We are still in the second day of our Taiwan trip, although there are many posts already. The main reason why i am dividing into so many posts is to spilt up the different emphasis of the place, and hopefully it will be more organised and not so messy. I would say Parkview Hotel is the second best hotel in our eight days trip, the best being Grand Hyatt in Taipei. Its a five-star hotel after all. Hahaha! So cool right, get to stay in five stars hotel. OMG, i am loving every moment of it : )

Going up the room, i charged my Ixus for a while and tuning in to the tv many-many channels before going downstairs to the restaurant to have our buffet dinner (its included in the tour package)
Desserts

All the desserts together (or rather the ones that i fancy)

Taa-daa!! the combinations of all the meat available

After the very full dinner, donald and me went hotel-exploring, the pool was very nice no one somemore, but no mood to go swimming. Then there is this recreation centre which has pool, rock wall, gym and other facilites for the hotel members to use. This is the end of day two in Taiwan. Tomorrow, we will travel to Gao Xiong, which is the second largest port in Taiwan where we see their attractions like the 85 Business tower, the love river, and also take ferry to the small island Qi Jing which is just beside Gao Xiong. Catch the next post soon!

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel ” When i go on travel, i do not think whether it is nice or not, when i finish my travel and enjoy it, it is nice “

Okey Dokey, lets head off from where we lefted at the last post. After finishing our shopping in ??, we head off to our next destination, Yilan ?? to have lunch. The journey was about one and half hour ride, the weather was rainy which was really a pity because along the way to ??, the coastal view was really quite a sight.

 
One of the view of the sea, and oh ya, this directions faces America

The place was at north-east of taiwan, so if you swim across the sea, you will somehow reach The States? LOL! Halfway we stopped at a rest point to relieve ourselves. There are far and few rest points along the way because the road was rather narrow and by-the-sea.

After a one half hour ride we finally arrive in ??, a city by the sea, which will explain later why we are going to the Mazu temple ??? later. But lunch first! Ha! The highlight of today’s lunch was lobster meal ????. But sadly, it fails to live up the expectations.

The lobster that does’nt delivers

The lobster was nothing nice, bearly can find any lobster meal, and the meal was very dried does not really taste like lobster? But o well, what can you expect when it is catered meal provided by the tour.

I’ll just show some of the pictures, cos the rest is just normal dishes like vegies and all that stuff nothing too special. But although not nice, at least got ????? : P

Next, we head off to Mazu temple ??? which was very famous in ??, a must visit place when you come here i guess? Anyway, for those who do not know what is Mazu, Mazu is the taoist goddness of the sea who protects fisherman and sailors, and is revered as the patron saint who protects East Asians who are associated with the ocean.

Do you know?
Taiwan is the world’s largest productor of luxury yatchs, but most are exported to other countries and not many remains in the country.

Magnificant view’

Ending our visit at Mazu temple, we head on to a place called Tai Lu Ge, its a valley actually. We stopped there for 15mins, there is a cafe which sells coffee and the coffee is not exactly cheap, 7 bucks for one coffee. But it came with a compliment piece of cake.

We only stayed 15mins at the beautiful Tai Lu Ge because we need to rush to Nan Dao culture theatre to see show. The performance is by the ???, or the Taiwan aborigines who are the indigenous people of Taiwan. The performance was about half an hour if i did not remember wrongly, and after that, they also invite the viewers to go down and join them in games, their ??? dance and culture stuff. Pretty much like the stuff u see on ????? when they went to the ??? area.

 did not take much pictures of the performance because by then my Ixus battery was running low. After the show we went to our hotel for the night, Parkview Hotel. Hualian was very much close by, so after a short while we enter into Hualian. The building of the hotel itself was very obvious even before we reached it because there is not much high-rise buildings in Hualian. Thats all for this post, watch out the next post where we are going to have a scrumptious buffet dinner at Parkview Hotel

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” I eat, i travel, i blog “

17th Sep 2007

Second day in Taiwan already, today morning wake up and the beautiful golf course range greets me as i step outside. The hotel restaurant is in a separate building with the hotel rooms, so i took a stroll around the golf range before going for breakfast.

Okay, the picture of the breakfast doesn’t looks appealing and its the truth. One thing that i dislike about going on a group tour is that the meals they provide usually aren’t good. I understand the tour groups have to make profit, so obviously they can’t be giving you good meals everyday, but still, i don’t like it : )

The only spark in the breakfast for the group tour in China and Taiwan is that both countries have really good soft rice. Their rice and porridge taste really very delicious, its totally from the Thailand rice that we have in Singapore.

The view from top of Jiufen 

After the driver pack our lugguage onto the bus(we’ll be doing this everyday), we proceed on after breakfast to Jiufen ??, a small town on the top of mountain. A half an hour journey ride, not very far. After breakfast everyone focus on hiberating. LOL! The picture isn’t very clear cos its drizzling, what a shame. Jiufen ?? is famous for four things, ???, Ma chi, Long yan gan ???, and fruit pudding ??

We visit the Jiufen street, a very long street with many small shops selling food. 

???

Mayday ??’s shop!! Hahaha, just kidding : ) The shop sells a lot of different local product ??, with the most famous being ??? and its puddings ??. Its Ma chi also taste very nice, lots of samples around. hahaha! mango pudding ??!! very nice, cost 180 NTW for 6 per pack 

One thing about Taiwan is, it got really a lot a lot convience store around, besides 7-11, they also got other shops all same as 7-11, and their one very special, besides selling the normal things a 7-11 in Singapore will sell, upon stepping inside, you can smell tea-leave egg ???, almost everyshop sells ???. They also sell a lot funny funny stuff which Singapore’s one don’t sell. And the bread they sell is very nice, a lot variety to choose from, all made in Japan.

