Taipei Days Two and Three

Jan. 30, 4:19pm, 屯門市中心
Curtasee turned one! Omg, my little boy, one already! *tears

I'm one today!! (well, the day this pic was taken at least)

Where's my present Mammie??

*cackle*

Unfortunately, not only is his birthday present lacking (from me only as one of our tour buddies, Hans, got him a Mashimaru doll) but he was continuously sleep deprived! Although morning call was a little later, 6:45am, I still had to wake CLM up from his already scarce sleep.

Breakfast was really impressive as it was in a banquet hall type space with rows and rows of hot tables. I still don't get how people can have salad at 8 am though.  It's not the first time on this trip that I see salad offered for breakfast. I mean with Italian dressing too... go figure. As usual, I was running short if time so I quickly gobbled down some congee and we had to gather up to leave for our final guided tour day in Taipei.

Pretty much my breakfast every morning while in Taiwan

The tour guide made sure we visited everything on the itinerary by Monday so that we can have all of Tuesday to explore on our own. 文生's mom was pretty miserable from the pain so I'm guessing she'll have nothing good to say about this trip. My guess is she definitely didn't enjoy the last two days as I haven't seen her whine and complain so much, sigh.

Our first stop for the day was to check out some deer embryo (tastes like 豬肉鬆, lol) and 赤靈芝. This time we actually wanted to buy 靈芝 so their sales pitch didn't bother me as much.

鹿胎 before being ground up to a fine powder, so appetizing... uh, yeah...

Feb.1, 1:22am, at home under covers
Geez, this post is taking way too long to write!

I don't think I've ever put so much money on my credit card! Omg, crazy amount, sounds worse when we're taking Taiwanese dollars, lol.  So we got them to throw in some freebies, like royal jelly, keke.

Afterwards, we went to 圓山大飯店 to 門外拍照. Omg, I didn't know that was considered something to do, Lord. Well, we actually went inside to see some salt sculptures and look at the interior but still, I thought this stop was retarded.

Lunch was next and we went to a restaurant that specializes in group lunches. Quite an interesting concept, but food was still just meh. You get what you pay for I guess.

More interested in watching these guys make a batch of 蔥油餅 than listen to a broken record of a sales pitch

View from 九份舊街

Before heading up the mountain to visit 九份, another sales stop. This time, tea shop. Honestly, these people cannot sound more bored. But I guess if you recite the same speech 5 times a day, you'd sound like a broken record too. At least they tried to get the audience involved, but I was more interested in the 蔥油餅 making next door. Lol. Didn't buy anything so wallet saved!

I fell asleep going up to 九份 and good thing too because the ride was apparently pretty freaky. We lucked out and it wasn't raining there but it was definitely chilly. I wandered into 九份舊街 by myself, as mom wanted to rest and keep CLM warm, so I checked out all the yummy food stalls alone. There was a booth selling shaved peanut candy with 2 scoops of ice cream wrapped in a 糖蔥餅 wrapper. Quite good and not too sweet. I really wanted to get some taro dumplings but couldn't see myself finishing it if mom didn't want any. At least I sampled some. It was very Q (as Taiwanese calls it), yummy! Then I bought the worst tasting 檸檬愛玉 I've ever had. Tasteless, yuck. By the time I got to the end of the street, it was time to go back since our 活動時間 was only just over an hour.

A big batch of tea eggs brewing.  How I wish there were people around to share all the foods I WANTED to try... sigh

Yet another sales presentation was lined up, jade this time, before we left to check into our nasty dirty hotel in 西門町. CLM was fussy for a nap so I took the opportunity to walk away from the stupid 風水 lesson and sales pitch. CLM fell asleep and for the first time ever on the trip, he was able to nap properly during the day, albeit the short half hour.

Our hotel room for the final night was by far the worst I've ever stayed in. Floors were filthy and not vacuumed. Sheets were dirty, there were coffee stains on the cabinets and the closet reeked.  I should have complained.

Mom stayed in with CLM while I ran out to buy dinner. I finally got to get my 大腸包小腸, picked up 阿宗麵線, bitter melon juice for mom and bbt of course for me. I wasn't full, and I wanted ramen, but didn't want to leave mom alone with CLM too long in case he freaked out or something. Dinner was good, can't complain!

