2013 Taiwan Trip Video - Updated

My version

Usman's Version

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over. ”Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Sixth Day in Taiwan (1/5)

Our flight was at 3:25 pm that day. That morning, after a quick breakfast from 7-eleven, we all did last minute shopping. Most of us bought pineapple cake from li yi cake shop (李仪饼店) at taipei main station. I bought their pineapple cake (Feng Li Shu 鳳梨酥) and Taro cake (Yu Tou su芋頭酥). I bought their tai yang bing for my colleague because her sons love it. But, when I tried, I think I prefer the one that we bought in nantou. Oh yeah, I met one sales lady at the store who wasn't so friendly. I guess she probably had a bad day, haha...

We booked 2 cars to go to the airport, since we had a lot of stuff. We engaged the same transport company that we used for our Jiufen trip. It was a last minute decision though. I called them early in the morning and luckily, we managed to get cars. The boss charged us NT$2000 for one 9-person car and one small car.

That was pretty much what we did in Taiwan. It was fun! I hope you enjoy reading my blog.

P.S. Stay tuned for my next post...

Fifth Day in Taiwan (30/4)

On the day, we set a meeting time of 9 am. Since it was a bit later, so, I thought that I could quickly go and buy something that my mom asked me to get. It's Ba Xian Guo. It is like lozenges, and it helps to ease our throat if we have sore throat or cough.

I came back just in time to meet up with the gang. We planned to have our breakfast at Fu Hang Dou Jiang (阜杭豆漿). It's famous with its soy milk (both sweet and salty versions). I wanted to try it when I was in Taiwan few months back, but unfortunately, they were closed. 

We took train there. As we arrived, we saw a long line from outside the building up to the stairs to second floor. The store is located at the second floor. We were hungry, but, of course we have to be on the queue. Haha... If I am not mistaken it took us about 30 minutes to reach the counter. I was worried that if we want to add some more food later, then we have to join the queue again. So, we ordered quite a lot of food: 7 bowls of sweet soy milk, 1 bowl of rice milk, 3 hou shao bing dan you tiao (厚燒餅蛋油条) /thick flatbread with you tiao and egg, 1 bao shao bing dan you tiao (薄燒餅蛋油条)/flatbread with you tiao and egg, 2 small 燒餅 with scallion filling, 2 small 燒餅 with vegetable, 2 sweet 燒餅 (tasted like pong pia), 3 bowls of salted soy milk. 

For eight of us, were they too much food? I really didn't realize that I have ordered so much. Hahaha... Even the Auntie looked at me with a surprised expression, then she told me that I could actually add more if I would like to later on (no need to queue). :D

Salty Soy Milk, Xian Dou Jiang (鹹豆漿)

Not everybody likes this one, but I like it. It tasted like porridge.

Rice Milk, Mi Jiang (米漿)

This was good. Suryana ordered this one. I tried, and love it. So, before we left, I got one to go.

Sweet Soy Milk

It was nice. Just that, I was not too sure whether there was any difference with one sold in other shop. 

hou shao bing dan you tiao (厚燒餅蛋油条)

I didn't dare to eat fried stuff, knowing that I get sore throat easily. So, I didn't have it when we were in the shop. But, everybody else love this one. We had one left over, and packed it for our snack. I tried it, and it was good even though it wasn't hot anymore. 

燒餅 with scallion filling

This one is pretty nice. There was another type, with sweet fillings (like phong pia). 

After breakfast, we made a move to Yang Ming Shan (陽明山) national park. The bus ride was close to an hour from Taipei Main station. 


There was a bus (#108) that goes around YMS from one stop to another. 

Our first stop

Nothing special here, but, we took a lot of pictures. Below you'll see few nice pictures of us.

Ideas came from Rika

Pictures were taken with Heinz's camera

I really like these pictures, just that, it's quite unfortunate, most pictures were blurry. Oh well, they are still nice though. Haha...

Second stop was Xiao You Keng (小油坑). It's a place with strong sulfur smell. The scenery was nice.

小油坑

It was really windy there, and we spent close to 2 hours waiting for bus. It was so chilly that almost all of us were shivering. As the bus arrived, we decided to just go back to the YMS bus station. We all were hungry, but luckily we still had our left over food from Fu Hang Dou Jiang.

From Yang Ming Shan, we then took bus to Shilin station, then took train to Dan Shui (淡水). We then proceeded to Dan Shui Lao Jie (Old street).

Ah Gei (阿給)

 This is another "Must Try". It's fried tofu stuffed with glass noodle. The sauce was so good.

