Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Our Taiwan Trip 23-29 Dec 2006
It's my first trip to Taiwan, and what makes it all so special is that jw is here with me and once again, we are spending our X'mas overseas.
We went on a 7D6N tour with Hong Thai, and I was pleasantly surprised that we had a superb tour guide, Chen Cai Ming Dao You. He was amazingly knowledgeable (was a doc before & thus taught us alot of health tips), had a sense of humour (can even tell us er xin xiao hua), and was quite earnest and generous (well, he gave jw a ciggie a day). No wonder he was awarded the model tour guide. We were so glad we got him, instead of anyone else. Yeah yeah, jw i know what you are thinking. ;p
We stayed in a total of 6 different hotels!! Can you believe it? Tao Yuan Hotel (Taipei), Fu Wang Da Fan Dian (Tai Chung), Citizen Hotel (Kao Hsiung), Parkview Hotel (Hua Lien), Paradise Hotel (Taipei) and Grand Hyatt Hotel (Taipei). Way cool!! Luckily all were neat, clean and comfy. Even the so called "9-star" (yeah, location 6 star, toilet 1 star, corridor 1 star, room 1 star!~) Paradise Hotel located in Xi Men Ding that Chen Dao You warned us of was not bad afterall. Don't you agree that it feels darn good to go back to a nice room and sleep on a clean comfortable bed after a hard day's work at shopping? Keke. I think so. & boy, i luv soaking myself in those bathtubs!! Just like the Tai Lai Hot Spring that we went to. That was cool. (erm, hot i mean)
Since we went to 5 places in Taiwan (Taipei, Tai Chung, Kao Hsiung, Tan Shui & Hua Lien), of coz we went to alot of the night markets and devoured the yummy-licious food there. Shih Lin, Feng Jia, Liu He, Xin Jue Jiang, Tan Shui Lao Jie were some of the night markets we went. To name a few of the yummy food, I think I luv these best: Grilled sotong, Guan Cai Ban (Toasted Bread wif Soup inside), Ba La (aka Guava), Feng Mi Ku Gua Zhi (Cucumber juice with honey), Hao Da Ji Pa & Xiang Xiang Ji (Fried chicken!!), Steak at Red Devil's, Shui Jiao (Dumplings) & Chong Shao Yu (The yummy fish!)!! Jw also said that the A-zhong mian xian, fried oyster wif egg and oyster mee sua was damn good!! But too bad I dun eat oysters. I luv the egg though!!
As to which tourist attractions we went, well, quite alot also. But to be honest, I was more interested in the eating. Keke. Still, the sight seeing was good! We went to the Museum (aka Gu Gong), Sun Moon Lake, Nu Huang Tou (at Tan Shui), Nan Tian Gong, Zhong Lie Ji Nian Tang & Zhong Lie Ci (witnessed the guard changing ceremony), Xi Men Ding (which jw kept saying Xi Men Qing!), 101 Building, Kao Hsiung 85 Da Lou, Wen Wu Temple etc etc.
I enjoyed myself immensely!~ & oh man, ate so much!! I also bought 7 pairs of shoes ley. Keke. Cos' not much clothes to buy, so diverted my funds to shoes and bags instead. =) Despite meals and accommodation and transport being provided in the tour, we still spend $1,400 in Taiwan. That means we spent $4K for Taiwan alone liaoz.. Woho.. I see the hole getting bigger & bigger. But I always believe that money can be earned and thus should be spent, whereas memories are created and can remain in your heart for a long long time. Glad I brought back wif me a great deal of sweet, priceless memories.
& that's not the end!! We deviated and stayed in Hong Kong for 3 days after the Taiwan trip. Extended honeymoon sia. So we spent X'mas in Taiwan and New Year in Hong Kong. =) Watch out this space for HK updates & more pics!!
~Summer~ 11:17 PM