Welcome to Taiwan~ Part 2

:: Hari Tiga (25.05.2007 Fri)

7am rise & Shine.. (Super duper not enuf slp)

After taking a grp photo with Mr Chen & 老板娘 in front of 石头的家, we grabbed our sandwich + dou nai breakfast and jumped into the car.

Our itinerary is 边看边前往下一站--日月潭


On the way to Taroko Gouge 太鲁阁国家公园


The route to conquer in Taroko..

Here's a series of views inside Taroko:






Something very mad I wish to mention here. A stupid ridiculously childish siao ang mo made fun of me!!!

Mr Chen occasionally will ask us to alight the car and walk a trail. On the way to this above-taken place, a SRCS (stupid ridiculously childish siao for short) ang mo wanted to walk past us and made some impatient tone/words (cant rem exactly) while he walked past us. Okie.. this is nothing cos maybe it's our fault to block his way. When we reached the above pond, he was sitting beside the pond, half-naked. ~_~
We were already very puzzled why he was alone thr half-naked. Of cos we didnt stare at him or wat. I squatted in front of him (not near him lo), trying to take the best pic of my frens at the pond. You know wat he did? He used his hand and purposely pressed down on my left shoulder!! Immediately, i fell on my butt and ended up sitting on the floor!!

My next natural reaction is to turn ard and look at him. HE LAUGHED!!! SRCS ANG MO!! Is he siao or wat? I cant believe an ang mo has tis kind of siao sense of humor! Hey, I dun know u leh..

I stand up & give him a 'u are either mad or wierd' look. He stopped laughing immediately.

We didnt scold him or make a din.. we just walk away. . my frens tot i lost my balance and fell on the floor.. SRCS ang mo, dun know wat he is tinking abt.

This is not the end of the story. We met him for the 3rd time when we were heading back to Mr Chen's car. He was heading to us from the opposite direction. Upon seeing us, he turned his back at us and walked towards the same direction as us. I bet he must be very paisei to face us animore. End of story? NO.. As he tried to walk away from us, a dog inside a van barked at him. The poor dog kana a loud swearing from him! I was dumbfounded when i heard tt.. What a SRCS ang mo..



How I wish i can walk on the bridge..


燕子口


Can you see a witch, a mummy & a face with a pointed nose on this picture?



End of Taroko..


Heading to mountain top (12 deg celsius)


This dog appears during toilet break =)


Lunch..Temp getting colder so I got myself hot noodles





We went to the peak which is ard 3000+m. 12 deg celsius and Mr Chen prepared sweater for all of us. Nevertheless, we were still shivering.

Next, Mr Chen bought us to a plce to see sheeps!! They were so so cuteeeeeeee...




Sheeps were all busy eating grass so it was very difficult to capture their faces looking straight at the camera. A baby sheep ran down the mountain crying for his mama (Mr Chen said so) and Meh-Meh all the way.. I managed to capure it as a video too!! hee.. It's heaven with piles of shit on the floor, hahaha..

Finally, we reached Puli and went to this place to buy food as souvenirs for frens & family:


Tada~ Our homely stay in 日月潭~桂月村


well, lodging was not expensive and it includes hot spring bath & lake ferry tour.
Owners of 桂月村都超热情超友善。。


桂月村外头的街道。。

The owner of 桂月村 supposed to drive us to 埔里箱根泡温泉。。but Mr Chen was very kind to offer to drive us there as his car is bigger and we wont have to squeeze..

Hmm.. I was quite excited to try out Taiwan hot spring bath as I have seen and heard of it but nv get to experience it myself. However, I was terribly disappointed... thanks to the ok scenery & multiple mosquito bites..

The terrible thing is there were 5 of us but only 2 was targetted by those mosquitoes. Should it be one for all, all for one? *shakes head*

Next time I will try a better hot spring bath in the morning amidst the mountains & seas *Dreaming. . .* Oh ya, erase all those mosquitoes!


A bubble tea shop we stopped by on the way from 埔里箱根 back to 桂月村.

Mr Chen said drinks here are nice. Hmm.. I tried 沙冰 & feel it's normal ba. I was feeling hungry instead of thirsty. As a token of our appreciation, we treated Mr Chen to a drink here =P

Hungry.... and Taiwan instant noodles, thanks to Ah yi & AH Xin contribution, was my supper.

12am Zzzzzz

:: Hari Empat (26.05.2007 Sat)


一览日月潭（从我们的房间）

SIgh, we could have a better view of Sun Moon Lake if not for a under construction building blocking us right in front of our room!


饱满的一顿早餐！


I like this photo.. dun know why. Mayb cos everyone is smiling happily, 有一种回眸一笑的感觉。Anyway, we were on our way for our free boat ride at 9am.


This is the unsightly scene of the lake. As told by 桂月村 老板, the water level of the lake has decreased due to... erm... shit, i forgot =0P Anyway, it's nt a permanent issue cos the water level will increase back to normal level after summer season.


A small small island in the middle of the lake.


A bigger view of the lake (name of the lake originated from the shape of the lake)


Ah Yi is making a stupid face,hahhaa..


We stopped by a place and on top of a hill is this temple.

十二生肖 small statues were situated ard & in front of the temple. Inside the temple, Ah XIn & I 各自求了一个签。The whole process took quite long cos it was complicated. Well.. both our love lots wasnt tt good. SIGH!

