Birthday trip to Taiwan

Day 1

Had a 6am flight on the day of my birthday so you guys can imagine how exhausted I was but nonetheless, it was my second year spending my birthday overseas so I was happy. We flew to Kaohsiung and took the high-speed rail (HSR) to Taipei. I remembered Taiwan's 高铁便当, aka lunch bento, was highly raved online and I didn't manage to buy them last year so I made sure to try it this time.

To be honest, it was quite meh. Thank god I only bought one to share cos we didn't even finish it. We checked into our Airbnb and took a short 2-hour nap before making our way to ximending's night market ( 西门町夜市) to eat.

First Stop: Baked Oysters. This is our favourite street food in Taipei. I've waited 7 months just to eat this again lol. I'm not even exaggerating when I say this is so damn good. This photo doesn't do justice to it because it's a screenshot from my snapchat story but we bought this every single day. The stall doesn't have a name to it but it's right beside Prince Cheese Potato.

Second Stop: Prince Cheese Potato (王子起司馬鈴薯). This is also my must-have whenever I go Taiwan.

Third Stop: 阿宗面线. Seriously the best mee sua hands down.

We stayed around XMD just buying random food along the way. We already had a food baby each by the end of the night wtf.

Day 2

 Really yummy salmon miso soup!

Woke up bright and early and went to the Addiction Aquatic Development for lunch. Upon entering you will see an area filled with live seafood. If I'm not wrong, you can buy the fresh seafood and get them to cook for you on the spot. We walked up the stairs and decided to dine at the Japanese Restaurant inside. This sushi set cost about NT900 which was pretty reasonable I think.

Oh ya, kudos to us cos we took a bus here haha. We also took the bus to a nearby MRT station so we could go to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

Headed to eat Jin Feng Braised Pork Rice (金峰魯肉飯) after that. I remembered everyone say there are 2 famous braised pork rice restaurants in Taiwan - Jin Feng and Formosa Chang Lu Rou Fan (鬍鬚張魯肉飯). I've already tried the latter so this time, I wanted to try the former.

My bowl was full of fats lol. Hmmm I think Formosa Chang Lu Rou Fan wins!

Looking back, I think we were damn crazy? Cos we went back to XMD to eat 馬辣頂級麻辣鴛鴦火鍋 right after we had braised pork rice wtf. Grabbed this photo from my trip last year cos I didn't take picture of it this time round. As usual, I took a lot of servings of ice cream haha.

We were stuffed by then BUT eating didn't stop just because we were full. We went to Ningxia night market (寧夏夜市) to continue our eating escapade. Ying chanced upon a stall selling mentai oysters online and told me about it. Being an avid mentai lover,  of course, I had to try it. I didn't take a picture of it because it was such a disappointment wtf. We bought 3 big ones and couldn't even bring ourselves to finish it lol.

R bought some grilled seafood while I bought popiah peanut ice cream but nothing beats the one at 九份. Wtf I realised I didn't take any pictures here.

Day 3

Started our day with beef noodles. The portion was huge, I could never finish it. Something quite epic happened after we finished eating. We left the shop and headed to the family mart to get some drinks. This man, from another beef noodles restaurant, approached us holding some newspaper articles in his hands and sort of reprimanded us for not eating at his stall?!?! My first instinct was to ignore him so I walked into the family mart but R was actually listening to what he said wtf. So I pulled him into the family mart and told him to ignore the guy. To our dismay, the guy actually waited outside for us wtf.

R was thinking maybe we should stay in the family mart and wait till he was gone but I figured it would be a long wait and frankly speaking, we didn't do anything wrong so I don't see why we should avoid him. So we went out and yup, the guy started scolding and cursing us wtf. This was the first time I'd met such rude Taiwanese. I also threw back some insults because I couldn't control myself lol. I hate it when people are rude to me but I stopped myself before things got ugly cos no point quarreling with him over nothing wtf.

