Hey!!! :) Merry christmas guys! A little too late but whatever! hahaha came back from taiwan yesterday, first time spending my christmas there! The people there don't really celebrate christmas but nonetheless I still had an awesome christmas with my family :) Overall, it was one of the best trips i've ever been to! It's such an amazing country to go to for a holiday, but it was kinda cold for me. hahaha, i'm the kind that can't stand being in an air-con room and 11 degrees almost killed me.... and also to me the food wasn't as good as I expected! The smelly tofu and the intestines, blood vessels of different animals and pig blood cubes in soup were very grosssss. Great experience though haha. Other than the weather and the weird dishes, the whole trip was amazing! We reached taiwan at around 9pm, so we travelled by cab for arnd 1hr to our hotel, followed by dinner and checking out the places surrounding our hotel. It was quite late by then so most of the shops were closed and we couldn't really go anywhere. The rice I ate killed my appetite though, rice plus pork fats i think? Like literally no meat at all, its fats plus rice LOL. hmm, for day 2, we had breakfast at this amazing local shop which sells damn nice "dou jiang", dumplings and stuff! Awesome :) then we headed to "Ximending" which is (in my opinion) the best place to shop :) the environment was good, and the things sold there were really nice! But most of the stuffs were winter clothes, but their old summer stocks were quite good :) the prices are generally cheaper than sgpore, some were same or more ex though. Bought many stuffs there hehe :) then we went to this modern toilet restaurant! The seats were toilet bowls, the food were shaped like shit... didn't really felt like eating hahaha. hmmm, then we headed to shilin night market, the most popular night market there. Cheap but really crowded! The street snacks were really nice :) very hard to walk around in a group though, too many people! but the things there were awesome :) Day 3, had breakfast at this beef noodle shop. It was quite good :) headed to muzha station to check out their tea plantation! took a cable car up the mountain, around 20 mins? the scenery was beautiful! but kinda boring for me cause i'm not really a tea type of person haha. It was freaking freaking cold though. one of the coldest day for me haha. drank tea, ate, took loads of pics :) headed back down, and as it was christmas eve, we decided to go somewhere crowded to have the christmas mood cause we were all damn sleepy from the tea plantation place hahaha. went to shilin! bought more stuffs, ate dinner, countdown to christmas, and that's about it :) Day 4, Christmas day! We went to xinbeitou station I think to check out their famous hot spring! went to a taiwan aboriginal museum before that and it freaked me outttt. as usual. My biggest fear are tribes, even had a nightmare about it before. anyway, we headed up this hill and I ate the best steamboat of my life! Its the environment, and everything! then we headed to this place where you can book a hotel room for 2hrs to enjoy your own personal hot spring kind of thing. It's like hot spring water in a bathtub, then you can take turns 1 by 1 to soak and stuff. didn't really enjoy it. the water was literally like 100 degress or smth, and the sulfur smell was really strong. We took turns, like arnd 15 mins each, watched a little tv before the time was up, and headed out to have our dinner. After that, we travelled by cab to this huge ass shopping mall with a ferris wheel on top. It was damn nice! Took the ferris wheel, enjoyed a few live stage singing performance, and watched sherlock holmes in the cinema. Whoa damn ex, SGD$12 each for the movie. I was damn tired and it was quite boring at first so I fell asleep for awhile hahaha. Day 5, the best day for me in the entire trip. We went to danshui station, which is like by the sea. Took a ferry to this fisherman wharf island, it's kinda like an island away from the mainland. There's this lovers bridge there that's really beautiful. :) and this guy was playing the guitar and singing at the end of the bridge. It was really nice, haha. Played this shooting gun game at a stall, it was freaking fun!!! Deprived childhood :( hahaha. ferried back, spent quite some time at the street stalls and cabbed back to the shopping mall we went the day before. we had this reservation at a restaurant and lounge kind of place. It was really grand and formal, kinda had this palacey kind of feel, the waiters were all dress robin hood-ish hahaha. there was this guy singing and playing the piano too, really brings up the mood :) it was an amazing last dinner! Day 6, spent like 12 noon to 5pm shopping all the way at ximending! :) bought loads of last minute stuffs, and then headed back to the hotel for our luggage, cabbed to the airport and had our dinner there. our flight was from 9pm to 2am I think? worst flight ever. so much turbulence shaking and stuff, plus I was seating at the last row where the seats can't be tilted back, and this lady sitting in front of me tilted so freaking low! Just imagine how little space I've got. Tsk! When we reached sgpore, had the usual passport checking and stuff, grabbed a little bite before cabbing home. home sweet home at about 4am :) slept all the way till 7pm today hahahaha. Having jet lagggg but AMAZINGGG TRIP! :) bought christmas presents for people too, hopefully they'll like it... :/ took damn long to shop for all of them hahaha. Anyway, 2011's coming to an end! What a year.... will post more on the last day of 2011! If you've read up till here, you're an amazing major stalker hahahaha. This had got to be the longest post I've posted! Till then, bye! :)
Will be uploading the taiwan photos on fb when I'm free! 1000+ pics whoa