After about 1 hour plus, we finish our shopping in ??, a really special place which i will want to go back and take a look again next time. We head off to our next destination, Yilan ?? to have lunch, then to Hua lian ??, the route from ?? to ?? to ??  is basically around the coastal route of the north part of Taiwan to the east of Taiwan, long way to go. So tune in for the next post.

For all the pictures, please go to ladyirontravel

” Travelling gives you knowledge, experience where u can’t gain from a book ”

16th Sep 2007 

Alas, the long-awaited post on my recent trip to Taiwan during block leave. Lets see, the air-carrier was Eva Air (taiwan airline), and the flight was at 140pm, a rough 5 hours flight. The main cities that we are going to see the next few days are as follows: Taoyuen, Hualien, Gao Xiong, Tai Zhong, and Taipei. Of cos this is not including some of the places that we will brief through or pass by, like Jiu Fen, Yilan, Tainan, Jiayi and a few others. The few days tour of Taiwan is virtually driving along the costal route of Taiwan, from the north to the east, then to the south, to the west before returning to the north at Taipei.

Around 630pm, we reach Taoyuen International airport, due to some crop-up between the Singapore tour agency side and the taiwan side (long story), we only left the airport at around 730pm. Anyway, first night nothing much to do, the tour guide explained that Taoyuen do not have much things to view (something more like a kampong area), don’t have night market, and also cos of the long flight we had been on, so he just stop at one of the street along the way for us to grab some light dinner.

 
Store selling all sorts of fried stuff by the road

Here, we had our first taste of the Taiwan ??!! We brought it from one of the store selling all sorts of fried stuff by the road, at first we were kind of dumb, cos we didn’t know the thing works; how to buy food from the store, so we just stand by the side and see what the locals do. You just need to use a basket and pick up all the food you wanted, put it inside and hand over to the store-owner, then she will fried the food and put all the spices and sauce on it.

?? 

The chicken might not look appealing here, but i swear to God, its one of the best ?? i ever eaten, nothing in Singapore beats this man. And for this size of the chicken how much u guess it cost? SGD$4? No! $5? No! Its only 2 bucks!! You get what they mean when they say the best ?? can be found in Taiwan only. Whats so good with the chicken is actually their spice, after deep-frying the chicken, they use a combi of spices, i think got chili, pepper and some others. The spices make the chicken taste really awesome!! Oh ya, this is the first of the many ?? we eat in Taiwan, so look out for the rest. By the way for those who don’t know, the currency exchange rate is about SGD $1 for $21.3 Taiwan money (TWD).

 
One of the sticks they sell, don’t know what is it though

Yaward Hotel is actually a golf-course hotel for golf players. Anyway the room was quite okay, and the place was very beautiful, look out for the photos that i will be taking in the next post. And that marks the end of our first day, nothing much cos it was not meant to be a day anyway, as in the itinerary has nothing planned for us on this day. And one more thing, Taiwan Television is really power!! I meant it, over 100 channels, we switch channels until hand pain. lol! Some of the channels we also can see in Singapore one, like GTV (which alone has three channels; variety, drama and 1st channel), TVBS network (news, entertainment, variety, asia). A lot man, serious, go Taiwan just go there watch TV don’t go out can already : )

For all the pictures, pls go to ladyirontravel

“ Nothing beats going on a trip with your loved ones ”  

Ajisen Ramen, “The best Ramen in Singapore”, or so they claimed. Started in November 1997, Ajisen opened the first Ramen shop at Bugis Junction. Ajisen Ramen is now the largest Ramen chain in Singapore, with a total of 12 outlets in Singapore in these 9 years.

“ There is something peculiar about Ajisen Ramen and it’s all in the soup. Their Ramen’s Tonkotsu soup can help to prevent aging!

The Japanese Society of Nutrition & Food Science announced in a general meeting, “The intake of collagen contained in the bones and cartilage, etc prevents aging.” Collagen is a protein, mainly found in the skin, tendon, bone, cartilage and other connective tissues. This protein is the essence of life because it easily makes up one third of the 60 trillion body cells. And our Tonkotsu soup has lots of collagen!

What is health without taste? A feature of Kumamoto Ramen is Senmiyu; a rich brown sauce that accompanies the fair Tonkotsu soup. Our unique culinary methods ensure that all the flavors are sealed into the sauce. In fact, Ajisen guarantee that your taste-buds will be bowled over by their Tonkotsu/Senmiyu combination! “

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Happy birthday to Arnold, my good buddy in 6SIR. hahaha

Yest went with my other good buddies, Eugene and Nic to attend Arnold’s “party” at his home.

“ Acquaintance come and go, but good friends will always be there for you “ 

After lunch went to Borders and finally got the book “The Warren Buffet way”. My investment idol is Warren Buffet, the self-made billionaire who owns Berkshire Hathway. Then went to Lido and watch Resident Evil. Totally broked. Pardon me for not writing the posts on my Taiwan trip yet. Its coming out soon, lots of things to share : )

Lunch @ Big O with Tay xuan. Had cravings for cake, but in the end never ordered any cos pocket was a bit tight. hahaha! We went to the place at around 1230pm, not much people even though it was a sunday, and i wonder why (the last time i passed by Big O it was quite crowded)

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