Following the scenaries at Yeliu, it is about 5pm when we start to literally head up to Yangmingshan ???, its a high mountain after all. By now everyone is feeling sweaty from the walk at Yeliu, a hot spring bath is just needly on time.

The hotspring we are going to is a 5star hot spring hotel. Hear hear! The hot spring is divided into two different parts, one outdoor which also means swimming costume one, and another indoor which also means nake hot spring. Hahaha! Anyway all of us went to the outdoor one, so i don’t know how the indoor one is like. At this point of time onwards, no pictures are shown on the hotspring, why? because they don’t allow camera. Duh! Besides how do u bring camera in when you are having a hotspring bath? Gee!

Entering into the hotel, oh my god! Its so posh and nice. How i wish we can stay there for the night, but no its not on the iterniery. The guide bring us to the changing room, there we change and go to the outdoor hotspring. The hotspring got many different type of water;

• Fruit (warm)
• Coffee (warm)
• Rose (warm)
• Green Tea (cold)
• Cold Spring
• Spring Bamboo Charcoal (cold)
• And also 4 normal water spring (temperature ranging)

Shoik right? Thats not all, i particularly like one place where you can lie down and got strong water bursting down from the top and massage you. I can lie there all day and sleep. Ha! There is also a lover’s pool for couples. One of the normal spring is super hot, even with the leg in only you cannot take it. But i did go down with the whole body to experience the hotspring!

Hotspring is really very good, and relaxes the body. We should go for hotspring often, but there isn’t any in Singapore. Taiwan and Japan! Hahahaha! When the time’s up, all of us don’t want to get up and leave the place, but then dinner’s calling, and its at Shilin night market!!!

By the time all of us is up and done, its around 7pm already, all feeling hungry, and it’s gonna take another 1 hour before we can reach Taipei city, and go to Shilin. Worse thing is, after we exit the changing room and come out, we pass by the hotel restaurant, and my godness, their buffet dinner looks heavenly. Ther have the outdoor BBQ, and also indoor there is plenty of food selection. Just looking at the desserts and cakes makes me feel so yummy. And oh ya, the buffet cost S$40 per person, but even if we wan to pay for the buffet, we can’t.

Taa-daa! Thats the end of the hotspring at Yangmingshan. We are going to take a 1 hour ride to Taipei, where we are going to visit the fame Shilin night market.

And ya, YOU! Yes you! Why are you always looking at my post, but not posting any comments?!? Leave some comment! You hear me? Leave comments, good or bad i don’t care : )

For the full post please go to ladyirontravel

” Cakes delightfully sinful “

From our last stop at the ling zhi shop, we’re on the way back to Taipei, but before that, we go to a place called Ye liu which is by the sea with a magnificent view of the rock formation formed over many many years. The entrance fee was 209 TWD, which comes to about S$10, i must say the ticket price is a steal when the view is priceless.

Took a lot of wonderful pictures, but not able to display all due to space constraint. Pictures really doesn’t do the view justice, its diff to imagine how beautiful the place is just by looking at the pictures. I urge all who are going to Taiwan to go to Ye liu and take a look at the magnificent scenaries there.

The next post. we will be going up the famous Yang Ming Shan ???, for our hot spring bath. Ta-ta

To see the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The magnificent scenaries are priceless, for everything else there is Mastercard “

Early in the morning after having breakfast in the hotel, we proceed on to our next destination. The journey took a while, we pass by Miaoli to Xinzhu, stopped at a rest point before we arrived at Ying Ge Pottery. There, we see many diff type of pottery, but its really boring stuff. Yawn!

After which, we went to Shengkan Tofu Street (a stone throw from Ying Ge pottery), which is also the main focus of this post.  The Tofu street is quite a long street selling all sorts of ??, and like the name implies, its a Tofu street, so there are lots of Tofu products here.  

