Taipei Update 1

Wow... It's been quite a while since I updated the blog... Today's entry will be especially long... So don't bother to continue if you don't feel like trawling through someone else's travel stories... hehe

13th June 2004

The day started early at 4.30 am. The entire family had to get ready to go to the airport to catch our 8.30 am SQ flight to Taipei. We had breakfast at T2, and boarded the plane at about 8.00 am. Soon we were on our way to Taiwan!

The flight was pretty uneventful, but towards the end of the flight, I started sneezing violently and didn't stop thereafter. For some strange reason, I seem to have caught a cold of sorts. I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. Nearly non-stop all the way to the hotel. My sister had arranged for someone to pick us up from the airport in a mini-van. We were staying at Cosmos Hotel, right next to Taipei (subway) Main Station. While the rest of the family wanted to go check out the surrounding areas of the hotel, I had to stay in my hotel room to rest. I was sharing my hotel room with my cousin (my uncle's eldest daughter), who is one year younger than me. Both of us stayed in the room to sleep.

We were sound asleep when Dad woke us up with his noisy and incessant bell-pressing. We were supposed to go for dinner with my sister's parents-in-law. Taking Taipei's subway for the first time, we alighted at Zhong Zhen Ji Nian Tang stop, and walked to a pretty little restaurant with a pretty name, Shui Yun Jian (Water Clouds Stream). The restaurant was painted and decorated a warm, cosy blue, and it had little water fountains inside the dining area. I was still a little groggy from the flu medicine I had taken earlier, so dinner passed by in a blurr. In fact, I was so groggy, I misread the name of the restaurant as Shui Yun Dong, and made such a boo-boo. Well, blame it on my bad Chinese... =)

After dinner, we parted ways with the in-laws, and walked down Zhong Xiao Dong Lu (yes! it's the famous road from one of Power Station's songs). We shopped a little, but had to go off since the guys (consisting of my dad, brother and brother-in-law) were getting a tad impatient. So we made our way back to Cosmos, and settled in for the night.

14th June 2004

Rise and shine, and it was time to go "visit" Chiang Kai-shek at the S.Y.S. Memorial Hall. It's basically a museum commemorating Chiang's contributions to Taiwan. We saw Chiang's cars (two Cadillacs) and for the first time, I saw the original Sun Yat-sen suit. It was really THE Zhong-Shan zhuang, cos it was worn by none other than the man himself. We also saw a change of guards-of-honour, and it was promptly noted that they marched in a rather sissy way, haha, rather different from what we are used to seeing at NDP. oh well...

After the museum trip, we all went for lunch at a Teochew porridge kind of restaurant. Along the way, we saw a roadside stall peddling bags. (We had some really good buys there, heh.) Taipei City is full of such hawkers peddling bags, clothes, accessories, little trinkets, etc. The policemen don't really bother to catch anyone. Often, you see the policemen on their little scooters, just standing in front of the hawkers, watching as the hawkers hurriedly pack their wares and hide them behind some bushes, only to take the goods out again after the policemen have left. Haha, I bet you wouldn't ever see this sort of thing happening in Singapore, not out in the open at least.

Next up was Taipei 101, potentially the highest building in Asia, beating even the Petronas Towers. We couldn't go up since it's not quite completed. The shopping mall has been completed though, so the girls went crazy. haha, enuff said. Anyway, the interesting bit about Taipei 101 is that the tower is made up of 8 layers, in line with the Chinese idiom, "Cai Gao Ba Dou," which is basically used to describe a person with many talents. Perhaps, the point of Taipei 101 is to illustrate the fact that Taiwan has many talented people.

At night, we went to the famous Shilin night market, which reminded me of Lau Pa Sat, only Lau Pa Sat is way cleaner. There were loads of stalls selling Taiwanese snacks, including Guan Cai Ban (fried bread with various fillings), Or A Jian (Hao Jian or oysters fried with egg), and their famous fermented beancurd. I totally love fermented beancurd! It smells bad, I have to admit, but it tastes really good. =) We also bought socks that cost 6 pairs for NT$100! That works out to slightly less than a dollar per pair, way cool...

Loads of food, drinks and pairs of new socks later, we trooped back to the hotel, completely exhausted....And it's on to a new day...
________________________________________________________________________________________

We'll stop at Day Two for today's update. Do stay tuned for more!!!!

*Music fades in*

Proudly brought to you by Channel News Junlin =) keke...