My one day in Taipei

I am currently in Taiwan for a business trip. Due to inavailability of the flight today, I came here yesterday and had a whole day free time today. So I called an old friend (my ex-superior actually) and he delightfully wanted to show me aroud Taipei. That is a good news to me cause I didn't know jack of Mandarin, Hokkien etc. He said, one day would not be enough though...

So in the morning, he picked me up at Hsinchu (85 km from Taipei), and we went by car through the #3 highway. On the highway we could see sexy gals with see through clothes selling betel leaves + areca nut - sirih + pinang tu laa.. My friend said that the Taiwanese loves to chew these thing. (I tried this when I was a small kid because of my curiosity when watching my nenek chewing them. Not a pleasant taste then..)

On the way we stopped at the R & R - Don't know what was it called, but it had a beautiful scenery. Today was quite windy it was not hot at all. I was not able to snap more pictures cause we were in a hurry then.. duhh



We stopped at his place to park the car and took the MRT Metro train to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. A ride will cost from NT20 (abt RM2) to NT60 something in the MRT.



Unfortunately it is currently under renovation. There are promotional booths for goods from Pengu island set up in front of the memorial hall - some kinda fest. There was also a mini concert with a sucky vocalist throwing out some rock tracks.







Then we went for lunch - a mixed Japanese - Chinese buffet at Splendour Restaurant. Took the MRT and stopped at Dapingling. The building was just outside the station. The lunch costed NT680 (abt RM70), Hi-Tea would have set us to NT580. I think it is worthwile since we can also get unlimited Haagen Daaz, and fee flow wine, beer for the alcohol drinkers, apart from the usual foods. To avoid the babi element I opted mostly for the Japanese cuisine (sushi, sashimi tenpura whatever..). So sad cause I would love to try Taiwanese food. My friend said taht they are famous for their beef noodles.



Then we moved to Zhong Hwa, a paradise for electrical / electronical products. The place reminds me of Akihabara and of course LYP . Generally the price was lower but I did not buy any because of warranty problems should any problem arises.





After that, we went to 101 tower, or was it IOI mall? Took the MRT to Taipei Municipal Hall and used the free shuttle bus. It was raining and the tower was shrouded with clouds so we scrapped our plan to go up. Inside it was just like KLCC, with many branded products outlet.






This post has been edited by Volfeed: Nov 26 2007, 12:59 AM

We then moved to Shilin Night Market. Just stop at the Jian Tan station there, one station before Shilin station. The Shilin market was full with people - lining up for the famous fried chicken there. Foods sold there costs from NT40 to NT90. Didn't take any of them though. Then my friend bought a pack of stinky tofu.. Dang it really stank! But the taste was OK and acceptable to me. There are also other exotic foods such as duck hear, tongue, feet - fried.. etc being sold. For other things, it was not much different from our own Petaling Street, except there was no forcing of buying things . Shoes was generally cheaper that Malaysia didn't bought any. Bought some souvenirs for the peeps home though





Finally went back to Hsinchu by the TRA train. Took me about 1 and 1/4 hours and the worst part is that there was no seat available and I had to stand all the way to Hsinchu.. My leg still hurts now.

So well, that is one day in Taipei. I did not have the chance to go sightseeing at the parks, mountains etc which I would really wants to. One day is definitely not enough. One thing still boggles my mind though, with high fuel price and rentals, how come them Taiwanese can still sell things with the almost the same price as us in Malaysia...

p/s I think I need to learn to speak Chinese hahaha... wo pu min pai