We are moving to the East side of Taiwan. Our first stop is to 鹅銮 (luan)鼻公园及灯塔 . The park was very windy on that day, the higher we climbed, the more windy it was.
Along the pathway up, there were a few stalls selling souvenir, from what I heard mostly were hand-made.
Preserved Puffer fish
Our tour guide bought 1 few years back and it is still as firm as new.
Our bus journey lasted for a few hours and we spend most of the time sleeping on the bus. Once in a while, I will snap some nice scenery.
鹿野温泉 (Lu Ye Wen Quan)
It is winter, the wind is cold, the hot spring is outdoor. Only a few people went for it. The rest of us just stay under the tent and chit chat till the time passed.
The most thrilling part for CT, our final stop of the day - Master Bear Resort (小熊度假村）
We had our diner at the canteen in the resort, thereafter we got our keys to our room. As our resort have no lift, we the 'youngsters' have to stay at the upper level as the tour guide do not want the elderly to climb up and down the stairs.
Our living room at ground floor.
Our bedroom (Small and cozy)
At night, we have an event at the parade square. All of us have to get down to dance the infamous 台客舞 (Tai Ke Wu). I was sabotaged to answer a question and stay there to compete with another boy and of course I lost.
After the dance and games, we got to set up our Kong Ming Deng （孔明灯）. We were told to write down our wishes on the lantern and set it up to the heavenly gods.
Firework display from the Resort and more from the tourists who bought at the stall there.
Rinse and shine, time to say good bye to the bears~
Day 5
First stop of the day is Sasiantai (三仙台) . It is actually a protected scenery area in East of Taiwan. If you want to see nice nature scenery, Taidong is a good place for scenery viewing, they have mountains, ocean etc
Bought some snacks to eat on the bus. Deep fried small crabs and shrimps
Deep Fried Flying fish ( I didn't buy this)
(Our snack! Sorry for the blur image, the bus was shaking badly )
One of the pictures that I like that was taken on the bus, despite it is actually a graveyard.
After traveling for about an hour we reached our next destination - Ba Xian Dong （八仙洞）. But I did not see the 8 immortals statues over there. Eventually what I saw most was the Goddess of Mercy.
Nature spring water that you can drink on the spot. ( Paper cups are provided)
Find this statue quite interesting, how many of us are able to sit together and whispering to each other ears at rip age? Our lunch was at this cafeteria which was directly opposite the 8 xian dong . (Do not be deceived by its rundown look, we have a clear sea view from the cafeteria!)
Our Lunch! Got some weird fishes which I do not know the names.
The sea view from the cafeteria
Pictures taken on the bus while moving on to Hualien (花莲）
Man Bo Fish (曼波鱼) Once you see this fish, you know you are in Hualien.
*TaDah* AMei Cultural Village Hualien
We were entertained by watching their cultural dance.
Their Wedding dance
Something interesting happened during the dance which made me blush. =p Will draw the comic version out soon.
Our upgraded room ^-^ So shiok.. 2 people taking Double double room hahaha
Our First stop was the Plum Factory （梅子工厂）then we moved on to JiJi Station.
Believe it or not museum.
Took a peek of the museum, it had some things that are out of the ordinary, an interesting place but short of time to go in. Saw a 30kg rabbit at the entrance.
JiJi Station (集集小镇)
It is a train station, don't really know much about it as I fell asleep on the bus when the tour guide was telling us the story. =x
Our lunch
We had our lunch at a worker's canteen look alike place. Their food were authentic Taiwanese style food. I love the Hakka food the most! And based on the emptiness of the plates, it is not hard to guess how hungry we were.
Our next stop, Cow Farm. (Ru Niu De Jia )
We only need to pay TWD $20 ( about SGD $0.91) we can have unlimited of carrot sticks and a bottle of milk to feed the farm animals.
My hand was the one nearer to the camera. The calf seem like not eaten for day, the way it drank the milk like it was going to swallow the whole milk bottle.
Fierce fight for food
We took this cute little train to tour around the farm
Scenery taken on the train
Old rusty train engine
Revolution of telephones
Was shocked that the phones actually work! And I thought the kids were making the sound effect and playing on their own!
And and and, I finally get to taste the legendary Jiang Mu Tea (姜母茶）！ It taste great, especially after staying in the cold wind for sometime.
After that we went to our nex stop- Kaohsiung Xin Qu Jiang (高雄 新屈 江）to do a 1 hour shopping. I only remember that the tour guide said that the first sausage stall that you see near the entrance of the shopping lane, that's the nicest sasuage stall around the area. So I bought a stick and it really does taste very nice!
