砂漠のJeffire

Jeffirean Stories

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Recently I seemed to have been struck with an unlucky curse or something. Things aren't going smoothly but at least they are moving. Slept 5hrs for the past 2 nights watching the Champions League semi-finals while working on the laptop. My father was not feeling good yesterday as his workers were asked to do over-time work (ie moonlighting) for another contractor and I was very stressed while driving him home to the point that I mounted the kerb at Honda Ubi Showroom =( By the time we got home it was nearly 12am (I waited at the workshop for him since 1045pm lor). Discussed many work related stuff again and delayed my meeting with Kevin, in which I was supposed to pass his Taiyangbing (太阳饼) and Yu Su (鱼酥). I got to his place at 1+am and he was playing a RTK game on his PS2. Then we played WE10 and I lost all 3 matches to him......SIGH!!! Seemed to have lost my touch as I couldn't defend well. He has improved certainly though (must be playing alot la =p). Then I went back home in time to catch Man Utd's misadventure. And got to bed around 5am again.

While life isn't going too well, it still moves on, so let's get to the last part of the trip. Pika has commented that some little parts of the narration is not correct as in the timings. Haha. Whatever, they did happen anyway. Let's see what had happened in day 6, 7 and 8.

Day 6 is a Monday so we spent the bulk of the day nearby at the underground station mall. Wanted to go further out to Yangmingshan 阳明山 or Huaxi St NM 华西街夜市 but the imploding rain was terrible. The first stop as usual was the area near XKM and we tried a bak zhang shop's bak zhang and noodles. SHIOK!! Their bak zhang very nice, soft, tender and juicy. We then went to a laptop protection specialist shop called 包膜工坊 for the 3rd time for the day to collect my handphone. Forgot to mention this shop earlier on but I think we went on the Carrefour night before we went to Carrefour. The boss of this shop earned NT$1M a month doing laptop/handphone/gadget protection where they put a transparent membrane layer onto your gadget to protect your stuff. Pika's laptop was white and therefore needs such protection definitely. It cost NT$2000 for him to wrap his laptop and I was supposed to spend NT$891 as well for my handphone but to my surprise the lady overturned the verdict as she explained that my phone, due to the rubber parts, couldn't be wrap. They helped me put a complimentary screen protector though, for free! Woohoo, such good service. I also learnt that using naphtha or lighter fluid to clean your phone or laptop is pretty appropriate. The shop is at Huayin St 华阴街 right behind Taipei Railway Station, I remember it's exit 12 from the underground mall, if I'm not wrong. That street sells quite alot of miscellaneous stuff like disposable stuff, stationery, umbrellas, etc. It was raining quite heavily so we actually spent most of our time at the underground mall shopping for shoes (2 pairs for NT$300!, including 1 boots). Bought quite many shoes actually, and the funny thing was that I had to try the boots for Pika's sister. Hahaha. Learnt how to wear boots too =p. We also tried a very nice 大福, a Japanese mochi-like dessert. But no hands to carry the super exquisite packaging so we decided to buy them on the last day. Also saw people playing bowling on the Nintendo Wii. Apparently it's a tournament and in the days we were there, we saw many people playing the bowling game. Considering whether to buy a Wii at all.. heh. =p

The funniest part of the day was the 1hr spent at 2 toy catcher-machine shops! Lol. We wanted to get our "revenge" on these machines so we tried to pick those with very cute stuff. The first one was the furry pooh (got big and small one) and after some tries, I finally scored it! Heh. Pika just couldn't catch the racoon no matter how he tried, even with the intervention and help of the shop assistant. Heh, the shop assistant very nice one, they try to give you a chance by strategically placing the toy near the drophole, especially if they see you put ALOT of money into catching the toys. LOL... yeah we did spend some hundreds (nearly NT$500, ie SGD$20+?) on catching toys and the photos below shows our loot. At night when we got back to the hotel, the naming exercise began. So the 2 most expensive toys were the 2 heavy racoons, which Pika smacked their backsides after catching them due to the amount of $ spent on them. Their names? Piancai 骗财 and Pianqian 骗钱 lol~~ Then we had Mianbao 面包 (the bun shaped toy), Doufu 豆腐 (a cubic tofu shaped toy), 2 furry poohs (毛毛POOH & 毛弟POOH) Quite fun to play toy catching =)

