taiwan 23rd to 30th dec 2008

taiwan is one of those “get over and done with” holiday destinations; especially after spending 4 days in taipei in 2007. wanted to see the scenic and nature side of the country after watching “the rose” drama series.

signed on a 8D package with a tour agency as i didn’t have time to plan the itin due to it being peak season for me at work.

day 1

left on 23rd dec around noon and reached tw in the evening. it was interesting to see a cluster of reporters , studio cameras, lightings and camera men at the arrival hall as we walked out. we found out that they were waiting for the arrival of the pandas from china. i was surprised that the pandas would pass through immigration like the rest of the passengers, instead of going through secluded exits or something. we didn’t get to meet them, tho’.

we were brought to Taoyuan Night Market. that has to be the quietest night market i have ever been to, in the world. the familiar smell of the smelly toufu was quick to greet us as we started on the market street. i chose mee sua for my dinner. it’s not ah zhong’s mee sua, but still it’s nice and warm for a cold night.  well, it wasn’t that cold but i have a low tolerance for cold LOL.

day 2

1st stop was a Strawberry & Tomato Farm – both of which i do not like to eat.. hahah…

then we went to Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village. this is quite an interesting place. it’s like a theme park. this was where the Taiwanese series “the little princess” was filmed too. there is this grand palace-like place and then there is another area where there are theme-park rides such as the UFO Drop – this reminded me of the ride i had in las vegas which was really THRILLING and fun and the Waikki Wave. There is also another area in the village where they stage the aboriginal traditional song-and-dance performance and preserve the cultural heritage of TW’s 9 hill-tribes houses, living style etc.

we reached Sun Moon Lake slightly before it turned dark. we managed to catch a glimpse of the beautiful scenary.

day 3

don’t know why, it didn’t dawn on us to go and catch the sun rise at Sun Moon Lake maybe the tour guide did tell us but i slept through and through most part of the journey on the coach and missed that advice.

we had lunch in Alishan; followed by a stroll. they have interesting trees sculptures and very tall and straight cedar trees. but Alishan was quite disappointing for me. maybe because, you can’t see much of the scenery and the landscape; except for trees and forest during the stroll.

our stay that night was at Nanyuan Leisure Farm. it’s a leisure farm with ponds, bird, animal and floral farms. it even has hotspring facilities. what’s fascinating at this farm is that they don’t serve the fatty pork which we came to be very wary of during this trip. there is bound to be a plate of fatty pork every meal during this trip. and that dish is usually left un-touched by our table. and in this farm, they didn’t serve us that dish. the only pork dish was the xiao long bao and that’s delicious…. i wonder if it’s because pigs are “precious” to them or if they are their mascots . u see, when we arrived at the farm, we were greeted by these 4 little pigs. they are quite cute. the farm sells some toiletries too and the packaging has cartoon of pigs on it.

that night after dinner, they had some DIY activities – fire works, aboriginal dance (you dance; not them) and making ma-chee. i was quite excited about the latter. they were not lacking enthusiasts (other tourists) to help pound the ma-chee. mind u, the thing u use to pound the ma-chee is not light at all. it is tedious and hard work. i did my share and gave a shot at the pounding, SO that i can eat the ma-chee

the accommodation was nice. it’s european like wooden houses “on sticks”.

day 4

the highlight for the day was probably the bullet train from Tainan to Kaohsiung. the night’s accommodation is in a well known exclusive hot spring hotel with personal hot spring tub in each room. the other place they brought us to was Fokuangshan, “Light of Budda” Mountain which anthea and i gave a miss and waited for them at the coach area; eating ice-cream LOL.

not only was the hotel nice, we had acccess to free internet at the common area and anthea and i got to log on for the 1st time during the trip.

day 5

on our way from Taitung to Hualien, out of no where, there was a floral field which was so beautiful. it was not even in the itin and our driver happened to make that toilet break and stopped at this field.