What's a trip to Taiwan without eating at 鼎太豐

No morning call the next morning, yay, but CLM didn't sleep well so I really didn't get to sleep until mom watched him and gave me half an hour to nap after breakfast. Yet I'm not the one who complained most about the lack of sleep *rolls eyes*.  I packed up everything, checked out at noon and left to go to 鼎太豐 for 小籠包! The restaurant wasn't too busy, the service was good and the servers were all really pretty. Only problem was CLM couldn't sit still and pissed me off.

Look who hijacked my pic? Get that hand outta there CLM! Really liked these dishes. Too bad they don't sell them!

Mar Mar rarely takes pics!  Lovely smile!

OMG, these were soooo good... all three dozen of them!

By the time we finished our 3 trays of 小籠包, it was time to head back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the tour to go to the airport. When we got there I thought I would use the washroom but omg, of the 8 unoccupied stalls, none of them were useable! Damn, no one flushes their crap and no one cleans! I was so grossed out. Good thing I found another secluded unadvertised washroom and it was actually clean. So much for an international airport. Sheesh.

So that was my last impression of Taipei, crappy, lol.

Such cute key chains, but so expensive!!

For no known reason, our luggage took forever to come out when we arrived back in Hong Kong and poor 阿叔 and 阿嬸 waited for an entire hour before we came out. Went back home for dinner (10pm already) and then took a really grumpy 太上文太 back out to take a taxi before going home and calling it a night. 

My much needed beauty sleep, aiya. Embrace me! (2:23am)

Taipei Day One

12:59am, 住都大飯店
Wah, what a long day today! Morning call was at 6am, with breakfast at 6:45am and off we went towards Taipei at 7:30am. CLM's wake up times and nap times were once again severely interrupted throughout the day. As soon as he'd fall asleep, we'd have to wake him up to get off the bus. Poor little guy.

Visiting Taipei for the second time as well, I also found the city to be a little different from the last time I was here. Prices have definitely inflated just like Taichung but I'm glad we're going to spend a little bit more time here to see more of the city.

Big scale model of 忠正紀念堂

The detail! So reminds me of work, LOL~

Our first stop this morning was 忠正紀念堂, a very very big museum commemorating the first president of Taiwan. It was raining when we got there so it was definitely chilly. After walking from the bus through the courtyard into the museum, I saw that they had a Teresa Tang exhibit on. So random, lol. I wasn't too interested in the history lesson, especially from the big headed, country loving tour guide of ours so I wandered off by myself.

More interested in 鄧麗君 than 蔣介石, I wandered off and saw these cuties on display

After the museum, we were sent to a ghetto pearl factory where some guy tried to educate us with a really outdated slideshow and his really dated humour. Before arriving at the factory, we were "educated" by the stupid tour guide to at least appear enthusiastic and he gave his reverse psychology sales pitch which kinda pissed me off. The sales ladies all tried to get me to buy some pearl powder to give to CLM and I really wanted to tell them to buzz off. For once, CLM's fussing was actually well received as it was an excuse for us to leave the factory and wait on the bus!

Lunch was next on the itinerary and although it wasn't anything to write home about, the place was actually clean. One of the waitresses saw that I had a stroller and offered me the staff elevator. So nice of her! While on this trip, I try to avoid drinking too much liquids as washrooms aren't exactly the cleanest and most are squat toilets. 

Next stop was 忠烈祠 at 2 pm, where we saw a bunch of soldiers exchange shifts. Sadly, it's like they were putting on a show with so many tourists snapping pictures and taking videos. That was a quick stop so we were back on the bus within half hour. Then we went to 故宮博物院 to see the cabbage and pork chop (lol) again, where CLM started a meltdown because we woke him up from his nap. Every corner I turned, there was someone with a "shh" sign either giving me dirty looks or actually coming up to me to ask me to shut him up. So I had to leave the group, leave the exhibits, find the nursing station and calmed the fat-lan-jaa-ing CLM. Because I had left without the stroller, the next half hour was brutal as I sweated through the really busy museum to find my group again, the entire time making sure CLM kept quiet. Of course he wasn't really interested in my holding him and had to wriggle around to see everything and everyone around him. I wanted to see the cabbage again and I knew the group would eventually get there so I found the exhibit and waited around for them to show up. I was so glad to see mom and plopped CLM back into the stroller. 

Since it was Sunday, the museum was packed with locals as well as what seemed like 40 tour groups. I didn't get a chance to see anything else and we had to leave.  Sigh.

All smiles, after a complete meltdown. Thank goodness for nursing rooms!

