Taipei May-hem (Day 3)
7 am waking up in the morning
Seein' everything the time is goin'
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends
Kickin' in the back seat, sittin' in the front seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take? (it's obvious)
On the third day, we were a little worn out from all the playing, had returned from karaoke at 4 am in the morning, but still managed somehow to drag ourselves to the theme park. Only problem was that it was an hour and thirty minutes bus ride away.
In the end, we gave up and decided to hire a cab. (the cab drivers here tout very openly and approach you when they find that you are a tourist) Not such a bad choice, but quite costly. But the upside was that we got to sleep through the journey there. The cab driver was also pretty nice, we had a good chat with him about Taiwan and touring areas. Apparently the people here are generally quite surprised that we decided to travel on our own, I think travelling without a tour guide is pretty uncommon amongst the teens here. He recommended to take us to a tea house after the theme park before bringing us to the night market for a package price and we agreed! Cabs in Taiwan aren't particularly expensive or anything, but when everything adds up, it amounts to quite a bit.
When we woke, the cab driver dropped us off at a convenience store where we stocked up on gum and other supplies. After that, we were tempted to try the beef cup noodles again, so we all bought some and ate it at 7-11. Over there in the convenience stores, they have areas for sitting, ostensibly for working-class people with no time to have a proper meal, so you see people in working suits sitting at 7-11 slurping on noodles as fast as they can. Though I must say the working culture cannot compare to Singapore's, they take things at a slower pace than us.
Crazy-ass beef noodles with real beef cubes inside (Sandra shipped an entire carton back)
After the short respite, we reembarked on the trip to the themepark, energized by the meal we had
Pretty psyched when we saw the gates
It was a weekday, so not many people were actually at the themepark except for maybe a couple of tourists (mainly from PRC, but haha a tourist is a tourist) From the adverts it seemed like they got JJ Lin to advertise for them as well
The weather was exceptionally fine that day!
Look at my horse
My horse is amazing.
Hey, twins!
Apparently, the theme of the themepark was Spongebob-based, but all we could find were wallpaintings and statues of Spongebob characters. Strange, no costumed characters around or anything, but the themepark was pretty cool, it was divvied up into different segments, the obligatory Wild Wild West area, a Mayan/Dinosaur area, an Arabian-Aladdin (which notably, used soundtracks from Aladdin - did they have the copyright for this? :P) area, and a wild zoo animal area.
Our first stop was to the Screaming Condor. May and Elise sat out of this one, so I ended up having to scream my ass off alone. It was a kind of rollercoaster, except your legs were dangling as it sped through a hellhole pendulum which twisted sideways on one end and suspended you midair on another. Quite obviously I have no shots of those, but rest assured, it was a pretty damn exciting ride. Before that we sat on a river rapids kind of ride, and everyone was quite pleased on staying relatively dry and dodging all the water streams that came our way.... until we realised there was a waterfall area at the very end, which dashed our hopes of staying dry
Crazy-ass river raft ride that got all of us wet
Crazy-ass Screaming Condor that almost got all of us wet (heheh)
After that, in the interest of the not-so-adventurous, we headed over to the milder rides. The Condor was the most exciting ride we took, the rest were mostly a walk in the park.
Spinny-barrel ride!
What is this pristine object of beauty doing in my barrel?!
EXCEPT THIS SPINNY RIDE.
WTF THIS SPINNY THING JUST FLIPS YOU LIKE A MILKSHAKE
I was making the face of a warrior, but you couldn't see it.
This wasn't so exciting, but it was ridiculously dizzifying. Was holding on to my handphone in my pocket half the time because the whole thing was just spinning around so wildly that I was almost sure that my phone would drop to its certain death on the hard concrete below. Fortunately it survived the ordeal and we walked out of the ride with slightly frazzled nerves.
Then we went to the Viking Ship, because what's an amusement park without a viking ship?!?!
Viking ship! These wusses sat in the middle!