 

next stop was Taroko Gorge 太魯閣. it is quite a fascinating place. it began to rain about half way through and it was cold! but we still ended up eating meji ice-cream

that night’s dinner was good! it’s shua-shua-gua. everyone has a mini streamboat in front of you and u pick what you want to dump into your personal streamboat. it’s buffet style. they even have the sushi belt but they place special streamboat items on the belt and u pick what u want. it’s great that u get to drink some hot soupy stuff after a rainy and wet day and that u pick what u like/want to eat. it’s interesting singapore doesn’t have this restaurant concept?!!

day 6

we took the East Coast scenic rail from Hualien to Ilan. you see the coast view on one side and the mountains on the other. quite extra-ordinary. we went to the Ilan National Centre for Traditional Arts and i must say it was quite an interesting place. it is a folks art park which is multi-functional. it helps promote traditional folk craftmanship, arts, music, drama and dance and is also a multi-functional, resting place for cultural and educational purposes. they have retail shops there and quite a number of these shops offer DIY activities.

after lunch, we headed towards taipei. next stop was the National Palace Museum. i must say i was very amazed by the collection. i was wondering how much more would there be in the china museum then. it was only when i came back to singapore that B told me that that museum has quite a bit of stuff as chiang kai-shek took a lot of the  items to TW! the tour guide might have attempted to tell us all these but i either could not understand his mandarin or that was asleep (most of the time on the coach LOL).

the National Place Museum has a permanent collection of over 650,000 pieces oof ancient artifacs and artworks, making it 1 of the largest in the world. most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by china’s ancient emperors, it shares the same original roots as the Place Museum located inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. they were split into 2 as a result of the Chinese Civil War. the National Palace Museum was originally established as the Palace Museum in beijing in 1925. shortly after the expulsion of Puyi, the last emperor of China, from the Forbidden City. the articles in the museum consisted of the valuables of the former Imperial family and were moved from place to place in the 1930s and 1940s to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army. during the final yeas of the Chinese Civil War, the museum’s essential works collections were selected for removal, under the orders of general chiang kai-shek from beijing’s Forbidden city to TW.

that night, our hotel in taipei is the smallest of all that we have stayed but it is still nice and comfortable and new. after checking into our hotel, they took us for dinner at Hai Ba Wang. ohhh… the food is yummy! one of the dishes was glutinous rice with dried shrimps and it is very fragant. i had quite a hearty serving of it for myself

after a scumptious dinner at hai ba wang, they droped us at Ximenting. the plan was to pick us up an hour later. but we told the tour guide that we will make our way back to the hotel ourselves. how can 1 hour be sufficient for ximenting?!! our hotel is very near ximenting anyway – 20 mins by foot (not that we tried) and equivalent to flag down cab fare (TWD 70) i.e. the cab meter did not jump at all.

anthea has always told me that alot of stars/singers hold their autograph signing event or album publicity events at ximenting. i didn’t encounter any during my last trip to taipei… and whilst we were walking, we realised that there was such an event there that evening. and so, we went to take a look to see that is. i was shocked to learn that it was farenhite. it was like too good to be true. i was ever on the same flight as them during one of my business trip back from HK and now, there in ximenting, a close enough encounter with them. we were so close that it was quite unbelieveable. anthea managed to take such a closed-up video of them as she has the advantage of height. i was watching them and half dis-believing that i can see them so closed-up and only to drop my jaw when i saw what anthea was capturing on my camera – so clear and so closed-up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it was a very eventful and fruitful night at ximenting. 1st was seeing farenhite. then, i managed to find the DVD set of this chimpanzee and dog adventure that the coach driver has been showing us during the trip. it’s very hilarious and i totally enjoyed it and am so glad i managed to find it at the CD shop as i heard the tour guide telling another tour group mate that alot of his previous tourists couldn’t find it. though the DVD set was not cheap and though my tour mates found the prirated version the next night, it was ok. my bother and his gf and my dad have watched it since i returned and they liked it too

that night, we also managed to locate Show’s shop. we didn’t have the address. anthea only knows that it’s on the outskirts of ximenting. we headed one direction as we were on track and it didn’t take us very long to find it

we even managed to do some shopping, did express manicure and found ah zong mee sua in ximenting (i only went to the 1 in shihlin the last trip). though very full from dinner, i couldn’t resist packing a small bowl back for supper. though there are some pig’s internal organs cooked with the mee-sua, there was no porky smell and even anthea agreed that it was very delicious.