Up next, we have to settle our dinner at Kaohsiung's Liuho Night Market (高雄六合夜市）. This time round we have 1 and a half hour to eat and shop, we learn our lesson so our mission of the day was buy as much food as we can and ate at 1 go!
Our first target, Chou tofu. This stall serve a unique different style of Chou tofu. The stall owner wrapped the tofu with a layer of popiah's skin and added shrimps inside the tofu to deep fry them.
The unique style of Chou tofu
Any idea of what is this?
They are actually sweet potatoes! (Cute stall helpers)
烤鸭夹饼
Quite rare to see duck meat in Taiwan, ordered 1 to share. It was actually meat wrapped with the popiah skin.
活虾料理 (Live prawns cusinie)
It was really live prawns, the cook took out the live prawns and BBQ them
A plate of 懒人虾 (Direct translation - lazy people prawns =p )
It actually for lazy people who do not want to peel the shells. But personally I feel that the shells were abit hard to swallow.
Taiwan popular snack, fried oyster. (蚝仔煎）
Another dish of Chou Tofu, but which 1 was deep fried with bread. I am not a fan of deep fried bread so not really like it.
担仔面
Unknown fishes that I had never seem before.
This milk shake stall was so popular that if you enlarge the picture you could see the signature of Taiwan current president - Ma Ying Jiu.
Big, fresh crabs! Very hot and spicy! Delicacy =D~~
After our dinner at Liuho, we went to our hotel to put our luggage and began our next tour ( on our own) at Rui Feng Night Market (瑞丰夜市）. We shared a cab with 2 big sisters in the tour and went our separate way at Rui Feng. Ct and I went to the Night market while the 2 big sisters went to the shopping malls.
The day ended nicely at this hotel room. =)
Our hotel is in Kaohsiung City named C U Hotel (西悠大饭店）, love the hotel very much despite it location. They have spacey cozy room, the staffs are very helpful and friendly. The best hotel I had among the 7 different hotels that I stayed in.
Hi Everyone, it had been such a long time since I updated my blog (again). I just came back from Taiwan, despite there were some troublesome problems occurred before the trip I enjoyed fully in the tour. ^-^ Which made me feel to sad to return to Singapore >_<
Day 1 (Taoyuan City - Taipei）
Took a morning flight to Taipei Airport (which is situated at Taoyuan - 桃园 ）and met up with our tour guide. She was a very friendly and motherly lady.
She took us to this shopping mall to shop while waiting for the rest of the tourists to join us. The shopping has nothing much to shop as the stuffs were quite expensive but the arcade is very big.
Taiwan sun set earlier than Singapore, so by 5.30pm the sky is already very dark. After shop for a while, we were bought to Shilin Food Square (士林小吃广场） to have our dinner. Due to time constraint we only have 1.5 hr to queue and have our food.
Lao Shilin Shui jian bao (老士林 水煎包）
CT and I each queue for different items due to the SUPER long queue of the stalls.
Hao Da da ji pai
We were not quite sure which stall sells the best fried chicken chop so we go for the typical human instinct - the stall with the longest queue.
But well, it was actually a good choice, cause as we were running out of time we settle at a no queue stall for our sausage, it suck.
Oyster Mee sua ( 蚝仔面线)
As CT also wanted to try the Famous Taiwan Mee Sua (but not in Taipei la, the famous 1 is in 西门町)， we bought 1 bowl at the night market to share.
Chou tofu (臭豆腐）
The Food Square have alot stalls of chou tofu, so we also bought 1 bowl to share. Having a bowl of spicy, hot chou tofu soup during winter there is only one word to describe - Shiok!
As the tour guide said that there is this unique drink called White Bitter Gourd Juice (白苦瓜汁) which is good for health and complexion, I bought 1 cup to drink. The taste is like rare vegetable, lucky CT bought 1 Honey Aloe Vera juice to share if not.. .. .
The day ended at this pathetic hotel named Shi Lian Da Fan Dian (世联大饭店)， but the hotel is not big at all and eventually we were quite disappointed by the room.
Day 2 （Taipei- Taoyuan City - Hsinchu County- Nantou City -Dongpu)
The Temperature in the Morning
Our Train Tickets
We took the Taiwan Bullet Train from Taipei to Taoyuan. Our bus was waiting at Taoyuan to bring us to Leofoo Village Theme Park ( 六福村主题乐园）.
As Taiwan was having election in voting for their town mayors so actually you could see a lot of posters of the representatives on the streets.
After traveling for sometime, we finally reached Leofoo Village Theme Park. It was a bad timing to go, it was a Friday and most schools in Taiwan were bringing students out to play!!
The minimum waiting time was 40 mins!! After touring around the area and bought some souvenirs, CT and I only got to try on 1 ride. But it was interesting that we managed to know 3 new friends from Tainan through the ride.
