Monday, June 01, 2009 @ 3:29 AM
Taiwan Day 1 ,2,3 &4
Taiwan Day 1 ( Thursday)Rainbow Hotel
PS. Bu bu
Companion on the way to TW.
Should be Night 1, reached there around 6PM like that.
The only cool thing was dinner with TY, my pri sch buddy!
She brought us to PS Bu bu! What a surprise!
And just our luck when we got there the entire restaurant was empty!
Ty's GF Momo, TY and I.
Momo & TY.
We got to sit in the pink car which all drama fans were very keen on sitting in it due to it's appearance of Meteor Garden.
Food was good!
Though it was a bit too creamy for my bf's taste.
TY paid for the bill so I didn't get a chance to take a look at how much it was -.-
She then had to go while we retired to our hotel smack in the middle of ximending.
Really SMACK in the middle ok.
Just take a look.
Rainbow hotel!
Opposite Rainbow Hotel.
The thing I noticed about XMD, was that they had a crazy amount of hair salons! Some going up to 5 flrs high! The most popular was this particular salon called "乱剪" crazy cut. I think it is because that it provides waiting areas for people with computers and stuff.
They also had a lot of these kinds of buildings that are abandoned. Heard they don't do anything about it as well.
This is a 7-11.
How cool is that , they have a friggin copier. When will our 7-11 LEARN??!
They also have a crock pot full of piping hot tea eggs and a machine filled with soup and soup soaked ingredients that you might want to eat.
I'm in awe...
Taiwan Day 2 ( Friday)
-Shinkong Mitsukoshi Dept Sotre
-Wufenpu
-Shihlin Night market
Breakfast at Rainbow hotel...
SUCKED balls.
Believe it or not, that was breakfast for two. Their buffet breakfast was a MEASLY 1 table affair. Even now I can still remember what was served.
Mini sandwiches, scrambled eggs, white porridge, salty vegetables, coffee or tea.
WTFBBQ!
The porridge and coffee was BF's while the sandwich and eggs mine. SRSLY WTF!
Their cafe area.
Went to top up my brekki with a donut at
Their donut texture is definitely different. More towards the texture of fried dough, our you tiao.
XMD station , 10 mins walk
First stop was the humongous Shinkong Mitsukoshi Dept store at Taipei CItyhall station.
HUGE, they have 11, not 1, but 11 buildings!!!! Together they are Shinkong Mitsukoshi Dept store!!
TIP OF THE EFFING ICEBERG
Went there to get Jill Stuart stuff as well!
MEEEP!
Tax refund will only be done for you if you spend over NT$3000. BOOOO!
They also have the elevator ladies! HAHAHAHA, Emily姐姐, gf of my dad's friend, was telling me that she was one before and that the job paid well even though they have got to be in the lift. There are 2 ladies to a lift, each lady works for 45 mins before switching with the other lady assigned to the lift and this carries on throughout the day.
They are paid about $2k plus per month D=
We went in search of this particular restaurant called MOMO paradise, highly recommended by my bro's gf.
IT IS DAMN WORTH IT! $299 per person for sukiyaki buffet. Their food is damn fresh too. Eat the afternoon one mind you! Cheaper and have free flow of drinks too!
Cook yourself on the spot.
It was filling and yummy and their service was damn good.
Momo paradise can be located at NEO19 if you are going to the shinkong dept store at Taipei cityhall station. Must walk all the way to the other end of the dept store buildings.
NEXT UP!
The damn famous wufenpu!
One word, overrated.
The prices were not great, and they kept on trying to con us saying that their PVC bags are made of leather. Not good man not good.
Variety alot , but somehow now as nice as the ones I see at other Night markets leh =\
TW has so many of these type of small alleys,
So odd but interesting at the same time.
At night, we went to Shihlin Night market, it was fantastic.
The market you will see opp the station.
Inside the market, loads of food.
Crossing the road,
Rabbits for NT$199!
Squirrels!
HEDGEHOG!!!!
One of my fave stores,
And this dog was so cute,
And the NM had a lot of these stalls
PLAY CHEAT ONE, the ones that look like they are going to tumble in are SEWED to the side lor.
Day 2 ended with me getting a few accessories and shoes then we rolled back to the hotel to rest up for the next day already.
Taiwan Day 3
-Zhong xiao fu xing
-Breeze center
-Tonghua Night market
Zhong Xiao fu xing can be found on the Metro map.
It is touted to be the Orchard Road of Taipei, but to me it is more of a very very large version of Haji Lane.
Why? Coz there are no shopping malls or buildings, rather more shop houses.
We went to the green building Sogo to eat our lunch first.
