✈ Taipei, Taiwan x Day 3

Day 3 - Taipei, Xi Men Ding

Taichung to Taipei
From Taichung, Jack & I took the bus back to Taipei Main Station at 1230pm. We slept throughout the 2 hours ride, took a train stop to XMD and arrived just in time for hotel check-in :)

Multi-storey Starbucks everywhere

Hotel:

We booked 5 nights at ECFA Hotel for SGD85/night with daily breakfast buffet. The hotel and room wasn't on par and as comfortable compared to Plaza Hotel. Bathroom was also way smaller and I didn't really like it. But anyway, we were out on most days so it was still ok!

 Our hotel was 5 minutes away from XMD and it was almost dinner time by the time we settled. 

We spent the whole night roaming and getting dinner around XMD. First up was bbt from 50 钢, heard it's the same as Koi.

We past by a pushcart filled with different dishes and there were many locals queuing for it. It looks like our local YTF and so we decided to try it out. It was superb!! The stall owner also recommended us some goose meat which was not bad.

Ah Zong Mian Xian 阿宗面线! 

I am not a fan of 面线 but I guess this is a must try when we're in Taiwan! We got a bowl to share and both of us find it okay. The queue was long but moves really fast. We joined the locals by hanging outside the shop to finish our food haha. 

We past by a crowd overseeing a talented man doing his spray artwork and ended up standing there for a good 30 minutes. Totally in awe by how he turned a white piece of paper into an artwork with his spray cans and  we each got a piece from him, magical!

Just the beginning of our Taipei night, 5 more fun days to go :)

✈ Taichung, Taiwan x Day 1 to 3

Taiwan has always been a destination on my travel checklist. It is afterall an Asian country with beautiful scenic attractions and seasons, farms, hot springs & enormous variety of food (prepare to get fat there!).

Jack & I spent a good 8 days there late last month. It was no doubt very huge, but too hard and tedious to conquer. Thankfully, it was a free and easy trip for us, otherwise we may have been badly exhaust. haha!

Flight:

We flew with Scoot with a 50% deal (similar to my bkk trip) at only SGD250 each, how awesome! Departed Singapore close to 1am, slept through half the flight and woke up to bright & sunny Taiwan at 0530am :) We planned to visit Taichung the first two days before heading to Taipei. 

Transfer from Taoyuan to Taichung:

After collecting our luggages, it was still early and we decided to take Ubus 1623 from the airport to Taichung. The frequency of the bus is pretty fast, about every 30 minutes and ticket costs NT240 each. We hopped on the 640am coach, slept throughout the comfy ride and arrived Taichung Train station 2.5 hours later! The other alternative is to take the HSR which I think takes only an hour but costs 2-3 times more. 

Our 630am breakfast from Hi-life. Just some coffee, fruit, sushi & misc to tide us through :)

Day 1 - Taichung & Feng Chia Night Market

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and had about 4 hours to roam around. Most of the shops were still closed at 10am. We headed to 第二市场 and had our second breakfast. In Taiwan, we've learnt to order from whichever stall with the longest queue, and there you will have the best food (at least most of the time)!

We bought a set of Carrot cake, egg and rice sausage & a bowl of soup. Also had our first cup of milk tea which was awesomeee!

We then headed to the Mode Mall, nearest shopping mall near our hotel. We ended going round and round before stopping by Sushi Express for lunch. Both of us loves Sushi Express in Taiwan, especially for their generous portion and cheap rates at NT30/plate.

Hotel:

We booked a deluxe room for 2 nights at Plaza Hotel, which was centrally located at Taichung City for a promo rate of SGD80/night with daily buffet breakfast for 2! We were finally able to check in at 230pm for a good warm bathe and nap. Needed it so much at that point of time. 

It was soon time for dinner after we woke up. We were excited for our first night market walk at Fengjia - 逢甲夜市, one of the biggest and famous night market in Taiwan! There are many buses available from Taichung Train station and the ride took about 40 minutes. 

We ordered quite a bit for share - pork pepper bun, 大肠抱小肠, clams, chocolate crepe, bbt & some fruits, first day only and we were filled to brim! My favorite of all has got to be the pork egg bread as featured. It was piping hot and really yummy!

Day 2 - CingJing Grassland & Yi Zhong Night Market
Woke up early for our breakfast buffet before heading to Cingjing Grassland. 

Super love Taiwan's 茶叶蛋!

We took the Nantou bus transportation and bought the Cingjing Package at NT600 which includes the entrance tickets and our transportation to and back :) The bus ride to Cingjing took about 2 hours and we arrived around noon. 

Cingjing is a beautiful huge green farm situated at Nantou. Sheep are everywhere in the open & I was really afraid! But as long as you're not holding on to any food, they will not come near you :) So I stayed far away from Jack in the wide field. 

That's Jack feeling super excited!

Selfie with the sheep :)

<3

The bowl of hot chicken noodle soup that warms me up instantly, it was really good! :)

It began raining 30 minutes before our last bus back at 1630. We bought poncho without a choice and shivered all the way to the entrance, what an experience!

Back in Taichung, we headed to Yizhong night market 15 minutes away from our hotel. We were famished and again bought many miscs - fried chicken, sushi, etc to share. I personally felt Yizhong was a better place to go as compared to the Feng Chia. I even joined a long queue to trim my brows! 

Day 3 - Miyahara - Taichung - Taipei

So quickly day 3 came! Right after our breakfast, we headed to the Miyahara Ophthalmology Department - 宫原眼料 only available in Taichung. It was located 8-10 minutes walk away from our hotel. The 2 storey building was built with red bricks and hugeee. There were varieties ranging from their famous ice-cream, drinks, chocolates & cookies. 