All these buses bought in the students and tourists into the theme park
Due to time constraint we bought our bento (packed lunch and ate on the bus while traveling to the next stop -Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area (日月潭）.
Wenwu Temple (文武庙)
Climbing up the stairs in the temple was a very tiring job for me... =x
Cute key chains on Taiwanese Tribes
Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area (日月潭）
It was very cloudy on that day and the sky was getting dark, so the scenery was not as expected.
Our night stay is at Dongpu Di Lun Wen Quan Da Fan Dian ( 东浦 缔伦温泉大饭店 ) This hotel have 3 kind of hot springs for us. 1 public hot and cold spring area for everyone, 1 outdoor and 1 in our own room. CT and I choose to soak in our own room. =p
Our dinner was at the hotel. We had some wild animal soup for the night. Could not remember what was the name but the expression of the aunties were classic.
Trying to remember it for our night explored.
After dinner, the chef of the hotel bought in some dough and got us to make rice balls (tangyuan-汤圆)
It was fun making the rice balls, but not very fun when there was one aunty who could not stop making them and we have to keep eating them. =.=
Day 3
Our hotel
Took a picture of the street outside the hotel. It was very windy and cold in the morning. But very nice scenery view and fresh air.
Love the cool air, love the clear blue sky ^_^
Taken on the bus, on the way to Plum Factory (梅子梦工厂)
My my my, I had just finished my assessment week! I am a free bird now!! YEAH!~~
Jenny, Isabelle and I were chiong-ing our works in 15 Minutes (the cafe in LASALLE) for the past week. One of the days, Jenny and I tried the pastas for dinner.
Cannot remember the name for Jenny's pasta, something of pink sauce, mine was the avocado creamy chicken pasta.
Shortly after the submission on Friday, met up with Vivi to call for a 'celebration' at Tampines. As Vivi's younger sis recommended that the F.I.S.H restaurant is nice, we went over there for our dinner.
Fish Chowder Soup
Teriyaki Rib Eye Steak
Barramundi with Chedder Cheese Crust
Strawberry Daiquiri Colossal
According to the waitress, their cakes were specially imported from don't know which country so Vivi and I ordered 1 piece to share. It DOES taste very different from what we usually ate, but it is advisable to share with someone.
After dinner, we went to watch 2012.
The CG is much better than the Day After Tomorrow after years but somehow the story seem to tell people that only the rich will get to live and the poor should just die =x. But it is a nice show which leave you to probe about what will you do/ what you should do if the end of the world is approaching.
The next day, met up with Vivi again. Our aim was to shop! I managed to get a slide bag to house my camera. Didn't really want to spend too much as I am saving the money for Taiwan trip.
Dinner was at Ice Monster.
Chickeb chop noodle
Their famous, durian mango ice. (thumb up)
As Vivi and I were too full from our dinner, we were unable to finish the durian mango ice. T__T
Last Saturday attended my friend wedding. It was my first time attending a church wedding, it was so sweet ,especially the wedding video. Usually the wedding video we see is the bridegroom and his best men picking up the bride with all the sabotage acts but for theirs, it was a video on how they first knew each other.
The video was well taken and made, and during the ceremony the bridegroom sang and played the guitar of a song he wrote for the bride. One of the best parts was the bridegroom promised the bride to treat her good and stuffs and all of the guests were the witness to his promise.
After the wedding, I met up with CH to Border as he said that there were 27% off for the books in store. After probing for a while, I decided to buy 3 books by Mitch Albom. Tuesday with Morrie and The Five people you meet in heaven were 2 books recommended by my teacher in secondary schooldays which I did not get the chance to read it yet. Since it was at a discount I bought 3 of them.. My bus journey time will be well taken care of by these books soon..
This is my lomography installation for photography assignment. The story is about a girl who is suffering from lukeminia and in her last 14 days of her life she took pictures of the sunset to indicate the number of days she had lived.
The diary is made by the elder sister after the girl died so as to remember her, and the phrases beside the photography were said by the girl.
Enjoy!
"This diary is in memory of my late sister who died from Lukemiinia in 1998. This diary was completed after her departure."
" I never know that sunset was so beautiful till I know that this might be the last time..."
"Another sunset, another day, will I be able to see the sunset of tomorrow?"
"Will you be there till my last sunset?"
"Carpe diem - means seize the day, I had just seize another day of my life."
"I really love the sun, especially sunset. It seems to cheer me that I had won another day."
"Can you tell Mom and Dad not to be sad, I feel terrible to see them cry. I hope they will keep me in their heart and not in their memories."
"Sunrise and sunset are just like birth and death. Will my 'sunset' leads to another 'sunrise'?"
