1st day in taipei (11th Apr 2006)

these travel articles were written, mostly by sm, AFTER the taipei-hong kong trip

After a few hours of flight, we finally reach Taipei and my excitement started to get into my head. We took a coach to the hostel that we had earlier planned for. During the journey, I was admiring the scenery and notice that there isn’t a single English signboard. All are in traditional Chinese wordings, and thank god that my chinese is not that bad afterall. It was quite a long journey and the warm weather put me to a drowsy and dreamy mood, which I began to doze off and drool. After a 45 minutes of bus ride, we reached our stop. We began to find our way to the hostel.

At first, we could not find the hostel, making some false turns. After some walking with our heavy bags, we found the hostel hidden in an obscure lane. The lift is so small that can only hold utmost 3 people I guess. The corridor to our room is quite dark and narrow, but nevertheless I was glad to be able to “lighten” my shoulder for that moment.

After taking a short rest, we took train and started off our “makan” journey with trendy, fashion district of Taipei, Ximen Ding (西門町).

Though it was neither holiday nor weekend in Taipei, there were still quite a lot of people. Most of them were students in their seasonal school attire, hanging around after school. We started eating and munching as we walk and shop.

Our first snack was “Yang Tao Bing” (楊桃冰), a cold desert with starfruit, sour plum juice and ice. It was very refreshing and cooling. He loves it though it tastes sour to him.

Next, we ate “Xiang Xiang Ji” (香香雞), a crispy chicken with very tender and juicy meat coated with some spicy powder. It was tasty and well-seasoned.

I must say that the service there (taipei) is quite good. The sale assistants greeted to almost everyone who entered their shop in a very sweet and friendly tone. Not only that, they will attend to you personally, making sure that you are equipped with any helps required. They might tend to be more persuasive in selling or promoting, but they speak in a very sweet and pleasing tone, which you will not feel annoyed at all. Most of the tops cannot be tried but with abit of coercing, you should be able to get your way through. The fashion now seems like bohemia with lacey trimming, stitched with sequins.

There were quite a number of “mobile” store selling snacks in the middle of the path way and of course we continued eating. we ate “Sausage with Jiu Cheng Ta” (烤香腸+ä¹?層塔), followed by the famous “Ah Zhong Mian Sian” (阿宗麵線). One lesson learnt here; though it is famous, do not gobble, eat it slowly to prevent getting a burnt tongue.

One of my favourite, “Qing Wa Xia Dan” (é?’蛙下蛋), a cold dessert with pearl and jelly. It consists of several flavours like green bean paste and milk etc. Next, we had “Xian Bing” (餡餅), a pan-fried pastry with red bean paste and a “cold” braised duck wing (eric: the photo not worth showing la, yucks).

After eating and walking for a few hours, we sat down and had a drink at a swing style teahouse. The cool luminous lighting set a comfortable and relaxing ambience. It was an ideal place to chill out or stopover for a short break.

We continued shopping and walking and off we go back to rest our day.