In the last week or so, CLM learned to 放電 so everywhere we went, he attracted many females, young and old!

古宮 was followed by a stop to a famous pineapple cake bakery where we spent almost $100CAD on souvenirs. Six boxes of twelve...freaking expensive bite sized cakes!

By far Mom's favourite highlight of Taiwan: FRUITS!

Once again, no junk food for me! :( What's the purpose of this trip again??

Yet another 夜市 awaits us to visit and this one's changed too! 士林夜市 is no longer in a covered outdoor space but moved into a 新街市 type building. The food level is now underground with booths selling souvenirs and carnival type games on the ground level. We bought some fresh fruit and I got a bbt and a not so great 雪花冰. This 夜市 wasn't too busy when we went but I still didn't eat anything because we were told dinner was next and we were having AYCE hot pot. Sigh, me and junk food don't match this time around. Stupid thing was, hot pot was limited to an hour only and between trying to eat and keeping CLM from fussing, I didn't get to eat much. 

Hot pot! Even though it is nothing compared to HK, I actually liked the variety

The couple at the table next to us felt sorry for CLM (probably wanted to shut him up, lol) and offered him an entire bag of rice crackers! We wanted to only take one packet but they insisted on giving us the whole bag. Wah, such nice people, them Taiwanese.

During the entire hour long bus ride to our hotel, the tour guide just would not stop talking, or rather bragging, about his life story. The entire time CLM was fidgeting and I really wanted to sock em. Both, lol.

Okay, time to hit the sack and I'm just gonna forget about the 3, yes 3, cups of 燒仙草 that the narcissistic tour guide gave us.

Gotta recharge my minuscule EQ and hopefully won't blow up at CLM tomorrow, on his first birthday! Omg! (2:02am)

More BBT, I can get used to this!

Taichung Revisited

12:39am, Lichia Royal Garden Hotel, Taichung
Our first stop in Taichung was 日月潭 which was one place I wanted to see but didn't get a chance to last time I was in Taichung 4 years ago. I didn't expect it to be so big! Actually I was pretty surprised at how much Taichung differs from what I remember it to be. Somehow everything looks so modern now. Well, more so than before but still not like Hong Kong or Toronto.

日月潭 looking exceptionally pretty in the nice sunny weather

I didn't sleep much last night as I was sharing a twin bed with CLM and he kept turning and almost falling off. Hence I pretty much stayed alert all night. So when I saw that 文生's mom wasn't napping, I asked her to take CLM so I can catch a snooze. Big mistake because she stood up to grab CLM and the bus jerked. She was thrown back and 連人帶 Cur fell into the emergency exit stairwell! I felt horrible! Good thing she only bruised her back and didn't hit her head. CLM, on the other hand, was only slightly scared. That basically meant that she was pooped for the rest of the day, from the pain and not knowing if she was internally hurt, until the tour guide brought her to the hospital for a full checkup. Thank God she's okay and nothing's broken! 

Lunch was a 風味山地餐 in which the word crappy would be an understatement. The restaurant was filthy and the food was not very appetizing. Blah.

One of our stops was a peacock garden in which stopping for 5 minutes would have been too long, lol. Can't believe this place even showcased a few roosters. I mean, really? Who hasn't seen a chicken? Better yet, who wants to see a chicken?

Hardly impressive, ya know?

So, back to 日月潭. The weather was very nice so our cruise on the lake was very enjoyable, if only I'd not listen to the stupid tour guide and took a Gravol! I should have known better. I didn't start feeling really sick until we got to 文武廟, where I unfortunately threw up everything, including lunch despite taking a Gravol. Hence I only hung around outside and didn't bother going in since I'd get more sick from the incense. I hate feeling nauseous.

See that orange covered area to the far right? That's where lunch came up. All of it :(

Last stop before dinner was a quick unguided tour of 埔里酒廠 which was actually a museum-like place where you walk through and look at containers, videos and whatnot.  I was more interested in finding what local food was worth trying as opposed to peering at the overpriced tourist trap of stalls that sell wine jellies/snacks.  That's when I spotted our two tour guides head across the street to a 酒釀豆花 stall, bought a cup each and simply devoured it!  Hmm, I thought to myself, they wouldn't eat touristy crap food if it wasn't good, so I thought what the hell, I'll go get some too.  It was actually pretty good!  Couldn't taste any alcohol whatsoever, but the 豆花 was really 滑.

Giant canteen outside 埔里酒廠 welcoming visitors

酒釀豆花

Yummy! and slurpy too!

