More Taiwan

More Taiwan photos. Quick one today cos I'm not feeling very wordy or long winded. Surprise surprise!

Got these two dresses for RM 25 each at wu fen pu. Not much choices cos mostly winter wear still. Regret not buying more from that stall though.

My cat hair tie. Cute or eerie? Got it from the underground mall. Forgot how much. Only dilemma is I don't know which way the cat is looking when I tie my hair.

Starbucks was full so Cs and I sat outside a bench outside the shopping mall. It was cool and slightly drizzling but still kinda awesome being there. On holiday. No need to work. No fixed plan for the day. It was there that we saw a homeless guy (or so we thought) and debated whether to leave some bread or coins for him. Until his wife came out of the mall and kicked him in the shins for falling asleep. Hehe. Really thought he was homeless. Sorry man.

Told you we stayed in a homestay right? This is one of the rooms. Awesome eh? We booked three rooms for the 7 of us. Cs and my room was smaller by half. The same price though. So I guess when you make the reservation, you just have to request for a bigger room?

Everything looked new and clean. Very good. The staff come in once a day to take out the thrash and sweep the floors but that's it. No thorough cleaning like in a hotel room. OK la. I would still stay here again. RM 140 I think per night. If I'm not mistaken. Best part of the room is the washing machine and dryer. So nice can do laundry at night.

Saw Shinjuku plaza and took a photo.

We went to try TGI Friday's cos I wanted a change. Service was damn good ok. Sat down and gave us free milkshakes to try immediately. I'm a sucker for free stuff can you tell? Small milkshakes of course but free nevertheless.

My bacon cheeseburger. The bacon turns me off actually. Not crispy enough. Handed the whole thing to Cs. But burger was good! :)

Cs' pork ribs? Must be pork right? 

This is us in our small room.. it was just enough for the two of us. Oohh btw new phone cases. Actually mine is a sticker. But our casing quite cool - I like. Its just the sides only - need screws to open and close. Quite mahuan now I think of it. Cs lost my Malaysia SIM card so I had to get a replacement card. But we couldn't open my phone case till we found the mini screwdriver. Err yea. But still cool. Heh.

The infamous ah chung mien sien where everyone eats standing up. No chopsticks just a spoon to slurp it all up. I miss this!! All those people standing around are customers ah. Always a huge crowd whether day or night.

Our apartment is just opposite this place. Good location.

OK update next time. Bye.

Missing Taiwan

I feel like updating my blog but my phone is soo slow loading the photos onto my blog (I blame the Internet). So I randomly selected a post from my draft to complete. I have lots of posts like these in my drafts. Sometimes I end up choosing too many photos, or I end up being too long-winded (like now), and the draft just never sees daylight or eyes or other people. You know what I mean.

So this is a Taiwan post. This was from Sept 2012 when I went with mum and Winnie. We wanted to go to Din Tai Fung - the famous xiao long bao shop in Taipei.



Try not to go during lunch or dinner time. We went during lunch. There were a lot of tourists and locals. You see the number 31 on the top left? Yah, have to take a number and queue up.



That guy looks so unglam. Haha F his life.

Anyway, I think we were number 85 or something. So, we went to the book store next door to waste time. You get to look at the menu and choose your dishes first while waiting outside. So when you go in, your food gets served very fast. Quite good actually. Saves waiting time.

Camwhore while waiting.

This is the famous beef noodles soup! It tastes as good as it looks! Hot slurpy soup. Soo good.

Even the fried rice looks good too right? Every morsel or rice covered in egg. And lots of prawns. Good stuff. 

But everyone comes to Din Tai Fung for this: Xiao Long Bao. The famous bao. I love it. If you never had this before, be careful cos each of this is filled with piping hot soup and meat. Careful you don't burn your tongue. Normally I would bite a tiny hole in the side and wait for the soup to fill my whole spoon (should have taken a photo) and then finish the whole thing.

Winnie likes to put the whole thing in her mouth and pop it. She described it as an a mouthful of orgasmic explosion (something like that - i made it up). Hahaha.

Must order. Must have. Must try. Must eat.

We actually have this in Malaysia and Singapore too. Only tried the HK and Taiwan only. Never tried the Malaysia one.

I am randomly choosing photos as I go along now. 

This was at one the underground station - their stations have long winding roads filled with shops - very nice to do shop around (quite cheap stuff).

After you get tired of shopping, you can stop and get cheap massages. I remember this was one of the best massages ever!!

Win hates massages (something wrong with her), so she walked around while mum and I enjoyed ourselves. Heheh. :) This was in full view of the public btw. Not in a tiny room or anything.

This was taken in a club. Don't remember the name. Le awesome cousin brought us clubbing, with our mums. Clubbing in Taiwan is soo expensive lah. On one night, she brought us out for beers. The bill came to 4,000++ Taiwan dollar. About RM 400. Seriously mind boggling. Can drink Macallan like that. Or maybe we all drank too much. Or chose the more expensive ones. Don't know lah. I wrote about it more below.