The start of the Tofu Street

One thing i really hate about Taiwan is that they do not have rubbish bins around. No kidding, in Singapore every few steps you walk there will be a rubbish bin, but in Taiwan, you can walk a few street without finding one bin. Anyway, thats the Taiwan Govt policy, they wanted the people to reduce the amount of waste, so they encourage people to bring out their own thrash bag, This bin is for tourists only. Hahaha

We went for lunch after finishing with Tofu Street, nothing special about lunch. Following that, the guide brought us to a shop where they sell rare chinese herbs, and a magical creature call Tian Lu or Qi Ling (they called it in China)

After that, they introduce us to Tian lu, or another name call Qi ling. People who have been to China or Taiwan confirm have been introduced to this stuff. Its actually a magical creature in Chinese, which are believe are blessed their owners and bring them health, wealth, luck. Anyway, one Tian Lu the size of your palm would have cost a few thousand SGD. Not interested, so we scram off very fast : )

The next post we will go to Ye Liu, the most beautiful place we are going to see in our Taiwan trip. So watch out for it.

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see “

Ah-ha! The much-anticipated part of Taiwan, the night market ??! You can’t say you have been to Taiwan if you haven’t been to their ?? can you? Hahaha! We are at Fengjia ?? now, the night market is just beside Fengjia University, so lots of uni-students around.

Lets go through the food shan’t we? First on the list goes to: Pig’s blood!! I never try it though, its not something for the light-hearted, not feeling adventurous enough : )

This ought to be the best reward for tonight. ?B store might sounds a bit crude, but the idea they sell are not at all. Picture this, a stick of seven piece of different fruits, frozen and dripped in flavours of either cheese, honey, chocolate, or suan-mei fen ???.

Taa-daa!!

The wrapper is also a bit budget though, but i think this idea of packaging fruits this way is quite unique and fresh. Anyone seen this type of fruits sold in Singapore? Leave your comments okay? thanks

This, is another “find” of the night. The store looks ordinary, even to the extent isolated. Its located at a corner of a side street, nobody takes a look at the store, nobody buys anything from it. But i did. Being the curious me, always on the lookout for something special. And i decided to give the store a chance, when nobody does. Lets see, the store sells hand-roll salad which comes with many diff form, like vegies, ham, tuna, pork culet, chicken, steak. And they also have many type of sandwiches. I had the vegies fruit salad hand-roll.

The result!! Its actually some sort of popiah skin, inside wrapped with vegies fruit salad, the owner put many diff type of ingredient inside which i forgot, but one thing she put that makes it taste special is peanuts. Somehow, when i took the first bite, the taste is nicer than the looks.

After that, we went back to the meeting point to gather, and head back to the hotel. First night market, more to come! The hotel we stay tonight looks very old on the outside, its a biz hotel, which means it caters to bizman who want bigger room, wireless internet connection. We got a shock when we went in the room, when we open the door, there was two bed. Normal, but when we turn around, we saw another two beds, thats like four beds in one bedroom for two of us? You get the point now? So its one of the surprise we got, although it might not look good outside, but its definitely good in the inside.

But i think the main problem with people is that they go for food that taste nice rather than food that is good for them. ??, ????? which of this food are healthy? But why do people still go for them i ask myself, because they taste nice. Food like salad and fruits are healthy and good for us, but do people actually buy them to eat instead of junk food? No

Next post we will finally go back to Taipei, but before that we will pass by Miaoli to Xinzhu, and go to Sheng Kan to visit the Tofu street, before heading to Ye Liu which is the most beautiful place we see in this Taiwan trip. After which we will head to Yang ming shan for our hot spring, before going back to Taipei. Plenty to share, watch this space!

Lots of pictures to see really, please go to ladyirontravel to see all the photos

” The food treats the heart and soul “

Introducing . . . Yasubooks!!

You most probably might not have heard of Yasubooks yet, because it just launched a few days ago! Yasubooks is a website based in Singapore, which provides readers with unbelievable low-priced books (really lower price compare with bookstores). All the books are books which can be found in the local bookstores like Borders, Times etc. With the same quality of books at a lower price, what are you waiting for? Grab yr books @ Yasubooks today!

Payment methods are by Credit cards, Debit cards, Paypal, Intenet banking, ATM transfer and cheques.

Yasubooks are having a promotion right now, FREE shipping fee for purchase of ANY books !! Delivery is by Singpost or courier. And the delivery time is usually within 6-9 working days.

Rest assure it is totally safe, reliable to buy books from Yasubooks, because i know the owner. I am looking to get a few titles from Yasubooks. Cheers!

Sorry for the slow delay in posting my Taiwan trip, everyweek booking out on Sat afternoon and going back on Sun night, and besides the updating of ladyironchef, i also need to do my stock research, go out with friends and watch drama shows.