Just before 6 pm we arrive at 逢甲夜市 which I visited in 2008. Boy did it change! By this time I noticed CLM has a fever again so when 太上文太 went off to the hospital, I went to get some cold patches for CLM. The poor dude. The 夜市 was a complete madhouse and we had to be back at the bus by 7 pm so once again, I didn't get to buy what I wanted to. The lineups for 大腸包小腸 were at least an hour long each, the streets were so jammed packed it makes the DVP during rush hour look empty. Things are about 30-40% more expensive so I basically left with a papaya milk shake for mom and a couple of rice stuffed chicken wings. Now I know why there was no lineup there lol.

These LOOK good at least!

Um, can we say, LINE UP?!?

We checked into the hotel and for interested parties, the tour guide brought us out for bbt (outside of our itinerary). Apparently it's the place where bbt was invented back in the 80's. I admit, the bbt was pretty good despite the price tag but the food was mediocre. Once again maybe because I didn't eat it fresh. Everyone wasn't feeling well, including me, so I just went out to buy takeout. While I was at it, I walked further to Watson's to get some diapers for CLM but they didn't have any! Had to go even further to a pharmacy and by the time I got back to the hotel, it was after 9 pm, CLM was cranky, my headache was still in full swing, hives flared up again, angry MIL and I was not even hungry anymore.  Poo.

Most expensive BBT I've had in Taiwan!  NT120, four times the cost of an average

Wake up call is 6am tomorrow and I know I'll be cranky. I just hope CLM feels better. (1:21am)

Taichung looks so different. Now, what pharmacy doesn't sell diapers?!?

Kaohsiung

3:02pm, outside 文武廟@日月潭, feeling sick
Damn, just threw up my entire lunch. Stupid tour guide telling me the boat ride on 日月潭 was going to be okay. Freaking hell.

Yesterday we met up with the rest of the tour group at 9:10am for the hour and a half plane ride to 高雄. Got there just after 1 pm and omg, it was so hot! Going through customs at the airport was a breeze even though I forgot I had a bottle of water under CLM's stroller. He gets me places! Stupid me forgot to pack his diapers so including the little baby packet that we got on the airplane, I brought all of 4. My quest to buy diapers in Taiwan started as soon as we got there.

CLM's cute little 包包

Kaohsiung is more old fashioned than I thought it'd be. The airport is small but quite clean, definitely bigger than the one in Taichung. After a quick exchange of NTD (yes, I'm paranoid I won't have enough cash although I had brought $4100 with me, leftovers from last time) we boarded the tour bus and started our Kaohsiung sightseeing right away.

I wonder if this Buddha is bigger than the one on Lantau Island?

First stop was 佛光山, a huge Buddhist temple.  The outdoor big Buddha is massive, and the individual temples/shrines indoors are very impressive. The head monk sure knows how to run his business. There's even a "franchise"of this temple in Mississauga, none of which any of them in the world was paid to be built by him. The were all donations, which means he'd be rich if he wasn't a monk but a businessman. One can spend an entire afternoon at 佛光山 just to see everything but we had all of 90 minutes. Which is one thing I really don't like about travel tours.

Now doesn't this phrase sound familiar?

Next stop was 龍虎塔, two big pagodas in the middle of a man made lake. Smelled like crap there, so it wasn't too appealing, not to mention it was cloudy and the sky threatened to spit on us.  Would have liked a bit more time to wander off further to see a few more statutes up close and personal. Oh well.

We were instructed NOT to enter from the tiger's mouth

Dinner was next and being a group dinner that was included in the tour, we ate less than mediocre food. That, is the other thing I can't stand about joining tour groups.

Taiwan is all about night markets and what is a trip to Kaohsiung without visiting their biggest night market 六合夜市. We got there early enough but unfortunately, the streets filled up very quickly and once again, there wasn't enough time to get anything as the lineup for a skewer of grilled prawns took 40 minutes. I had to run back to the bus and didn't eat my shrimp until after getting settled in to the hotel and as a result, I couldn't enjoy the shrimp as it's supposed to be eaten. It was good nonetheless because they were so fresh they were still twitching on the grill!

People waving around money, attempting to be the "next in line" for these massive prawns

雞 pet pet and 雞皮.  Nope, not my thing at all.

Now isn't that a monster?! The prawn, not me.