day 7

we went to Taipei 101 in the morning. our package did not include the entrance into the Taipei 101. anthea and i quickly crossed some streets to where the stage for the new year’s countdown was. it’s a pity we couldn’t stay for the countdown and a pity that we were not able to experience the drop in the  temperature which was forecasted would go down to 13 degrees celsius on 31st.

we had lunch at the Five Cent Driftwood Restaurant. it has an exterior that looks like a rock castle. the interior is also very interesting and very unusal. the food is also very yummy! this would be a restaurant that i would go back again if i’m ever i’m in taipei again.

next stop was Chiufen - a village in the mountains. it was raining by the time we got there and it was very windy and thus made it VERY cold. i was shivering in my knees when we got down from our coach. it’s  a good thing that we were blocked from the wind and rain once we entered the streets. they have alot of teahouses, shops selling famous local dishes, snacks and crafts. i bought a name chop there that has my chinese charactered engraved

night was spent at Shihlin Night Market. we had the extra-big chicken chop and ah zong mee sua and the popiah for dinner. ALL SO YUMMY!! we went to the shop that sells all the cute stuff such as hello kitty, mickey mouse etc. i must say i was disappointed. they have less variety compared to the year before. we didn’t stay in shihlin too long, though we had the option. it rained and was still drizzling and thus made it a little dreadful to be shopping and walking the streets.

day 8

our last stop before our tour ends was at Tamshui and Fisherman’s Wharf. emily and i only managed to walk a little of Tamshui in 2007. it was noon the day we were there in the summer of 2007 and the heat was too unbearable to venture too far and thus, we did not make it to the Fisherman’s Wharf the last time. we made it there this time (but of course; since we were on a tour package!) but the wind is incredible strong and it was freezing cold! half of our tour mates stayed in the coach while the rest of us ventured onto the suspended bridge. Fisherman’s Wharf is one of the popular filming sites for alot of their TV drama serials including meteor garden but anthea and i are still trying to recall which scene did they shoot it at Fisherman’s Wharf… LOL! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i had the chance to venture further into the streets of tamshui this time round. and we found a shop that sells alot of the cutey stuff. we ended up spending quite some time there; doing some last minute shopping. OH!! i forgot to mention – any future tourists to TW should always change enough currencies for the trip. our experience was that there is no such thing as the money changers we are so used to in singapore. the only place to change currencies as we found out from our experience is the bank and it’s not EVERY other bank. we went to 2 banks before we were directed to the main branch of the bank of TW to get more money changed!!

all in all, it was a blessed trip. we got to do and experience everything we wanted to do and get done. we met nice and friendly travel group mates. there was a few admin hipcup with the travel arrangements but God helped to iron that out. otherwise, we would have needed to extend our trip in TW.

habitat for humanity (15 &16 sept 08)

i have always wanted to participate in some sort of CSR activity and with my kind of schedule, i’m thankful for the “convenient” opportunity presented through the invite extended by one of our company’s business associates – AC. he is donating towards a habitat project to be held in chiangmai and it was happening lack to back with my company’s off-site in chiangmai.

the invitation was given to our staff to asia for volunteers to participate in a 3 days’ build that would begin on a sunday. due to my ministry commitment, i was going to give it a miss when AC said it is alright that i join them a day later.

i must say that i didn’t think much about it except to wonder what a team of 10 can build within 3 days? they sent us information of the habitat programme bit by bit and nearer the trip, i got a sense that it can be quite a tough job.

they sent us info of the family that we are building the house for and they also shared with us the state and condition of their current home. it did stir my heart and i was glad for this CSR initiative to be able to do something for the less fortunate.

 

 

i got in a day later than my singapore collys. by the start of the 2nd day, they have already done quite a bit.

 

we started the day’s work by forming a human chain and passing buckets of cement to the various parts of the house. it was good work on the arms. those buckets of cement were not light. we then distributed ourselves to the different parts of the house and started work with laying of the bricks.

 

i must say that it was more diffcult than i had thought. first, i was expecting those red, small bricks but what we had were much bigger. secondly, there were “guidelines and rules” you had to adhere to. you have to make sure it is not lower than the markings they have set and you have to keep piling cement until they are of the right amount so that the brick stands to adequate height.

it took me half the day to finish just a small portion of the wall. my colly said newbies are usually slower

 

second day’s lunch was much more spumtous than the first day as our thailand business associate arranged for food from his cousin’s restaurant. think i loved the sticky rice the best! interestingly, i saw that they have purple sticky rice too in chiangmai. in singapore, u can get it from QQ rice.

