TAIWAN

so i finally edited photos (out of a gazillion) for taiwan, i know if i don't get down to it NOW i never will. case in point: dozens of places in europe i still have not written about and can no longer be bothered with. all those memories are leaking away, so yessss i must capture every detail of taiwan now while i still can!

we went with a tour group, 7 days + 2 days personal extension for free and easy in taipei. the SIA flight there was THE BEST because the plane was half empty and i got an entire row to myself!!! so i propped my legs up, watched Curious Case of Benjamin Button (but gave up halfway too boring) and Bride Wars. our first evening there, we drove down to Yilan, met our super-funny kaobei tour guides Xiao Yang and Ah Long, and went into a hot spring for the first time. no kidding, all of us suaku singaporeans DIDNT DARE to undress in front of each other and go in naked, so we went into the pools with towels. the taiwanese ah-mas that walked around kept giving us dirty looks hahaha.

we also went to explore our first 7-11 in Yilan night market, which was to become a familiar stop for the remaining days of the tour. their 7-11 is damn cute, it has all sorts of nonsense and snacks and is overwhelmingly exciting to look at. and their collection of bowl noodles is awesome!!! i bought two bowl noodles for two consecutive nights, devouring it in relish in the confines of the hotel rooms. and they also have this "hot-pot fastfood" for sale.

the next day we went to visit some huge tua-peh-kong, it was a very serene temple. then it was off to some tea plantation where we picked some leaves and made our own tea-leaf eggs! it was very fun and the eggs were super delicious, with soft runny egg yolks - like poached eggs but hardboiled. unfortunately, because we were a bunch of blur idiots, we left the eggs overnight in the bus - rendering them rotten and unfit for consumption the very next day. what a waste!

we bussed down to Hualien next! to visit the famous Taroko gorge. to be honest it was quite disappointing, partly because of the weather but partly... i don't know, the tourism board's photos were deceiving? hahaha. the scenery was good but i remember feeling more awesome even for the view on mount stong in malaysia. but it was all right, we had to go through a mini passage of cave tunnels to reach some temple perched in the middle of the rock.

before going to the gorge we also stopped by a marble factory, okay they said it was because hualien is famous for production of marble which is true but the main reason is because marble-factory uncle wants to sell us his jade pendants! that said, it was very cool walking around and seeing huge ugly chunks of rock being sliced by diamond-blades, then polished into marble slates.
and then there was the sun moon lake! we went to these two pagodas which are supposedly for good luck, you have to go in through the dragon's mouth and come out the tiger's maw. if you do it the wrong way round it's bad luck! and we climbed to the top of the pagoda, the view was lovely. i also realised that for all the taiwanese temples, their pillars and awnings and arches are painted this different shade of red - its a bright shiny patent crimson, very different from the ones in china and in singapore.

there was a stop at a peacock garden along the way, it was amusing but the peacocks were damn noisy with their courtship calls, howling endlessly and fluttering feathers vainly. and the peahens just had this "whatever please shut-up" attitude hahaha. females of all species are alike!

there was this long arduous 7-hour bus ride from hualien to kaohsiung, i never want to be stuck in a bus for so long ever again! some of the roads were absolutely bumpy, it was mountainous and treacherous and we COULD NOT SLEEP at all because we were thrown from side to side. but the view compensated for it, it was awesome! meizi and i were bus-buddies for this leg and we were both just stunned, we kept staring mesmerized out of the window for at least 2 full hours, it was amazing how we just looked and looked and looked. (and everyone else on the bus slept) for me, it wasn't just because the seaview was gorgeous, it was that sense of wonder because it was THE PACIFIC OCEAN and AMERICA IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT. and i had plenty on my mind, but the view really relaxed and calmed me in so many ways.

we arrived at the city of Kaohsiung after that, i hated the place, it was polluted crowded and messy. and just boring. there was this Dream Mall that we went to but it was far from dreamy i can assure you that, more like a nightmare because of the surging crowds of people everywhere.

and we went to janfusan theme park!!! perched on top of a mountain. i was lazy to take pictures along the way so this is like the only one i have, of the night when all the trees glittered and they had fireworks. we tried almost all the rides except the most lethal one, this disgusting 90-degree plunge into a hole into the ground aptly titled G-5! the one i am most proud of is this ride where you sit on these chairs and it vertically shoots you up till the top of the tower DAMN HIGH, and comes plunging down super fast. omg it was soooooooo fun and terrifying i screamed and laughed and cried all at the same time! i think my tolerance for thrill rides has exponentially increased.