Took photo of these shots cos the waiter broke 2 beer bottles in front of us (on the counter), and he immediately apologized, wiped down the table and mixed us these free shots. Awesome much?! It wasn't even our beer. It didn't even make us wet or dirty. Nada. Seriously good service.

If only Kch pubs like that too eh? Keep dreaming mi.

Does it still count as OOTD if its a year later?  

Don't remember if I posted this before. Oh well. Taipei 101 in the background. This was before clubbing.

Typical 7-11 food that I love. I gotta say this again. If only Kuching's 7-11's are like this!! Arghh. Quit whining mi. We have good stuff too. We have kolo mee, laksa, kam pua, chicken rice.... meh meh meh and meh. I just want their fully stocked 7-11's and Family Marts.

 So convenient. They have everything. I used to think Taiwan's convenient stores are awesome. That was before I went to Japan. Japan's kick Taiwan's ass. And everyone kick Kuching's ass. Ok I stop. :)

That sandwich costs about RM 4.90. Not bad la..look at that huge piece of meat. Thicker than the bread ok. And they have sushi! Anyway. We go to the convenience store almost every day for breakfast and/or supper or snack time.

I don't like this duck..don't know why I posted this picture. It tastes good but I'm not really a duck person. This was at some unassuming shop at Ximending too. Next.

Self explanatory store at Ximending.

Our aunt brought us to sing karaoke one afternoon. In Taiwan, you have to go on stage to sing karaoke. Not just in public. But on stage!

My mum and her sis working it. Hahaa obviously my aunt is more daring. She's a natural. She has more practice. According to her, she goes karaoke very often with her friends.

 The karaoke that our aunt brought us to..well, it was safe to say that we were the youngest table there. All the other people were very old. White hair, with walking stick or cute looking hats. So, it was just quite an experience. 

I got dragged up by an aunty to dance

This is a bad photo of the condiments. Photo obviously not taken by me. *cough*winnie*cough*

They eat vegetables while singing karaoke. Hmm okay. Different, but still nice.

Instead of usual beer or whiskey, our aunt suggested we have kaoliang. I have never tried it before, just heard about it. Its a really strong liquor. 

Kaoliang has about 58% alcohol. Normal beer has about 4% - 5% alcohol percentage only per bottle. This small bottle contains 58%. Crazy strong liquor.

We drank it with ice, water and plum. It took 4 of us a few hours to finish one small bottle. Damn strong. 

After karaoke, and we were all happy and buzzing from the kaoliang, we went to have "niu pai" aka beef steak Taiwan style.

They have "niu pai" shops everywhere. Some shops sell mainly these, together with salad, some small dishes, and dessert buffet style. You choose a set meal like below and you can have free flow of the salad, dessert and drinks. The price varies at restaurants but they're not expensive.

This is my beef steak "niu pai" with pasta. They serve it like this: either beef/lamb/chicken (maybe fish too) and a type of pasta, with egg on the side. I miss this!!

Wayy better photo taken by Jerrick. Haih. This is why people pay him to take photos. Hahaha. Incidentally he's in Australia now, to take wedding photos. So popular.

Anyway, remember I said we went beer drinking one night with le awesome cousin and it came to RM 400+?

We didn't drink that much did we? Hmm..it seemed less.

We had finger food too. I forgot about it. 

That's le awesome cousin and Winnie. :) Miss her. She's my mum's sister's daughter = cousin. They live in Taiwan, obviously. We only meet when we go Taiwan or when they come to Kuching. Unlikely these days cos we have jobs and our own families now.

Beer heaven. Spoilt for choice. So many types of beer that we've never seen or heard of. Awesome.

On that awesome note, I bid you adieu.

Night.

Taiwan day three to Yilan

So..continuation of my Taiwan trip. Day 3.

Winnie and I bought a lemon yakult at some shop in ximending while waiting for le cousins to arrive one fine day. Yakult is like Vitagen. Just different brand, I assume. I'm just used to seeing Vitagen in Kuching and Yakult in Taiwan.

Grandpa used to buy Yakult by the box every time we go back to Taiwan when we were kids. So we ended up drinking Yakult as water instead. Can't be bad eh. Supposedly healthy right?

But I digressed. We bought a lemon yakult because Kuching don't have.

NT 50 for this large glass. Not bad. Quite worth it. She poured two bottles of Yakult into this plus some lemon juice and a lot of ice. Nice.

We were bright and early so the shops were mostly still closed at Ximending. Rare sight. Ximending is always bustling with people, busy, noisy and packed. Even when we come down looking for supper at midnight, there are still vendors selling food, and people walking around. Not exactly empty.

Mum and Winnie.

My turn with mummy.