 

our progress is quite fast; so they say. the schedule was quite spaced out with quite a fair bit of time for rest and relax.

 

we left our “mark” in the house by engraving our name/initial on this cement floor. reminds me of the hollyhood celebratities’ hand print

on the last day of the project, we had a house dedication ceremony. it was meaningful. we “handed” the new house to the owner and his wife. and we could see that the owner was closed to tears. our business associate shared with us that the construction labourer gets but just 250 baht a day!

it reminded me of the needy in the world. and if u ask me if i would want to participate in yet another habitat programme. yes – i would be open to consider but what’s to me that is more important and urgent i feel is to share the gospel to the needy and lost. so much needs yet so little labourers!

{sbp} *travel kaki*

came across some old photos recently and like the photo of Deb & Zoe (taken in 2003), the one below is an even older photo. and i can’t remember which year was it… lai yien, iris, rachel, serene, iris’ frend (can’t rmb her name) and i went to sibu malaysia.

not “sto-beri”

but sharks’ fin flavoured! (u know how the japanese girl in the advert says “sto-beri” in the Glico pretz )

i meant to post this up a while ago but din get to till now…

i bought this from the hk airport during my most recent biz trip to hk. i first saw it last oct when i was there on biz. it’s outside in the departure hall. and i didn’t buy any at first thinking that i can get them inside after the immigration check-point. and so i was greatly disappointed. i’m glad they still have stocks of it this time round (fearing that it was a seasonal stock/item). actually, i kind of forgotton about it. and so, i didn’t leave much “space’ in my hand luggage to buy more of these ( sorry, frens  ). next time, k.

it’s not bad. at least it’s tasty. but i must say that it’s quite salty tho’.

{updated with pics} in HK on biz – experiences so far…..

[original post 3 march 6.20pm]

it’s a new experience again coming to HK on biz this trip. the last time, i said there was a hotel representative waiting for my boss and myself immediately when we got out of the plane. this time, yes, there was a lady flashing for my name – nothing new and unexpected. this time, there was buggy service for me right in the terminal and i was quite pai-sai man to get on it and be ferried to the immigration check-point. but that kind of ended the ‘pleasant experience’ of the trip thus far.

i reached the hotel to check in. oh, before i go on, i must say, i’m quite impressed with the hotel service. this time, there was no limo to pick me up unlike the other time, cos that time my boss was with me. i took the airport express to HK island airport express terminal and took a cab to the hotel. when i arrived, the porter opened the taxi door for me and said “welcome, ms ong”. that’s quite remarkable, i thought!

anywayzz… was saying – got to the hotel to check in but found that the credit card i intend to charge my hotel accommodation to has expired and i din even realise and i do not seem to have received the new credit card. to make the matter worse, that’s the only credit card i brought with me this trip – cos’ i brought a differnet wallet to HK and left the rest of my cards in singapore *unwise*

so, i had to put a cash deposit of HK$3750 as guarantee. thank God i changed enough HKD at the singapore airport just before i departed. amount just enough for the cash deposit and that’s only enough for 1 nights’ accommdation – tax and service charges not included yet! yes, i would need HK$25,000 for 5 nights’ accommodation – that’s S$5,000!! anyway, they let me check into my room. i called up the bank and it took forever to get a customer service officer on the line. almost 10 to 15 mins!!… to cut the story very short, i’m still waiting for the hotel’s confirmation that the problem is ‘resolved’ for now. if not, i duno  *sigh, sigh*… ok lah, prayed about it last night. leave it to God. just that, because, it turned out like that, it dampens my spirit and i was feeling homesick last night already (i did know even before i left SG that i would be homesick; judging from my last biz trip and i din expect it to come so soon )

i still made a trip to ladies market last night tho . i remember what anthea posted about the “yu-dan” and i decided to give it a try too. (i’m not adventurous when it comes to food.) actually, i’m not sure what they are? seems like fishballs? but i concluded that i prefer the normal ones who have in singapore.

