 40 years old Ah Gei shop.
if you’re wondering what is Ah Gei, it is that two round balls you see on the right pic. something which our tastebuds cannot appreciate again. for goodness sake, those balls are 99% starch.

the lover’s bridge which had lighted up after we finished our starchy dinner.

board the ferry back to Dan Shui Lao Jie. the ferry is much faster as compared to the bus ride which took like forever (the person at tourism counter recommended us to take the bus).

did shopping and ate our fav tempura at Dan Shui Lao Jie before taking the train back to XMD.

rushed to get our supper from KFC.

KFC egg tarts! its a MUST HAVE!!! i tried it last time and i din know that they actually have other flavours for the egg tarts as well! super yummy!!!

alright.. that wraps up Day 2.

more to come…

Taiwan 09 – Day 1

since i have the saturday to spare. i think i should embark to blog on the trip which took place 2 mth plus ago – long overdued!

and so.. it was my 3rd visit to Taiwan and the longest ever – 12 days, 11 nights.

DAY 1 – 20 Jun 09 (Sat)

PF and i shared a cab to redhill to meet up with the rest and agnes’s mum send us to the airport.
had our super filling brunch at BK.

great that they have water coolers inside the boarding area now, we no longer need to spend $3 on golden mineral water from Jetstar.

During the 5 hrs plane ride:

the flight was empty that day and it was sorta free seating for us. hahhaa.. due to H1N1, many of the passengers (including us) started to put on our masks before alighting the plane.

the weather was good and the clouds was pretty that day:

the clouds looks like yummy mashmallows!

Left: FLH welcomes me to Taiwan!
Right: totally explains why Changi Airport deserves to the few top airports in the world. =x

Left: checking out the rates over at their money changer. btw, you can only find money changers in the airport.
Right: Waiting to board Freego coach.

Left: my luggage in black! the luggage alr weigh 17kg btw. =X i seriously have no idea what gold i brought.
Right: the previous coach was filled and they made us waited for the next one. i couldn’t stand the heat and the mask was suffocating.

Left: freego coach – better leg space with TV compared to our flight.
Right: mask sponsored by JW’s company. i cannot stand wearing the mask, super stuffy and i felt like im breathing in carbon dioxide.

the ride was v long as usual. but luckily no angry driver this time round!

checked in to our usual hotel (cheap and good location) and headed out.

Left: Queuing for the train, a culture which Sporeans should practice as well.
Right: on the train ride to Jian Tan Stn – Shilin Night Mkt for our dinner.

had our dinner at Da Tou Long (the stall where xiao zhu learn his or ah jian from for zhuan jiao yu dao ai) in Shilin Night Mkt. ordered or ah jian, zhong he jian, ru rou fan and gong wan soup.
i still v much prefer the “wet” kinda or ah jian they have in taiwan tho it is really v starchy!

bought our must-have dessert after our dinner. our fav ice-cream puff! the puff isn’t some normal puff it taste like po luo bao to me. yum yum~ i esp love the yam one.

crossed over to the shopping area at shilin after filling our stomachs.

for the first 2 nights, we booked 2 twin rooms and for the rest of the nights we managed to get our fav 702 room. i was quite shocked that i din managed to book 702 for the first 2 nights cos i called in at 12.15am on 1st may to book the rooms! they only accept bookings 1 mth in advance for goodness sake. but its good that we managed to get rooms on the 7th floor. =D
oh btw, flying fringe lady is not working there anymore. wahhaha!

released

the day which i was once so fearful of has came…. the official release date of our results.
i wasn’t so anxious about the release of the results today due to the fact that i have actually learnt about my lousy results during the non-official date – all thanks to SIM’s efficiency i got my sneak preview!
Only a small grp of population caught the sneak preview during the hr or so cos the power of word-of-mouth was too overwhelming and SIM realised about their silly mistake soon after.

