Taiwan Trip 16 - 23 May 2015 (Continued Taipei + Hualien)

21 May 2015

*Ahem*.. Today we are going to back track our route and head to Hualien.... Ah, you must be thinking "whattttt?!!". And if I tell u, we are going to head back Taipei the following night after our Hualien tour, you gonna puke foam. We really didn't mean to make you puke foam but we innocently thought, going to airport from Taipei is easier so we went back to stay for a night. We learnt our lesson, please forgive us.

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But guess what, while I was reprimanding myself for the bad planning, Boyfriend said it was blessing in disguise. Remember it was raining the day before?  Fortunately we didn't swap our Hualien trip with the Taipei one, else our day would have been ruined by the rain!!! *I started to feel better, haha!*

Alright, so we checked out from the lovely iTaipei and went to for more food in the morning before heading to Hualien via the Railway Train. Just in case we ran out of "selected - seats" tickets, we bought the tickets early and would set off at 4pm.

I brought Boyfriend to hunt for breakfast, and here we are at Xi Men Ding for the famous Yong He Soy Milk (永和豆浆). Well, I was told last time, Yong He Soy Milk was not originated from Taipei nor Xi Men Ding, it was originated from..... Yong He.. (whattttttt??). Trolled? Not. Yong He City used to be a county-controlled city in Taipei, until New Taipei City came about, it was renamed into Yong He District. While Yong He is famous for its Soy Milk, it also provides a variety of breakfast in its store. If you might want to know, Taiwan has also alot of other breakfast shops selling similar breakfasts, and Soy Milk (like the one we had in Taichung). It became like their typical traditional breakfast. 

Queue is very long as usual. The boss indicates that you queue only when you decided what you want to eat, so you won't hold up the rest of the customers behind. After you have made your order you will get a queue number like this... Giant pokercards form. 

The items took really quite a while to come cos there were really alot of people and alot of orders. We were trying very hard not to finish our Soy Milk before the food came. For your info, last time my friend tried the Saltish Soy Milk (咸豆浆). It was soy milk with many savoury ingrdients inside, it didn't appeal to us at all, and we all regretted ordering it. 

Boyfriend ordered a Pork Chop Rice Dumpling, while I order a Scallion Pancake (抓饼) again. This scallion pancake is really awesome.... You should really try it. Personally, I like it with any egg, pork, ham or cheese filling. 

Cold soy milk is the best!

Boyfriend was very filled after eating the whole rice dumpling, and I was pretty filled too. Which was why we really couldn't try the Sushi Express Japanese Restaurant. I have been there before, it is very similar to Singapore's Sushi Express, with the concept of a standard price per plate. But some of the items are presented differently. 

We couldn't stomach Sushi Express, but we could still have the XXL Chicken Cutlet!

豪大大鸡排! Their famous Chicken Cutlets are all not cut up for you. You have to munch it bit by bit. Another way of eating, another kind of taste to it. Yumz!!

How could we forget about the famous Ay-Chung Flour Rice Noodle (阿宗面线)?!! Pork intestines are so yumz!! Must try!!

Apparently, all the bitter gourds in Taiwan are white bitter gourds. According to many, white bitter gourds are not that bitter. Haha but Boyfriend and I are not ones who like to eat bitter gourds, so we didn't try. BUT, my friends who tried before all love it very much. So if you are one who takes bitter gourds, odd to give it a try! ..... and hope you like it. ;)

So now, we are all full, and with some time left, we went to walk around at Taipei Underground Mall (台北地下街) of Area Y (Y 区). There are also shopping areas at Area K and Z. Basically the shops are at two sides of the underpass. Every 2 or 3 shops or so is an exit and the exits are numbered, and this stretch has got 28 exits. with one exit on each side, so u have like 14 parts to shop.  There are alot.. alot.. alot.. of shops. selling from clothes, shoes, bags, to toys, magazines, etc...

(abstracted from http://www.taipeimall.com.tw/index?menu_id=309)

Boyfriend loves Gundam..