"Sis, I hope you will enjoy each day of your life for me and yourself."
"Will my last moment be marked with a beautiful sunset?"
"Knowing about my condition, makes me treasure every moment of my remaining life."
"Sis, how many more sunsets do you think will I be able to see?"
"I never says this before, but I want all of you to know I really love everyone in the family forever..."
"Sis, I want you to know that I'm very very very happy to have you as my sister, although it is only for a few years, I really hopes that I will be your sis again."
" Will you wheel me to the window? I would like to see the last sunset in my life...''
Outing with HeibaiZhu. First stop ： Suki Sushi. We have no intention to have buffet, but I told HeibaiZhu whether she want to 化悲愤为食量 we choose the Buffet Sushi.
I seem to like Chawan Mushi alot, I had been eating it almost everyday when I was working in Suntory years ago, but I still will order it whenever I goes into a sushi restaurant.
Miso Soup ( And we thought it was those small bowl of soup with seaweed and tofu)
Obviously, we did not just eat like this for the buffet there were more but I forgot to take pictures of them, it feel weird to use Sx 20 and snapping picture of food in the place. =.=
Later on, Nancy joined us for the shopping spree, the killer of the day was HeibaiZhu with a shotdown of 1 t-shirt, 1 dress and 1 long top.
And I finally got hold of this book by Dave Pelzer (always wanted it) It is a combination of " A child called it, ''The lost boy'' and "A man name Dave''. I had checked up the price in some bookstores and they were selling at around $18+? per book and I got this combination at a price of $19.50. CHEAP RIGHT!!!!
Too bad, some of the books that I was looking for were either still too expensive or not in stock, hope this book can last me till my next visit to the store. I almost bought the same book again as I had forgotten that I got it and lend it to Nancy, I wondered had she finished reading it.
Went over to Old School for some exhibition viewing. Maybe we were lagged in getting the information, we did not know that we are going to Old School, hence 1 of my friends wore high heels to go up the hill. =x
I was not very sure of the materials used for the red theme work, but the works below were done using acrylic paints.
It seem like our lecturer wanted us to take some pictures for the Canon Monthly Theme - Texture thus bought us there.. just my opinion...
This was one of the class assignment which I had just completed. Task was to trace the iphone out using Illustrator software and using the given template (can be modified or using own template) to create a poster.
This is one of the assignments due tomorrow. This is not a perfect work but I think it is quite ok for a first timer like me.. + is a last minute work ( just completed =x)
A very friendly teacher, but does he have to open the door everytime he asked a question? Actually, we spoke more than the above comic drew..due to space constraint so I just cut short on the conversation.
Since I was going to meet CT and Vivien for lunch.. I decided to head down to Challenger to get a new keyboard. Tadah!
Now my desktop looked like 1 set, haha. (Previously, my keyboard was white)
But, this set is actually made up of different brands namely:
LCD monitor - Samsung Speakers - Logitech Keyboard and CPU cover - Powerlogic Mouse - A4 Tech DVD drive/burner - LG Tablet - Genius Webcam - Creative Mic - Unknown brand (Free gift from the computer repair shop uncle)
Graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a Diploma in Internet and Multimedia Development and currently pursuading BA in Design Communication from LASALLE
Preserved Puffer fish
Our bus journey lasted for a few hours and we spend most of the time sleeping on the bus. Once in a while, I will snap some nice scenery.
鹿野温泉 (Lu Ye Wen Quan)
Our living room at ground floor.
Our bedroom (Small and cozy)
Firework display from the Resort and more from the tourists who bought at the stall there.
Rinse and shine, time to say good bye to the bears~
Bought some snacks to eat on the bus. Deep fried small crabs and shrimps
Deep Fried Flying fish ( I didn't buy this)
(Our snack! Sorry for the blur image, the bus was shaking badly )
One of the pictures that I like that was taken on the bus, despite it is actually a graveyard.
Nature spring water that you can drink on the spot. ( Paper cups are provided)
Find this statue quite interesting, how many of us are able to sit together and whispering to each other ears at rip age?
Our lunch was at this cafeteria which was directly opposite the 8 xian dong . (Do not be deceived by its rundown look, we have a clear sea view from the cafeteria!)
Our Lunch! Got some weird fishes which I do not know the names.
The sea view from the cafeteria
Man Bo Fish (曼波鱼) Once you see this fish, you know you are in Hualien.
*TaDah* AMei Cultural Village Hualien
We were entertained by watching their cultural dance.
Their Wedding dance
Something interesting happened during the dance which made me blush. =p Will draw the comic version out soon.
Our upgraded room ^-^ So shiok.. 2 people taking Double double room hahaha