Anyway, we went to Taipei 101 to shop and I left empty-handed while R bought something from Zara. From Taipei 101, we walked to the malls nearby and I managed to score something from Pull & Bear so yay me. Thank you, R for holding my shopping bags voluntary and for waiting around while I tried on so many clothes and went into so many stores haha :)

Had a late lunch at Drip Cafe (好滴) because I miss their carbonara. Still hands down my favourite carbonara in the world. I also ordered a glass of Matcha Latte while R had the Kimchi Pork Spaghetti and a glass of what seemed like a blueberry juice. Halfway through the meal, he realised that my carbonara was much better so he said, "We half half?" LOL.

Dessert to complete the meal. No idea what is this called cos R ordered it but it was one of their new additions to the menu. Pretty good I would say.

After that, we decided to go to this cat cafe called 小貓花園 . The requirement was just to order a drink each and you could stay as long as you want if I'm not wrong. The place wasn't very big so we only stayed for about an hour or so. But the cats were so cute omg. Again, just watch my snapchat video at the end of the post to see everything alright!

We went to Shilin night market (士林夜市) after this since it was just a stop or two away. We were feeling rather shag by then but no one says no to the 夜市 here. Somehow R shopped so much here lol. He really just anyhow whacked at Shilin wtf.

 Love love love the coffin bread (棺材板)

Kinda like how their night market always has game stations. We both played a random mahjong matching game and won something each haha.

Day 4 

Started day 4 with breakfast from 永和豆浆. Hmmm, you can see what we ate in the video below lol. As usual, as the day goes, I got lazier to take pictures. Actually, I didn't even take many photos on this trip. 

I really like their carrot cake so I made sure to order it this time. Their youtiao (油条), however, was a flop. It was dry and pretty much tasteless.

We left to shop at Zhong Xiao Dun Hua (忠孝敦化商圈) after breakfast but none of us bought anything again haha. But ZXDH has a lot of hippy clothes, mainly from local designers. 

After a futile shopping attempt, we went to Shida Night Market (師大夜市). Compared to other night markets, we thought that Shida was pretty small. We managed to walk the whole area in an hour or so. 

I believe this is called 卤味. I saw a stall selling this at the entrance of the Shida night market and asked if R wanted to try but he said later or something. So I made a mental note to come back for it but I found another stall inside selling the same thing and bought from that stall instead. R thought that it was alright but I love it leh.

Like I mentioned, Shida was rather small in our opinion so we went to Raohe Night Market (饒河夜市) and that was when all hell broke loose wtf. We ate so much here omg.

White wine clams. This was so good that R actually went back and bought another one in garlic sauce.

Beef cubes. I prefer the ones from XMD somehow but this wasn't too bad too. I think we had it in rose salt flavour. I think R also ordered one more portion of this after we finished wtf.

Couldn't resist some grilled mushrooms so I had to buy this but this was quite meh. We didn't finish this in the end.

I ordered 2 liu sha yam ball and they were amazing omg. I think this was a new addition because I didn't see this stall last year. I'm sold already, will definitely come back for this next time.

We went back to XMD to get the baked oysters and some fried chicken before residing back to our AirBnb. LOL our appetite grew at the sight of all this glorious food wtf.

Day 5

This was our last day in Taiwan :/ I was so unwilling to leave because I had nothing (read: no more overseas trip for the year) to look forward to after this trip. Similar to last year, we rushed to Chia Te so I could get some Sun Biscuits and Milk Biscuits for my loved ones. That day was a mad rush wtf.

Of course, we had to eat 阿宗面线 for the last time. Wanted to get the baked oysters again but we had no time :(

Somehow my last meal in Taiwan is always Japanese food? Lol.

My friends asked me to get back some Chun Cui Milk Tea for them since they were always OOS in Singapore. I don't really get the craze. I mean I like it and I bought them every day when I was in Taiwan but I wouldn't queue/camp at 7-11 for them to restock wtf. Anyway, I brought home a total of 22 bottles in my luggage wtf. I think only 6 or 7 bottles belonged to R, the rest was for my friends lol.