While Kacey and I sat on the very top! She is damn gutsy lah I have to say
Might get splashed from behind if the weren't too careful
We visited the dinosaur area briefly (they were very briefly painted and the girls had absolutely no interest in
AWESOMEOSAURUS REX
So we headed over to the Arabian area where Kacey sat alone on some crazy loop the loop coaster that just wouldn't stop spinning around in circles. To avert our eyes from this disaster, May suggested that we ride ponies instead.
Poniezzz
Le tired of typing, so I'll do a partial post first and edit it later :P
K resuming (these entries are so long :o)
After the ponies, we went to a pseudo-haunted house kind of ride, where they brought us into the tombs of a dead sultan, which somehow ended up throwing us into a gunfight with grenades, ending up with a trip to hell with heaps of serpents. IT was bizarre to say the least, and didn't make any sense, but the lights were generally kind of nifty and such.
We didn't really stay around in that part of the theme park all that much because that's when it became afternoonish and the whole world started to stream in, making that particular area pretty crowded. What we opted for instead was an early trip to the animal place. Did I mention that there were absolutely no drink stands through the whole trip? It was pretty torturous because we were all really thirsty after screaming through the rides. Only managed to grab some drinks at a stand near the entrance after we backtracked all the way. Anyway, the whole trail was on a train, but it was really the slowest train on the planet, maybe to cater for people who wanted to take volumes and volumes of photographs. One thing that was pretty cool was that we were really close to the animals! Like ridiculously close, felt a bit scared actually when the train went past the rhinos because srsly, they were a little too close for comfort, will let photos speak for themselves
Evil Flamingos of Doom
On the safari train, which drove at a ridiculously slow pace
Stuff be hip, yo
We were really close to the rhinos wtf, if they'd charged we would have died
This rhinoceros emo only.
Like a boss.
We were really really close to the giraffes! Damn cool!
Haha whuttt
Polly want a cracker :D
And then after that we went on the monkey trail! It was pretty cool because we were above the whole enclosure and looking downwards while we cycled on a skycycle. Pretty awesome, but the evil people behind me kept asking me to go faster, so I couldn't stop and take many photographs. Thanks Elise and stonerxd!
The Lone Monkey stops for no one.
Tiger tiger burning bright, in the forest of the night
I cycled alone :(
After we finished playing almost all the rides, we went back to the central area, and was just in time to watch the musical fountain playing to "Dancing in the Rain". A lovely moment!
After that we headed to the souvenir store to buy things for friends/colleagues :)
Look at these notepads! (I bought the shark one)
After we headed out of the themepark, the taxi driver drove us to a teahouse, which is Sandra's favourite place in the world. We sat there and drank tea, the owners of the teahouse were very hospitable and gave us heaps of things to eat/drink. There was premium tea, tea eggs and some homegrown seed-things that they were promoting. Sat there and chatted about travelling, working conditions in Taiwan/Singapore and once again they expressed surprise at how bold teenagers were getting with travel nowadays. Everyone seemed to think we were from a tour group :P
The tea was pretty good! The rest bought a couple tins' worth
Can't read this but it's pretty cool
Inceptiphoto
I like the roads in the evening!
After that, we all fell asleep in the cab as the driver brought us to ShiDaYeShi, which was supposedly the trendiest place to be, because it was situated near the Taipei University. Well, it was pretty alright and the crowd was kind of young! So I guess it was their idea of a "hip" place to be. Shopped like crazy again, just walked from store to store to store. If I'm not wrong, this was the day we went to the ATM to draw cash for the second time (we really blew our budget this trip)
More nightmarket stuff, I prefer the night air to the shopping though
At the ShiDaYeShi :)
People aplenty! Damn crowded and a lot of couples holding hands ^^
By the time we hit back home, we were le tired and really exhausted from all the walking. Day 4 would be our sightseeing day at DanShui :D
Ugh typing these entries take such a long time, but reminiscent as well. I really miss Taiwan :((((