Japan to Taiwan

{ May 12, 2011 @ 6:12 am } · { Holidays }

Just realized that I neglected my blog for months and I started this blog like a month ago.. So I better finish this.. sorry guys for the long wait!

Since last year, I had been planning for the trip to Japan. Just when I got everything booked and secured, the next day the earthquake in Japan happened which lead to a catastrophe of a major Tsunami, series of earthquake and the last of all the nuclear leakage which now makes Japan not a destination to go for the next couple of months/years. The headache of cancellation of the trip and trying to get the money back from the travel agent and airlines. At the end able to get most of the money back but with some handling fee that Hong Kong Travel agent is charging for the cancellation. This will remind me not to go through travel agent and to get things done myself to save some ridiculous fee that the agent will charge. Since I was clearing my last year leave and not able to cancel those days, which is about a week, so we planned to go to another destination. Many ideas seems to poped out : Ireland, Europe – Switzerland, Canada. But after thinking that we only bout a week to plan so decided to go somewhere nearer. Since SP had been to Taiwan but a few years ago and for me a few months ago but there are a few places that I did not manage to visit, so decided to go to Taiwan instead. Its not my norm to go back to a place where I have been before, however since I want to go somewhere for my birthdy, Taiwan here I come! This trip mainly just focusing on Taipei and Sun Moon Lake, the only place that I wanted to go previously but did not have the time to go.

A week before the departure, SP had an emergency – her grandma is not feeling well and need to be admitted to the hospital for observation.  The trip was then put on hold till her grandma is certified alright and able to go home then to decide if the trip to be proceed. Nothing is more important than family members and their health. Once we get the green light then we started making the air ticket and accommodation reservation through internet.

Finally the day arrived. SP comes to Macau, a day earlier before our Taiwan trip and we went to watch the House of Dancing Water with 2 other ex-colleague, SS and WL. Had a great time catching up with them and hoped that they enjoyed the show even though I had some tummy problem half way through… sigh.. lucky I watched the show before! We had a late dinner that night but SP and I had the popular Pork chop bun and the spicy fish ball at Old Taipa.. It was very yummy! But I liked the fishball the most.. After dinner at one of the Taiwan eateries near my place, we head back home as I need to pack and rest before the trip..

The next day, Taiwan here we come!  We arrived at Taipei and we took the bus from the airport to the city. The bus drop us near to the train station where our hotel located. However, to our surprise.. its quite chilly and it was drizzling a little. Dragging our luggage along, finding the correct direction and finally we reach our hotel. The hotel was ok.. nothing fantastic.. I find the most funny part is we enter from the main road but it was actually the back of the hotel where the concierge is and we need to go all the way to the back for the reception then after registration, we back track to where the concierge is to go up to the room…. funny layout.. After storing our luggage in the room, off we went to explore. SP wanted to buy a sweater as she did not bring a thicker ones, so we stopped by at one of the shop. After that, from the map, we saw that there is a Hello Kitty shop quite nearby and we decided to look for it. SP initiated the interest when we were doing our research. So I though it should be quite cute and tag along.

After walking a few minutes we found the shop. Everything is pink and white and of coz. Hello Kitty is everywhere.. the lamps, the display, walls, placemats, food … even the toilet amenities! very very kawaii and girly.. haha but surprising many people goes there too.. some of them are tourists. We ordered some snacks and drinks.. Photos enclosed.. Had a cake and a coffee.. of coz with Hello Kitty decoration!

Finished oooh and aahs at the Hello Kitty cafe, we went to the main street and start to look look see see, window shopping at the shopping centres nearby. Since the Kbox is all around we decided to go for a karaoke session that night and reserved the time. As there are still time in between, we went exploring again and along the way we had some street food and drinks..  When the time is up we went to the kbox, sang and listen to music for about 3 hours then we head back to hotel.

The next morning, after breakfast we check out and took a cab to the main train station. When we reach there, only we realize that the bus station to take the bus to Sun Moon Lake is still a distance a way. So off we go and manage to get on the bus. The journey is about 4 – 5 hours. So we slept, read, listening to our mp3, played games using SP iphone.. and finally we are there! The area is quite small, I think during our 3 days 2 nites there, we walked around the area at least like 4 times. We stopped at the visitor centre and we asked the person how to go to our hotel which is just around the corner where the bus did passed by but we were too busy looking at the scenery to notice it. We checked in and since we indulge a little for these 2 days, so our room has a balcony and has the view of the lake and we have a welcome fruits too.