If you're wondering about the thumbnail, yes i used the photo from my previous taiwan trip lol

Vlog - Bali

BALI

Special thanks to this girl for sending me to the airport at 3am!!! And for coming to the airport at 1.30am to pick me up when i landed :') I was so touched because these gestures mean a lot to me. She definitely set the friendship bar really high haha

First trip ever with my uni girls~

"DAY 1"

Our flight was at 4.55am so we touched down in Bali at about 7am-ish. I didn't sleep the whole night and barely slept on the plane so i was really shag. The moment we stepped out of the airport, we were approached by a lot of drivers. We finally settled on one and he brought us to get our SIM card before going to our villa. We paid Rrp 200,000 for 11GB of 4G data.

Finally found our villa but we couldn't check in cos it was too early so we deposited our luggage there and went to explore Seminyak. Walked along the stretch and finally settled our brunch at this place called Ize Seminyak. It's actually a hotel but we had our brunch at their restaurant.

The food was pretty good! And i only paid $12 for a burger and a drink hehe. One thing i love about Bali is the readily cheap and delicious food. To be honest, I'm quite surprised by the standards of the restaurants and cafes there. Most of the food we had was really good for the price we paid.

Shopped around for a bit before we headed back to the villa to wash up while waiting for our floats to come. In the meantime, Ju and i KO-ed on our bed hahaha.

I chose a pretzel float cos i wanted to lie down but it wasn't as comfortable as it seemed lol. The girls were all struggling on our float, trying to pose and look pretty but it was damn tough hahaha. Salute those girls who can work it and make it look damn effortless.

Dinner was at this restaurant called Rumours. Food at Rumours was really good~ I ordered a chicken cordon bleu and it was delish hehe. I dont remember how much i paid but i think it was about $11 for my chicken and a glass of banana smoothie.

We wanted to go to a bar along Seminyak Beach but somehow we didn't manage to find one that we wanted so we just strolled along the beach and went back to our villa to drink.

"DAY 2 - Watersports Day"

We asked our driver from the airport to send us around today and paid Rrp 600,000 to book his cab for the whole day. Thought it was pretty reasonable since we were planning to go a few places but we realized that the best way to travel in Bali is through Grab Car. The difference in the fare can be about half sometimes. So if you're heading to Bali, just use Grab.

Our first stop is Tanjung Benoa Beach cos we be doin' watersports hehe. I've been looking forward to watersports cos if you know me, i live for thrills and adventures. I just love the feeling of adrenaline rush.

We decided to play Flying Fish and Big Marble aka donut. We ditched snorkeling because the lady assisting us said that the water was murky so she didn't want us to waste our money haha. My favourite out of the 2 has definitely got to be the Big Marble.

This is how it looks like

Initially, it was going really slow and i legit felt damn sleepy and a bit sian cos waste money. After that, we asked him to speed up and boy, it was so much fun!!! We were literally being flung around, especially Claire cos she's too light. So much thrill playing this *thumbs up emoji*

The next stop was Jimbaran Beach. Settled at the random restaurant to have late lunch first cos we were starving. I don't bother to take down the name of the restaurant cos the food was pretty meh. The only saving grace was the view cos we sat along the beach and witnessed the sun setting.

After eating, we moved on to the other side of Jimbaran Bay to search for Lia Cafe for their seafood dinner. Lol yes, we had dinner immediately after our lunch wtf.

Dinner by the beach again and the sunset was too pretty 

Pretty satisfied with our dinner. We had lobsters, crabs, mussels and prawns in our seafood platter. The set also came with soup, salad, a plate of kangkong and 2 bottles of bintang beer. One set is Rrp 600,000 and we ordered 2 sets to share. So we paid about $30 per pax.

We wanted to go to Kuta beach after this but it was too late so we headed back to our villa to chill. Another thing i love about Bali is the chill vibes everywhereeeee. Almost every night we would sit by the pool, have some alcohol and snacks and just talk about everything under the sky full of stars.

"DAY 3 - Uluwatu Temple"

Lunch was at The Bistrot. We decided on this place because it looks so gorgeous from the outside and the interior is even more beautiful! We found out that people actually hosted their wedding reception here. I mean who wouldn't? It's really a nice change from the usual hotel reception.

After a really filling lunch (I had pork ribs and omg it was so good), we went to Uluwatu Temple.