i also tried something new near ladies market. they put a lot of kinds of ingredients in a plastic bag and you choose what kind u want and they mix it altogether into what’s like a cold salad. think the sauce and paste is garlic and chilli cos’ they asked me if i want garlic and chilli. but i think it may not be all. taste is interesting. salty tho’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this morning when i came to work, i realise that i’m almost the minority who is “under-dressed” as in, i do not have the ‘winter-wear” with me. i’m surprised to see the majority wearing long winter coats and jackets. i didn’t think of packing anything extra-ordinary except for the business suites and clothes i wear usually in SG. the weather forecast says it’s about 14 to 23 degree. air-con temp i thought. can’t be that bad. besides, i thought the office would have central heating. i found out from my collys that heating/heater is not norm in HK. so, i’,m actually feeling cold in the office and even when we went for lunch just now. and alas! i caught a cold. quite bad. the dustbin is filled with my used tissue now. boobbbbboo………..

**basket of “wanton”, cooked within 4 hours**

had nothing better to do

completed what i need to do earlier and thought of changing to an earlier flight but all flights full. flight is 8.20pm and i reached airport before 2pm.

had nothing i want to do in hk… esp not when i have extra luggage that i need to carry around. do, decided to go to the airport early to bum around.

definitely not easy for time to pass when you have nothing to do… thank God for wifi access in airport…. so what would you have done if you have about 5 hours to boarding time?

i thought of going for a ‘pamper me’ session at the airport – wash and blow hair … checked the price but nah… too expensive (HK$238 about S$45). thought of buying magazines to read… hmmm… but nothing quite interest me… and how come they do not have scrapbook mags like they do in SG? i bought a book tho’. not sure if i would end up reading. and i did visit disney shop, as i always do when i come to hk or go to tokyo. i had a double scoop ben & jerry ice-cream =P and still got 3 hours to go! well… at least time is passing……. .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so, what would i do if i have that kind of time to spend in the airport? checking emails, blog and go on-line is a wonderful option!

looking fwd to be back in SG!

nasty bug

my 4th day in HK! has it been that long?! my running nose is still quite bad. after taking medication from my collys, i’m not getting better. my nose and area around my mouth are peeling from the abrasion of blowing my nose with tissue paper.

i managed to end my day pretty early last night. went to bed at 10.30pm; hoping to be feeling better by the time i wake in the morning. during the night, i felt so dry in my mouth and throat, felt feverish, felt achy… felt really miserable… despite having slept for so long, i still could not wake up to report to work at 8.30am. decided to sleep in some more and make it for a later meeting at 10am. went for meeting feeling faint and light-weighted. now feeling better as in not feeling so light-weighted but still alot of “stuff” stuck in my nose.

quite a miserable feeling. not sure if i can and should make the day trip to shenzhen tomorrow after all… am thinking of adjusting my itin to return home earlier.

taiwan

warning – this is a very long blog… if u dun have the time, u can read the hi/lo right at the bottom if u want…

I took 3 hours on wed night to do my blog of my TW trip but only to find out that it was not saved – for some strange reason. I am not sure if it’s because it was way too long or was I just blur and tired at 2am (now that i’ve successfully posted this blog, it is bcos i was tired).

 

Here’s my 2^nd attempt… I’ll try to keep it short… I told Emily it was so long and detailed that it’s good enough for a travel itin suggestion.

 

We decided upon the trip quite last minute as the other plan was to go in oct after I finish at my current company. There was not much time to do more research as I was quite packed at work but Emily helped a lot with the hotel, air-tickets and research too. And thanks to many advice and suggestions from frens like sally, korene, kaili etc.. we had quite a lot of info by the time we landed in Taipei on thurs.

 

We flew jetstar on the 1pm flight and arrived at 5+pm. We took one of the airport coach bus 飞狗 to 西门. It costs 140NTD (about S$7) each. It is not bad minus the fact that we had to transfer to a smaller coach/van like vehicle after entering taipei city. Not sure if the group was big that day but all of us had to squeeze into the van with our luggage. And the passage way was jammed packed with luggage. I had to put mine on my lap to give way to leave space for a guy and I felt paisay as whatever space that’s left for him was quite small.

 

We stayed at future star hotel. It’s small and occupies 2 floors of a building but its cheap – 1380 NTD per room per night and it is clean and does not look old or run down. There is a 24 hours convenient store below our hotel, a hair saloon (which is very huge and modern) and many shops too – including a place to do eyelash extension and nail art… hahaha….