Besides, Ah Gei, we ordered their meat pumpkin skin dumpling as well. It's pretty good. That was our lunch plus tea time. We then walked along the old street, and bought whole lot of brown sugar cubes again.

Our next destination was Shilin night market. The guys offered to bring back our heavy stuff to hotel first. It was really nice of them. 

At shilin, most of us walked on our own. I didn't feel well that night. I guess It's due to the chilled wind at Yang Ming Shan. My feet were sore because of the long walked and high heel boots. Then, suddenly I got a message from Suryana, saying that she found a reflexology place. I  quickly joined her. Eventually, everybody ended up there. 

After the foot massage, we walked around the night market again. It started to rain quite heavily that night. I was looking for a t-shirt for my brother, but, I couldn't find it at first. On our way to the train station, we passed by a shop selling a lot of different kind of t-shirts. Even though it was late (I think 11:30 pm), but, I thought maybe I should stop by for a bit. Guess what? We bought more than 20 t-shirts from the shop. Luckily, we managed to get on the last train that night. We reached our hotel at around 1 am. 

Oh yeah, we got our tai yang bing (太陽餅) delivered at the hotel that day! 

Fourth Day in Taiwan (29/4)

We were getting ready to go back to Taipei on that day. Our hotel in Taichung provided complimentary breakfast. So, we had a decent breakfast that morning. As usual, the guys were way ahead of the ladies. They took these pictures while the ladies were still busy getting ready.   

The breakfast was pretty good. A mixture of asian and western food was provided. There were porridge, salad, soy milk, dessert, coffee, tea, bread, mushroom etc.

After breakfast, we took taxi to the train station. Our train was scheduled at 9 am, and we reached Taipei close to 10 am. Our plan was supposed to be going to Yang Ming Shan for the day. Nevertheless, the weather was pretty hot and most of us needed to change NTD. After a short discussion, we decided to change our itinerary. The good thing was, everybody in the group was pretty flexible. Nobody made any noise due to the change of plan. Bravo!!!  

So, we treated the day as "free and easy". We first went to a bank (Mega Bank) nearby our hotel to get our money changed. In Taiwan, it's not so easy to find a money changer, and even there is one, the rate could be worse than the rate that is offered by a Bank. 

After that, we planned to have our lunch at the Modern Toilet restaurant. Our booking was for the next day, but luckily we could get the booking changed to that day. Yeah... yeah..., everybody was excited about this restaurant. It's not that easy to find the restaurant though. So, it's good that we had the direction written on our itinerary.

There, we had a combo meal, which comes with main course, drink (either ice lemon tea or green tea), and ice cream. The drink can be changed to other kind, but need to top up some money.  

Rye Bread+Pumpkin Soup

Won't you think it's disgusting to have a bread with that shape? Haha... I had it. The bread wasn't good. The texture was a bit tough and dry. The soup was ok. If I am not mistaken, it's pumpkin soup. I love pumpkin. :D

Thai Chicken

Seafood Hotpot

This is their specialty. I tried a little bit, it tasted pretty good, but not too great.

Pan Fried Chicken Steak

The chicken was very oily and tasteless. 

Ice cream

Again, it doesn't taste bad, but, it's not good either.

Entertainment for the day

Edited by Rika

Overall, the experience of having food there was good, but their food was just ordinary. Personally, I probably won't go back again. 

After the interesting lunch, we walked around Xi Men Ding. Most of us did some shopping. Then, for our tea time, we tried Ah Chung Mian Xian (阿宗面线). The mian xian (misua) and sauce was really nice, however they also added pig intestines which I didn't appreciate it that much. I don't like the chewy texture of it. Next time, I should probably request for one without any pig intestines.

阿宗面线

 

Supermodel, Suryana in actions (Walking on the street at Xi Men Ding)

Pictures were taken by Usman

These pictures look like one paparazzi (Usman in this case) who secretly took pictures of a famous Model (Suryana) who was shopping around Xi Men Ding area.:D

From Xi Men Ding, we headed to Taipei 101. Unfortunately, it was cloudy on the day, so, we decided not to go to the observation deck. Instead, we just stayed outside the shopping mall and took a lot of pictures.

Gwiyomi Style

Pictures were taken with Heinz's camera, edited by Usman.

Then, we walked further away from the shopping mall, to get a spot where we could take a nice snapshot of Taipei 101. We spent a lot of time there taking pictures in different styles. I remember a lot of people passed by, and some of them even stopped to see us.  

Taipei 101

From there, our next destination was Raohe night market.

