naruwan

Returned from taiwan - the land of countless night markets, china airlines and congested roads - on sunday nite. On a whole i would give the trip a generous 6/10. Basically it was a tour group this time and its quite a new experience for me to follow a tour group. A tour group basically means u have no freedom of whether u want to visit this place or not and you better have good luck to have good tour mates.

Fortunately, themembers of this tour was basically 4 other families: one with four members (2 children aged 14 and 17), second one with 6 members (4 children like 17,15,and 2 below 10), third one was 5 sisters and 1 of their husbands all around 50-60 y.o. and lastly was a duo mother and her 11 y.o. daughter (shopaholics man) and of course my family which was damn king - 2 parents, me, 2 sisters and 2 cousins = 7 pple. Having the most people meant that our family basically sat with ourselves at meal times and that was both good and bad yar.

On the whole the agency was quite good i felt and the other members were very cooperative though i did not mix much with them. However, on the first two days i just felt a sense of emptiness, as we toured around kaohsiung. I could not pinpoint exactly wad was missing but i felt a sense of incompleteness and that there was something really lacking in the trip. Perhaps i had too high expectations wad wif the very enjoyable new zealand trip in june this year. Perhaps it could be due to the fact that touring temples and a whole buddhist hill complex was realli not my cup of tea. Perhaps i am a traveller and not a tourist . Sadly kaohsiung is like some small city in china that is like 20 years behind time and isnt as developed as i would have imagined.

But things picked up as we went up alishan. Although we did not manage to see the sunrise, i think it was not a wasted trip. If u ask me wad was the most enjoyable part of the whole taiwan tour, i would say its the trip down alishan, taking in the glorious scenery and the feeling of being totally surrounded by mountains upon mountains of trees. (not to mention people throwing up behind me all the while)

One thing that is starkly different between singapore and like taiwan/hong kong is the neon lights, or the lack of them. Singapore u wouldnt find those neon lights around the streets and it may be less distracting and less waste of power. But somehow the neon lights and big billboards make a city much more vibrant and full of energy.

Taipei was a more interesting city. Visited the shilin night market which is the original location for the chunky chicken chop wif pepper and chilli, there was some �ٲİ� which is an interesting variation of sandwich, there was crepe wif mango and peach, oyster omelette, and mega huge sausages. Also went to "The Magic Box" which is like a heritage centre for TTV (Taiwan Television Station i think) and it allowed us to be a mock newscaster, quite fun lah. Then there was the famous �ʹ�����Ժ which unfortunately was under renovation so we visited the temporary one. Went to Taipei 101 and the miramar shopping complex which boasts the second largest ferris wheel in the world.

One thing that i tried was smelly tofu or ���. The fact is it isnt really very smelly and it tastes quite nice with the bean paste on it.
It is sad that taipei shows little evidence of city planning and has virtually no unique architecture to speak of. However two buildings in taipei have quite good architecture:

The Chiang Kai Shek memorial really looks very unique and its no wonder people immediately think of taiwan when they see this structure. It retains a distinct sense of chinese architecture and is an impressive sight to behold.

This is the Բɽ�󷹵� and is a 54 year old hotel in Taiwan. Its status is not unlike that of Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I like it coz i feel it is the only hotel in the world that looks like a chinese palace. Seriously, if u think about it, no other hotel in the world looks quite like that.

Of course no tour group would be complete without the local tour guide. My tour guide was called xiao3 luo2. And basically he makes you want to both like and hate him. He is quite energetic and young and oso very friendly. Not to mention his knowledge about taiwan is quite good lah. But the bad point is he simply.......talks too much. And that's bad coz i understand mandarin, unlike my cousins from australia who can basically doze off when he tok coz erm they can take it as gibberish lah. So on the whole tour with the numerous bus trips i think i only slept at most 2 hrs on the bus. Shit. And his choice of topics to discuss is also very bad. Personally, who cares how many mistress C.K.S had, who cares abt the politics and the gossip, and who cares abt some crap health tips.

But what is so unique about our tour guide is his unique knack for philosophy, that he can perhaps be the greatest thinker of our time. Well, we didnt get to see the alishan sunrise and he said "Perhaps we will remember this experience better since it wasn't perfect". Well if u think about it it might make some sense ya.

One of the numerous stories he told was that of creation. He said at first god saw this earth and there was nothing on it. So he created a cow to help build this earth and the cow was to live for 80 years. But cow no want to do 80 yrs hard work so he request to live for 40 years. Then cow complains that work is too much so god created horse to help cow out and horse also request to live as long as cow so 40 years. Then god found cow and horse slacking sometimes, so god created tiger to go make sure cow and horse work properly. Tiger also wanted to live for 40 years and he realised that life on earth very boring so needed companion. So god created monkey to accompany tiger and monkey also has a 40 year lifespan. And then god created man to basically �Ժ����� - eat, drink, play, happy. And man see life so shiok then ask for 80 years of life. And that was how the earth was created.

W.T.F

Ok, so moving on. A picture is worth a thousand words so i shan't bore u guys anymore but show u some of the more worth seeing pics from the trip. Enjoy.

For Kiddy rides, you must be of a certain hight to ride it right?


As a show of friendliness, do remember to sing the "hey song" to your friends and guests.

To all my bubble tea shop buddies, this chun shui tang is THE original creator of the bubble tea from Taichung. But its freaking ex.


Their engrand very powderful.

I know taiwan is famous for their tea leaf egg. But surely there is no need to promote some giant taipei egg on ur tour buses right?


This �� bakery is supposedly the most famous bakery in taiwan (for obvious reasons). I wonder wad aphrodisiac they put in their cakes and pastries. [For those who cannot read/understand/recognize chinese, �� sounds like the chinese name for viagra.]

Thats the end of a very long entry. Am now looking for somewhere to upload all my pics and u guys can check it out soon.