 

It was about 9ish by the time we were ready to hit the streets. We spent some time at the airport searching for info regarding taroko gorge/花连. So, could have been slightly earlier. But the night is still considered young in taipei city! We went to shilin 夜市场 (stop at jiantan mrt station; not shilin station). We went to the segment that is nearer the theater. And we were very hungry by the time we got there. but there were just too many choices to decide! And to my surprise, quite a lot of stuff is fried. There are of course your famous 炸鸡排, 生煎包, 檸檬愛玉, 臭豆腐, fried golden mushroom, popiah, Taiwanese sausages and many many more… we decided on a small bowl of 阿宗mee sua (40 NTD) each and I had a popiah too (think about 20NTD). Both are yummy. I especially like the阿宗mee sua. And I was delighted to know that there is an outlet near our hotel too. The popiah is much bigger than what we have in SG. The skin is somewhat similar but they stuff with much more variety of ingredients. Yum yum

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2

Our 2^nd day’s venture started with 淡水. it’s the last station of the red mrt line and it takes about 40 mins from Taipei Main Station. This is the longest mrt line that gets you to 北头(that’s where the hot springs are) and shilin as well. We got there about late morning and found some tourist information. (tourist office at the mrt station). Turn left after coming out from the station and hit the淡水老街. We thought we will just walk down and see how far we can get (the furthest was the fisherman wharf). Herher… we din get very far before we were distracted by a shop that sells 土产. We wanted to just buy a couple of boxes as it would be too heavy to lug along for the whole day on foot. A wise thought came to me and I asked the lady “小姐, 请问你们有帮忙送去我们的饭店吗?” (notice that my mandarin is not very polished). The lady took a split second to understand what I meant and she said it is possible with a minimum purchase of 3000 NTD… hmmm…. That should not be difficult for 2 of us!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped to have lunch after a few shops down the 淡水老街. And by the time we are done, it was scorching hot and we decided that it’s too over-bearing to be walking down the whole stretch of the road and decided to turn back and go over to the river bank for a quick look-see before moving onto our next destination for the day.

And it was a fabulous decision we made cos’ Emily found the 淡水魚酥 that anthea bought a few years back. I had no impression of it when she told me about it before our trip but when I saw the packet and tasted a sample, it all came back to me  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop was 五分埔. It is a garment district that houses over 1,000 little shops selling trendy clothes, shoes, bags and accessories. Much like the clothing section of Chatuchak Market in Bangkok except it’s not as cramped. My ex-colly told me not to buy any stuff from shilin as they are much cheaper in wu fen pu and that she and her frens spent all their cash there and also regretted not allocating more time to spend there…. Hmmm…we did see a lot of shops selling clothes and quite cheaply. And the clothes are very trendy… feels like harajuku in tokyo. Set back is that they don’t allow you to try. So, if you are very slim and fashionable and trendy, you will love this place. Emily and I walked and walked but saw mostly clothes… so, we din buy anything, except for emily who got a top. think we were very tired by then and had no idea really how big it is… . we decided to cross the river to 绕河夜市街. That was another disappointment L … think maybe because Emily and I were hoping to get the LeSportSac imitation bags that we saw in shilin. The variety we saw in wu feng pu were very very limited. We were dead tired and we took a cab back. And just within 2 minutes of getting into the cab, we saw a stretch of shops selling children clothes – supposedly to be part of wu fen pu area; which we din see earlier on… and that affirmed us that wu fen pu is much much much bigger than what we have covered. We were so tired that we fell asleep in the cab and knocked left, right and centre all the way back to our hotel.

 

 

We went back to

We went back to

 

 

 

西门 for dinner at tamago-ya. Every dish has eggs (!!!) and I think tamago-ya might mean “I love eggs“ ??? cos’ they have this caption on their signboard. My rice wrapped with omelet and a hamburger costs 270 NTD.

