Taiwan Trip 2014: Taipei Part 2 - Xi Men Ding 西门町 / Yong Kang St 永康街 / Gongguan 公馆

7th day into my Taiwan trip which is also my 2nd day in Taipei was arguably one of my favourite days because it was filled with so much good food! :D

 Our first stop: Xi Men Ding

There were a lot more to see and eat in Ximengding than I expected. Because we were too tired the night before, we slept in and gave the hotel breakfast a miss. Instead, we went to a popular eatery in Ximending called Yong He 永和 for Taiwanese style breakfast!

Super crowded!!! The eatery is also super small, with a capacity of not more than 18 pax at one time. The good thing about these small eateries in Taiwan is that you just have to order and they will arrange a seat for you. So it's unlike Singapore where you have to keep walking round and round, looking out for people who are ALMOST done with their food and stand awkwardly next to them, staring at them and waiting for them finish the last few strands of noodles at snail speed so you can sit down the moment they get up! 

Egg + pork chop + some other stuff stuffed in the glutinous rice (Y) 

Cannot remember what this is but I remember how nice it tasted lolol

If I'm not wrong, it's along the lines of 起士抓饼

Our breakfast was similar to what we had in Taichung and I must say I really love Taiwanese style breakfast!!! Wish I could try more things on their menu hmm..........

Anyways so we had a hearty breakfast that left me feeling happy and satisfied ^^ it doesn't seem like it's a lot but don't be fooled because we felt very full for a long while!

After breakfast, we walked up and down Ximending and here's Kw obsessed with the BB Guns in Taiwan.  

He's DYING to bring one back, had it not been banned by Singapore. Everywhere we go, there's always BB guns and Kw will be SO obsessed with it that I've lost count of the number of times he's paid to play the games, be it in night markets or shops. 

 Quite happy at shopping at Ximending because I managed to buy 2 pairs of shoes :D

When we finally felt a little less full, we hunted for Ximending's branch of 阿宗面线 and it was one of my most 幸福的时刻 when I found it!

The Q was quite long but they are already so well-trained that it didn't take more than 10 minutes for me to finally get a bowl of this legendary meesua.

A bowl of awesomeness 

 This is how 幸福 I felt

Apart from having flaky dry skin by the 7th day of my trip. I was spamming masks every single night.

Continued to walk around and I found another snack on my to-eat list! I originally intended to eat this at Shilin Night Market so I didn't buy it the first time I passed by it. But I really really wanted to try it so we turned back to get it even though we were still quite full.

And I'm glad we did cuz the one at Shilin Night Market was ALWAYS crowded with a long Q. So I got to eat this cheesy potato without having to wait as long as I would have had to at Shilin.

It's fried potato stuffed with your choice of ingredients............ 

....and drizzled with generous amount of cheese!!!!!

 Taadaaaaaaaaaa!

Happy couple with food again :D

We left Ximending with our happy tummies and headed to Yong Kang St 永康街, a street populated with cafes, located at Dongmen Station. Unfortunately, our tummies weren't going to be happy with us stuffing more food down ourselves so we just hang around the area instead of cafe-hopping.

Everyone says that the Ding Tai Fung is a must-try and look at the queue!!!

Am not a fan of Ding Tai Fung even in Singapore so I wasn't about to patronize the one in Taipei.

 We passed by a park and saw this surprisingly engaging performance by Mario.

 This was the main reason why Yongkang St was part of my itinerary! Saw so many people raving about Smoothie House 思慕昔 so I had to try it myself!

Despite being very happy, we had a difficult time trying to finish up this serving of shaved ice lol

My conclusion: if you are travelling to Taiwan for food, GO IN BIGGER GROUPS! Ideally in groups of 4 imo so it's easier to share a cab and you can try more types of food since there're more people sharing!

Left Yong Kang St for Gongguan for another round of window-shopping. And greeted by surprising amounts of food stalls!

Thought their MacDonalds had some interesting combinations...

And here's the main reason why we went to Dongguan:

天外天火锅!!!! 

Eat-all-you-can in 2 hours! Its variety of steamboat dishes was INSANE. They have anything and everything you can think of!!! Seafood, shabu meat slices, innards, processed food, veg, mushrooms.........and that's not the best part yet. 

They also have fruits....

.....AND FREE FLOW HAAGEN DAZS ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!

And look at those waffle cones! Everything's of good quality and you just cannot possibly feel short-changed. 

Like having free flow Haagen Dasz is not enough, look at their offerings for cakes. 

And Meiji ice cream.....

This is the most fucking awesome steamboat restaurant EVER. We went on New Year's Day so it was a lil' more expensive than usual days and even so, it only costed 25SGD per pax. WHERE TO FIND IN SINGAPORE WHERE?!?!?!?!

Even beverages were free flow!!! Think about how you'll have to pay for that in some buffet places in Singapore. I am already missing this steamboat restaurant to bits. Anyone who's travelling to Taipei has to patronise this place!!!!

