Look who's back!

Dinner with the worm at TCC. He looked quite 憔悴 though.
The reason being he was used to be driven and not drove around!!

Boo..I want to visit Australia too. The pictures he took look great!
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Anyway, to digress, the Banana Curry Salmon Exotica at TCC is YUUUMMMYYY.
A different way of cooking salmon altogether. You can choose it to be medium rare or well done.
Yogi thought medium rare will be an interesting choice, but I thought it will taste weird.
Cos' I usually eat it RAW or Completely cooked.

So the non-adventurous Aska in me ate the well done salmon and it can never taste BETTER!
Asparagus + Mashed Potato + Banana Curry Sauce + Salmon Steak = Heaven!

After reading/hearing quite a few reviews on Ma Maison @ Central, I finally made my maiden trip there. Yay.

It's a Japanese and western fusion kinda of restaurant. Very cottage like.
Do try their set lunch cos' it's quite worth it.
Salad + Soup + Main Course + Drink/Dessert = S$15+

Tabao-ed some smoked salmon pizza @ Taglio before making the trip to Sentosa to be a tourist for a day.

Just a side note, I think there's lots of yummy food at Central.
Especially MY FAVOURITE Japanese food.
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Sentosa has certainly undergone a huge revamped.
And it's been 10 freaking years since I visited the Underwater World.
So I thought it will be nice to revisit it after soo long.

I guess after 10 years, the fishes are still the same. But I dont remember seeing crabs then.

And here's my FAVOURITE Jelly fish!

Find the Nemo!
And the lazy shark.

Found a cooling place to eat the pizza...

..and to ponder about the upcoming new chapter in life.

Caught the pink dolphin show, but I was tooooo far from the dolphin for pictures.

So here's sunset!
And my cleanroom mate-to-be.
;)

Only a few days left before my LAST holiday comes to an end.
So Nini and I went Museum-hopping around the sunny island.
Free admission for all with our student card. Woot.
Everyone should just go! We felt very cultured after the visits.
=P
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First stop: The Peranakan Museum..

Dick Lee is a Hokkien Peranakan. Bet you din know that.

Then we made our way to the Art Museum, followed by the National Museum of Singapore.

There's this big screeeen near the entrance of National Museum that captures our image on the wall behind, which resembles our shadow. Very cool.

There's also a few stand-alone exhibitions that day..

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Niniong's backview. Haha my FAVOURITE.

And that's me, Doing the Karen Cheng, whenever I see mirrors in the museum. Ha!

=)

Shin Kushiya, yummy.
Your company, priceless.
=)

Happy Belated Birthday, Babe!

On the second last day of our trip, Lam was nice enough to drive us all the way up to Yeliu Geopark (around Keelung) to have a look at STONES. Haha.
One of the must-see at the park includes the Queen's head. We heard her neck is breaking soon. Urps. Anyway, my personal favourite was the patterned-stones surface. Not forgetting the rain drop after the drizzle. =)

Some shops at Yeliu...

Thereafter, we made our way to 九份老街. We had their jumbo 肉丸, together with their very addictive chilli sauce, for lunch. YUMMYYYYY.
Walked around and tried some of their street food as well.
Seriously, one will definitely not run out of things to eat in Taiwan cos' food is EVERYWHERE.

To thank Lam, we brought him to 鼎泰丰 for dinner.
Personally, I think the food tasted almost similar to those back in Singapore.
And I still preferred the pork chop back here, which is less oily.
After dinner, we had Ice monster as dessert. Walked around 永康街 for a while before calling it a night.

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Our final day in Taipei was spent in 淡水老街, before taking a bus to 渔人码头 to see THE bridge. It was so windy that the photos we took look quite crappy. But the sky's magnificent though. Looking at it now tranquilizes me.

After wandering around the area for a while, we went to have our portrait drawn by this artist whose stall was located near the end of the bridge. We chose her cos' the samples that she drew for other celebrities looked quite good.

But our own portrait turned out to be..as follows:

Hmmmm...
My parents said it doesnt look like me AT ALL. I thought the hair looks the same. So is my dress! Ha.

For our final dinner in Taipei, we went back to Shilin night market!
And not forgetting to do some last minute shopping. Hehe.

The highlight of the day was our ride on Miramar Ferris Wheel!! It's so much cheaper than Singapore's Flyer and it's so much more private.
I heart the coloured wheel. Woot!

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As our flight was at 2pm the next day (which means that we will need to leave Chocolate box by 11), we went KTV with some Hong Kong friends we met at Chocolate, together with Lam till the wee hours of the night.