When we were at Xi Men Ding, Usman has been looking for Mu Gua Niu Nai (Papaya Milkshake). I told them that it's a "Must Drink" if you visit Taiwan. But, I probably won't try though, since my digestion system has difficulty in digesting milk. Surprisingly, we saw one Juice Bar stall near the entrance where we stopped at Raohe night market, and they sell Mu Gua niu nai. While I was waiting for them, I saw one board that stated about health benefits of Pumpkin. Pumpkin is a good source of dietary fiber, and contains Vitamin A, C, E, and K. It also has high antioxidant content and may regulate cholesterol level. That made my mind to try their pumpkin juice. It's probably sounds weird. Pumpkin Juice??? But, I did order one without milk. Guess what? It was so tasty that I couldn't resist. The pumpkin taste and the sweetness was so perfect. Welly ordered another one with milk. I believe Suryana ordered Papaya Milk. Rika and Vina ordered Avocado milkshake, and it tasted great as well. Usman claimed his papaya milkshake to be awesome. But, I think my pumpkin juice was still the Best! Hahahaha.... Slurp....

Juice Bar

Pork Pepper Bun Stall

It's located at another end (near to a temple) of Raohe night market. Even though it's on our "Must try" food list, but we didn't really look for it since all of us were busy doing our own shopping. It was a coincident that I saw  this stall. We were looking for a restroom which was located inside a temple. Then, we saw a lot of people queuing in front of this stall. 

Pork Pepper Bun

The interesting thing about it was that the buns were baked with charcoal.

This is how it looks like after I took a bite of it. The bun crust was crispy, and the inside was soft. That's how the texture of a baked bun should be. One word to describe it, "Delicious!" 

Pork Ribs Soup

This is another one on my list. The soup was really nice, however, some of the meat were quite tough.

Few of us ordered Lu rou fan at the pork ribs soup stall. I didn't try it, so, I was not sure how it tasted like. After that, we planned to go back to hotel. On our way back, we stopped by the juice bar stall again. I just couldn't resist to have another cup of pumpkin juice. The rest were also tempted to get another cup of their fruit juice. I was still full, but I know that I could have one for my breakfast the next day.

Satisfactory face after having the papaya milkshake.

Raohe night market ended our itinerary for the day. 

P.S. Wait for my next post for our last day of adventurous trip in Taiwan. It was the day before we left the country.

Third Day in Taiwan (28/4)

Our plan for the day was exploring Nantou area near Taichung.
Early in the morning we took high speed train to go to Taichung. There was a 15% discount for the ticket, since we bought it early. Most of our big luggage were left at Taipei hotel, so that it's easy for us to move around. Our train left Taipei station at 7:54 am, so, we just had a quick breakfast bought from 7-Eleven that morning. We reached Taichung around 8:45, and our driver has been waiting for us. Below is his contact.

He is a nice guy. We were worried whether we will have time to cover everything that we wanted to go for the day, and he told us not to worry because he won't rush us, since he himself love traveling as well, and he doesn't like to be rushed. He is very knowledgeable about all the places around Taichung and Nantou area. He wasn't only our driver for the day, but also our tour guide.   

First destination was 彩虹村 (Rainbow Village). It was showering when we got there.

We then proceed to 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake). It was raining when we were on our way to Sun Moon Lake. But rain stopped when we reached the destination. We were hungry, so we had early lunch, around 11 am. The popular food was pork knuckle. But, none of us eat that, so we didn't order their specialty. Instead, we ordered a simple meal: Steam fish, mushroom, drunken chicken, vegetable, bamboo shoot. The bamboo shoot is different than the one that we know. It doesn't have the unpleasant smell like the usual bamboo shoot. It looks like asparagus, and the texture is crunchy. Overall, it was pretty good lunch.

Bamboo Shoot

After lunch, our driver sent us to Ferry terminal. The ferry ticket price was NT$300 per person. Here come another good point of our driver. He told me that since he brought us there, the Ferry company usually gives some tips (NT$100 per person). Eight of us, therefore, he will get NT$800, but he will rebate the amount to us. At that time, I didn't even have any words to reply him. How nice he is to do that. But, of course, eventually we included the amount to the tips that we gave him at the end of the day.

The ferry ticket allowed us to hop on and hop off at any pier during the day up to 5 pm.

First stop was Syuanguang temple (玄光寺). We didn't walk further inside, instead we stayed around the port to take pictures.

Second stop was Ita Thao Village (伊達邵). Here we had black tea (紅茶) Ice cream and mochi. Both taste great!  

Matithi Ice Cream at Ita Thao Village

Ita Thao Village Pier

Since we didn't intend to take cable car, Ita Thao village turned out to be our last stop with ferry. We then met up with our driver and headed to Wenwu Temple. On the way there, we passed by a park. It was a nice park with few beautiful peacocks there. All of us were busy waiting for those peacocks to show their beautiful feathers, then quickly took a picture of it. After everybody had enough of the snapshots, we then carried on with our journey.