This is an honest fact: You can't finish exploring Taipei in a few hours. or even a full day. Alot of people will ask "why you go Taiwan/Taipei again? Not sian (bored)?". Answer is NO. Firstly, it is too big to finish exploring. Secondly, too many attractions to go to. Thirdly, you already can't get enough of where you have visited, so you will go again and forget to explore other places, AND go again. 'Nuff said. LOL! Time to go Hualien!

Board!

Reached! 2.5 hours later~

Cheeky Boyfriend!

Hualien is a very nice place to go to, surrounded by waters. From what the guide told us, and Google told me, it is actually by the east of Pacific Ocean. Omg, you mean I can touch the waters of Pacific Ocean?!! That's quite cool eh! Our target for this trip, is to go for whale watching and to the Taroko Gorge. P.S. I didn't dive with the whales. *ok, lame again*

Most importantly, we found a really nice cosy place to stay at... Hualien Minsu - Bear Forest (花莲民宿 - 小雄森林). I booked a double bed room, and to our surprise they gave us a 3 bedders' room. 

The whole room is decorated with bears.. Bears... BEARs... BEARSSSSSSS. Everything from tissue holder, towel, cups, etc, all are bears. In the room, I counted, there are 9 bear toys. Wow. a FOREST of BEARS...

Ya shall not see my sleeping looks. LOL!!

The only bad thing about this minsu is that, they had no lifts. We are located at level 3 of the building. And I hope you had not forgot, we had shopped in Jiu Fen, Shi Fen, Taichung and Xi Men Ding. X.X

The helper was very friendly, she brought up the luggages for us, and slowly briefed us on the room details and ensure that we are properly settled down before leaving us alone. As we are heading out early the next day, we probably would miss the breakfast, but we made a call to the minsu in charge, he was also able to make a special arrangement for us to bring the breakfast in early or keep it for us until we return to the minsu. *how thoughtful*

We settled down pretty quickly and went out to look for dinner.

Here we are at Zi Qiang Night Market (自强夜市). It is a pretty small night market. But I feel good visiting here somehow. Less crowded, nice food, though they don't sell any goods. Here, you can find more game stalls like basketball machines, darts game, ufo toy catcher (many night markets have ufo toy catcher machine).

Our dinner! Curry Pork Cutlet Rice. We shared a portion so we can eat more variety of food.

This plate is only about SGD3!!!! And it's pretty yummy!!!!

Next we went to a BBQ seafood & beer place. As Hualien is all surrounded with water, they do have quite an abundance of seafood. 

XL Oysters. That is half the palm size. A size which they can even slice for you. Taste sweet and fresh! we ordered 2

Baby Abalones! Did you quite noticed I also loved abalone? Hehe!

Shishamos! I really do preferred grilled shishamos to breaded fried ones. This is really less the flour taste and pure goodness of the meat and the roes. Yumz!

They have many other kinds of seafood like bamboo clams, conch, prawns, Taiwan oysters (which are smaller and cheaper). The staff gave us some discount as it was raining and there were not many customers, our bill for these 3 food was about 30 SGD. Not super cheap, but at least fresh.

Then we went to another store for Sashimi! A plate like this cost NTD 150!

BBQ Corn!

Sweet Potato Balls!!! This is the nicest sweet potato balls I have eaten so far really. Very fragrant. YumZZZZ.

How can we forget dessert, and it's the renown Taiwan Shaved Ice (雪花冰). Unfortunately, to our disappointment this is not nice. =/ Too milky for our taste. And if you are wondering how they make the shaved ice, the original ice cream looked like this.

Alright, unknowingly we spent like 2 hours plus in this small place, just eating and walking around, watching people play games.. Feels so carefree. *sigh*.. how nice is it if Singapore is like this.. Sometimes you just gets intimidated shopping in malls, squeezing with people and get shocked by the price tags! Haha! #randomthoughts

*Lights off!*