Taiwan 6-13 Oct 2007

Whenever one comes back from a holiday, the typical question that one gets asked is: "How was your trip?" This time, I went on a "8 Days Best of West Taiwan" tour package with my mum and bro, and my answer to this question is: "It was OK. I find Taiwan quite boring." Why/how boring? Read on.

Here's a map of our route, so that you (and myself, hee...) get an idea of the geographical passage that we went through.

I had purposely chosen to travel to Taiwan after the typhoon season, and yet we got hit by it on the Saturday that we were to depart for Kaohsiung! Our flight was delayed for 5+ hours, finally departing at 7.30pm, while all flights to Taipei were postponed to the next morning. It was a good thing that our flight wasn't delayed till the next day, else we would have to make our way back to the airport again in the wee hours of the morning. But... I had not expected the plane that we would be taking to be so small! 2x3 seats and 20+ rows only! Typhoon + small plane = scary! Please avoid taking China Airlines if you have phobia of small planes. For us, we had no choice in the matter due to tour package limitations. Luckily the flight was rather smooth and much better than expected. Phew!

After we touched down at Kaohsiung airport and collected our luggage, I saw this short old man at the arrival hall carrying a sign with the words "C.T.C". This couldn't be our tour guide, I thought. So I went on to look for our tour guide. There was a younger man holding a sign that said "Hong Thai". That's it. Ok, so we're stuck with the short old man. He is James Liao, or 廖导游, as we would call him. He spoke Mandarin with a Hokkien accent, which is typical of the older people in Taiwan. As he spoke, I could see saliva foaming at the sides of his mouth. Eewww! Plus, he spoke with a sleepy drawl. I wondered if he knew what he was talking about. OMG, I could not imagine being stuck with this old man for the next 7 days!

The next morning, we finally started our tour of Taiwan. It was 8.35am. The street outside our 高雄統茂休閒飯店looked pretty much deserted. Taiwanese don't come out on Sunday mornings? Either that, or we were staying at a super ulu place. Whatever. Off we headed to our first destination: Spring & Autumn Pavilions (春秋阁) and Dragon & Tiger Pagoda (龙虎塔).

Basically, I don't understand what's so interesting about these two places. Sure, 廖导游 told us the story about 玄天上帝 and why his left foot was stepping on a turtle and sword was on a snake, but I don't remember any of it. I remember the Koi fishes in the pond at 春秋阁 were huge though. And I thought the "breathing holes" at the ceiling of the dragon body at 龙虎塔 was quite a smart idea as it allowed ventilation while preventing water from pouring in.

Next stop: Dream Mall, so-called the sixth-largest shopping mall in Asia, featuring a Hello Kitty ferris wheel at the roof-top of the 9-storey building. Nothing fantastic really. The design of Dream Mall is similar to Vivo City, and the only highlight of the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel is that all the cabins have Hello Kitty affiliated designs on them. I was attracted by a fancy lighting decoration somewhere in the middle of the mall though.

After that, we proceeded to Maopitou (猫鼻头). The black shore is actually made up of coral-rock formations. I love the scenary there!

On our way back to the car park, we came to a row of shops that were selling ice cream (霜淇淋). It's not nice loh, got ice no cream, and it was melting super fast!

Next, we went to Eluanbi (鹅銮鼻) where there was a military lighthouse and also a shoreline with big waves crashing against coral rock.

On our way to Kenting (垦丁), we made a stopover at 社頂自然公園where there were trees growing out of rocks. Apparently no one else except me was interested in this strange scene, so we left pretty fast.

Kenting is a touristy place supposedly famed for being mini-Pattaya. There were many restaurants serving over-priced Thai and western food, as well as pubs with pole-dancing performances. After walking up and down the street finding nothing much worth spending our money on, we decided to try out this stall that sells 鲁味. You could choose from ingredients like bean curd, pig intestines, tau pok, fish cake, 甜不辣, etc. It turned out to be quite nice after all. Since we were in Taiwan, famed for Pearl Milk Tea, my bro just had to get one!