kudos must be given to our tour guides, they were super chatty and informative all along the trip. they literally told us everything about taiwan - from habits and politics and gossip - to little things, like army enlistment and bing-langs and pop culture. it was very cool. and there was an uncle on the tour group who was the GOD of lame jokes, he had this endless supply and KEPT ASKING THE TOUR GUIDE. like maybe one per hour. shimin kept saying, "HOW does he remember so many? like. HOW? TELL ME HOW."

and we finally made it to taipei! our last two days of free and easy was AMAZINGNESS. we had all this freedom, we slept in late ate in bed walked everywhere and played stupid card games at night.

and the tour group also dropped us at the military academy! where supposedly, in the tour guide's own words, only the most elite, well-trained, smart, tall and HANDSOME guys qualify to be the guards. they have to stand absolutely at attention and cannot move a smidgeon. unfortunately, we all felt the guards were not shuai at all! some mixed-blood looking guy in a western suit with a walkie-talkie at the side caught my eye instead, but i was too shy to ask for a photo (:


and we celebrated shimin's birthdayy!!!! it was a big coincidence because another guy (the lame-joke uncle) from the tour group had the exact same birthdate. so we secretly tried to call the tour guide the night before to ask him to help us prepare a cake, and he was like "Y'ALL, i already KNOW." there was a mini party in our taipei hotel! with a cake, peaches, and some buffet spread thing. it was cute. and thanks to cindy and meizi, they developed one of our taiwan photos in a hotel as part of the gift. as cindy was my roomie for the night, both of us were to burst into shimin's room at midnight - so we prepared present and cake, and tiptoed outside the door... only to hear shimin chattering away inside, waiting FOR HER HAIR TO DRY and refusing to go to bed. TSK. so we stood outside the door like idiots, waiting until meizi gave us the signal and they went to sleep before we burst in shouting 'SURPRISEEEE'.

oh and the shopping in taiwan, what description of taiwan would be apt without talking about THE SHOPPING? i have never ever shopped like that, we literally buy something from every single shop we stepped into. it was cheapcheapcheap. at the end we threw out all our buys on the beds, this is what we got, excluding from my last-minute purchase of two pairs of heels on the very very last day itself:

meizi and cindy

shimin and me

and we ate tons too! the tour group gave us so much food we always ate until bursting at every meal. then there were three nightmarkets we visited, including the ever-famous shihlin where we had huge chicken cutlets which totally trash the singapore shihlin stall one, and were damn cheap at only $2. there was an amazing big-intestine meesua we had at ximending, my favourite BEEF NOODLES at some roadside stall, delicious guo-tie, and mango snow. other things included: smelly toufu (and i still hate it), huge sausages, oyster omelette, red oil wanton mee (DAMN NICE), dan-zai mian, bazhang, coffin bread (this sinful toasted thing with tons of cream and butter and chicken filling on top), curly sausages, papaya milk, pork buns and actually LOTS MORE i can't recall.

OH and there was this Tian-Bu-La (sweet not spicy literally), this thing similar to yong-tau-foo we ate in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere in taichung. it was SO GOOD. and there was free hot radish soup afterwards that i slurped until the bowl was empty. the auntie was like, "you girls are tourists right? so cute!" and we praised her and she was like "i've been here for 20 years (((((:" no wonder lah, there were newspaper articles featuring her stall stuck all over the walls. and and and, i must mention, i drank sooo much milk tea with pearls, like one everytime i went out on the streets. loved it.


and finally, nearing the end of a super long post, i have got to mention the HOTELS. they were super luxurious and fantastic! first night we thought it was all right, SECOND NIGHT meizi and i squealed when we entered because we realized each of us would have a DOUBLE BED. and the ambience was fantastic with paraquet flooring. THIRD NIGHT cindy and i squealed even more, because it was SO PRETTY and well done up and modern and zen like and CLEAN and there were flat screen tvs. and the last night meizi and i SCREAMED because we got this ubercool bathroom with a jacuzzi and a TV NEXT TO IT in the bathroom. and a shower that was so damn good - it had the rain-bath thing on top, four nozzles so you can have a shoulder and back and thigh massage, and some STEAM ROOM function thing. all four of us girls soaked our feet in the jacuzzi that last night in total shiokness.

so yes. I LOVED TAIWAN(: it was a great experience! good to be home, but it was a well-deserved break and grad trip. and i think i am hooked onto travelling now, YES, many more places to come!