At night we contemplated going to the Huaxi St NM, but we took the wrong bus to go to the ASUS Royal Club (ie, service centre) and spent some time getting there and back to XMD. So ended up never go Huaxi St. After deciding not to buy the 3rd year warranty for the laptop which is only usable in Taiwan (not very cost attractive because buying airticket to go Taiwan repair laptop seems illogical, right?), we went back to cover the XMD areas which we have yet to cover, one of which is the clothes shops there. We also tried stuff like bbq corn (salty and pepperish), 凉圆 (agaragar-like stuff with fillings like tausar, yam paste, etc), hot dog in fried dough, and 面粉饼. It's similar to Singapore's thick meejiangkueh, but they got special flavours one, like we bought peanuts and cabbage 高丽菜 aka kohleicai in hokkien. It's sliced cabbage plus tuna la. Exotic but not very acceptable to us accustomed with the usual peanuts, tausar etc. And it's very thick, so it's not very nice also. Haha. I think I may have forgotten what happened that night, but think the toys got their photoshoot that night =) We also walked quite a distance and past the Taipei Technological University. Doesn't look very much like a university to me because kinda lack the open space feeling in Singapore's universities. We ended up having supper near the hotel at a eatery there. The noodles is very cheap but 没有料, so I ordered BBQ bacon roll at the stall right outside the eatery, which the stallowner says the price hasn't changed for the 15 years he's been selling. Wah. Nice supper but also meant can't sleep early since you cannot bath right after eating. =x

The next day we woke up earlier than usual to be on time for Dintaifeng before lunch hours. But waiting for the bus to cut short the walking distance (no direct bus) made us wait so long for that stupid bus that we ended getting there right smack within lunch time. SO MANY PEOPLE (Japanese tourists)!!!! The worries mounted when the signage says that they have a staff event on that day and will close at 3pm. You get the ordering slip and queue number and make your order while you wait outside. The waitress asked if we can finished what we ordered, seems quite alot! We got number 34 and the queue was already at 29. we probably waited for 10minutes (faster than SG!!) and were sitted on the 4th level with 3 tables and 6 seats. -_- pengz. The small area on this level (not cramped though) was filled with Japanese tourists (maybe that's why so many levels cos floor area per level is small). Level 1 and 2 houses a kitchen. The service staff are very professional and speak very very fluent Japanese. Haha. We ordered 1笼 xlb, 1笼 feicuibao 斐翠包 (stuffed with minced meat and lotsa super finely shredded greens, which I think it's doumiao 豆苗 instead of the usual 韭菜), 1 plate 虾仁炒饭 (very nice), 1笼 dumplings (which I can't remember the names, but you can see the photos; it looks like sack-shaped) 1笼 xlb stuffed with yam paste for dessert(super nice). We spent NT$845!! That's like SGD$20+ for each of us! Haha. But it's worth it because it's the original DTF~ I wished we had stomace space to eat another 笼 of xiaolongbao!! Hehe.

We then walked to the bus stop and took the bus back to Taipei Main Station. Then we walked back to grab our stuff to go Xinbeitou 新北投 for hotsprings and Danshui for the fish crackers "yu su" 鱼酥 and "granny iron eggs" 阿婆铁蛋. We took bus instead of train to XBT because it's cheaper and we can sleep on the bus (I fell asleep while enjoying the scenery, lol).

