taiwan day 1,2 and half of day 3
hellos im finally blogging about my taiwan trip.
been back for more than a week already and school have already started for a week.
honestly, im really lazy to upload all the pics here and have a full blog post. but i decided that i shldnt be lazy.
i didnt blog for previous hk or kuching trip. and kind of regretted. so this time, i shall not be a lazy girl and blog about my 8 full days 8 full nights stay in taiwan!
here you go!
we reached taipei at around 7 plus at night so basically we didnt plan much for the first day.
took the freego bus and the journey is around 45 mins from the airport to the hotel.
check in to our hotel and my sis keep insisting that she wants to eat ah zhong mee sua at XMD first.
so we walked down across the road to XMD and have a bowl of ah zhong mee sua.
i think the mee sua is nice with the sauce. but thn im not a pork intestines lover so basically i don really like the taste of the intestines.
thereafter, we took a train to jiantan to shihlin night market.
the chicken chop queue is damn long cos it's a saturday. but they're v efficient so we didnt have to wait v long.
and basically the size of it is huge. we couldnt finish the 2 pieces that we bought so it's pretty wasted.
we shopped ard the streets of shihlin and the crowd is just crazy cos it's on a saturday.
it's so packed i can hardly stop to see much stuffs.
in fact, i can hardly walk. it's just as bad as the chinatown during the cny period here.
shopped ard for a while until i couldnt stand the sweat and crowd.
it's quite late so we went back to our hotel to rest.
for day 2, we took the high speed rail (HSR) from taipei to Chiayi. it's ard 1 and 1/2 hours.
i couldnt really get to slp the day before so i kind of max the trip by sleeping on the HSR.
when we finally reached chiayi, we had to take a shuttle bus to the old train station. that's the place we can take the alishan forest railway train.
the uncle on the shuttle bus is so cute la.
we asked him abt the directions so he chit chatted with us.
and asked us where we're from.
and when we're about to alight, he took out his digi cam and ask us to pose for a pic. HAHA.
the old train station is not v near the stop where we alighted.
so we had to walk there and the sun is just................ damn hot!
i was already sweating like siao becos im carrying a 7 to 8 kg backpack!
collected our ticks and went into the station.
i was damn excited when i see the super old school train!
everyone is fighting for a space to take a pic in front of the train. took a few polaroids as well. you can find it on my fb!
i was telling my sis how excited and fun it was to sit on the train.
basically the train is already 90 years old.
it's built by the japanese during jap occupation to transport raw materials down from alishan!
they even played songs by teresa teng on the way.
i was v happy with the ride UNTIL we were asked to get down from the train.
they're repairing the roads there so we had to get down from this train and trek for 500m and board this other train.
i thought 500m is nothing becos it's only 1 and a quarter round the stadium.
but im so wrong because the roads are rather steep. it's like forest trekking.
and there's alot of steps to climb. plus, the burden on my back. by the time i reached the other side to board the train, im already sweating like siao. like water dripping down my face and neck. (okay gross)
im quite thankful that im still young and able.
cos there's this old ah ma and ah gong i saw along the way.
they're trying v hard to climb up even with the help of their daughters.
and the worst thing is that they're just at the start of the trail i cannot imagine how they can get to the end.
i think it's quite irresponsible of the train system management becos they nvr inform us of this.
and it's not a good idea at all for old people to trek like that. they shld have warned them or stop them in the first place la.
and the journey continue for another 2 hours or so.
i zzzzzz for most of the time cos im v tired already.
finally, we reached the fenqihu stop and alighted from there.
i think it's already 2+ when we reached there so im damn hungry cos i only had 2 buns, 2 eggs and tea early in the morn.
i was super happy when that i can eat the train bian dang
and yupp, this is the bian dang!
they sell it on the train as well so that people can get some food.
i mean, the whole journey lasted around 5+ hours up to alishan. im glad we did stop by if not my butt will b numb by then!
and the weather there is finally cooler as compared to taipei and chiayi.
after lunch, we walked around the old streets of fenqihu. it's so crowded because it's a sunday i think.
there's alot of taiwanese people and i hardly see much of tourists. mostly people from taiwan, and a couple from hk as well.
so all the shop sellers thought we're from HK.
the street sells alot of food stuffs but some of them look pretty exotic so i gave it a miss.
i ate this ice cream wrapped in popiah skin thou and it's quite yummy!
bought train cookies from this famous shop with alot of celebraties like jacky wu and i saw tay ping hui's pic as well.
couldnt really stop by for long because the street is quite narrow and i feel like im destructing people's way cos of my heavy backpack!
fenqihu is just a stop over so we took the train an hour later and continued our journey to alishan.
i slept on the train and it's pretty uncomfortable cos i did not have anything to lean on.
i just keep nodding my head to and fro and it gives me neckaches :(
the train ride is quite interesting cos the trains moves in a forward backward direction.
hard to explain but then it's pretty cool.
so finally we reached alishan station!
checked in to our minsu and had our dinner at this random restaurant that the minsu person recommended.
it's steamboat with 3 other side veggie i think.
the food is pretty :S. mayb cos we're not used to the freshness and wildness of it.
i can picture myself in the forest just by eating the veggie. (okay kuazhang)
we had an early night because we have to wake up super early the next morning.
they gave us a morning call at 3.40am because we joined a tour to see the sunrise the next morning.
it's a small group tour of 9 people. my family of 4 and another group of 5 taiwanese students on summer hol.
we travelled in a mini van and stopped by a few stops.
the first one is this place to see stars in the sky.
it's so pretty but i didnt take any pictures at all cos i think my camera is to lousy to capture everything.
my sis and dad even saw a meteor star while i was dreaming away!
we stop by to see the "fu qi" tree ( husband and wife tree).
it's named husband and wife becos if you realised, they're like holding hands!
and i like how there's contrast in the sky.....
and this is what we came for.
we're given this chip which prevents UV rays we that we can look directly at the sun.
my dad snapped more than 20 pics on this so i just picked up 3 to show the formation of the sunrise!
we're pretty lucky cos of the good weather.
it's not a guaranteeed thing to see the surise.
it's like we're above the clouds! :D
we stopped by here to take a pic at a sign board.
but of cos we didnt trek up there. the journey up if i don remb wrongly is ard 8 hours one way.
and those people climbing the mountain are like professionals.
went to have breakfast and continue our journey to alishan forest recreation area.
the pics taken there are more or less the same so im lazy to post it up!
but thn notice the pic on the left: the tree branches join in such a way that it looks like a pig. coolness.
and the right one is a heart shaped one! <3
we're pretty bored and tired already so we went off to the train station to take a train.
walked damn long way ard there.
and we almost couldnt find the train station!!
thankfully we did and went back to minsu to pack up and everything!
had our lunch there.
im pretty scared of alishan's food so i decided to settle for safer food like fried rice.
oh btw, xin xin minsu is pretty good, the rooms are clean and everything!
it's cosy and small and i kind of liked it. but i didnt take any pics of the rooms cos i forgot to.
we slacked ard the minsu and chit chatted with the auntie and uncle for a while before catching a bus back to chiayi.
they're nice and friendly and the son even gave us this pack of pork slices.
so nice of them but i didnt really dare to eat it cos it looks damn exotic. HAH.
okay. that's for my alishan trip!
i promise i will update about my hualien and taipei trip SOON! ::D