There was this somewhat food court at Sogo's basement, where it operates like a food court except they give you this device to go take a seat first, and when it beeps and flashes its LEDs, it means your food is ready to be collected. Neat huh!
So ah beng!
Both our meals. Quite expensive, approx $20 SGD for us.
Wanted to take away one badly but BF wanted to go shopping, and I scared the cake will melt so =( Everything there had strawberries! Looks yummy!
Sogo green building lobby.
When we went out of Sogo, we were greeted by this sight,
I was like , " OOOOOH! Motorbike gang ah!?"
Turns out it was a parade for the Deaflympics going to be held in Taipei.
Cheh, not fun one.
=x
HAHAHAHA, BF liked this group of people the most!
Off we went to the famous Breeze center where everyone was saying that the place has a lot of nrwzd things.
I agree! But it is not the center itself, it is the SHOP inside the center and the SHOP name is called "Hands Tailung" which can also be found at the humongous spread of Shinkong dept stores near 101 tower.
Breeze center is somewhat like our Paragon, branded labels inside with one or two affordable stuff stores like the hands tailung.
I would recommend going to the Shinkong branch instead. At least that area had more shopping malls around.
Some of their grafitti was quite cute, but cannot make out what they are writing -.-. Some of them were as high as the 3rd level, don't know how they manage to spray so high.
Shops under housing flats! XD
They had cafes, bar, resaturants & shops.
Really a lot of streets to walk.
Tired already.
Follow the rainbow coloured stairs!
2nd hand stuff shop. I found out Taipei has a lot of these shops and they are rather popular as well, better kept than our cash converters as well.
One particular cafe caught my eye and I just had to drag my BF in.
VVG BON BON Bistro - http://www.vvgbbb.com.tw/
敦化南路1段161巷13号
Turns out they also have a "home-stay"!!!!
HAH! Super love my pose.
"So pinky", Joel thought.
Their cupcakes are quite exp, aprox. SGD$3 each.
Yes they sell candy too.
Just nice there were these promoter girls in the bistro promoting this new camera by casio called 粉底相机 foundation camera. HAHAHAHAHA.
You know why?
It auto puts on foundation for you whenever you take a picture. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
More info : http://www.casio.com.tw/dc/sp/makeup/
Casio is so damn smart k! They actually did their research and dug a niche for it in TW where all the girls are particular about their looks and hair salons are 6 storeys high.
Oh Steph, if you're looking!
WHAHAHA.
Last but not least,
TONG HUA NIGHT MARKET.
Seriously people.
Do not waste your time. If is very very boring, things there are rather dated as well. I don't even have any pictures for that Night market =\
Taiwan Day 4 (Sunday)
Underground metro shopping malls
Dihua street
Shihlin
Ximending
Went to explore the underground shopping malls todays.Walked a distance of a whopping 3 stations or so.
A disappointment I must say. It is nothing like our CityLink filled with trendy boutiques and cafes.
We visited :
Station front metro mall
Taipei Metro mall
Taipei new world mall
East metro underground mall
One of them was a gamer/comic book fan's haven. They sold game consoles, memorabilia and other stuff related to comics and games. The occasional shoe, accessory shops available, but again, dated.
There was one particular part where it was like a mini "little Indonesia" hang out place for all the indonesians, you could see the Indo flags on shops and the coffee shops around that area were all serving Indo cuisine.
Another stretch was the BOOK MALL, huge store of books, young people were hanging out there practicing their guitars, whereas the station after was sort of like a dance training session central, in which even the station installed mirrors on the wall so all the dance groups can practice there.
The Metro is rather supportive of dance groups, even holding competitions for it.
That is all about the underground shopping malls. Really nothing much.
We rolled to Dihua street 迪化街 to get my aunt's mian xian, however, they were closed -.-
They sell dried stuff, food stuff and herbs etc. All things to do with COOKING.
We went off to Shihlin later on to collect my payeasy items which I had help with.
Cindy Fish of http://taiwantaipeihomestay.blogspot.com
She was really very nice, she allowed me to pay half first via POSB i-banking and then meet up to pay her in NT cash. She was really flexible with the meeting up in Shihlin too.
She also helped to arrange airport transfers at reasonable prices.
I would definitely recommend her for any shopping regarding Payeasy.com
Ate their snow ice!
NY$70, not v cheap!
Yummy though =3
The night ended with us walking around ximending.
Their school uniforms are so nice.
Etude house. Promoter angels. HAHAHA, they were directly opposite Skin Foods and SKin foods only had one lone angel promoting.
We ate dinner at this place,
It sincerely sucks.
My aglio olio had SOUP in it. His squid ink pasta look like DILUTED ink pasta.
BRRRRRR.
K that's all for day 3 & 4!
