Sel's Taiwan trip 22nd jul to 30th Jul 2007

As promised, my Taiwan trip stuff!

I absolutely adore Taiwan food!

(Pics below censored for online anonymity cos I posted them on a forum as well and now lazy to edit back to original pic)







Errr I just got lazy of uploading all my food pics since there are endless types of food there. So I'll stop my food pics here. Maybe I'll upload SOME pics next time. Anyway my favs were the pao pao bing (blended ice), Shilin Mkt hao da da ji pa (giant chicken chop), Danshui Street Ah Gei (beancurd with dongfen mee inside and nice sauce) and extremely tall icecream, Taipei Zhongshan street Hai Ye mianxian, and Raohe Mkt fried mushrooms! Still got alot other nice food but let's stop here.

Next up would be my sightseeing! Will upload pics next time! :p

As a prelude, I went free and easy to:

1) Taipei main city (ximending, shilin, wufenpu, CKS memorial hall, SunYatSen mem hall, Taipei 101, National Taiwan University, Raohe Nite Mkt, blah blah blah)

Taipei is @#$^*%* HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 38deg? Hmm. Wld sweat within 10 secs of walking out of hotel.

2) Northern Taipei: Yeh Liu (damn picturesque), Keelong Nite mkt, Beitou, Danshui, Fisherman's wharf, Yang Ming Shan (super over-rated, DO NOT climb Seven Stars Peak like what we did).

3) Eastern Taiwan: Taroko Gorge (hired a taxi tour guide there), Hualien

4) Central Taiwan: Alishan (love it there!), Sun Moon Lake, Chiayi (stopover)

Most memorable was watching galaxies and constellations at 3:50am at one of the peaks on Alishan, and then watching the sunrise at 5:20am on the peak of Yushan.

Best place to take pics: Yeh Liu with the cute weirdo sand formations. We had fun trying to spot the sand formations that were mentioned on the brochures. But again, IT WAS @#$%^&* HOT!!!

Most romantic place: Fisherman's Wharf and Danshui. Nice cool breeze, romantic lights from the boats, watching the roadside artists drawing away, MANY beautiful dogs walking along with their owners (Fisherman's Wharf residents own the most dogs?), and best of all, the extremely tall icecream which I absolutely love cos of the green tea flavour, and the famous Ah Ge dish there.

Most horrible place: Sun Moon Lake. Don't go in the summer cos as usual, it is fa*king hot and there's lots of GIANT mosquitoes there! Even in the aircon restaurant where we ate, there's a lot of giant mossies flying around. We were so scared that we ran straight for the bus back to Taipei the moment we ate finish our dinner. And SML is NOT beautiful. The brochures are misleading.

Silliest decision during the trip: Climbing Yang Ming Shan's Seven Stars Peak. We should have stuck to the usual tourist route and just gone to lengshuikeng, xiaoyoukeng and the usual. Instead, we ventured on a 不自量力 climb up Seven Stars peak. It was torturous cos with our moderately fast pace, we still took quite long to reach the peak and back down again. The narrow rock stairs were steep and slippery and unstable. We were walking DAMN fast downhill cos we were so scared it wld be nitefall by the time we climb down. And we ended up with 4 days of extreme muscle pain. Reli extreme. Can scream when walking down flights of stairs. And imagine that was our 1st day of trip, so we had to endure 4 days of touring in muscle pain.

Hmm maybe those who didn't go to Taiwan won't know wat I'm talking abt in this post, but those who went Taiwan b4 might be able to relate to wat I'm saying.

Ok, enough of the banter. More scenic pics next time. :)

Muacks,
Sel