Day 3

We wanted to go to join a day tour to go taroko gorge but we were too late that we are too late as tickets for train or plane are fully booked. so, we chose to do a half day tour to 基隆港and野柳.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (this photo is taken by emily from inside our moving vehicle on a winding road… i thot it came out quite good!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished the tour and reached our hotel at about 12.40pm and we went for lunch at 金园排骨 which was highly recommended by korene. It is at万年building, just about 5 mins walk from our hotel. And wow, tho’ I’m no pork lover, I must say that their pork chop is very tasty and tender! They have been in business for at least 30 years d – as their signboard says. They said a crew came to film them for one of singapore’s variety show.

We also managed to find the shop that sells the pooh baking tin and walt disney cookie mould that evening. We din manage to find it on our 1^st night and so we were really thrilled and delighted finding the place. Cos’ the maps that we relied on to get us around initially don’t tell u exactly which part of the roads are the particular building/block’s number (they have quite a few main roads which are very very very long). Actually, the shop is on the same road as one of those passing through shilin… but on the 3^rd evening, we found out that the shop is 2 mrt stations away from that for shilin…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, and we went back to shilin on our last night to get to our hearts’ content – the LeSportSac imitation bags…kekekeee… and I ate my 阿宗mee sua again – this time; the big bowl at 55 NTD.

We sure bought a lot of stuff those 4 days… both our luggage was less than 20kgs when we left Singapore and they were 42kgs when we checked in at tw airport. We had to pay for 2 kgs of excess luggage, even tho’ we checked in early… what to do… budget airlines, I guess…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 4

We went to the new life church in tw for service. I asked bernard’s cgl for a church to attend when in tw. He gave me a person’s name and no to contact re new life church service. I could not reach the person on the 2^nd day… but when we were at elim christian shop, we found out the address and location… but we had no idea what time the service was. Thank God, I managed to reach the person on sat evening and learnt it was a 10.30am service.

This is the church that 刘畊宏attends… I never heard of him until bernard first mentioned to me when city harvest had their “emerge’ conference this year. 刘畊宏came to Singapore for the emerge conference and shared how he brought his best friend; jay chou to church in tw. (FIR was also at the emerge conference and shared their testimony of how they came to know Christ… .) I din know 刘畊宏is from new life until I was trying to goggle to find the church’s address and found an url of 刘畊宏; mentioning him to be from new life.

On our way to tw, I told emily that we will go to new life for service and mentioned 刘畊宏. She too, din know who he was at first until we saw him in a variety show on TV, on the 2^nd night we were there. he was on the show with his gf and other celebrities. What’s great was that he shared how one of his cell group members is a financial consultant and has provided both of them some wise advice about being a good steward of their finances.

The church is about 1000+ and not too big, I guess cos’ Emily and I spotted刘畊宏just when we reached the compound. Even after we found our seats in the hall, we saw him again… (can you spot him in the photo below?). worthy to mention is that the pastor scolded the church members for having thoughts of coming to church only when they hear that jay chou will be there

The service was great. The worship leader leading the praise segment was dynamic. My spirit man was stirred when the worship leader led out a cry to lead the congregation into worship. The pastor spoke on being a good shepherd. One of the things that impressed me about their church is that they have a culture of praying with/for each other before service begins. 2 sisters came up to us and asked if they could pray for us. I must, of course mention that the moment, we decided on where to sit, people have already approached us to welcome us and asked were we were from etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flight back to Singapore was 6.25pm.

It was a short but good trip for me. I’ve never thought of visiting tw when I was younger. But I changed my mind after watching 蔷薇之恋 (a Taiwanese serial). I was surprised to see that tw has very beautiful sceneries and nature too. And, I will definitely go back to tw again… maybe very soon, in oct, or maybe next time… . let’s see….

My hi’s of the trip

1. relatively cheap shopping and food
2. 港记酥皇店
3. 淡水魚酥
4. 阿宗mee sua
5. 金园排骨
6. 野柳
7. many pooh stuff
8. lots of souvenirs for family and friends
9. attending new life church for service
10. my travel companion – Emily who is superb in mandarin and so fast in watching out for Chinese words when we had to look at all the signboards… she spots whatever we need to see very fast!!

 My lo’s of the trip

1. could not go to taroko gorge
2. CKS terminal 1 only have 2 cafés in the departure hall (and only 1 on each far end of the departure hall i.e. u will only have one choice at your gate and the other one is just too far away. There are more eateries before u enter departure hall… so, eat before u enter immigration.
3. could not cover enough of wu fen pu