The bus to XBT took nearly an hour and we alighted one stop too late because the bus was crowded with students and the driver didn't hear us calling him to wait. Taiwanese bus are usually very efficient on the road, much better than SG. Somemore they are cheaper and more frequent! LTA, go study Taiwan to see which good points you can learn from them. Only that Taipei roads are bumpy and their buses are clean but old (SG buses are dirty but look new..). Think we were fated to alight one stop later because we saw Pikachus in the bookstore as we walked backwards. WOOHOO! Pika wanted a small Pikachu and I wanted Crayon Shin Chan comics. Bought the comics and a big Pikachu instead after much deliberating. The lady boss was very nice to introduce us some of the better hotsprings here and even told us she goes to soak herself everyday! Woah, and when she told us her age, we were super convinced that we must go and enjoy it. Haha. She looks nearly 6-7 years younger her age lor! You know women age easily but she doesn't look any bit that old. Lol. She gave us directions and we carried Pikachu (named as Pikazhu cos it's so cute and cuddly) in a plastic bag to the hot spring. Upon reaching the mid-point of the area, we wondered where to go so I decided to walk uphill to see. I was wrong! Anyway the hill goes to YangMingShan (YMS) but that was not our destination. Walked back and tried to find road direction signs and finally found the right direction after some more walk and walk-back. Luckily our guidebook has the address of the hot spring she recommended, known as 泷乃汤 (LNT;see photos). LNT was reputed to have been visited by the previous Japanese Emperor because the water was special. So we walked along the path along the hot spring park known as Bei Tou Gong Yuan 北投公园 which leads to the 地热谷, the boiling spring water valley. (We didn't reach there though because we reached LNT soon) We were absolutely newbies at this as the counter staff was getting impatient with us... heh. Here comes the shocker:

a. There's no private room.
b. It cost NT$90 per person only.
c. No security staff, no lockers.
d. Males and females are separated. (Thank god)
e. Everyone must get NAKED. (I don't know about the ladies la =p)
f. The facility is so bloody old and looks dirty, dilaphidated.
g. Old men with bulgy stomachs roll on the floor (lol, and my stomach is bulgy too)
h. It's so small! Probably as big as a badminton court only. The hot spring pool is probably half a court.

So we put our stuff on the shelves and stripped naked. Hehe, anyone want to see Pika naked? (you will be envious of his waistline). The uncles there saw us putting our shoes in the wrong shelving, so one of them spoke loudly from the pool to remind us to put our shoes in the lowest 2 shelves meant for shoes. We then went to the cold water shower area (one of the old man was sitting there and enjoy a super strong cold water spray). We did the wrong thing by cleaning ourselves by the hot spring pool, and one of the middle aged man who just came helped to educate us. So glad to have such a nice uncle to tell us about hot springs and Taiwan. Hehe. But he doesn't know much about Singapore except from what he saw from the movies I Not Stupid, and other Jack Neo movies. Haha. We learnt that we should scrub and clean ourselves beside the pool with the containers provided but must let the dirty water flow to the drainage. Must clean your private areas (front and back) and then when you are in the pool, you should just sit, stand still to soak yourself. No more scrubbing, massaging or touching. No towels in the pool. You should not dip your head or face into the pool. It's very very hot! But on paper they say the temperature is only maximum 48deg C. Man, so 48deg C doesn't seem hot on paper but it's really very very hot! I finally went to the pool to soak after splashing and dousing myself repeatedly with the super hot water by the poolside while wondering how was it like when 100yrs ago the Emperor came. Was it much more beautiful? Now it's just like a dilaphidated house with a hot spring pool insdie. When soaking inside, I felt my legs burn man. So hot. Soaked about 10mins while chatting with the uncle, then I went to get a cold water shower and went back to splashing and dousing again. Then I went into the pool again, repeating the cycle. The books says going cold, hot, cold hot helps to remove toxins and makes your skin supple. The uncle said that the sweating you get from dipping inside hot springs clears the toxins in the body, and makes you feel warm after the hot spring bath. They were all true. We hung around at the cooler side of the pool, the furthest away from the gushing pipe of hot spring water. (Don't ask me about the hotter side, tak boleh tahan). One interesting thing observed is that Pika looked even fairer instantly after the hot spring bath! We both regretted not coming to enjoy hot springs earlier. And even the initial apprehension was swept away together with our sweat because the water is indeed very nice. No bad smells. Haha. We stayed till 630pm before washing up and packing up to go Danshui 淡水. Hot springs alone is worth the entire trip, I tell you. We went to buy a drink at their supermarket called Welcome 顶好, which suspiciously looks like Shop&Save. Lol. Bought bananas but didn't eat them. Hahaha.