But due to the weather, instead of the lavender color that we often see in the website and pictures… the water is all blue and misty.. Can’t see far away island. We walked around and had lunch at one small shop which has some kind of a set meal. It comes with soup, veg and fish. It was quite good and quite entertaining since the shop owner is disciplining her kid in the shop too.. so we had children crying and running around too. The first day we just walked around the area, followed a walking path to another side of the lake and when we climbed up there was a tree filled with wishes and there was a cafe and a souvenir shop. We went in to have a look and ended up buying some. The shop gave us some paper to write our wishes and to hang on the trees, so each of us wrote and hang it up. Hope those wishes will come true!  After that we had our dinner in another eateries nearby and we had beef noodle that night. After dinner we decided to return to our hotel and rest.

The next day, it was a rest day. We nearly missed our breakfast timing but it was good.. We woke up in our leisure and prepared for the day. We took a boat to the other side of the lake and thinking of taking the cable car to the folk village but due to the time, we decided to go over the next day instead as the folk village will be close in an hour time. So we just explore the area and had some of the local food over there. We also bout a bag of “keropok” and we enjoyed it while waiting for our boat to arrive to bring us back to where our hotel is. The trip back was quite scary in away as the fog is quite thick and you can’t see anything in front of you. It was like the scary movie with the house near to the lake and there is something in the lake.. That night we went back to the same restaurant for dinner and we had rice with minced pork.. It was very yummy with the gravy. After that we arranged for a spa treatment to close our day. It was totally bliss!

The next day was a rushing day for us, as we work up a little earlier to have breakfast and took the ferry over and we straight away went to the cable car station which is about 10 mins walk from the jetty. During the cable car ride, the area was foggy and when the cable car reached the top of the mountain where u can’t see anything over the other side, it was really something like a haunted movie.. I seems to visualized haunted movie like as though I always watched them but truthfully, that is not the case. I don’t watch horror movies. When we reach the folk village it was around 11am. So after walking around and had some light lunch, we watched a couple of the cultural shows and we head back. However, we saw the wrong time for the ferry therefore, it turn out to be a drastic rush for us as we need to catch the bus back to Taipei. The boat man was quite helpful to contact another boatman to bring us back to the hotel – needless to say we need to pay more too! But luckily, running and dragging our luggages, we managed to catch the last bus to Taipei.. Whew! Half way through the bus stopped at a station to drop and pick up passengers, we went down to use the toilet as we did not manage to go during our mad rush, and we also managed to grab our dinner – KFC! Yes.. my fav finger licking good food!

By the time we reached Taipei, it was at night, we took a cab to our hotel and checked in. Since this was the same one that I stayed previously, it was some kind of a deja vu for me. We explored the Ximending where its a popular place for youngster to go there for food and shopping. We had Mee suah for dinner and we walked around till the place closed around 11pm then we head back to hotel.

Next day we went to the Museum of Palace where we see artifacts, the Jade cabbage, some treasures and we ended up there fore about 3 – 4 hours. Many China tourists are also there, therefore when we are trying to take photos, they are always somehow becoming the backdrop.

After the museum, we proceed to Shilin market, there we had many many delicious snacks, we had the big bun wrap small bun, fried chicken fillet, big sausage wrap small sausage, oyster omelette, smelly beancurt, bitter gourd + apple juice. It was total superb! After having those delicious food, we need to walk them off, so we did some shopping and ended with a foot massage.

We had a rested morning and in the afternoon we took a half day tour to the north of Taipei. We went to Jiufen, to see the Volcano crater and the stone formation. We did some more shopping in Jiufen and we ate the fish ball over there, where I had mine during my previous trip. It was totally nice to go on a trip with such a relax mode.. It was totally bliss.

The next day we went to the Chiang Kai Sek Memorial Hall to have a look and to take some photo. When we return back to our Hotel for our other half day tour to Yamingshan and to go to hot spring, we stopped by for ice cream at the Cold Stove where SP celebrated my birthday! The staff actually sang a Birthday song for me.. It was real fun.  .When we arrive back to Taipei, we finally make our way to see the Taipei 101 in the evening to catch the lightings. We even went up to the 39  floor to see the skyline with commercial building being lit.  After that we went back to Ximending to meet up with my Taipei friends and we had Tim Sum for dinner. It was really good to catch up with them.

The next day was our departure day back to Macau. Since we still have a couple of days in Macau, brought SP to the fort and we ended up did not go to see the Panda which was the original planned. We went to have portugese food that night and ended with another foot massage in Macau to end our holiday. This was a truly relaxing trip as we did not rush to go anywhere and it was a truly relax and unstress period for us, which we need to recharge our battery to start our engine again when we went back to work.

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