alert!! this is going to be a really long post with loads and loads of pictures =X

DAY 1

while waiting for the bullet train to send us to taipei, we headed to this cafe to eat and they had this object(i don't know what else to name it - refer to the picture below) that was so cute! it lights up and vibrates at the same time indicating that food is ready to be collected at the counter!

on the coach from the taipei mrt to our hotel, there was this housefly hovering around in the bus
carmen : "the housefly from taiwan looks different!"
me : laughs non-stop! hahas!
does it look any different!?!?!


i told baby about what carmen said and when he saw this photo(below)..
baby : "ya! the housefly looks different!"
he said i look like a housefly!!! =( =(
after dropping our luggage at the hotel, we headed to fisherman's wharf (i think it's spelt like that)
the toilet signs were so cute that i couldn't help taking pictures of it!
*the blue sign indictaing the male toilets on the right reads "gentle" =S
we tried taking like a thousand pictures of ourselves in the air but failed, so we gave up in the end =S
after which we headed to dan shui lao jie and that's where our feasting began.. we practically ate non-stop i tell you. it's simply mai dong xi, chi dong xi, mai dong xi, chi dong xi =S
rice cake - it tastes exactly like glutinous rice. nice!fish ball soup - didn't much suit my taste. it's harder and less chewly than the ones from Singapore but there're meat fillings insidei forgot what it's called but this was carmen's favourite! beancurd skin on the ourside, tanghoon on the inside. nicest among the 3!my first bubble tea!! it was so value for money i tell you, the pearls filled almost half the cup and every sip i took had so many pearls in my mouth!
and this reminds me..
when baby just got back from taiwan(he went there for some army training), i asked him if he got bubble tea back for me and he said he fedex-ed it over. so when we went out.. he brought bubble tea for me! and es, the pearls filled about half the cup BUT the cup was labelled "sweet talk"
me : you bluffed me! it's from sweet talk!
baby : no.. it's from taiwan! singapore where got give so many pearls one..
me : but sweet talk's from singapore!
baby : you try first then see lars..
so there i was drinking the milk tea..
baby : taste different right??
me : no wad..
baby : got.. you try again.. the pearls are more chewy..
so i drank again..
me : *a little skeptical* ya.. a bit different lehs..
!!!!!!!!! i nearly believed him can!!
baby, i thought we never lied to each other =(

i didn't buy this(was too full) but found it so interesting! the ice-cream was so long and sharp and it was only selling for 10NT = 45 cents!!
berries covered in... PIGS BLOOD!?!?
though it looked pretty appealing, i didn't dare to try them =X
they sell so many of these there. don't know what exactly they are but i think they're some kind of eggs. jane bought it for us months back when she went to taiwan =)*translated* smelly tou fu
actually i don't find them very smelly and they tasted okay. think the hong kong ones are nicer though =X
after which we headed to where else but........ SHILIN YE SHI!! yes. food, food and more food!!okay, the uploading of photos takes like forever so i decided to combine them from now =X
stawberry ice - it was really good!! especially after walking for so long in the hot hot environment.. we finished every bit of it! compared to the ones u can find in singapore, they had more fruits and were bigger in portion.
we had (from the top left going clockwise) :
tian bu la - made up of tou fu, meatball and many other floury stuffs covered with sauce that's a little sweet
mee sua - the soup was thick and a little salty but nice!
oh-ah-jian ( oyster omelette ) - they put more starch then the ones from singapore but the sauce they used were delicious!
i forgot what it's called - some soup that my dad said tasted like bak kut teh
after the eating, eating and more eating, we took the mrt back to our hotel.
for single trips, unlike singapore which uses a refundable card, they use blue chips. for entry, you scan the chip(like that of our ezlink card). for exit, we return(drop) the chip back.
so cute! they use a bitten apple for the no eating and drinking sign!
seats that should be let to the elderly/disabled/ pregnant woman are called priority seats.

DAY 2
okay, after the first day, i forgot where we went each day and started taking lesser pictures so yep, the rest are summaries.

we went to this place at some mountain (taiwan's FULL of mountains) that looks something like a ye shi as well
went for lunch at some restaurant which had apparrently appeared in the jacky wu's "shi zi lu kou" show. i regret not buying the clogs =( =( they were so comfortable! ken has one and he (claims) he's been wearing them for a long time.. =(there's this pretty shop selling cute chocolates! was so tempted to buy but they're a little waste of money. they even had marshmellows shaped into sanitary pads(look below)!!daddy keeps looking for cafes everywhere we go. so here we are at this cosy coffee house for a sip and rest.dinner was what u call the recycling of soup
1 : meat, vegetables, mushrooms blah blah blah were placed in a huge bowl of soup, eaten in steamboat style.
2 : waiter gives out all the food leaving the soup behind and adds in udon noodles and yam
3 : waiter gives out noodles with a spoonful or two scoops of soup, leaving some soup behind, he adds in rice and squashes the yam to give you - yam porridge in left over soup
we had a fruit store near our hotel so when we had time at night, off we headed there!
the watermelons we humongous!!! daddy tried to carry one and could barely lift it(even when he (self-proclaims) has mascular arms from all the weight lifting during gym workouts - yes, my parents are members of fitness first and they excercise more than me =X)oh, and in case i forget to mention... they have these basketball arcade games EVERYWHERE! even at the mouth of temples!! and they're cheaper then the ones in singapore - 10NT = 45 cents per game.we went to this flower park on one of the days. it was so beautiful!! many ou xiang ju's were taken there!

how i wish i could be like daddy and mummy(refer below) next time too! looking at the picture gives me a very heartwarming feeling =) wo xi huan =)

oh, and note the umbrella daddy's holding. so pretty right it's polka dotted and has pretty frills at the borders!! we got two of those for 300 NT = $13.50 and i saw them retailing at more than $15 EACH in singapore!this was at some.. park i think. we were there to look at some eroded rocks/stones =Swe went to the theme park too!
cuz time was limited and it was raining on and off, carmen and i didn't get to sit much rides =(

on the last night, daddy, mummy and i went coffee house hunting again. and to our surprise, we mamnaged to find this posh cosy restaurant somewhere behind our hotel, yays! so there we were, have beer(daddy) , lavenda milk tea(mummy), haagen daz ice-cream(me) ! =)
i so wanna head to taiwan again!! some time soon i hope =X unfortunately didn't get to shop much =(
overall taiwan was a great experience! just some things i took note in taiwan :
- the roads are bumpy. and i mean really bumpy. the tour guide claims that the government tou gong jian liao, so the roads are pretty uneven.
- traffic's a little haphazard. especially in kaohsiung, don't depend on the traffic lights
- many there don't even know a single bit of english, so your chinese has to be proficient
- shoes and clothes in the night markets(ye shi) are really cheap! shoes/clothes/bags usually cost about $9-14 sing dollars. i saw clothes there which cost $13 in taiwan selling for $26 in singapore online shops!
- the driver seats are on the left instead of right
- there're sexily clad girls in small shops selling beetle-nut. from what the tourguide says, they wear more nowadays, but still, if you're lucky, you may see some in bikinis

okay! that's about all on my taiwan trip! i like taiwan!!! =D
oh, and i think my photoshopping skills improved!! hahas! 10:07 AM