Thus, the remaining Taiwan trip posts will be postpone until a bit later, meanwhile, do also look out for my up & coming posts on some of the restaurants i went for the past few weeks but haven updated yet, this includes the following; Secret Recipe, Ivins, Daily Scoop, and Hooked!

Recent buys: i got a shirt and skinny tie from topman, pondering over the hat from Zara, and oh ya, i need to get a external hard-drive soon (not enough memory).

Ladyironchef

After a superb lunch at Tainan Sutou restaurant, we carry on our advanture to Ri Yue Tai, sun moon lake with quite a lot attractions around it. We went to visit this temple, don’t start yawning dude. See see the nice view from the temple. 

Map of Ri Yue Tai

 
We are quite close to paradise aren’t we?

See picture at ladyirontravel for the next surprise:  ????

Taiwan very own Bing Lang Xi Shi ????! The tour guide knows this ????, so he invited her to come abroad our bus for a photo-taking session. See no touch, and only woman gets to photo with her.  Just in case some don’t know what they do, the woman basically sit at a stall by the road side, wearing very little (bikini), and sell Bing Lang ?? (a kind of fruit? something like chewing gum) to man who wants to buy from them. Of cos there also also stores manned by uncle and auntie selling Bing Lang, and the price is much much lower. Tour bus drivers usually buy from them instead because of the much much cheaper price.

The Bing Lang sell by ???? is one for one dollar (if i nv rmb wrongly), while the one not sell by them cost one bing lang for ten cents twenty cents? There u have it! Thats the reason why they are being paid SGD $3k a month just for sitting there to sell Bing Lang. Thats just a job, nothing really disgraceful, but then again there are ???? who provide extra you-know-what also.

Leaving Ri Yue Tai, we arrive in Taizhong around 6pm. We went for a dinner at a restaurant which is open by one of the tour guide’s wife. Good business idea right, husband tour guide bring tourist, den wife open restaurant for husband bring over. The food variety for the buffet is really pathetic.

But den again i couldn’t care less, you know why? Because we are in Taizhong Feng Jia night market!! Why eat this food when there is plenty of taiwan snacks waiting for us around the corner? So we hurriedly finish our dinner and went out of the place. Given 3 hours to shop around the night market : )

I decided to stop here, partly because not enough time already, and also because the next post about Feng Jia night market will be super long, lots of things to share and tell. Exciting!! But the next post will be out later, nowadays very busy hardly got time to blog.

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” Anything and everything can be found in Taiwan’s night market “

19 Sep 2007

Entering day 4 of our trip, we are in Kaohsiung now. We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant as usual, but today’s breakfast is rather lousy, first of all, its a buffet, but they only give us one plate, one bowl (for porridge), one pair of chopstick and one spoon. The plate and bowl have to re-use.

When you encounter problems like this, the tip is: take more of those food you find acceptable. lol!

After breakfast, we proceed on to Mei Jia Nong Shu Chun, a Hakka Village. The places showcast the Hakka culture, from the stuff they use, to the food they eat.

Arhh.. the highlight of this post, our lunch! Be warned, this is not a ordinary lunch, neither is the place ordinary. This ‘Wu Jiao’ restaurant is one a kind, never-seen-before, extraordinary place. The theme? The entire structure or building pillar is designed using tree logs! Cool right? All right then, take a peek inside! 

Taa-daa!! Does it looks more like a greenhouse than a restaurant to u?

Chicken

Cant remember whats this

The ordinary yet delicious sweet sour pork is extraordinary here

Cod fish which is super nice

Prawn

Hmm.. the meal taste superb! But is it really the chef cook so well? Mayb not, because the environment surroundings, plus the excellent presentation of food on specially-designed plates (by the boss herself) makes the food look food, resulting in you feel hungry, which in turns makes the food taste well. But lets not care whether the food taste good or not, kudos to the boss who make this place happen, who spend effort in designing up the place, and even carving the design for the utensiles.

After we finish our meal, we head up to the second level for some exploration. Gee! When we go the place not very crowded, so the second level is not used. But nice place really.

The end of this special meal marks the end of this post. The next post we will be going to Ri Yue Tai, and at night we will stay in Tai zhong, where we will visit Feng jia ??. Stay tuned!!

For the full post, please go to ladyirontravel

” Presentations make the food, the food make us “