The hotel we stayed at was very modern and new. I was so tired I just crashed and didn't even bother to shower. Eww.  Wake up call was 7 am and I took a shower before joining mom and 太上文太 downstairs for the buffet breakfast. Surprisingly enough, it was quite decent for a breakfast buffet. Eastern as well as western breaky fare plus stuff you'd see for lunch like fried rice and noodles. The taste was only meh, but I liked the selection.

Honorable mentions is definitely the shower head and water pressure. Very very relaxing! I like!

We hopped onto the bus at 8:30am and proceeded to Taichung. Bye bye Kaohsiung! (Jan 27, 12:37am, Taichung)

Really nice shower!

Project Scrapping ver. 3.3 之 Happy CNY and Valentine's Day!

農曆年初一, 希望家人個個身體健康! 適逢情人節, 又癡筋 (I mean 又有 mood) 就做了呢個 scrapbook page 來應應節:

其實我係 submit 咗去另一個 scrapbook challenge!

Project Scrapping ver. 3.1

I haven't forgotten about scrapping my Hong Kong and Taiwan pics (or blogging my journal entries), but it just takes SO much time!! I'm happy to say (well, sort of) that I have completed scrapping 9 days of the 25 -_-" and almost done the 10th day of the trip. Yay, progress!

In the interim, I've taken some breaks here and there =P and scrapped some pages of 大 Mei 姐's kids, and Nicole & Nathan. Today I decided to take on a scrapping challenge and submitted one of my layouts! It was fun to do and I am starting to find that I need to scrap with templates to be the least bit efficient!! Can't wait to start posting what I've done with the Hong Kong / Taiwan pics but in the meantime, I guess I can do with posting just the challenge page I did today.

Project Scrapping ver. 4.0 之 『Chin Up...Push...』

Project Scrapping up to version 4.0 la! This time, the 主角 is Sai V~! Thanks for letting me post these pages!

I like the kendo one more because I did it first =P but I think the other one is nice too lei...

Project Scrapping ver. 3.0 之 『下巴推...』

I finally caught up with my work and personal lives (well, sort of) after being away for 25 days. Whew~! Now I gotta get cracking to get the following things done:

• Blog my journal entries for this trip (OMG, that will take forever)
• Organize the 2,500+ photos that I took (OMG, that will take longer than forever)
  
• Scrap some of the photos into a photobook (okay the things on this list are getting more and more time consuming!!)
• Burn copies of the photos for Peggy and Vikki (at least this is easier)

I got a chance to sit down and scrap tonight so I thought I'd do a page of some of the photos from the Taiwan photo shoot. What an experience it was! I don't think Sai V, 文生 or I will forget the constant 唔鹹唔淡廣東話 from our photographers shouting: "下巴推...下巴高..."

Excited, but Exhausted

Only 4 more hours until my flight to Hong Kong!! I'm so excited! It's a nightmare out there with freezing rain, slick roads, multi-truck accidents on the 401 and then some. I sure hope we make it safe to the airport! Then I hope our flights won't be delayed...

Since my poor 文生 had to work straight through from yesterday til 5:45am this morning, I stayed up helping Sofia and Meishan with their video for Sandra. Just finished packing shortly before 6:00am, so I managed to squeeze in a shower before picking up 文生 from Finch Station.

I'm pretty much set to go!

Countdown begins (again) ...

快啦快啦! Only 3.5 more days till take-off! I'm so excited! Currently doing some last minute research for Taiwan and OMG, the more I find out, the more excited I get! I just hope the experience at Masalili won't be disappointing~

Note to myself for future trips...don't count on PC Financial to be able to give you a large sum of money when you need it, especially in a short period of time. Apparently, you need to transfer funds to another "real" bank (like CIBC), and they will cut you a bank draft -_-". Something to definitely keep in mind for next time.

So the countdown starts again... I hope this doesn't mean sleepness nights until I get on the plane again.

快啦快啦!!

Just clicked into Sai V's blog and was promptly reminded that Project Hong Kong and Project Taiwan is only 11 weeks away! I frequently ask myself where all my time goes as it only seems like it was last month that we booked our tickets. The loooong 10-month wait is almost over! Now I just hope our dollar stays strong so it'll make our whole trip a tad cheaper.

On 24 Sep 2008
1.00 Canadian dollar = 7.50 Hong Kong dollars, exchange rate of 7.4979
1.00 Canadian dollar = 30.85 Taiwanese new dollars, exchange rate of 30.8452

Muahs~~