Taiwan Day 1: National University of Taiwan + Gong Guan + Shi Da Night Market
Touching down at Taoyuan Airport at about 1.00 pm, Gallen, Boon and I took the Freego bus to Rainbow Hotel, where we were to spend our next 5 nights. The trip was fairly smooth, and we only needed to drag our luggage a short distance before reaching Rainbow Hotel. We saw a couple checking in at the counter, and to our amazement, it was someone we knew! It was Eliza and her boyfriend, Francis! Gosh, talk about coincidences! I did know that Eliza was staying in this hotel and we had agreed to contact each other in Taiwan, but never did we imagine we would meet each other so easily!
After some discussion, we decided to stay together for the day. Our first trip was to go to the National University of Taiwan (near MRT Station Gongguan). We had no definite plan, but we just wanted to blend in with the University kids and simply experience some kind of University life. Ahh, for those days of youth again!
Anyway, we managed to sneak into the University without much problem. the first thing that struck us was how old the buildings looked. Used to the new and well-maintained buildings of NUS, the University sort of looked like a ghost-town, especially since there were very few students in that area and the sky was already pretty dark. I asked a couple of University students about where to get good food and they pointed us towards a stall selling chicken cutlets! Weiliang had also heard about the stall on some Taiwanese show so we queued up for a chicken cutlet.
We also passed by a lecture theatre full of students and were wondering if we had the courage to sneak in and pose as students. We didn’t in the end, mostly out of fear that the teacher would recognise that we were not students. But we had fun, looking in at the students and seeing how the students interacted with one another. It was also cool that the vendors referred to us as “students”, haha.
After a thoroughly enjoyable time at the University, we made our way to the sports shops near to the University. We had gone to these shops two years ago on our first trip and had found some wonderful bargains in the form of trendy adidas jackets with designs not found in Singapore. This time the selection of Adidas stuff was not so great, but I still managed to buy a t-shirt and really cool biker leathery-looking Puma jacket. The other guys did not really buy anything though.. only me, the jacket whore.. haha
We then went to Shi Da Night Market. By this time we were feeling rather hungry and we managed to find a little Mala Pot place where we stopped for dinner. The mala soup was pretty delicious! Quite nice that the food was v nice even though it was just some random place we stopped at! This is one of the lovely things about Taiwan.. lots of things are really delicious!
We debated about going MacDonald’s for a late night snack but in the end, we felt rather tired.. and turned in.. but not before watching lots of fun and exciting Taiwanese programmes on TV!
After some discussion, we decided to stay together for the day. Our first trip was to go to the National University of Taiwan (near MRT Station Gongguan). We had no definite plan, but we just wanted to blend in with the University kids and simply experience some kind of University life. Ahh, for those days of youth again!
Anyway, we managed to sneak into the University without much problem. the first thing that struck us was how old the buildings looked. Used to the new and well-maintained buildings of NUS, the University sort of looked like a ghost-town, especially since there were very few students in that area and the sky was already pretty dark. I asked a couple of University students about where to get good food and they pointed us towards a stall selling chicken cutlets! Weiliang had also heard about the stall on some Taiwanese show so we queued up for a chicken cutlet.
We also passed by a lecture theatre full of students and were wondering if we had the courage to sneak in and pose as students. We didn’t in the end, mostly out of fear that the teacher would recognise that we were not students. But we had fun, looking in at the students and seeing how the students interacted with one another. It was also cool that the vendors referred to us as “students”, haha.
After a thoroughly enjoyable time at the University, we made our way to the sports shops near to the University. We had gone to these shops two years ago on our first trip and had found some wonderful bargains in the form of trendy adidas jackets with designs not found in Singapore. This time the selection of Adidas stuff was not so great, but I still managed to buy a t-shirt and really cool biker leathery-looking Puma jacket. The other guys did not really buy anything though.. only me, the jacket whore.. haha
We then went to Shi Da Night Market. By this time we were feeling rather hungry and we managed to find a little Mala Pot place where we stopped for dinner. The mala soup was pretty delicious! Quite nice that the food was v nice even though it was just some random place we stopped at! This is one of the lovely things about Taiwan.. lots of things are really delicious!
We debated about going MacDonald’s for a late night snack but in the end, we felt rather tired.. and turned in.. but not before watching lots of fun and exciting Taiwanese programmes on TV!