Friday 19 April 2013

TAIPEI DIARY -- Day 1, Xi Men Ding



HEY YALL.
I went to taipei last week and it was seriously an awesome holiday! I planned every bit myself and its the first time ever doing so, but it really turned out very well and its pretty easy to get around taipei.
Why do people even bother to follow those retarded tour groups when its so easy to DIY a trip like that?
Even if you're damn bad at chinese like me,there are english translations practically everywhere! And the people there can speak in english rather well and they are EXTREMELY helpful. I wish i could live in taipei haha.

Anw i will be writing the directions on how to get around taipei in bold so you can skip it if you dont want to get to taipei hehe but you're an idiot to not want to go there HAHA.

At the airport @ 5am on saturday x___x



Retarded kid already asleep immediately after boarding the plane......


I really love flights actually.just looking at the beautiful sky and all,especially when its in the night. I think i've been sitting at the window seat without fail,unless it was a school trip and i had no other choice.  Is it weird that i love the turbulence HAHA omg i sound like a freak but its like a roller coaster....







I dont know if i should be explaining every detail on how to get around but i think i should, cause someone requested me to blog about taipei so that they know how to get around when they go there themselves...so yeap here it goes!

DIRECTIONS:
When you get to Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei, you'll find an area with a few counters to buy bus tickets and you should go to the counter with bus 1819 so that you can take it all the way to Taipei Main Station.
Taipei Main Station as you can refer to the map above is like singapore's city hall station?you can go to all the town areas from there.WITHIN A FEW MINUTES. The trains there are faster than those in Singapore.
The bus ticket costs NT$125 (approx $5SGD) and it takes around 55 minutes to get there. This bus stops at quite a few stops but they will announce + have a LCD to let you know what stop you're at. Besides, almost everyone stops at Taipei Main Station so there's no need to worry!



I dont know why so many buses have these mini televisions for nothing wtf. They never turn it on then why build it in in the first place?! Walao,give me false hope only. Weichyi wanted to sit in front of the television so he could watch it during the bus ride LOL but they didnt turn it on.but he ended up just sleeping anyway,whats new.


DIRECTIONS:You just have to go to the basement at Taipei Main Station but it gets a bit confusing from here. As for me, my hotel was at Jiantan Station so its on the red line, towards DanShui/Tamshui so you'll just have to follow the sign board "towards Tamshui". Its just like how we take a train towards Joo Koon or Jurong East. No difference. Get the standard ticket from the machine. There always isn't any queue cause its damn straightforward.
Jiantan is 5 stops away but it only costs NT $20 (approx $0.90 SGD) and takes only 9minutes. Its damn fast?!



Instead of using the huge ass standard ticket like singapore's they come in a form of a coin! Its damn cute. You actually just have to tap the coin against the machine and when you are going out of the gantry, you slot the coin into the machine and you can go out already.
Its unlike singapore whereby you have to go and queue up at the damn machine and get your $1 deposit back with that card. Its even worse now because they dont even return your deposit when you return the card if its EXPIRED? i think that is damn ridiculous lol then i return the card for what!? Take the whole trouble to queue up and return the card for nothing.you just eat up my card and kope my money :(

Me and weichyi booked the hotel called "Star Beauty Hotel" via bookings.com and it cost around $550 for 4 nights. Its apparently quite expensive i didnt know its considered expensive. Cause in Singapore the hotels are so much more expensive? So i thought the price was reasonable oh well. :(

The website states that the hotel is like "5 minutes away from the station" etc. They write this for almost all hotels that you can book so you think its damn easy to find but FUCK WE GOT LOST LA.
We were walking in circles and almost walked completely off the direction we were supposed to be heading towards. Thank god for damn nice Taiwanese people who used google maps to help us find our way there haha. SO I STRONGLY SUGGEST to print the damn google maps of the whole area so you wont get lost.




The hotel is pretty nice and clean and the bed is way too huge lol it can fit like idk 5 people?but there wasn't a full length mirror haha shit but i love taking pictures of my OOTD :(
And they have wifi as well which is quite fast,just like the internet at home its damn awesome.
I think its worth it to pay a bit more to stay at a hotel like that.

We were planning on going to a club that night so i wore my 15 cm heels out to ximen ding, yes i know that's fucking crazy.


It was around 20 degrees that evening but idk i just love the cold weather so much i couldnt be bothered to wear a jacket! I dont even get cold easily LOL its pretty abnormal :(


XIMENDING is obviously at Xi Men Station like DUH.but dont get tricked.

The famous shilin night market isn't at Shilin Station,its actually nearer to Jiantan station which is obviously the reason why i chose to stay at Jiantan hehe cause I LOVE FOOD! I think i ate supper every night, bubble tea obviously during every meal or anywhere with a bubble tea shop lol.

DIRECTIONS: Leave via exit 6 at ximen station to go to the main street of ximen ding!



They have quite a few clothing shops at ximending but nope dont be dumb to shop there please.
The clothing is damn expensive there in comparison to everywhere else! A normal cardigan could cost $80 SGD, nothing that unique and its not even branded.
I heard that these people get their stocks from Wu Fen Pu and i went there on the 4th day so you'll see how many things i actually bought from there. So yes dont be dumb and shop at ximen ding!

There was a small stretch of stalls with those night market food but the queues are quite long!
Bubble tea no.1 during the trip haha. I dont think this tasted that good though probably just a 6/10.


The weird sausage with glutinous rice thing with lots and lots of other ingredients in it. I THINK THIS IS WORTH A TRY.i quite liked it and it only cost me NT$50 (approx SGD $2.20).