URL here: http://tianwaitian.com.tw/tianwaitian.htm

 Greedy me ate almost 2 scoops of ice-cream and that's of course not enough...

...so here's my 3rd scoop! Kekekeke.

And that was basically it for my (very happy and fattening) 2nd day in Taipei!

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Cingjing 清境

So we left the not-so-happening city, Taichung and headed towards Cingjing! Cingjing is located in Nantou county and it's up the mountain, making it much colder than the cities. We were pretty excited for Cingjing because this was pretty much our only chance for some real sight-seeing!

There are several ways to get to Cingjing: you can go by their buses aka 客运 which departs from Taichung's High Speed Rail (HSR) station; or take a cab which will add up to about 2000NT or more (approx 86SGD). I thought the cab ride was quite expensive but that was our initial intention since we didn't really know of other ways to get up back then. Fortunately, our minsu emailed us a few weeks before the trip telling us that they can arrange transportation for us!! So there's actually a 3rd way of getting up which is much cheaper than taking a cab but it is as good as taking one - book a ride with OKBUS. Just google "OKBUS Cingjing" and you can get to their webpage. The car picked us up from Taichung HSR Station and dropped us at our minsu. They charged us 350NT each (less than 20SGD) - which is WAY cheaper than taking a cab. They also have pickup locations at Sun Moon Lake etc, depending on which is most convenient for you. So it would be good for you to either check out their website or check with the minsu about getting to Cingjing!

Got picked up by a 9-seater

Curvy road up Cingjing

We chose Lan Shan Xiao Zhen (岚山小镇) aka Dream Town as our minsu. From my research, most Singaporeans stay at this place called Starry Minsu, which is also the first minsu I tried booking a reservation for. But it was impossible to do so. The only way for you to book a reservation is to send an email to them via their website and wait for their reply. I was thinking so many people stay there, cannot be that difficult to make a reservation right???? And I was wrong. I dropped them email TWICE and there's absolutely no reply. I waited for like a month and other minsu were starting to have no vacancy so I had to quickly choose another minsu, which I was grateful for because I really enjoyed my stay at Dream Town. The service was superb, the room was cosy and they packed it for us every day. Their is also WAY easier to navigate and I don't have to send an email and wait till god-knows-when for a reply or confirmation. I was struggling so bad because everything in these websites was in traditional chinese. It's literally a torture for me to figure out how to make a reservation. Dream Town's website has an english version (thank god) and reservations and payments can be made directly without having to wait for a response. 

This is their website: http://www.dreamtown.com.tw/dreamtown_eng/profile/index.php

So after dropping our luggage at the minsu, we went to look for food. But on the way to the eatery, we couldn't resist taking pictures with the scenery!

 Looks just like what you see in paintings

Been missing red leaves ever since my exchange in UNC!

Our choice for lunch - only because this place was 5-minute walk away from Dream Town & we had this 10% discount voucher

While waiting....

We ordered a set meal for 2 which consists of a soup, a veg and a whole chicken stuffed with apple, which is supposedly their signature dish. 

 Our Apple-stuffed Chicken. I think there was nothing fantastic about this dish though. The meat was dry and quite tasteless too. :/ 

Or as Kw puts it, "鸡没有苹果的味道 苹果没有鸡的味道".

高丽菜 aka cabbage is EVERYWHERE in Cingjing. 

After lunch, we then set off to Green Green Grasslands (青青草原) by foot! It was a 20-min walk. There are other alternatives as to getting around in Cingjing. You can either grab a cab or again, call OKBUS to bring you around. OKBUS will send a car down to your location and bring you to your destination at a flat rate of 50NT per pax. But I thought that we have been eating TOO MUCH and the weather's nice anyway, so why not just walk and not feel like some fat ass??

 Following my previous blogpost about how I drank milk tea every single day in Taiwan, you must be thinking 'HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? THERE'S NO KOI OR OTHER BBT SHOPS IN CINGJING!' But yes I did drink milk tea every single day all thanks to the convenient 7-11s around!!! Hahahaha, so yes even from convenience stores my choice of beverage is milk tea. ^^

Here we are!!!

Many opportunities for scenic shots!

I think this was my very first time getting onto a horseback!

Intentionally chose the white one, which was also the biggest horse there. But it limped quite a bit and wasn't very cooperative, to the extent that the staff started hitting it to get it to move. It made me feel quite bad cuz of how cruelly they are being treated when they never should be domesticated like this, and be only given such a small area to explore.

Ok enough of my sad story behind a happy-looking picture.

We went on to look at the sheep! There are vending machines around for people to buy pellets for some sheep-feeding session.

Thought this photo was quite funny: A starved (enthusiastic) sheep meets the (terrified) man with its food 

To eat is what these sheep do ALL DAY but no amount of food is enough to satisfy them!!! They just keep eating and eating and eating! Once they know they you have food for them, they will crowd around you like they haven't been fed for 451357246 days. 

