I'm continuing my travelogue of my family's trip to Taiwan last week!
If you've missed my first two entries, here're the links to them:
Taiwan Trip Day 1 Taichung - Chun Shui Tang Teahouse, Fengchia 台湾，台中，春水堂，逢甲夜市
Taiwan Trip Day 2 Taichung - Sun Moon Lake 台湾，台中，日月潭
Day 3 saw us leaving Taichung and heading toward Taipei!
Had a hearty breakfast at our hotel, the CityInn Hotel (Taichung Station Branch) 新驶旅店，台中车站店 first before leaving!
Serving of breakfast takes place buffet-style in the basement of the hotel
Going past New Wurih Train Station 新烏日車站 to get to Taichung HSR Station 高铁台中站 as we were taking the High Speed Railway again.
Purchase tickets for the day at such counters! HSR special fares for the elderly only applies for Taiwanese citizens. The fare was NT$700 with seat allocation.
Always remember to ask which platform 月台 (yue tai) you're supposed to board at!
We reached Taipei Main Station! The metro station is linked to the HSR station by a walkway. Waiting for the MRT Metro 捷运 this time to get to our second hotel.
I was a tad frustrated at that point because my elder brother was
blatantly showing his disapproval of my attire
but I really didn't or couldn't care much for his dissatisfaction. I
genuinely love the cold weather - it's really stifling warm in Singapore + I don't get ill from being in the cold! When we got into the railway, my mom caught some old uncle attempting to snap a photo of my...
derrière and she immediately pushed me aside and snapped a photo of him in the most obvious manner possible. MY MOMMY IS SO PROTECTIVE!!! Thank you mommy. All I wanted to do was flip the guy off to be honest but my mom was shielding me. When this happened my elder brother weighed in and scornfully remarked that people, regardless of gender, were staring at me; I was
attracting too much unwanted attention. Ugh honestly it's not like I was very inappropriately dressed - like say, being in a bikini - furthermore, I had my jacket with me that I did don on when it got more chilly. Sometimes traveling with or just simply being with my family members can get very tiring because everyone loves to nag but I always try to remember that they're doing it out of
concern for me... Anyway it was only the third day so I didn't want to argue so I just changed into long pants.
What a fucker the uncle was thou, no? To think you're entitled to take photos of a woman's body as if her body is your property? I think more people should be shaming such perpetrators of such harassment instead of chiding people like me who just innocently want to take advantage of the cool weather. _|_ _|_
After we had washed up a bit at our hotel (which name I'll give you later in the entry, with photos!), we went out in search for lunch. By this time it was pouring! With all the traveling we had done, when I spotted
Formosa Chang 鬍鬚張 卤肉饭 in my Google Maps app, I WAS ECTASTIC! Huimin had told me that the food there was good, so we popped in and got seated.
There's braised meat rice, chicken rice, other side dishes like vegetables and soups!
We tried all these!:
魯肉飯(小) lu rou fan Braised meat rice (NT$35)
雞肉飯(小) Chicken rice (NT$35)
白菜魯 Cabbage dish (NT$40)
水耕A菜 Green veggies (NT$45)
蹄膀 Pork trotter (NT$95)
玉米濃湯 Corn soup (NT$49)
菜頭湯 Radish soup (NT$35)
This is the Lu rou fan (braised meat rice)!!! It's a small bowl and is cheap (~$S1.70) but so very yummy! They use short grain pearl rice for their rice dishes. *tears in contentment* IT IS REALLY DELICIOUS. The fatty braised meat melts in your mouth and there's hardly any lean meat. Being so soft and gooey, the meat sticks to the rice and topped with the sauce, which has such a nice savoury depth to it without being too salty, it's almost as if you're eating a dumpling but the rice grains are much firmer and the taste is not as heavy. Han and Kor both got two bowls.
On another occasion, Han, Daddy and I tried the Pork ribs 唐山排骨 (NT$75) and it was also fried very well. The meat was succulent but not oily.
Luckily for everyone, Formosa Chang operates on a franchise style and there are many branches around! The address of the outlet we lunched at is 台北民權店, 台北市民權西路43號.
We bought muah chee because my mom and I couldn't resist them... It was just from a lady who had a cart right out Watsons! They tasted amazingly chewy and the quantities of pastes (sesame or peanut) were just right.
Our next destination was
Bei Tou Hot Springs Museum (北投溫泉博物館)!
"I.... can't.... stand.... the..... cold"
It really was quite chilly that day!
Just alight at Xin Bei Tou MRT station 新北投捷运站 and follow signs to the museum. It's only about 10 min away, tops.
Initially a public spa, Beitou Public Spa was abandoned for a period of time after World War 2 before being discovered in 1994 by some teachers and students from Beitou Elementary School who petitioned to conserve the place. After three gruelling years, it was finally declared a National Grade 3 listed historical building!
I was wandering about reading random information panels... What stuck with me was that during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, Beitou, as a region, was more popular with the Japanese because of the hot springs available. Before, when the Taiwanese used hot springs, it was more for cleaning their bodies, but with Japanese influence, it became more of a social and communal activity where people would get together and leisurely enjoy their time in the hot springs.
The staff provides slippers so visitors don't track mud and dirt onto the premises!
This, my friends, is named The Hundred year old Elegance.
Next on our itinerary was the
Beitou Geothermal Valley!
