Apologies for the long interval to my next part of Taiwan Day One, folks!

Been busy with settling school matters as I am trying to make this my last semester in school,
and am doing 6 modules at one go which i foresee to have 4/5 of my time spent in school.
Finally done with all the appeals to get my wanted modules!

Also, BC bash is tomorrow afternoon @ Zirca!
Hope you have already gotten your tickets if you are planning to go,
it would be an afternoon full of great stuff and excitement. :p

I am gonna continue the next part of my Taiwan Trip,
and I promise I will try my best to speed up with the posting while the memories are still fresh in my mind.

* * *

[continued...]

some mentioned about the other bus called the Free go bus from Taoyuan to Ximending area.
I did check on that before but the thing is they drop at different places in regards to the different timings.
So depends on your flight, you might want to google on Free go or Kuo Kuang transport to your hotel.

As continued from my previous post,
For that very day, we checked into the hotel and waited for Shawnie to arrive.
Due to other reasons, Shawnie sat another airline instead,
and he will arrive at Taiwan a couple of hours later only.

By the time Shawnie arrived, it was already 7pm, (yes late but not too late for night markets!),
so we decided to go ahead with our plan of visiting Shilin Night Market on our very first day.

Making our way to Ximending Station (named Ximen station)….

From our hotel to the station, we will always pass by this bubble tea shop, 清心福全.

And guess what?!

Taiwan has two famous chain of bubble tea shops and this is one of them. The two chains are:
1) Wu Shi Lan, 50嵐 (which is KOI in Singapore)
2) Ching Shin Fu Chuan Tea Station, 清心福全
(I prefer the bubble tea here as the tea taste is stronger, heard they use better quality tea leaves)

The night streets of Ximending. Look at Party world there, definitely doing great.

Spotted sexay lady while queuing up to enter the train. Wooo.

Again, some mentioned that they have so called EZ link cards during the train rides,
and I guess that would be a great choice to get for transport too.
We didn't because we figured out that we will not spent that much money for trains,
so bought single trip tickets instead.
 

To go to Shilin Night Market,
we have to go to "Taipei Main Station" to change to the Red Line.
Don't be mistaken, the stop that we should alight is not Shilin, but we should alight at "Jiantan" (劍潭) Station.

Just as we came out from the station, we were greeted by a stretch of brightly lighted area which apparently is not the night market,
also, heard that the food there ain't that great, but because of its prominent location, a lot of tourists go there first before walkng over to Shilin.

Taiwanese are generally very hospitable,
and we were amazed by their helpfulness as well.
So you can just ask any passer-by and they would be more than willing to give you directions!

Shilin Night Market is diagonally across the road and I love that place!

Thats Shilin! Surrounding the buildings there. We were greeted by Smelly Tofu Stall upon crossing the road. (love it!!)

Normally the stalls that sell smelly tofu, sell pig blood soup too. Yummy yummy, must try!
 

The coolest thing on our trip is that, 
we made new taiwanese friends on our first day, right at Shilin Night Market!

We were enjoying smelly tofu, and due to the crowd, we extended our table for these two friends to sit,
and during our meal there, they were extremely nice to tell us all about Taipei,
and even offered to bring us out one of the following days to the further part of Taiwan, outside Taipei.
(call us crazy or what, but we actually went out with them, watch for the post!)

Our two new friends (the extreme left)

We went exploring and reached this area whereby all the food are here..

We had this! Frog eggs drink. hahaha
 

They are just actually pearls.

See the big pot of green stuff floating in brown liquid? that's AI YU, a kind of jelly which we love.
You have to try it!
 


Food was good, and the Fried Chicken, Ji Pa, was good,
but I thought the other places (for the other days) we went have equally great Ji Pa.
The special thing for this Ji Pa is that it is honey marinated, so it tasted real sweet and juicy.

For shopping, I would say you can get clothes and accessories at Shi Lin Night Market.
Prices generally are quite alright and you can bargain!
Though clothes the best place to get is Wu Fen Pu (huge market with almost all shops selling clothes).

Shoes are priced average at NT 390 = SGD 17 (before bargain) per pair in Taipei,
so if you spot higher priced shoes,
perhaps you might want to check out other places (eg. Taipei Main Station underground mall) before buying.

But we bought quite a couple of shoes at Shi Lin Night Market after bargaining.
About SGD $12 per pair.

And a bubble tea once again to end the day.

Shilin Night market closes at around 12 midnight.

The train operates till about 12midnight, so we left the market at 11.45 in due to catch the train back.

Bought their cup noodles to enjoy supper, have you heard of their super yummy and huge bowl of cup noodles?

 

Our couple of loots for the day! Teehee

the hat and the geeky specs…

Time to hit the sacks for Day One and be back for Day Two soon!