The ice-cream queue wasn't that long in the morning and we got our order quickly. There were so many exotic flavors to choose from and we were spoilt for choices! 

Smoked Uganda, with 80% cocoa & Assam Black tea

A double scoop ice-cream comes with 3 toppings & we chose some caramelized biscuit, sunflower seeds & cheesecake. The ice-cream was light, not very milky & I love it so much! We devoured it very quickly, got a handful of their cookies (not very cheap at $2.50 each but it's really good) before we headed back to hotel to check-out and make our way to Taipei! 

Our own big breakfast

As I'm typing this, I'm sipping on a cuppa brown rice tea after my takeaway dinner and waiting for the folks to be back. Today is the start of the 6th month of 2014, time truly flies over us.
 Hello June!

Anyway, backtrack to last weekend, Jack & I had a breakfast cookout on Friday if you've seen on my instagram :) Truly enjoyed the precious morning because we seldom have such luxury!

We decided on our simple menu the day before. My task was simple - to slice the tomatoes & toast the bread while Jack took charge of the eggs.

Eggs in a coincident smiley face :) we ended up cooking SIXXXX! 

I was skeptical about handling the most important part of my meal to him but boy, he proved me wrong. I think his research via YouTube's tutorial (i.e. Gordon Ramsey) helps! Jack whipped up very yummy & runny eggs albeit a little salty at the end of day. hehe

 Our delectable breakfast which left both of us happy all day long! Love meals like this because they are quick & easy to make, cheap and fulfil our tummies :)

Happy 94th <3

It's going to be a busy month with upcoming residential, cisa, birthday and tpe.

Here's to a long long week till Saturday!

25th

Got to say I love waking up to dark cloudy skies. I am on leave today, and it feels good to sleep in late on a Friday morning! :)

As I'm browsing and sorting through these pictures, I realised it's been more 2 weeks since my 25th birthday.

Together with Jack and some our poly friends, we headed to Irodori Japanese Restaurant at Riverview Hotel  for dinner on Monday after work since the next day was a public holiday.

I love Japanese cuisine and TY made the best choice in choosing the venue. Reservation is highly recommended due to the restaurant's popularity, it was already fully packed when we were there! We settled by 730pm & started ordering. If there's one thing the restaurant can improvised on, it'd definitely be their ordering system. Ordering is very manual & not impeccable in my opinion. But anyway, there were no compromise on the quality of our food, so no complains :)

We had quite a spread - from temaki  to yaki mono, tempura and finger press. The guys went crazy with the temaki and fried rice!! We were given complimentary Ebi Mentai & steamed salmon which was really delectable, in fact everything, except the tea soup! 

with my beloved friends :)

We were the last to leave the restaurant & I had my cake cutting. J bought a cake from Angie the Choice and made a very wrong selection of Mint cake :p The taste wasn't very pleasant and it was apparent I don't really take mint cake...!?! haha but anyway, we wiped clean half the cake and I brought the other half back for the family. 

thank you guys! :')

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Met the girls on my birthday weekend for dinner! Rach found a new Korean cuisine restaurant and it was Yoogane! There were no tinge of familiarity to the restaurant name but the moment I saw the picture, I recalled the Galbi I had three years ago in Korea during my exchange.

oh yes!

Anyway, we heard about the long wait and decided to meet early for dinner at 530. I got there by 540 and the queue has already started. 

We ordered three portion of Chicken Galbi (one with spring onion), two portion of separate fried rice, one tamogo and a seafood pancake. It was quite a lot for 5 girls but we managed to finish it. The meat was really tender and well-marinated even though it was really spicy (for me). Thankful for the free-flow capsicum sides to relieve my burning mouth!

With my favorite bunch of girls, the constant in my life. 12 years and counting <3

We headed to Lady-M for desserts :) There weren't much choices available so we had red velvet, flourless chocolate & green tea crepe cake. We had a great time catching up and shortly came 9. All of us had work the next day so we had to go. I can't wait for the next meet up with them again in June!

Now, have a good weekend! :)

✈ Absolute Yoga // Bangkok, Thailand

Day 5 - It was our last day in Bangkok and we were SG-bound at about 8PM.

The girls has decided on 2nd round at Chatukchak in the morning but I wanted to go for a Yoga class. I've enjoyed my first overseas yoga experience in Vietnam & wanted to add more to my list! I did a quick research few days before we flew and found Absolute Yoga Bangkok. AY is one of Thailand's largest yoga centre and they have quite a few studios around Bangkok. 

Anyway, I slept in a little later that morning & went for some light breakfast alone :) Had two rounds and ended tad too full before class! >.<

Starbucks outside our hotel.

 The nearest studio I could locate within walking distance from our hotel was Amarin Plaza, which took about 12-15 minutes.

Arrived 25 minutes before class for registration. Thankfully I did my research and downloaded the first trial coupon and paid only 350 baht (SGD13~)!

The studio wasn't shabby at all. It was clean, huge and all facilities/amenities were provided - Mat, shower, lockers & towels!

Attended the signature Hot A series that expands from the original Hot Bikram Yoga. There were about 50 yoga poses in total & definitely interesting. The class was also conducted in English (many asked!) and easy to follow. Felt extremely great after all the stretching :)

After a quick wash up, I made my way back to meet the girls. We checked out at 1PM & headed for an hour of Thai Massage. If there's one thing I miss about Bangkok, it got to be massage, therapeutic!

Had our first street food (chicken noodle) for lunch & it was surprisingly tasty! We headed to the airport early for check-in and dinner. The lovely girls surprised me with a birthday cake before boarding too!

 Thank-you so much for all the fun times!

It's Friday, and long weekend for me. May's a good month :)