The next day, we set off to Tainan's 安平老街to lunch at this award-winning shop 貴記which sells various 台南小吃 such as 棺材板, amongst others, of which I have forgotten the names. For some reason, 廖导游 felt that we would be interested in looking at a group of aunties de-shelling oysters. It was quite an eye-opener, since we would never see such a sight in Singapore, but it's not a place to linger as the stench was just too strong. Really admire the old aunties! While trying to take photos outside 貴記, I stepped on dog shit! It was really suay cos my bro was standing at the same place earlier and he didn't kena at all!

After lunch, we headed to 长白山: 七股盐山. This is basically 2 mountains of salt deposited some years back when the local salt farmers were protesting against the import of cheaper foreign salt which made them out of business. I took a pinch of the grainy stuff on the way down and tasted it... it's really salt! The ice cream that we were eating were made of salt, a specialty there.

At 3pm, we took a 50-min "五分车" ride at 乌树林. It's called "五分车" because its track is only half the width of the standard track size. In the past, these trains were used to transport sugar cane. But, as with the salt industry, the local sugar industry also diminished with the extensive import of overseas sugar. The ride ended up at a farm which rears cows for milk. Instead of buying milk, my mum bought a dozen of century eggs!

In the evening, we settled down at 關子嶺統茂溫泉會館 for hot spring with mud. I say this because, instead of the mud hot spring that I was expecting, the mud was provided in a tub to be applied separately.

Day 4. We visited 集集火车站 in Nantou (南投). The station made of wood is a landmark at 集集 and is still in use today. Not very interesting. The platform looked similar to Thailand's train platform.

Next, we visited 武昌宫 which was damaged by the 921 earthquake. While chatting with the stall holders at the market of sorts opposite 武昌宫, the lady selling bananas said I spoke just like a Taiwanese and didn't sound like a Singaporean at all. Hee...

On the way to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭)，we stopped over for lunch at a restaurant that serves 三杯鸡. One thing that I didn't understand was, if Taiwan was so environmentally-conscious, why were all the utensils disposable?

My manual paramoma fixing of the Sun Moon Lake pictures. Not bad eh?

Before I even had time to soak in the beautiful sights of the Sun Moon Lake, we were herded into the 文武庙 located directly in front of the lake. After that, we visited the Peacock Garden, but I was more interested in the hills outside. Notice that the lamps around the Sun Moon Lake region had sun and moon symbols on them.

Us in 绍族costumes in a shop owned by 绍族people where we were brought to for them to promote lingzhi and royal jelly to us. Expensive stuff!

Dinner at Feng Jia Night Market (逢甲夜市) located outside Feng Jia University in Taichung (台中). This turned out to be my favourite night market of the whole tour as I felt that it was more interesting cos it allowed us to really 穿街走巷 in search of delicious food. We had 盐酥菇, 大肠包小肠(my fav! queued for half an hour!), 炸鸡排, 一口臭豆腐, 水果葫芦, 珍珠奶茶, etc...

At night, 11 people in my tour group went to catch "Lust, Caution" at 9.50pm at the cinema just beside our hotel. Only 2 aunties did not go. So you see, sex sells!

On Wed morning, we had a DIY sun cake (太阳饼) making session! It was quite fun after all.

After that, we went to Leo Foo Village Theme Park (六福村). My dear I-can't-take-drops bro refused to play any of the mildly exciting rides, so I had to take them with the young husbands in our tour group.

In the late afternoon, we headed to Taipei 101.

At night, after a very unsatisfying steamboat dinner, we went to 五分埔. I think it was there where we got a nice bag for bro's girlfriend. The salesgirl said my mum sounded like a Hong Konger. Hmmm... Thereafter, we headed to Raohe Night Market (饶河夜市) where we had some very nice 铜锣烧. The couple manning the stall did not speak (I wondered if they were Japanese or mute), so we communicated by hand gestures.