and so…. it is official that i failed my Macro Econs by 6 pathetic marks. =(((
seriously i cannot imagine myself studying this whole module all over again! its simply torment. and wth i think there is a change in syallbus for this module. DAMN IT for godness sake!
i hope i can find my way out to overcome it (or rather i NEED to overcome it). HAIS!

went for movie – turning point with the girls last weekend.  kinda surprised that i have been watching movie quite frequent lately uh!

we queued 1 hr for our dinner at Watami after that…

yum yum.. the food was worth the wait and the pricing is quite reasonable as well!

endless shopping

im bored….

there’s many things that i ought to be doing such as reading up my mkting notes, start on my assignment (overdued for 2 wks!), etc…
but im doing none of the above.

sometimes i think mkting is really not my module. im lack of the creativity to ans those questions.

ah.. i feel so like shopping now.
but my wardrobe is so close to bursting soon. kinda regretted that i din get a bigger wardrobe the other time. tho a bigger wardrobe will look not proportional to the room and i prob won’t have any place to walk about. hahha

im currently suffering from this horrible headache which didn’t go away after 3 hrs of nap. =(

the brother is coming home later after 2 weeks of training! (yeah, i kinda miss him – secretly) HAHA!

weakling

yeah. that’s part of me – weak, both physically and mentally.

im only in my early twenties yet i have the body of a fifties.
i guess my body will probably just fall apart before i even turn fifty.

i almost fainted while walking back to the office after lunch ytd and ended up vomiting out my lunch at the bus stop outside the office.
on top of these, im tormented with cramps, cold sweat, wobbly hands & legs, backaches and diarrhoea at the same time.
i totally gave my colleagues a scare.

i just can’t understand what’s wrong with the body?

im just consuming the usual intake like everyone else but i have to suffer from the excruciating pain almost every mth.
=(

Sunday

its Sunday again!!!
i hate how fast time passes.. argghhhh!

had late night outings during the weekend.
out with besties to dempsey and mac after class on Friday night.
watched late night movie “The Proposal” with agnes and samm ytd at JP! yeah JP!!! hahhaha.. how surprising is that?!
all becos i have to come back home to bring toto to my father so i suggested JP and im quite shocked that the rest all agreed. hahha
anyway, the movie is quite a good one just that the ending was a little abrupt?

im so fed up with the internet connection right now.
i can’t twit, i can’t FB, i refreshed many times until i managed to create this post and i have MANY page load errors!
totally sucks.
i guess i shall spend my time watching shows and clearing my disk space.

work tml. =(
and i just rmb we are meeting for sauna tml?
eeek… i should just come up with some excuses… =X

omg..im gg to get depress v soon.
results are gg to be released within the next 2 weeks i think. im totally unprepared for it. hrm.. what should i prepare for? prepare for the worst i guess?
seriously.. im damn scared.
but what can i do? just pray hard?

=(

long weekend?

it is suppose to be a long weekend for all of us. but it doesn’t seems like one to me.

im OH SO TIRED!
be it the body, the mind blah blah blah…

i dread going to work tml.
and i have yet started on my assignment!
pls help me kill the laziness in me!!!

i think im being too ambitious cause’ i actually plan to start blogging on the overdued taiwan trip..
eeeeyukkk

sucha failure with nth accomplished.

body wellness

our company invited marketers from fitness first to our company for a body wellness talk today.

i think exercising is really an impt aspect of the lifestyle esp after i suffered from this major PMS last mth.

im actually quite interested to sign up for the membership cause’ our company got really attractive corporate rates for us and i think their facilties are really superb. but too bad my colleagues aren’t interested and there is no buddy which i can go work out with.
=(

anyway, we went to measure our body fats after the talk.
i was told that my level of fats is  at the high end range.
btw the person who was doing the measurement was a little shocked when he asked my age and i said twentyone….
hahaha!

alright! its really time for me to move my body.
let’s move it move it~