By this time, the wind had grown monstrously and everyone was shivering in the cold. Well except me, that is. My nose was quite frozen but I was still liking the coolness. My Papa was the worst off; he had a runny nose and was attempting cover his face with a thin scarf that I had brought along with me.
When we spotted this cafe-cum-souvenir shop, we hurriedly ducked in to hide from the wind!
This lady's accent was so strong and she was droning on in it... When she repeatedly went "外带内用外带内用外带内用?" I had no clue she was asking me a question. *-* Only when her colleague said "她还在选，等一下" did I belatedly realise she was directing that to me.
Coffeeeeeeeeeeee
Reached the sulfurous hot springs! DANG WAS IT STINKY. I always hated experiments in Chemistry that made us try to get sulphur oxide or ammonia as results. Ick
老爸
There're hotels way up North in Beitou as well! Beitou is located right up at the North of Taipei, by the way.
After that, our day got decidedly
miserable... It was getting really cold. At the railway station, my mom and I were deciding how to proceed on, because Pops' flu was getting worse and he didn't have any thick clothing with him. I offered to bring him to a departmental store myself while the rest went ahead to Dan Shui, but in the end we decided to just head to
Dan Shui 淡水老街 together. Simply take the MRT line to the last stop of the Red line!
Upon exiting Tam Shui MRT station 淡水捷运站 , a HUGE gush of wind rushed by and all 6 of us were chilled to our bones. ;_; Between the steadily heavy rain and whooshes of wind, even I had to put on my denim jacket... As luck would have it, there was a Uniqlo store near us and we quickly bought a Heat-tech windbreaker for Pops and a thick jacket for my granny.
We didn't take any photos at Dan Shui Old Street. Frankly, I couldn't be arsed. It was absolutely dark by 6pm and the rain was relentless. Furthermore, the restaurant that we dined at, called 孔雀蛤 150, served really oily food and the supposedly fresh (from Internet netizens, again) seafood was so stale... To make things worse, the table next to ours had a 小强 episode!!!!!!! Yes, a cockroach was found, not in the food, but it crawled up onto their table... Definitely lost my appetite then. Don't go to 孔雀蛤 150! It's the restaurant next to 余家孔雀蛤.
We had initially planned to head to the Fisherman's Wharf 漁人碼頭 and Lovers' Bridge 情人桥 but it was decided that we wouldn't want to risk our lives in the darkness with rolling waves to boot. The only good thing that came out of the trip to Dan Shui was that we managed to purchase iron eggs (quail eggs and chicken eggs)
铁蛋 and fish crackers
鱼稣!!!!!
I had been tasked to buy this by Flea. Even before my trip to Taiwan had been confirmed. LOL. She kindly let me try one, and I have to say the egg white part rather much tastes like a mix between rubber and plastic LOL. I only like the egg yolk!
Also got one for Nick! He says he is able to finish one packet by himself whilst watching a film.
We got an early night back in the hotel. The hotel we stayed in at Taipei was
Hotel Sunroute Taipei 台北灿路都大饭店!
Address: 台湾台北市民权东路一段9号
Located between two metro stops, Minquan West Station 民权西路捷运站 and Zhongshan Elementary School Station 中山国小捷运站
We walked from Minquan.W all the time as it's located on the Red MRT line and linked to more lines than Zhongshan Elementary School Station. The 6 of us had 2 Small Double Rooms, which cost about S$531 for 4 nights per room, and 1 Standard Double Room, which costs about S$507 for 4 nights. I carried out the booking on
Booking.com just like for Taichung, but this time, when we paid upon check-out, the price was the same as initially stated on my receipt; there was no exchange rate difference implemented. So I guess it's dependent on the hotels? Anyway, it's strange because the Standard Double Room is bigger but it costs less! All this worked out to about S$65 per person for 4 nights! Because this is a Japanese-style hotel, the rooms are pretty small!
With the assortment of cabin baggage and check-in baggage lying around, we barely had space to step around
The bed's rather small too. My granny stole the duvet away from me every night! Thank goodness I like the cold and didn't really have to use the duvet hahahahah.
But it has a bath tub!
And this amazing Japanese invention of a toilet LOL.
One disadvantage of the rooms is that they only provide one set of keys which includes 1 key for getting electricity in your room. So if one person needs to leave the room to buy something or just return later, you have to make sure you have some way of contacting the person within the room or that she/he doesn't fall asleep!
Hair was totally destroyed from the rain!!
I definitely think that CityInn at Taichung was better than Sunroute in Taipei. In terms of room space and cleanliness. Also, the provision of a free breakfast buffet for CityInn! There's also a Cityinn Hotel in Taipei (it's located at Xi Men Ding!) but we did our hotel booking rather last minute, and hotels in Taipei were very much booked! So I guess we should be relieved that we were able to get Sunroute Taipei, which is quite centrally located.
This wraps up my Day 3 entry! I think all of us were feeling quite
langbei from the dreary rain and travelling around... Weather really plays such an important role in travels! But thankfully, we survived it without tearing each other's heads off. In the next entry, we head to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall and Xi Men Ding! I also have an excellent restaurant to recommend to you so please await my next entry eagerly hehe.
Love,
Pamela
Labels: Beitou Museum, Dan Shui Old Street, Formosa Chang, Lu rou fan, Sunroute Hotel Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan, Taiwanese snacks, the ng family, Travel Entries