The ranch

When you walk further down, out of the south exit (I think), you'll be greeted with stalls selling sheep-products and local food!

 I didn't really buy those sheep-related products cuz the taste was -_-

But if you are interested in getting those, especially the sheep milk candies, just take note that the stalls at the front sell them at a more expensive price. If you keep walking, you'll see shops selling at lower prices or even 1-for-1!

By the time we were done exploring Green Green Grassland, it was about 5pm and that was also the last timing that we can get a free ride back to the minsu (provided by the minsu). So we decided to call it a day since we were going to be up really early the next morning!

Came back to explore our room

And we had steamboat dinner at the minsu! I think most minsu serves steamboat there cuz I saw it on several websites! It was one of the things on my must-do list - to have steamboat in super cold weather!!!!

This was 250NT per pax (about 10SGD). The meat serving wasn't very generous so we added another portion for 100NT. Eating this in the chilly mountains was super shiok!!!!

Went to 7-11 to get some tidbits and I cannot resist buying myself an ice-cream cone hehe. Another one of my favourite things to do is to eat ice-cream in near 0dc weather - enjoy your ice-cream that never melts :D

PS: I found out how awesome this was while I was on exchange hehe

We were supposed to have an early night because we booked the Hehuanshan (合欢山) Sunrise Tour and the meeting time was 4am -________-

I tried my best but couldn't fall asleep so I was practically in a half-zombie state the whole time. The tour bus picked us up outside our minsu and we had a few stopovers before eventually reaching Hehuanshan. The first stop was along some roadside where we got see a sky full of stars (like literally). I couldn't take pictures of the galaxy without a tripod and it was FREEZING so I couldn't rely on my trembling hands either. But it was the most beautiful star-gazing experience I've ever had. I even saw meteors!!!!!! Ok it's actually not like what we see in shows. Meteors are literally stars falling, without the tail the follows like we see in TV shows. And I saw not just one but a few of them! But I was always too slow to make a wish cuz I was too fascinated. -_-

Every time I got out of the bus I was just FREEZING and hoping for the tour to end soon lol. I think it was sub-zero at that time and without the sun, it was pretty much a torture.

After a few more not-so-memorable stops, we finally reached Hehuanshan!!!

Our only chance for ear muffs 

I felt that the sunrise wasn't as spectacular as I expected though. Star-gazing was my favourite part of the tour!

After watching the sunrise, there were a couple more stopovers. I think this was the highest sea-level or something? I was too cold and too sleepy to pay attention so I can't remember what so special about these places lolol

....but we still took pictures anyway!

It snowed the night before, which melted and froze up again resulting in these icy peaks!

Our very enthusiastic tour guide said it is mandatory to have a jump-shot here and we did....

When he told us to take a jump shot I was picturing it with the mountains behind as the background but when I saw what he took.................I don't really know what's so mandatory about having the sky as the background since I can take this literally anywhere???

We got back to our minsu at about 7.30am. Had light breakfast provided by the minsu and we headed back to our room for a short snooze because we were both toooooooooooooooo sleepy.

We got up around 11ish and went to Carton King for lunch!

We both ordered shabu again! But this was quite disappointing - we each had like 5 slices of meat and weird tasting sauce that's barely edible -_- I chose some fish stock for my soup and Kw chose Tomato Kimchi for his. The Kimchi stock is super disappointing - I don't think there was even a hint of spiciness at all, pretty much tasteless, or tastes like not-so-flavourful tomato soup at best.

But it was still interesting to explore this restaurant made of cardboards!

We then went to Swiss Garden after lunch which was right beside Carton King.

Honestly, there was pretty much nothing to see in Swiss Garden. So we tried our best to get some artsy nature shots......

 ....and feeding ducks.

Kept to my promise: my first milk tea of the day lolol

The bottle looks quite reusable so I tried filling it with water after I was done but it leaks so I had to throw it away -_- but the milk tea itself was to my liking! Very strong milky taste hmmmmmmmm...... 

I think we spent less than 45 minutes(?) in Swiss Garden and set off to Old England Manor.

We walked there and it took about 20 minutes. But I must say that it's not exactly safe walking down the winding road cuz the traffic was quite heavy with heavy vehicles like tour buses passing through, & there was quite a lot of blind spots so we were super careful and alert while walking, constantly turning back to check if there're cars driving by.

Finally made it there, alive and kicking

Their high tea session is supposed to be quite popular so we gave it a try! It cost 450NT per pax, not exactly cheap.

I think this was mango mousse  or something, and it was SO GOOD!!! My favourite part of the high tea!

Too smooth!

They ran out of certain items so this isn't their complete high-tea set.

The cookies here were some good stuff too! 

Called for the minsu to pick us up after we were done with the high tea.

The lady from our minsu who drove us back was super bubbly and nice! She even drove us about 20m down from our minsu for us to enjoy the sunset! (Yes both sunrise and sunset in one day!)

And there goes the sun which also marks the last of our stay in Cingjing.