Took the MRT to Danshui. The MRT line is kinda like built along the coast so you can see the huge wide river. By the time we reached, it was 8pm. There was not many people around. We followed a group of people to the main shopping street. First stop was a clothes warehouse shop, akin to This Fashion but much more variety and bigger than This Fashion. Many clothes are very cheap lei (compared to SG for similar designs). Spent about 1hour picking clothes, especially Pika, who was complaining that he spent far more time looking for stuff for others (at Wufenpu) than himself. So he gets to pick and try out all sorts of clothes. Woooo, he bought many stuff, very nice and affordable, including shirts, jackets, and t-shirts. I bought a t-shirt that has an attached chain. Nice nice. Then we went to explore the streets. Ended up passing by a Triumph shop selling swimwear on the outside. Pika was attracted by the NT$150 sign and suggested that I get my new trunks. Lol. The sales assistant showed us many designs; the NT$150 is very ugly, but the NT$490 looks fine. Some of the trunks had the Triumph logo on them so I was like, hey, i'm buying swimwear at a lingerie shop. Lol. Ended up buying one black trunks with the word "Honor" in front. (till now also haven't gone swimming because of the raining weather =x) We were very hungry and I stopped at a roadside stall to buy french fries. They prepare it the same way like the Taiwanese chicken chop. Haha. One little boy was very unlucky as his parents waited at the stall, he was drenched by water thrown by someone. Very unlucky. The stallholder offered serviettes to help dry the little boy. Then I mentioned to Pika that he was lucky to have gone explore the other end of the street instead of waiting there, otherwise he might have been drenched. After getting our fries and fried tauhu, we continued along the road till we saw the 阿婆铁蛋 and the eatery with 50 years history selling fishballs, special handmade bao and their famous "Ah Gei" 阿给 fried tofu with a layer of minced fish ontop, in special sauce that is salty, sour and hot; not ah gay! lol) SUPER NICE. A must-eat! Then we bought the foodstuff and then walked to the pier. Wondered where was the famous Yu Ren Ma Tou 渔人码头 (Fishermen Pier) but was nowhere to be seen. Pika tried taking night shots of the beautiful scenery opposite the river. And we ended up enjoying the super cool breeze and taking photos at the arena, near the MRT station. (After reading some forums, to get to the famous Lovers' Bridge and Fishermen Pier you actually need to take a boat, which was already off duty by the time we were there 10pm). Haha.

We took the train back to 龙山寺 station and went to the Huaxi St NM. It's nothing much really, alot of XXX shops and medicinal shops. The NM also nothing much, maybe because it was already 1145pm. We walked around with disappointment and then walked back to the hotel to rest. But because we were still hungry, we ate the 肉羹面 just right at the footstep of the hotel (recommended by the hotel reception staff). The stall only comes around at certain days and it's very popular as we can see people coming and coming to eat the noodles or take-away. It's very nice too. I also bought some roadside snacks such as 花枝酥 (fried sotong) and also fried sotong balls (which was much edible). Again another late night. Hehe.

Last day of the trip we were given extra 3 hours free to check out as promised the night before. Nice right? We went to XMD again to buy the last few items like cds, and also at the underground mall for the daifuku. Heh. We finally ate the chow tauhu after smelling it for days and days. TOTALLY bowled over by the taste. It's so nice!!!!!!!! The smell's pungent initially, but the taste is fantastic! They put garlic, soy sauce and a little bit of chilli and that makes the taste truly exotic. Heh. After buying the last few items, we went to the hotel again to pack the stuff. Because we had too many stuff which we couldn't pack into our luggage cases, we decided to buy a huge Pooh sack (very cute) to carry the stuff. 2 of us, 3 heavy bags + 2 slingbags. Wah piang eh. Very power right?

