2nd last day in Taipei.

I hope time flew past slowly though. Taiwan reminds me of Korea. The shopping..the food…the street…but Taiwanese are much friendlier to be honest.

On wed , we went shopping at Sogo and Zhongxiao street. The best place for shopping so far.

I got Ryunjae oppa a bag from PORTER as birthday present from Sogo. Porter bags are cheaper in Taiwan , HK and Japan. It is quite expensive in SG. I did quite abit of shopping here at Zhongxia0. Got mostly sunglasses, earrings and couple of pull overs. It was winter so there are alot of knits and thick winter wears which are not suitable for SG weather. I was thinking of getting some for my Korea trip but it is much cheaper in Korea. Quality also better in Korea.

Long queue at this shop selling the red bean pancakes. I asked one of the locals what was nice here while i was in the queue and she said she came because she heard that the servers were cute. Hmmm..i tried the red bean cake..it was not bad and alot of red bean filling but nothing special. lol.so i now know why long queue lah.

After doing some solo shopping for 4 hours along the whole of Zhong Xiao , we went for dinner at one of our Agency Leader’s friend’s bar and restaurant for dinner. Nice ambience. Owner is Singaporean who married a Taiwanese lady.

After which , we went to Myst and Omni for drinks. First time kanna police raid . Suddenly the lights went on and police checking our passports etc. Nothing much..suddenly the lights were on at 1am++ and police came taking down the passport/id details of those with tables first. Ours was the first. We took pictures of our passports and saved in our hp so that we do not need to bring the original out. The police just took our phones with our passport pics and took down details before moving on to the next table and those at the bars or standing around. The whole raid took about 30 minutes. Thought i only saw this in HK dramas but didn’t expect to encounter first hand. Don’t know if their purpose was to catch those underage , mafias or drug dealers ??

Took this snap shot secretly while he was taking down our info at our table.

Reached back the hotel at 4am and woke up at 8am for breakfast and packed our luggage. Went to Ah Zhong Mian Xian for lunch/breakfast.

After checking out , we had 5 hours before the driver came to drive us to airport.
So i spent the last 5 hours shopping and eating again in Ximending.

There is a 24 hours 2 storey watsons just opposite our hotel. So it is pretty convenient.
This is one thing i want to blog about. You should shop at Watsons ! I don’t know why almost every country i go to , i will go and shop at their Watsons. Even when i got to JB , i will sweep alot of stuff at Watsons. They are much cheaper than SG. When i am in Korea, i will shop at Olive and Young which is their local version of Watsons.

In Taiwan’s Watsons, you can find alot of make up brands or toiletries at really cheap price. You can’t find some brands in SG as well. So the Watsons operates 24hours and sometimes i will go down at 2am to buy some stuff because i can’t sleep. I stocked up on my Biore make up removers and tried some Taiwanese and Japanese make up. I will review on my make up and skin care buys later.

You can shop at Cosmeds or Watsons but i prefer Watsons which has more variety.

Fortunately , our hotel is right smacked in the middle of Ximending.

Chanced upon this cafe with a cute and chubby goldie.

I find that he is quite poor thing leh..he looks bored..because i walked past this cafe alot of times and all he did was sit there.

Walked in this those lanes and you can find nail salons and other fashion shops. The ones along the main streets are too touristy and sell almost the same stuff like souvenirs etc but the small lanes has alot of gems.You can find nice clothing shops selling clothes at cheaper price and are very nice too.

Ready to leave Taipei.

So sad…i miss travelling and i will miss Taipei. I will be back here again. So many places i want to bring oppa here next time.

I really enjoyed my trip to Taiwan. My 3rd trip with friends/colleagues so far. It was a great team bonding trip with my teammates. Everyone was having so much fun. Everyday , we see the professional side of our colleagues at work. But the first time we had so much fun and let out the fun side of us. Looking forward to next team bonding trip in 2017 !

Bought quite a number of make up and beauty products from Watsons in Taipei.

Shall blog about it next ! Stay tune !

Just before our driver drove us to Taipei , we stopped by Green Green Grassland ( Qing Qing Cao Yuan ).

It was really cold and windy. And we get to see alot of sheeps ( cute little meh mehs) .

On the way to Taipei , we stopped by rest stations for some hot food. Weather was cold and it was raining. We need to warm up with some hot soup.

After 4 hours drive from Cing Jing , we arrived at Taipei. Our hotel was situated right smack in the middle of Ximending. So shopping was really easy.

First meal of the day in Taipei was steamboat buffet. 500NT per pax and alot of selections ! It was 3 minutes walk from our hotel.

This was what attracted us to come here for the steamboat buffet..the ice cream selections.
Steamboat ingredient selection was alot but hmmm soup base so so ..so none of us really drink the soup.

Sunset quite early at 6pm during winter.

Here’s Ximending.

We took a train to Wufen-pu for shopping. It is a wholesale centre and i bought quite abit of clothes for work. Quite hard to find nice clothings there though mostly are cheap.

After which , we walked to nearby Raohe night market for more street food.

You can shop and eat at the same time. Things here are pretty cheap.

We drink milk tea almost EVERYDAY. You can order hot or cold milk tea.

I cant remember whether i drink more than 2 bottles of plain water during my trip.

Really just eat and eat and eat and eat as we walked down the street and night market.

Reached hotel back at about 1.30am and we woke up early at 8am to have breakfast at a rather famous you tiao shop. The queue was damn long. Queued from the 1st floor to the shop at the upper floor. The egg prata like thing was very nice !

阜杭豆漿: Fu Hang Dou Jiang which is on the 2nd floor of Hua Shan Market. We took the MRT to Shan Dao Station from Taipei Main Station.

Look at the queue. Cant even see the ordering counter nor end of the queue which was few floors down.

Then we took a train and bus to Jiufen and Shifen.

Here is Jiufen.

The quite famous and popular Ah Ma Rice Balls at Jiufen.

We realized alot of nice food are always named Ah Ma XXX .

Just like the Ah Ma Tea Leaves Egg we ate at the moutains on one of the islands.

Actually the train station at Jiufen reminds me of Jinhae in Gyeongsan-Do Korea which is a famous place for cherry blossoms. So if you are going to Korea in Spring , remember to go to Jinhae to view the beautiful cherry blossoms. I blogged about it before and you can check my March/Apr/May post on that. I can’t remember when i blogged it because i went in late March 2015.

That’s the place we “fang tian deng” . Me and a colleagues shared one and i wrote all my wishes in a mixture of Korean , Chinese and English. Lol..Korean for my new Korean family , Chinese and English for my family and work in SG etc.

After which , we took the train back to Shilin night market and it was time for dinner.

Ah Zhong Mian Xian at Shilin. The chilli is da bomb ! But the vinegar so so only. I must put like 6 spoonful of vinegar. The chilli is really “powerful” so just put abit first and taste before you add more.

Long queue at Cheese Prince. It is located at the street food near the entrance of Shilin. Damn nice.

Very cheap too about SGD 3 bucks for this. No wonder long queue lah. Really long queue.

Alot of shopping and eating here.Hmm..don’t expect to find alot of fashionable shops here because most of the stuff sold here are pretty cheap. If you are looking for cheap gadgets like hp covers , phone external camera lens, stockings , cheap or replicas , night markets seems to be a good place to go to. I got quite afew cheap stuff here and of cos i stuffed myself with alot of good and cheap street food.

** To be continued.