Our cousin brought us to Yilan county. The plan was to go to the glass house restaurant for dinner at 7pm and go exploring other places in the day time.

We had lunch at this shop at Yilan. Cousin ordered this: 18 days beer.

What was special about this beer was it expires in 18 days. It is made fresh and you have to drink it within 18 days. Makes sense? It tastes good definitely.

Btw, unrelated but did you know in Taiwan, they take drunk driving very seriously (unlike Kuching). If you drink even one can of beer, and drive, you will get a very heavy fine. I only knew this because my cousin's husband was watching us (rather gloomily hahah) drinking but he can't drink, being the driver. Poor thing.

From Wikipedia (don't know how accurate this is): Over 0.05% but under 0.11%: TWD 15,000 to 60,000 fine, and license suspension for 1 year.

Why do I always digress? Back to topic.

That's my aunt in the background.

And that's our cousin in the background.

We had peking duck but the roll was different. I wasn't paying attention when they said what was different. Probably some type of vege inside. Just know it tastes good.

After a very hearty lunch, we went to...a...museum. Thank God it was closed. Haha sorry Yang Zhe Hong. I know you love musuems but we are secretly glad its closed. :)

That's the closed musuem. Lucky us.

So we went back in the car and went to a farm. It was good experience for the kids.

Cute place.

The kids get to feed piglets (they stink!!!), ducks, and goats..

Winnie and I just strolled around taking photos and found a cool spot to sit down..until le couin came to scold us for being lazy and can you please go feed the turkeys and ducks?

So we did.

I was afraid the ducks would peck my legs or follow me everywhere..

And I was also afraid the goats would try to pull my bag or camera or what. You read too many stories like this ok. From novels, comics and news. Too many accidents and idiotic people. But no leh.. goats keep to themselves and eat their own grass.

Couldn't even get a photo with Billy here.

Later on we went to have tea at a fish farm. The area we were in seems kinda deserted. Or so it seemed. Just farms and the odd houses here and there, and lots of empty spaces.

Oh yea, I had the henna tattoo on still. It looks good. I want a proper one.

Finally it was 7 pm and we went to have dinner at the glass house restaurant. Our cousins made this booking 3 months in advance. Apparently its very hard to make a booking. On weekends, it was all full. This was on a Monday night.

The thing about this restaurant is, they have no menu. You just choose from (I think) NT 800, 1,000, or 1,200 per head (customer) and tell them how many people are in your party, then they prepare the dinner for you. This way, your meal is a total surprise. You have no idea what could be served to you. Cool eh?

Mum, Winnie and I with le cousin. Its thanks to her and her husband that we could go to these places (by car), and clubbing and what not. They treated us to alot of stuff as well. Thanks babe!! I wish they can come to Kuching again so we can repay the favor.

Anyway. We had the NT 1,000 per person meal. I think there were 13 courses in total and needless to say, we ate till we were about to burst!! Waaaayy too much food.

This is a sashimi platter like no other. The waiters had to make two trips to our table to bring all of it. Just look at how huge it is. The same height as me! Not really but you know what I mean. 

Spot the fish on top.

I like this. Some lobster soup thingy in a bowl.

This was some type of Mexican roll. Says the waiter. Nice.

There were a lot of seafood that night. Too much food and not enough guys. Only 2 men on our table. And 3 kids btw. So no wonder we can't finish everything.

I forgot what was this. Soup soup thingy with prawns I think. Btw, if you want to go to the light house restaurant, Google it. It helps if you read Chinese. I don't that's why no link on this post.

We each have our own desserts too. Awesome.

And since we are on the subject of food, I might as well post more food. These sushi below can be found everywhere in Taiwan. We had this near the Taipei main station.

Everything else unpriced costs NT 10/RM 1. Why so cheap?!!

I wasn't even hungry, but I picked out this platter above. RM 4 total. Crazy cheap, right? Taiwan is affordable people! In terms of food lah. But actually transport is cheap too.

Not cheap but like Malaysian standards. Shopping is cheap and they have soo much more varieties than us. Alcohol in 7-11 is cheap. Alcohol in the clubs though, another matter.

A bottle of beer costs NT 200/RM 20. Ours costs about RM 10/11. One fine night, le cousin brought us out for a beer drinking session, and our bill for 4 people came to NT 4k plus. I was shocked!!! Eyy it was just beer, how could it cost RM 400?! Can open a Macallan already!

But she was quite nonchalant, like its typical.

 Btw unrelated, but my salary is the same as her Philipino maid. When I heard, I was like wtf!! She was even more shocked, and offered to raise my pay and asked me to work for her. HAHA!!

Actually I'm not sure if she asked me to be her maid or general worker in the shop, but yea hopefully worker. Not maid.

Apparently, its expensive to hire a maid in Taiwan. No wonder its hard to find an Indonesian maid in Kuching these days. They would earn so much more working in Taiwan or Hong Kong.

OK abrupt end. Bye.