Our timeline was 2.55pm which we had to get to another hotel behind us, Royal Castle Hotel, to take the Freego bus to the airport. Unfortunately, the zip of the sack went bonkers and Pika had a hard time putting it back to work. By the time we got over, it was 3.05pm but the Freego bus had already left. Sobsob. Luckily the valet service assistant was very kind to tell us about the bus and even made a call to check when the next bus was coming. We sat outside the hotel and contemplated what to do in the next 55mins. There were some Singaporean guys also, but they looked like army chaps and they had a mini-bus to ferry them and their luggage. Pika wanted to put the luggage at the hotel but I refused because we didn't stay at this hotel and I also didn't want to drag them back to our hotel. So bulky and heavy! Rather than despairing, I sat there reading the comics I'd bought. To my surprise, around 3.25pm, a small bus came around and we were able to take it, but this was not the bus that was going to take us to the airport. It's a supplementary bus for timings with less passengers and the bus driver was pretty friendly. We lugged our huge luggage and occupied the last row of seats, our luggage blocking the way. Haha. The bus spent some time going to 2 other hotels to pick 2 other couples and also made a stop at the bus interchange for the driver had to pass something to his colleague. We ate mua-chee on the bus which I bought earlier at XMD. Their mua-chee is not just 1 flavour dough pieces coated with peanuts, but multiple flavoured small dough balls coated with peanuts. Nice~ We finally arrived at 松江路,not very far from the Songshan Domestic Airport. The big bus apparently was still on its rounds in Taipei so we were very relieved. The small bus driver told us that we were very lucky to have the other 2 couples who also missed the earlier bus but their flight was 30minutes after ours, that's why he came to XMD at 3.25pm instead of the usual 4pm. Phew. We finally loaded our luggage onto the big bus and had an eventless ride to the airport. Checked in, and realised that our luggage easily exceeded 50kg, but wasn't charged a cent because they didn't weight the sack (hehehe~ lucky again because both our luggages cases were below the 20kg limit, 15+, 16+kg I saw).

Spent our last 40minutes in the airport taking photos and buying the last box of TYB for Kevin. Then we also visited some of the shops inside the airport, and Pika bought a pack of postcards depicting Taipei 101. We also went to the electronics duty free shop to see what offers they had, but wasn't very interested in their pricey goods. The boarding for the plane was very slow, that even when we were so late le, they were still boarding. At the waiting area, the wall depicts a big, long green dragon (see photos). Heh. Soon it was our turn to board the plane but we did not get a window seat this time. We were assigned row 01, the row with the most leg room. Haha. Good good. Bid our farewell to Taipei when the plane rose into the sky with no difficulties.

再见台湾~

Spent the 4+hours on the plane reading comics and newspapers. Very boring. Nearly everyone around us ordered meals lor. Trying to tempt us, but we are not so rich to pay $11 for a meal and a drink. Haha. We reached Singapore as on time at 11pm and sped off to clear the queues. Shopped quickly at the DFS for some liquor and wine and then went off to get our luggage. Again Pika was stopped for checks and he lamented to me that whenever we travel, we always get checked and it's my fault. Haha. But I countered saying that nowadays with the issue so deep on terrorism prevention, checks were normal and expected la.

Cleared the customs and went to Burger King to eat while waiting for my parents to fetch us. 25minutes later we were on our way back, and my father and brother went back first because I live nearer to the airport. Then I sent Pika back home and spent 1hr at his home showing our loot from the trip to his family. Hahaha. Luckily his sis can wear most of the stuff we bought for her. His mother wasn't very lucky though as some of the shoes did not really fit. We also had the toys introduced to the Pooh Association and the family members. Hehe.

Feeling satisfied, I went home to bathe, get online and then had a good rest the next day. Trip concluded~~ Photos~~!

Acknowledged my existence at
12:15 PM