OH YA and when i was queuing up for this i actually saw the entire ah boys to men crew? LIKE WTF.where got so coincident lol.but whatever la i'm not really such a fan i was just like "eh why they look so familiar" and thats about it.



This is how it looks like! I just love the tastes when you eat all the ingredients altogether but its damn huge lol it was rather difficult for me to eat it :( wouldnt recommend anyone to eat it while standing around wtf it took me more than 20minutes to finish eating it?!
Ah its making me hungry :(



there was this long ass queue and we didn't know what they were selling actually.we just decided to follow the crowd and queue up as well HAHA. And shit look at the queue,it took around 30 minutes before it was our turn but weichyi asked me to queue up while he went to buy other kinds of food like the DAMN SUCKY CHICKEN CUTLET tsk.
That stupid chicken cutlet cost NT $90 (SGD $4) i think and there were huge bones in them, it didnt taste good and idk why he said there was a long queue for that too.

He was back with the chicken cutlet and i was only halfway in the queue lol its damn ridiculous!



Weird snacks that i've never seen in my entire life LOL. They were like pressing it down against the grill and it just starts expanding its so cute!
They have it in like cheese, chocolate, peanut, black seasame and quite a few other flavours! It costs NT$30 (approx $1.20) and we decided to just buy 3 cause we queued up for such a long time. What if it tastes so good then i want to eat more of it how!?


AND NO JOKE MAN GUYS if you go to ximen ding please try this out i love it so so so so much.
I think i found my favourite taiwan snack ever. Its like sticky, chewy, slightly sweet, slightly warm and just so so tasty SO TASTY. I feel that the sauce actually spoils the taste though like the cheese sauce was sweet and just tasted like milk lol. BUT FUCK I LOVE IT.i loved it so much even after having 1 and a half of it i wanted to buy more but weichyi asked me to wait for later LOL.


I remember there was this weird shop selling sweets that look damn wrong the last time i came to taipei,so i decided to give it a visit again. The shop name is "SOPHISCA" and its pretty hard to find this shop cause ximending is pretty huge, so we had to ask the locals whether they knew of this shop.

I realized how they dont really remember the shop name so you'll probably have to tell them that the shop sells weird sweets and they know how to guide you from there haha.



Pad candy! but super overpriced lol its like $4 and i remember it didnt taste nice.


Chocolate condoms HAHAHAHA.



Yup i bought a few for my friends lol the queue at the shop was pretty long and i put these chocolate condoms on the counter. Everyone was staring and judging me whatever man its chocolates what?! HAHA.
I could have bought more though but i didn't see a point in it. Their candy just looks unique but it doesn't taste nice so i just got a few for the fun of it!


Many street talents around there really.


This 50 (idk how you read that chinese word next to it), is actually the KOI you've been seeing in singapore! But they operate quite differently.
They'll ask you the amount of ice you want, sugar level (not in percentages), small pearls or big pearls and idk what else but they asked me so many questions i got confused wtf. My chinese is so bad and they were speaking wayyyy too fast for me to catch what they were saying HAHA.

Their menu is in chinese so if you dk how to order just ask them for the english menu and all the translations are there. Just point out which one you want and they'll key in your order.

Not only that,they dont really have a queue number thingy i think.they just shout out your drink order then like wtf i dont even know if its mine or not it was pretty embarrassing :(



Large bubble milk tea at only around $2 SGD i think?!


Weichyi made me buy a jacket cause too many people were staring at me :( i was seriously the only one not wearing a jacket or long pants lol wtf.the jacket was seriously damn overpriced leh and i was so damn reluctant to buy it but weichyi bought it for me.tsk. Its totally not worth the price but he insisted that it looked nice lol. Its damn weird leh i dont think i can get used to people paying for my things....

I felt so warm with the jacket on i actually started sweating after awhile OH WELL.


Oh ya cause i loved that weird taiwan snack so much i queued up again cause i know its damn worth the wait!



This time round we bought 3 of it AGAIN LOL.its pretty scary wtf after we've eaten so many damn things we still can eat. This time we ordered the chocolate and the cheese one again. I dont really like the chocolate sauce though.
And really even though i'm having just my second helping i felt like puking from eating too much of it already. I dont even know why :( but i still love it so much no doubt haha. Weichyi had to help me with it i think he ate 4 of it in total and i only ate 2. He's scary.


Love my whole stockings and red wedges combination hehe.
I feel like i can wear anything i like in taiwan cause no one judges me.
In singapore,everyone in sota thinks that i'm an ahlian. Till now it never leaves my head. I feel judged everywhere i go. Yup,people can say i'm oversensitive but they wouldn't understand. After 5 years, people still call me an ahlian. Do you even know how fucking FUCKING IRRITATING it is?!
Ok whatever i dont even want to think about it anymore. School has ended exactly 6 months ago THANK GOD ITS OVER.


My heels were a bit too bright though there were many people staring at them :/


Candid shot haha.he looks so damn serious here wtf.


THIS IS THE SHOP THAT SELLS THE BAD TASTING CHICKEN CUTLET dont eat it dont eat it dont be deceived by that long queue it sucks.



After 8 hours of shopping and eating around ximen ding we decided not to go clubbing on that day because he was tired wtf. I SWEAR my feet hurt so so so badly. It has never felt so painful before. When i took off my wedges in the hotel room i couldnt even walk properly for the whole night yup....... He was just like laughing at me :(
FML LA. LOL.

Next post up would be on jiufen and shilin! Till next time <3

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