Wenwu Temple

As we arrived at Wenwu temple, we saw few stalls selling food in front of the temple. Our driver told us that they were selling herbal egg. Indeed, another famous food at Sun Moon Lake is Ah Pho Cha Ye Dan (阿婆茶葉蛋). The egg was boiled in herbal tea. A lot of shops are selling the "cha ye dan", however, he said that the second shop (from the left) is the original one. We tried it, but, personally I don't think there is anything special about the egg. It did taste fine though, just a bit too salty for my tastebud.  

  

阿婆茶葉蛋

Sun Moon Lake

Next destination was Puli winery factory. On the way there, we stopped by a shop, called I Fu Tang to buy Tai Yang Bing(太陽餅) /Sun cake. Tai Yang Bing is originated from Taichung, so it's a "Must Buy". There is one traditional shop that I mentioned in the itinerary, but we didn't have much time in Taichung, so we decided to just get this brand. It turned out to be good. It's not too sweet for me. I think in total we bought about 20 boxes of Tai Yang Bing and 4 bottles of rice wine.

As I have mentioned before, almost all shops in Taiwan have delivery services. But, the sales woman said they couldn't deliver it, since we would be leaving Taiwan on wednesday (1/5/2013). Even though it usually just takes one day to reach any part of Taiwan, but it was sunday on that day. We almost have to carry those boxes on our own back to Taipei. It was probably ok.
However, lucky us, here comes our Hero. Our driver talked to the manager, and guess what, they agreed! Yeah... He told us that the shop manager is usually afraid of them (tour guides or drivers). If the shop service is bad, they would probably choose not to bring their customer to the shop anymore in the future.

Oh yeah, once again our driver gave us a small gift that he received from the shop. The small gift is the famous Taiwanese pineapple cake.

Puli Winery Factory

After that, Ice Cream time! I have been waiting for this. 18 degree C!!! They sell fine chocolate, and ice cream. I love chocolate! Yummy... The store also served free coffee. 

Free Coffee

18 degree C Ice Cream

Black sesame flavor was my favorite. The dark chocolate was a hit too. However, most of us thought the passion fruit flavor was a bit too sour. 

Finishing our ice cream, we thought that should be our last destination at Nantou area, since It was close to 7 pm. Our agreement with the driver was only up to 6 pm. But, guess what? As what he has promised us, he still brought us to a small shop to try the authentic Nantou home food snack (小吃 ). The shop called "Su Mama Tangyuan". They sell sweet tangyuan, meat tangyuan, Lu rou fan (Minced pork with rice). We wanted to spare some space in our stomach for Fengjia night market, so, we only tried the meat tangyuan and the braised tofu. The taste was so good. The texture of the Tangyuan skin was so perfect; the meat and tofu taste were terrific! Every bite we put in our mouth, and we mentioned "Wow, enak banget (so tasty)!". Even though we were not hungry yet at that time, especially after 2 cups of ice cream for me. But still, we were glad that we stopped by. 

Yeah... Yeah..., when you are at Nantou area, you have to stop by this shop. It is a "Must Visit" and "Must Try".

Su Mama Tangyuan

No.118, Section3, Zhongshan Road, Puli Town, Nantou, Taiwan

Braised Tofu

Meat Tangyuan

Nicholas packed the Lu rou back. Unfortunately the girls didn't get to try, and the guys finished everything. They claimed to be the best Lu Rou that they have tried. I think I have to go there again if I get the chance in the future.

Finally, that was our last stop at Nantou. We reached hotel around 8:15 pm. Our hotel (In One City Inn) is located nearby Fengjia night market. I purposely chose it so that we can easily access to the night market. It is the largest night market in Taiwan. 

 

Seasoned Fried Sweet Potato

Everybody loves it. I did try few bites, and yup, it's delicious. But, it's deep fried, and unfortunately my body can't take too much fried food.

 

Chicken Skewer

I didn't try this. But, if we ask Usman, I believe he will say "Good". We always wonder whether there is any food that tastes bad to him. Haha...

Sausage

This stall always has a long queue. Suryana did try it, and she said it's good.

Soy Milk Tea

It took me quite some time to be able to find this stall. I had the soy milk tea when I visited Taichung few months back. I remembered that was the best I have had during the visit to Fengjia. I love the combination of black tea and soy milk.The soy milk filled up my stomach, and the black tea may help to rinse all the grease that I had from those oily food out of my system. 

Fengjia night market was the last one in our itinerary for the day.