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

Day 10: Tamsui (淡水) & Day 11 (Last day)

Day 10

The rest went to watch a movie in the morning so ying and i had breakfast on our own. It's quite funny how my friends (& their friends) asked us whether all 6 of us were really traveling together because 80% of the time my snapchat + video only have ying and me inside hahaha. But no guys, we went in a group of 6. Just that sometimes we wanted to do different things hahaha.

OOTD

Top: Miss Selfridge

Bottom: Zara

Jacket: Miss Selfridge

Shoes: Nike Air

Sunglasses: Ray-ban (Ying's cos i left mine in my luggage)

Lol this girl wore her beanie every single day. Even on days that were not cold. 

The weather was so fine that day hehe. The sun was out but the temperature was at a very comfortable level of 23°C. I decided to wear a stick-on bra that day because i lazy wear a strapless bra and it stuck on super well hahahaha because i didn't even perspire. How awesome. I miss the weather...

When we were chilling in our apartment last night, i decided that we needed to eat beef noodles because we haven't had it so i googled some kickass beef noodles and found one near our apartment! Ok, it wasn't super near - around 20min walk or so. But i like some walking in a foreign place so we went ahead with it. And boy, was i glad to have found this place. THIS BEEF NOODLES IS THE BOMB.

If you stay near ximending, do yourself a huge favour and eat the beef noodles at 桃源街牛肉面. It wasn't cheap. One bowl was NT220 (SGD$10) but it was really good. I know it's expensive but they weren't stingy with the beef (look at the huge chunks of beef) and it was a big bowl. Both of us were already full halfway through the meal but we still polished the whole bowl because it was too good. The beef was so soft, tender and flavourful. It had a melt-in-your-mouth kinda texture. The broth was delicious. You can also add salted vegetables into your bowl and trust me, it was so tasty with or without the salted vegetable.

Oh, and you definitely have to queue for this. The queue may seem a little intimidating but it moved rather quickly so we got a table within 15 to 20mins. You can watch my video to check out the queue.

After that, we met up with the rest at Tamsui aka 淡水.

Headed to beitou aka 北投 for hot spring again. This time we booked a private room at Marshal Zen Garden 少帥禪園. It was only NT1200 for a couple for an hour. So that was only about SGD$27 per pax.

It was time to hit the club again~~~ Since it was our last night here, Daph and Javier joined us. We wanted to go back to Lava initially but changed our mind since Babe18 was nearby so why not try it. And i hereby declare, i do not like Babe18. It was soooooo crowded and the queuing system for the drinks kinda sucked.

LOL cui photo but this is the only pic i have of us in Babe18

Daph and javier even left halfway cos they buay tahan hahaha. We stayed slightly longer cos last night in TW already but it was kinda boring lah.

Day 11

The rest had a morning flight while ying and i were flying back around late afternoon instead so we sort of bided goodbye to them from our bed. The night before, ying suggested waking up early to eat the beef noodles again and i agreed enthusiastically. But when the morning came, i just snoozed my alarms all the way hahaha. We only got up around 11 in the morning and had to rush to shower, prepare and pack our luggage (check out at 12pm).

Had to give the beef noodles a miss cos we were lugging our luggage around so we headed to buy some Chia Te's bakery immediately. I actually spent close to SGD$100 there wtf. I didn't even think so much and just took whatever i wanted to buy for my family and close friends. After paying then i was like wtf did i just spend my money on? Hahahaha but the sun biscuits (太阳饼) and milk biscuits (牛奶酥) were so good so no regrets.

Lunch was at the Japanese Restaurant call Yayoi, just a few shops away from Chia Te. I suggested eating there cos there was a long queue when we walked past it haha #typicalsingaporean.

I've been eating so much over there it's not even funny. My appetite also grew so big omg. A week or two after i came back, i was constantly hungry every 2-3 hours LOL.

Taiwan, you're greatly missed by me. Such a great country with good food at affordable pricing and some of the most polite people i've ever met.