Went back to hostel for some poker before sleeping for 2 hours, and I woke up with a very SORE throat. Lost my voice when I came back home the next day. ZZZ.
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Anyway, as I was mentioned before, Chocolate Box is THE place to stay if you choose to go budget for your trip to Taiwan.
The place is very clean, fully air-conditioned and super cozy. We like!
We got to meet new people every day and that definitely would not have happened if we were to stay in some hotel instead.
=)

From top to bottom, left to right:
Singaporean Sisters we met there; Claire the lady boss; Lam the caretaker; Hong Kong guys we met; Taiwanese girls we shared room with; Alex the French.
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And finally, Aska returns home...

... with her super junior!
HO!

Our third day in Taipei was POWER-PACKED.
We planned to visit 6 places in a day. But due to the weather, we gave up one.
It turned out to be the right decision anyway.
;)

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Our first stop of the day was at Sun Yat Sen's Memorial Hall, where I got up closed to Mr Sun himself. HEHE.

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Then we made our way to Taipei 101, where the view was breathtaking.
The car park from above looked like a microchip, which made me think of WORK.
-_-"

As usual, we took some pictures around the observatory area.

Third stop of the day saw us in 淡水老街.
I love the idea of a 老街. It kinda brings you away from the usual city stuff.
Their street food were finger-licking good. Like 阿给 (Second row first picture), 鸡排，the tall ice cream and also some Sotong that we tried along the way.

Half way through, it started to POUR. So our Poncho finally 派上用场.
Qh chose to use her umbrella instead, so me and hP looked as if we were some weirdos on board the MRT. Not forgetting the 6 BIG bags of goodies that we got from 淡水, which also got their fair share of constant stares from passerby(s).

Lugging the 6 BIG bags of goodies with us, we reached the fourth stop of our day, 北投.

到了北投一定要泡温泉啦！

We chose the 日式温馨榻榻米房@百乐汇温泉饭店 to have our virgin experience in the hot spring pool. It's freaking comfortable and we like the whole idea of it being private.
From our pool, we could see what is it like at the public pool, a few storey down from where our room was. It made us even more glad that we chose the private pool instead. =P

We then had dinner at the MUST-TRY 温泉拉面, which was just a few minutes walk from 百乐汇温泉饭店.
I tried the Kim Chi soup base and 拉面 never taste so good before!
I am sooooooo missing it already!

After which, we made our way back to Taipei where the final stop of the day awaits!

But before I go into that, allow me to digress.
The following collage depicts some of the 抓抓乐 soft toy that hP and I tried to catch over the span of 6 days in Taipei. There's actually more than just 6 but I am still feeling sore that we DID NOT manage to catch even one. Who told me it's easy as a pea to catch them? WHO??!
Humph!

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Anyway, after unloading our bags of goodies at Chocolate box, we FLEW down to Shilin Night Market! There were so many things to buy that we spent a good 3 hours there before catching the last train back to our hostel.

Check out our supper for the night.
The XXXL 鸡排 is really BIG. So is their 大肠包小肠. It's so yummy that we had it for dinner again the next day!

This is totally random but we bought 3 polo T-shirts from this guy at Shilin, so we asked him to take a picture with us! Hahhahaha.

Taipei is fun! Yes it is!
=)

For our first (full) day in Taipei, we were all geared up for the very much anticipated
KTV Session at their Party World BUILDING @ Ximending

Yes, a whole building devoted just for KTV. While waiting for them to get the room ready,
we were given a UFO-looking plate. It actually BUZZED to inform us that our room was ready.
How cool is that?

Here's us looking all fresh at Chocolate Box's balcony

We ordered some 点心 and 奶茶 to go along and they were really good!
In addition, the service was very prompt and there's an ATTACHED toilet in every KTV room.
Now, Singapore's KBOX or Party World should really do something about it.
Especially KBOX.

Some usual photowhoring. Heh.
Can you see that I'm singing with passion?!

After 5 HOURS of KTV (which we thought it wasnt enough), we went to
grab some bites for dinner before we shopped our hearts out at Ximending!
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On the same night, we went to experience the night life at Taipei!
Roxy 99 was packed like sardines, so after having 3 of the 4 free drinks offered, we went over to Cou Cou pub to chill instead. Met some of Lam's (caretaker of Chocolate box) friends over there, who were all friendly and nice people.
=)

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The second day in Taipei saw us visiting Ximending again, but this time round we went to
collect our spectacles. Ahh yes. We made spectacles over there cos' it's CHEAP.
Like S$40?

Here's my favourite stranger we met in Taiwan.
He works at the spectacles shop which we patronized and boy was he entertaining. Knowing that we will be visiting Raohe night market later that night, he recommended some stuff that we should try over there and gave us the exact directions to it.
Total COOLNESSS.