The monkeys at Uluwatu Temple were really aggressive and not even scared of humans wtf. One of them dived right in and snatched a furry ball keychain from Claire's bag. It was quite scary tbh. While it was happening, another monkey tried to do the same to me but thank god i've fast reflexes hahaha. I turned immediately and faster kept my keychain inside my bag. They damn naughty lah omg.

We headed to Kuta Beach to chill thereafter.

None of us liked Kuta Beach because

1) it was super crowded 

2) every few min, someone would approach you to buy stuff from them. 

It was really annoying cos we just wanna lie down, chill and do our own things without being interrupted. Since i'm talking about what i don't like about this trip, it's worth noting that we got catcalled A LOT here. Idk is it because we are all girls or what but it was pretty darn annoying. 

Some of the comments we encountered were:

"Hey sexy girls"

"Hello, you want boyfriend?"

"Hello, you want massage? (coming from someone working at a restaurant wtf)"

Also, i feel like they were raping us mentally because they always stare at us so intently wtf. So perhaps it's not a good idea to come here without guys in the group. Other than those inappropriate comments, we also got wolf-whistled a lot.

 Caught the sunset again. The sunset here is really so pretty omg

Anyway, we were just chilling on kuta beach, people-watching, when this Korean oppa approached us for a picture hahaha. When he first asked me i was like whut.... but my friends think that he's cute so we agreed on a picture HAHA.

The girls wanted to shisha so we went to this place called The Shisha Cafe. Apparently, shisha was quite uncommon here so it was pretty hard to find. We walked about 30-45mins before we finally found the place wtf. I also don't know why we didn't take grabcar there leh haha.

Went back to our villa at around 12am, washed up a bit and started preparing for our AM trek up Mount Batur hehe. We booked the guide and it included pick up, breakfast and whatever we needed for the trek. Our pick up was at 2am because they were also picking up other people along the way.

"Day 4 - Mount Batur"

Officially started trekking at around 4am. I was so excited because it's my first time climbing a mountain and i'm gonna do it in the dark... say whut? It was really exhausting but i would definitely do it again in a heartbeat. Thought i should mention that i paid around SGD$65 for this.

Look at the gorgeous sunrise!!!

I wanted to vlog on the way up but everything was done in a rush and the trek up wasn't easy but i managed to snapchat on my way up and down haha. I'm gonna include snippets of my snapchat in my vlog so wait for that hehe.

Thank you Claire for being my adventure buddy~

This girl had a harder time than most people because she had to clamber over the boulders with her small build but i'm so proud of us for conquering this hehe

Took a bunch of photos and it was time to trek down. If you think trekking up is the hardest part, think again lol. Trekking down was, no doubt, faster but it was more dangerous because there were a lot of small rocks and many people actually slipped and fell on their way down.

With the whole group! 

So glad we managed to make some friends during this trip. One thing i love about traveling is meeting new people. The Lebanese couple on the left was an absolute delight. The guy was so kind and helpful and was constantly on the lookout for both of us. We also shared our travel knowledge and got to broaden our knowledge about each other's cultures. Not to mention, the Indian guy on the right was also really nice. We had so much fun chatting with everyone.

By the time we were done with everything, it was already 12+ and the girls checked out for us already so Claire and I could only wipe ourselves with wet wipes. I know it's pretty gross but there wasn't anything we could do haha. Met the rest and we had lunch at Made's Warung. We've been eating western and Italian food in Bali so i was glad to finally taste some authentic Indonesian food! 

Ordered Nasi Campur and it was so damn good?! To be honest i don't even know what i was putting into my mouth but i assure you every bite was delightful. I think this only cost SGD$4.30 and the portion was huge.

Went shopping for a while before heading to Ultimo restaurant for one last dinner in Bali.

I don't want to nitpick but the food here was crap.... We were really disappointed with it :( The ambiance was 10/10 though.

That concludes my Bali trip with the girls. I was so bummed to leave this place because i feel like i haven't done a lot of things and there are still many places that were unexplored. So i'll definitely be back for more! I'll upload the vlog in the next post, followed by my birthday trip to Taiwan :)