Infinitely me: Event: Taiwan Trip 2010

Congratulations to myself for having my first overseas vacation! (army ones doesn't count)

This is the first time I went overseas and its really cool that I had my closest friends with me. I never imagined that I would be late for something that excited me so much but still I was late :p While on the train towards Changi Airport, I was so excited that my heart kept thumping hard. It was nice to see everyone at the airport and knowing that we're going to spend the next 9 days together in Taiwan playing our hearts out.

Edwin da terrorist wearing bomber shirt!

Bye bye Singapore, Taiwan here we come!

Day 1
We landed, abit not smoothly but still, and felt the cool winds of Taiwan. While indoors, it was still fine, I kind of erm, didn't bring any jacket on my hand held bag and insisted that I wanted to "taste true Taiwan on my skin at least once without any jacket". But when we touched down, Danny insisted that I take his spare jacket and so I did. We went to do the youth thingy and then walked out. The reaction was "OH MY GOD ITS SO COLD IS ORGASMIC"! Ok we didn't say that but it was something like that. Thank goodness for the jacket. But alas the hero and heroine of the day was still Yinning and moi, as we were both wearing short pants. Everyone was staring at us as if we were stark naked outside. We took a bus to Taipei Train Station
which is like Dhoby Ghaut, the interchange for everything.

After walking like miles and kilometres, dragging our luggages through tunnels and roads, we finally reached our stay for the night. It was some ulu and dark alley. But the interior was actually not bad. No photos for that though. Then we happily went to look for dinner but to our horror, our location isn't the ideal night spot for supperish dinner at 9pm. Everything was closed, lest Mos Burger and Yoshinoya and they exist in Singapore as well. After searching many places and hesitating for a long time (causing almost every single shop to close), we decided to dine at Yoshinoya. It was nice, but that's because we were way hungry. We noticed many many 7-11s on our way to and fro. Their 7-11 is damn cool as there are seats inside, they sell a huge variety of food and drinks (including the super nice papaya milk), cha ye dan and hotdogs. Cool eh.

We have arrived!

Ching Yee and her alleged Shuai Ges at the airport

On the bus to Taipei 车站!

我们是短裤一族!

man, yoshinoya for dinner...

cool! tables in 7-11, but Ching Yee isnt sitting down cause no more chair le.

almost every 7-11 has these!

sleazy eh...

Day 2

We went to take train to Hua Lien at 12pm. The most hilarious thing happened. When we reached at 11.55 there about, a train was about to move off and the train conductor scolded us for not being punctual and asked us to hurry up and get on the train. We did, since we saw the panel showing our train's information (12pm train). Looks like the panel was just showing information of all arriving trains and we took the wrong one. We only realised like, a few minutes later (cause there were no seat numbers as there were supposed to be). We feel so retarded but it was so funny. The locals gave us some information and luckily our train went the same path for a while as well so we managed to catch it at the next stop.

Train ride of 3hours and we were really amazed at how punctual and accurate Taiwan trains are. Singapore has a lot to learn. We finally reached Hua Lien and our tour guide for the Day 2 and Day 3, 何大哥, a really nice guy came to fetch us. We were in for another shock when we reach 石头的家, our 民宿. The hostess 刘妈妈 was really friendly. It was like we were just one big family. The room also took our breath away. Frankly after the whole trip I felt that our Hua Lien part was the best in everything. There wasn't much time left so we rode (their) bicycles to the coast and took some (i mean a lot of) photos. They gave us a ride to the town for dinner and we were really in for excellent meals. There were so much to eat so we decided to get a few dishes so everyone can share and just eat a little. I think I ate the least since I was busy taking photos. After going to 2 restaurants, we went for dim sum xiao long bao, but it was not small at all. We were incredibly full by then. The most amazing thing happened next, I met Kay Siong outside one of the shops. It's such a small world! We then went to see a performance by students of a local school. Ching Yee participated in the dance when they invited guests up to try. Totally cool (and funny).

wrong train still dare to smile like that! all should be like Leonard!

scandalous! who are you sitting beside!?

nice!!

stone house

Niuniu is the hostess' dog, very cute and friendly

professional level photography with entry level camera on auto mode, and a cos-you're-lucky-timing

finally a ok jump shot after a gazillion tries

i really like this photo, ok it's digitally enhanced...

i really rarely smile so until so 灿烂, thats why i really like this photo

everyone is tucking in like some hungry ghost

their egg is really special and tastyicilous!

all the variety of pai ku mian

so nice that we left the plates lick-cleaned

super cheap!

gigantic xiao long baos

its a small world after all~ to see my army friend here

this is sort of like the centre of the city. its a water fountain with a big rolling ball

Ching Yee performing for us!

Day 3

We went to Tai Lou Ge which was something like the nature park in Hua Lien. To my surprise, I learnt that most of Taiwan was covered by mountains. Now, that's something I didn't know. When we climbed up the mountain, the breathtaking sights just took us away. You'll never see such things in Singapore. We acted like kids who never stepped into the outdoors before. It was truly like nature stepping out from the textbook and we were learning in an outdoor class. The photos can never be enough to make one understand. We also went into a cave where Danny did lots of stupid stuff. Hua Lien had quite a bit of emphasis on their love for rocks. They find beauty in it and can find meaning in a rock that looks plain. Anyway this was also the time when I realised that the people of Hua Lien are really humorous. Their choice of words always make us laugh.

We went to the coast for a while, had some snacks (the sweet potato was good). Next we went to the fishing village to have some seafood. I can't begin to describe how fresh and cheap their sashimi is. It was like, 5 sing bucks for 10 pieces? Anyways we ate 3 plates of about 30 pieces (more, i think). Then we went to buy our fireworks after collecting our zha dan cong you bing (bomb onion oil biscuit) which was freaking nice (its a cong you bing with half boiled egg inside). We spent 100 sing bucks altogether (7 people) on fireworks. We really felt like kids with no childhood. The fireworks was so fun and we were so sad that we only bought this much. We went to lit our kong ming deng next. It was a lantern thingy which you write your wishes on it and lit it up, letting it carry your wishes into the sky. It's quite a romantic thing but since everyone wanted to keep it a secret, so the photos are editted and the videos can't be uploaded. Finally we ended the day by decorating rocks which Liu Mama provided for us. We could either leave it there or bring it home as a memento.

Day 4

We ate breakfast provided by the Liu Mama again before setting out to Jiu Fen. (btw their breakfast was really really very nice!)

To be continued.