The stay at Taipai Fortune Hotel was the only satisfactory one during the whole trip. Good thing we stayed there for 2 nights! In the morning after breakfast, bro and I amused ourselves at the balcony outside the hotel restaurant on the 11th floor.

At 9am, we were at Martry's Shrine (忠烈祠) to witness the changing of guards ceremony. It was an elaborate process, and I must say, they have a funny way of marching! My bro must have taken a hundred photos of the process, don't ask me why. After so many years of hourly marching, there were 3 straight march lines on the ground.

Next, we proceeded to Yangmingshan (阳明山). It's a dormant volcanic region famed for cherry blossoms, hot springs and sulfur gas. Yes, we had whiffs of rotten egg smell under our noses, but couldn't even catch a glimpse of the mouth of the volcano as it was rainy and misty.

Next stop: Lunch at 五角船板. This was a very unique restaurant indeed. It was designed by a lady who took the scraps from her father's shipyard and combined with wood planks and other materials to put together the building. The whole place was really about her building dreams - her way, her style - as she had no prior training in architecture & building. The restaurant was created simply to utilise the building that she had built. The food here was good but not fantastic, and most of the dishes were already much better than what we had been having during the trip. The experience of having a meal in an art gallery with live piano music was simply was... oohh... I would go back there again if I had the chance, but maybe to the other branches. She also has prior creations in Taichung and Tainan.

Yehliu (野柳), my favourite part of the itinerary. Here we saw spectacular formations that resulted from sea erosion. Beautiful place! Before we saw the real thing, they made us sit through a 20-min (I think) video showing the history and stuff of the place, of which I slept thru half of it (and so did many others). Hehe!

Fisherman's Wharf (渔人码头) is famed to be a romantic place, but I didn't find it so. Managed to catch a very quick view of the sunset though. And what's so fantastic about the Lover's Bridge (情人桥)? It's ermm... just a bridge.

After going to several night markets, Tamshui Old Street (淡水老街) was just like any other night market. 廖导游 thought that we might not like the taste of 阿给 (vermicelli stuffed in beancurd in 鲁汁), but we found it to be rather tasty. We also tried black tau huay (黑豆花), which we thought would be, you know, black. But it looked just like normal tau huay, just a tad darker. I liked the soup that they used for the tau huay, as it wasn't just sugar syrup. It was sweet soup which they probably used dried longan or other dried fruits to boil with. We gave the 霜淇淋 a second chance, but decided it's still FAIL after tasting it.

Shihlin Night Market (士林夜市) must try: 豪大大鸡排! Yummy! The 创冰 was quite nice, but I think Hong Kong's Hui Lau Shan is better. We also tried the oyster omelette, but we didn't quite like it; Singapore's still better.

Chuifen (九份) was just like Bugis Street. I didn't see any coffee shops there (read: 陈绮贞's song <九份的咖啡店>).

C.K.C Memorial Hall (中正纪念堂) was Zzzzzzz....

Let's look at flowers instead!

Ximending (西门盯) was a super huge shopping district. But most of the shopping centres were similar to our Far East Plaza.

We caught the 6pm high speed train and got back to Kaohsiung in just 1 hr 36 mins!

We almost couldn't find anything to eat at Leo He Night Market (六和夜市). It was my least favourite night market. In the end, we settled for 鲁肉饭and 炒饭. Not too bad. The 油条was not nice though.

That's it. The end of our Taiwan trip. We arrived with 2 pieces of luggage and went home with 3 + 2 boxes. All thanks to our 廖导游 who went the extra mile to find us empty boxes to pack our food stuff into. I had mentioned earlier about how I dreaded having him around. But that's first impression, and sometimes, first impressions can be wrong. During the trip, I found him to be a very nice, sincere, knowledgeable and helpful guide, though sometimes he can be a bit dua kang (boastful & exaggerating). Our mini-bus driver was also very humourous. He didn't speak much, but when he did, he was Mr Funnyman.

Although the trip was a bit boring, I was happy because it was a family outing. Plus, my brother was there to harmonise the situation whenever I got annoyed by my mum. Ha ha.