Oh and I love him in his vest! So I asked if I can take pictures of him.
Typical tourist me.
HEHEHE.

After which, we went around searching for banks that offer money exchanging services for Singapore dollars. Apparently, ONLY Bank of Taiwan (main branch some more!) offers the service. We made our way there and coincidently bumped into a fellow Singaporean, whom we met a few days ago at Chocolate box.

So the four of us went to have lunch at this swing restaurant at Ximending.
The ambiance was great, but the food was ok only.
No wonder Taiwanese prefers street food, cos' it's cheaper and so much NICER!

After lunch, we made our way to the National Palace Museum.
No photos allowed inside so we took some outside. Heh.

Anyway, I managed to find some pictures from their website with regard to the collections that we visited. One of which is the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects. The other one looks like a fatty pork meat, which is actually a stone, known as the Meat-Shaped Stone.



After "gaining" enough knowledge from the museum, we went to Raohe to have a taste of their famous 园环鲁肉饭. We also tried their 胡椒饼, but it was a bit hard for me to bite.

With a freaking full stomach, we went to 五份铺 to shop again!
But we did not buy much from there.
Cos' Shilin night market is the way to go!

Third day awaits!

After our stay at Alishan, the initial plan was to travel 6 hours straight
to Hualien from Chiayi by train.
But in the end, we did not manage to get the train tickets so we were stranded in Taipei.

Ok not really stranded.
Just that we did not book any accommodation for that night.
But thank god for Chocolate Box Backpackers, we had somewhere to sleep!
I should leave CBB for another day cos' it deserved a longer entry!

Anyway, back to Hualien. Amazing place to be.
We thought it was a more interesting stay compared to Alishan.
One of the reasons could be the guide who brought us
around for our day tour around Hualien.
=)

Initially, we booked this guy called Chen Guang Fa to bring us around,
since he is HIGHLY recommended on tripadvisor.com.
But my dear friends, always take recommendations with a pinch of salt.
We got pangseh-ed cos' he was FREAKING popular.
HE is seriously over-rated la.

So we got another guide instead, who goes by the name of 陈福万.
And it was such a blessing in disguise.
He's funny, humble, polite and he made our trip at Hualien a very, very
memorable one.

If anyone's going there in the near future, do look for him!
Here's his contacts:
0911-062770
陈福万

Dont find the wrong 陈!
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Anyway, back to the day tour around Hualien.

Since we arrived pretty early that day, 陈大叔 brought us around to see look before
bringing us to our lunch venue.

Along the way, we saw one FREAKING big snake along the road side.
Guess who spotted it? Our blurry Qianhui, of all people!

陈大叔 was more excited than us so he got off his car and took a closer look. He told us that seeing this snake was more worth it than seeing the Taroko Gorge.

Haha. Oh and we saw a cow too! And a rare butterfly that stopped and allowed me to take picture of it. Coolness.

That's 陈大叔 in blue. A very fatherly figure.

Then we had our lunch at this restaurant, where I felt the food was VERY nice.

After lunch, we began our tour around Taroko Gorge.
We went to this place called 燕子口 and saw over 100++ of 燕子 that day.

陈大叔 couldnt help but exclaimed how lucky we were again cos' he said
usually there's only 3-4 of them flying around.
Ho!
Other than that, we saw a lot of stones formation, caves, valleys and rivers.
But here's the selected few.

After which, we went to 七心潭 to enjoy the breeze.
And to see their stones. Not forgetting to take pictures of ourselves!
But due to the WIND, we all looked super chui.
Thus, presenting our shadows instead. Heh.

The sky was very clear so there's no need for photoshop. HA!
We saw some fighter planes and helicopter too,
which 陈大叔 said it's a VERY rare sight (again).
So we started to question our LUCK in Hualien. Haha.
I was hoping that we will find some gold bar along the road side or something.
=P

We had our dinner thereafter, before making our way to buy 20 bags of Muaychee.

Then, came the highlight of the trip at Hualien.

放烟花！
We will NEVER get the chance to do that in Singapore so I thought the experience was priceless. Though it did cost us 200NT each. Heh. But it's worth every cent of it.

Took a few video of it and here's one of them. Hopefully it can be viewed.
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Saw their Aboriginal group dance at night and took a stroll along their
night market.

We then came back to Stone House, where the famous 刘阿姨 played host.
Stones were drawn and watermelon were ate before we called it a night.
I drew a sunrise btw, hoping that I'll get to see one soon.

刘阿姨 told us that we can viewed the next morning's sunrise from our room's balcony and true enough, we DID!
Kakasea, no more clouds blocking this time! HUR!

It has been a while since I saw the perfect sunrise.
=)