Back to the boat, we tried this:

AH MA IS MISSING!


It's quite nice.. similar to Tea Egg but with fragrance of Mushrooms & a bir saltish~ *drool*



ANyhow shoot photos after our boat ride.



Views from a park near our Minshu.

Before we depart from this place to Taipei, we decided to shop along the street for lunch & look-look see-see.



I am eating fried 杏鲍菇。Part of my pathetic lunch, hehe..

我们拎着大包小包前往台北巴士的车站。

临别前。。。


老板有两个儿子。这是他的小儿子。超级可爱！

While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, Ah Xin & I went to play with 老板的小儿子..At first he was very shy.. look at us, smile & den run away. (SO CUTE!) He ran to the other side of a glass panel & instantly, his shyness was gone. He kept banging on the glass and played wif us. (SO SO CUTE!)

After seeing 老板的小儿子and大儿子, Im inspired to hope to have my future children like his too! 他们很可爱又很有家教。DO you know where is his 大儿子 all these while? He was out there looking out for the bus for us. One other thing which I really want to praise him on is... when the bus arrives..before we even realised, he was standing beside his Dad and helping us to carry out SUPER HEAVY luggage onto the luggage compartment! I was totally impressed! He was only the age of a primary school students and he helped 5 大姐姐 to move luggages into the compartment. Becoz of this, Ah Xin will go back to Taiwan and look for him 10 yrs later I believe..
Hahahaha~

--Bus RIde to Taipei : a place which is entirely diff whr we had visited --


Stall selling dogs on the street. .

We took Taipei Mrt to 西门町 station. We encountered a super embarrassing scene. It was evening when we reached our station thus the station was quite crowded. With our big luggages, we entered a lift which will take us from the platform up to the station control. The button panel was in front of some of us and naturally, we pressed on the close button. EH? The door doesnt close.. we kept pressing and even said out:"为什么关不了的？”All these while, those Taiwanese inside the lift that witnessed all these just remain diam diam. One Taiwanese guy squeeze into the lift at this moment, saw what we did and kindly inform us that the door will automatically close.

".........."

We felt so paisei tt we were so ignorant. -_-::
If the door will auto be closed, why is thr a close button?!!!

Another interesting ting to note is tt, stand on the right side of the escalator if u are not in a rusH! Left side is for rushing ppl..

After some navigation, we reached 明日大饭店. It is so so near to XMD station entrance. So so near to XMD.

We got stuck at the reception for quite some time as our room was not ready blah blah blah.. 明日大饭店(Future star hotel) is quite a small hotel and occupies only 7,8,9th floor of a building. Before we reached the hotel, we were mentally prepared to face maybe... a sleezy hotel or ... a lok kok room.. due to its cheap rate.

Reception is at the 7th floor and it's not lok kok. *phew*
But.. seems like ppl are able to book a room for just 2 hrs.. *EKKKK*
and furthermore.. wen Ah Lan, Xin & I went up to the 9th floor to borrow toilet.. *gurp* All the room doors look lok kok *Yucks* plus we heard a gal screaming.. *OH MY GOD*

Why does 7th floor looks like heaven while 9th floor looks like hell?

I prayed hard.. "PLS GIVE ME 7Th Floor room!!!"

Heng! Both room was in 7th floor. I wont wan to hear any gals screaming at night *Sweat*

Our rooms were clean & nice and i tink we could not have gotten a better room with that kind of cheap room rate. (Only ard $20 plus per pax per night)

All those travelling & tinking made everyone hungry.

飞天麻辣火锅二奶店！！

I purposely added this into the itinerary as I wanted to try Taiwan famous 麻辣火锅! There is 2 branches in XMD - 大奶店 and 二奶店。This shop seemed to be quite famous too.

It took us a while to reach 飞天麻辣火锅二奶店 because.. the map is not detailed enough. If map is useless, we will have to rely on our mouth to ask. As a result, it was equally useless. I checked online and discovered 二奶店 is super near to our hotel compared to the other branch. We tried to ask ard for direction help but most of them do not know whr it is. One person directed us to the branch which is further away & we nearly believed him!
Taiwanese are not as friendly as I tot to be. A lady which I asked direction from, her face is like those 变脸 performance which can be transformed instantly from smiling at frens to looking sternly at u with a "不知道" reply.

We managed to find it in the end. Saw the signboard afar.........



See the big brown lump in the 麻辣 water? That is 鸭血。。

The ingredients that they provide is quite unique.. You can find big lumps of 鸭血 inside the soup and organs like 鸭心..Suit my taste i feel,hahahah..
In addition, dessert & fruit section 真的没话说。Vast variety of fruits! Normally, only tubs of ice-cream are available for u to dig in buffets. Here, besides tub of ice-cream, cones are provided and diff kind of ice-cream stick kinda of ice-cream to choose from. All these for just 330NT! CHeap!


Shopping time at XMD!

We saw a cute donut shop..


Fire performance on XMD street:





The well known rainbow hotel..

We were spoilt for choice on tv programmes back at hotel. You can find taiwan, korean, jap shows.. 90plus channels for u to choose from.. for continuous 3 nights, I was watching the same taiwanese variety show (forgot the name). The host will post a qns and either wen ur ans is similar or diff from others, you will have to suffer electrocution.. it's fun to see their expression when they are electrocuted~