Sunday, May 31, 2009 @ 8:00 PM
Taiwan Day 7 & Day 8(Last day)
Taiwan Day 7 ( Wednesday):-Leofoo Village (六福村 liu fu cun)
REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR PASSPORT IF YOU ARE YOUSING THE VISITOR ASSOCIATION THEME PARK PASS!
-zhong xiao fu xing Sogo Green building
Well, it was the 2nd last day of our trip and I was making SUCH a fuss to go to Leofoo theme park that we scratched out the possibility of a one day trip to kaoshiung or taichung.
We had help from this visitor's booth at the MRT the other day and was told that there was actually a shuttle bus from jing an MRT station 景安，there was just one exit which led us to the outside with an area full of bus stop signages, there is one that states clearly of the route going to leofoo village.
The timings for the morning runs are:
0945
1035
1120
Return tix/pax NT$236
However here is the interesting part, we got approached by a woman wearing a uniform asking us whether we were going to the theme park which we nodded in reply. Turns out she was a taxi driver and was poaching business from the bus queue!
She quoted us $200 per person and we agreed since we missed the bus by a few lousy mins, and when there was 5 persons , all strangers, good to go, we boarded her cab and she drove each of us to seperate locations.
We had one local lady who wanted to go somewhere before leofoo, a couple who wanted to go to window on china theme park (小人国），and lastly us who wanted to go to leofoo Village.
The taxi driver drove each one to the front entrance, got down and escorted us to the ticket counter briefing us about anything we should know.
So to us, NT$200 was pretty well spent.
Finally!
We went quite early and on a wednesday , thus there really wasn't any crowd at all except for the few buses of tourists and students.
The stretch of road we have to walk before we reach the actual theme park.
The first thing you'll see would be ponds and 4 entrances.
3 entrances lead to the theme park and the one furtherest to the right would be their zoo.
Went into the Arabian land.
First ride of the day,
The ring of fire. Wasn't a thrilling ride, the only exciting part is when you get to hand upside down. LOL.
The Arabian land rides are suitable for families as they are not adrenaline inducing rides, they don't really have speed and height.
There was even a Moroccan man selling the famous Moroccan ice cream yelling around in Mandarin, albeit slightly off key, " ICE CREAM! VERY FRESH ICE CREAM!"
We wandered off to the "tiki forest" theme park where a few of the rides were under maintenance. Again, not very thrilling rides. Well, one of the rides that caught my eye was under maintenance though.
Walked toward the wild wild west part and there was one ride which was rather fun.
The screaming condor
In which you'll be propelled towards the sky at a very, very high speed.
BF didn't dare to accompany me on this one. HAHAHAHA
This seems to be the only solace for thrill seekers though, what a pity that there weren't anymore rides of this caliber in the theme park!
We then went to the zoo!
Very interesting zoo I must say!
BF likes birds. The parrots are not chained or whatsoever you know? Cool.
There was an area where you cna go feed and pet the animals, however for this little kid, the mother kept trying to ram us whenever we got super close or about to feed it.
PFFT!
There were horses, but you had to pay to get a ride. I was kinda lucky, an uncle beside me passed me a bunch of leaves to feed it FOC, when I wasn't looking the sneaky horse chomped on the entire bunch which I planned to feed it bit by bit.
=/ (P.S: I know my hair's kinda messy, just got off the screaming condor ride and didn't know my hair was in a mess)
The Monorail ride! It brings us around an animal compound, some animals we got to see upclose and some from a height or distance.
Such as,
Rhinos!
Giraffes!
And my favourite!
Ostriches! Instead of running away, they ran towards us to peer at us. Hahahaha!
Monorail train guide was saying that they are very curious animals and they'd always come towards us to look at us as well. THE IRONY!
Last but not least we went on this bus tour into the caged compound of carnivorous animals.
It was really interesting. No pictures as the bus ride was bumpy and couldn't get a good shot. We went past bears, tigers, lions and baboons ( I think?), those were the real scary ones , baboons, they were rather aggressive and chased after the bus while the rest were just lazing around.
Well, after a good few hours , we went off to get the E-go bus to jing an station.
Got myself a drink, the back ground behind is the vast car park of leofoo village.
(Their Fanta packaging so cute -.-)
Their E-go bus works this way, the ride to the ticketing counter is free, but you have to get down and buy the tickets then board the bus again which would head to Taipei.
Before the bus arrives at a destination, they will announce it and you would have to press the bell to alert the driver otherwise he will just drive off.
The E-go bus was clean,spacious and comfy. Kind of like those tour buses you sit when you go oversees.
We got down at Zhong xiao dun hua. Approximately $400 NT for both of us max.
We then headed to Sogo, the green building to purchase a porter bag for the bf.
Apparently, money changers are nowhere to be found, thus we had no choice to change at Sogo at the lousy rate of SGD$1: NT$20.80. T_T
Porter in Taiwan is rather popular, a walk in the streets can vouch for it when every teenager walking pass you seems to tote one.
Turns out, comparing its prices to SG's porter branch, TW's porter was cheaper by quite a bit!
BF bought this bag which is bigger than A4 for around $250 SGD MAX.
Good deal I say.
Oh well. This pretty sums up our day.
Day 8 (Thursday)
The next day , we woke up, went to take a walk and a light snack,
Had lunch and packed all our luggage and headed to Dihua street 迪化街 again, this time with Emily姐姐, the place which sells all sorts of herbs, dried goods, home made noodles and the sorts, sort of like a market selling dried goods except this place offers more variety.
Went there for the sole mission of getting my aunt's homemade mian xian. Turns out it was a pretty famous store for it's mian xian noodles.
In fact, Emily 姐姐 was telling us that the entire street during CNY will be flooded. Till the extent that traffic cannot drive through.
After we procured our noodles, we went off to the airport a good 3 hrs before our flight as I was rather scared of traffic hindering us.
Almost blew up at the airport staff regarding baggage allowance , but dad's friend was there. So I kept my mouth shut and beseeched him to help me mail my parcels instead.
JetStarAsia kept on pushing the responsibility here and there. When I was checking in at the SG airport, they told me that I can purchase an extra 20KG baggage allowance, but ONLINE. I tried several times but to no avail, made a phone call and was told that I can only do it at Taiwan's Taoyuan airport. And the staff had many discrepancies, one staff said SGD $70 can purchase the 20KG allowance, another one said $15 SGD per kg. That's crazy.
We say hi!
First time actually wearing a mask. LOL. Lucky I brought, the person beside BF kept coughing and coughing like crazy.
In fact, 70% of the flight's passengers were wearing masks except the coughing dude. Grrrr.
Part of the loots. Hahaha.
Taiwan was lovely. Would definitely love to visit again!
Rather tired now! So off I go ;)
Labels: Taiwan
