Taipei Part 5

6th Jan 2009 - Beauty of Nature

Woke up early to catch our train to Hualien at around 8am.

On our way to figure out how to travel around Taroko, we were approached by cab drivers who suggest to take us for tour from 10.30am to 5pm for NT600 per person. Seems reasonable to us, thus, we accepted his offer.

Our first stop...























had our lunch in a scenic area~
























views from our dining area
























narrow trails..













































































































































































































mini hotspring area.. haha
































this bridge has a limit of 25 people per trip. be careful~






























Ci Mu Bridge for the mothers..





























Beautiful "Mei Yuan" - Plum garden




















































































White rocks~


















































we were surrounded by lots of butterflies~



















































Look carefully to identify the shape of the rocks:

What can you see?


























Red Indian Head?


























Leaping Fish?
























Goldfish Head?





Bird?
Batman? haha





























What you see is what you imagine~





Maple Trees!!! :-D








































































































there's even a beach nearby~ =) but, there wasn't much sand, but full of rocks!




















































































Such a big world~

we are so small compared to the nature..


























There are so much to see that cameras can't capture, it's up to the mind and heart to remember the experience. =)



Bian Dang on the train back to Taipei






















7th Jan 2009 - Home Sweet Home


our last meal in taiwan~

It's curry again.. haha





















We ordered set meals, curry and rice are refillable.


half eaten salad, or maybe I should say one quarter left. Lol

















































green tea and red bean dessert. And, a cup of coffee to complete the meal. =)





















our luggage - it looks a lot and indeed it is. we exceeded the limit of 80kg, mine was 31kg in total, so had to hand carry about 7kg of stuff (most likely it's the trouble of the books I bought).
























End of a 2 week trip.

Opened my world up and learned to better appreciate the things around me.

A Fruitful Trip! ^.^

Taipei Part 4

4th Jan 2009 - Shopping

Made our way to Tian Mu to search for PS BU BU~

it's a car themed restaurant where one scene from "Meteor Garden" was filmed.






















the counter~























a lot of artists came here too!
























snowman for snow girl, haha :-D











































the only full car in the restaurant, seems like one have to make reservations to get this seat.























we only have the back seat of a car~























all in all, it does have a nice environment.























walked all the way down to Tian Mu Circles to shop at the Tian Mu flea market.

Bought a series of Slam Dunk Comic (31 book) for NT900. hoho.. ^.^

Went to Eslite Bookstore to get Jimmy Liao's book as well. =)


After that, we went to Shi Da Night Market for dinner.

One of the nicer dinner we had in night markets so far~






















Had a hard time finding Ice Monster, it wasn't that near to Shi Da as expected.
We had to walk quite a distance and it wasn't very visible.























Enjoyed Kiwi Ice























and a new dessert






















When we wanted to take a bus back to our hotel, we didn't know which direction to take and end up missing the bus.

To our surprise, no bus seem to drive by. And, it was a slow 1 hour of wait.
No wonder so many Taiwanese has their own scooter.




5th Jan 2009 - Rainy day

Hate rainy days when we go out. =(

Was full of expectation when we make our way to Yang Ming Shan,











































But, was quite disappointed with what we saw. Maybe it's the rain. hmm..























It was a great walk of 600m from the bus station to the Visitor Centre. And, to our surprise, it was not open on Monday.

What luck we had.

No visitor center = no map

We even had to walk to the Police Station to get a map. Lol



Someone else's luck is worse than us. hmm






















Wanted to get out of this place quickly, but the bus intervals was pretty long, 40 minutes to 1 hour.

Finally, we board the mini bus (small 9) to Xinbeitou.

we were super hungry, so quickly settled for Yoshinoya

seems like a more classy version compared to ours.









































Rested there for around an hour before making our way to the nearest hot spring hotel.


Found this Sweetme Hotspring Resort.

Got to enjoy our hotspring for free as we got the voucher from the Taiwan Tourism Board.

Of cos, no photos are allowed.

This is the very first time that we entered a hotspring (furthermore, it's not those private ones)! And, most importantly we had to wear the emperor's new clothes. Lol, if you know what I mean. It was super embarrassing initially. But, after a while, we managed to settle ourself down and enjoy the hotspring.

Very relaxing I would say~

The facilities seem a lot. There had a variety of hotspring with different temperatures and 2 saunas as well.

After the relaxation, we got to dry ourself and our wet clothes.



However, it was still drizzling when we made our way to our next stop - Dan Shui.

We wanted to visit the Yu Ren Ma Tou.



Seems like it's snowing in the picture yea~ haha


















































Ate Ah Zong Mian Sian on one of the days too~



















Walking distance from our hotel area.