The Beauty Society

The Beauty Society
"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it." - Maya Angelou

Friday, December 4, 2009

Trip to Taiwan!

OOooohh!! Finally Im blogging!! it's been ages since I did so and even my holiday entry is so delayed!

Latest: TRIP TO TAIWAN!

Purpose: To attend best friend's wedding dinner and shopping!

(*Salute to my friend! ---->Who has the longest relationship ever!! since SECONDARY SCHOOL days and half of it's long distance!! )

I am so loving Changi Airport, cause whenever I'm in it, it means im flying off to somewhere!

AHEM!
This taiwan trip's biggest purpose is to shop for quality heels!! Not so much on clothings this time.
I want THOSE heels that you can run in and walk all day long! Am soooo gonna get rid of so many of my old bitey shoes!

I only brought $480 worth of sing dollars to spend in Taiwan. Enough or not???
Me thought I probably won't be spending toooo much, considering I have tons of girlie what nots in my room already......
(Did I mention I got rid of my old writing table and changed it to a giant wardrobe instead? So, now I got 2 wardrobes in my cramped room)

HAHA!

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Me and friends took EVA airlines. The only off thing about this airline is that it has mad crazy departure time from Taiwan in the wee hours of the morning back to SIN. Totally sickening waste of one perfectly good day and some good sleep..... -.-

Our flight was in the noon. Flight journey was about 5 hrs +/-


feeling kinda bored, we took a few pics! Me and Meiwen, My trip buddy!


After cam whoring, I opted to watch movies on the plane instead of nap!
Oh boy did I thoroughly enjoy myself! The plane food wasn't that good though....

"The Ugly Truth" was just crazy hilarious, I was laughing out loud most of the time.

"The Orphan" was an extremely gripping and disturbing movie. It has a twist at the end and it's a MUST watch!

Ok, back to the story of my trip.



Finally we landed in Taipei Taoyuan airport at about 6 plus pm. The sky was already dark unlike Singapore where it only turns dark after 730!

I'm a daylight person! So, we hopped into our transport and the journey took about 1 hour to our lodging in Ximending (XMD) district.


After reaching Royal Castle hotel, Meiwen and me dumped our belongings and quickly went to the hubbub to scout for our dinner. Can't waste any time!!

We found this! Taiwan authentic Mee sua!! It's very good I tell you! It's 大肠面线.


After mee sua, we shopped around basically just roughly scanning out the area of XMD


How it looks like in XMD.


Looking for more food, we found this:

I wonder what's that square thingy that looks like 年糕. If it looks dubious, we probably don't want to try.. haha



We opted for the 鸡胸 (chicken breast meat) safest bet of all.



It looks like this. Actually its cold and the meat is SUPER TOUGH!! Very hard to bite off and meat keeps getting stuck in our teeth!! But the seasoning they did is very good!


And then I got smelly beancurd

Meiwen found it gross and smelly so she only took 1 bite and I gotta finish the 4 of them!
Luckily I got the beancurd dessert, so it makes the smelly beancurd easier to consume...
It tastes a bit too much after a while on its own. At least they got some side dishes like salted vege to go with it.



I found this Hello Kitty wonderful bike helmet selling freakingly cheap! So, I bought it even though I don't ride (just the occasional time when my bf rides)

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The next day, we planned to go the wholesale place at Wu Fen Pu to shop.

going crazy soon..... :D Shopaholic me is very excited....


Our mode of transport was the train! IT's really easy to get around and cheap too!

Similar to spore style



We got off at the wrong station thanks to the wrong info given by my friend! And we gotta walk one train stop away! @#$%%$^


My impatient 'backview'
Can't wait to shop shop shop!!!


Dang! We got there too early and so decided to settle for a bowl of dessert... Cause my friend is hungry again!!! Walao! Its like less than a couple of hours only after breakfast and she is hungry??!!

mini tang yuan in red bean soup



the menu of desserts


After that we went crazy shopping and buying like nobody's business! I bought expensive stuff! There goes my hundred odd so bucks in one shop!!


LUNCH:

lunch was this yummy handmade noodles.. My favourite!


In only a few hours, I had accumulated a huge bag of goods, like I was purchasing as a wholesaler!

The weight of my barang was horrific , almost like that of a toddler but bulkier... Very hard to carry!

My arms were madly aching and I was super tempted to hire a porter OTS!!!
It just sucks and it got to a point where we couldn't shop anymore. (didn't want to waste $$ on cabbing so it was never an option....) haha Stingy dingbats we were.

So we took train back to hotel and then decided to go to Shilin night market after dumping our stuff!


Super crowded when we reached there. Supposed to be the biggest night maket and the most popular one in Taipei.


check out crowd behind me....


Dinner was at a place selling mini hot pot "小锅"

Insanely cheap! prices you see divide by 22.6.
They have all kinds of meat at cheapo prices!



I ordered 'Ma La toufu' pot. With freeflow drinks complete with tissue...

$2 only!! Nett!

WHAT THE HELL?!!


Bestest meal we ever had.... Look at my blissfully satisfied face.

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The day comes for our friend's wedding...

My outfit for the day:

Black white combi, nice right!?


Worst thing to happen:
RAIN!
When we reached the station of our destination to our friend's hotel, it was raining! What's bad is that, none of us got an umbrella! My friend only got with her umbrella cap but no umbrella!! Choked for words..... hahhahahahhaha

Wear nice nice get caught in the rain!
Cannot be late some cause we do not want to risk arriving later than the groom...
So, we gotta brave the rain in the cold weather and try to walk as fast we can in heels! :(

At least it was not pouring.... Thank you very much!



finally we got to the beautiful bride!


After the groom arrives; we got him to sing a song and read love contract.

The Sabo session is too easy for the groom! Only a mere 15min! I guess its not in the taiwanese custom to play that long.... SIGH!



best friends since sec school days. :)


The wedding dinner menu
crazy 13 course dinner!!


The food is good but too much and too rich.. bleh!! A lot of unfinished portions. I think I overheard the waitresses saying they packet the leftovers... GOOD! So there won't be wastage!

At the end of the dinner, we remembered we haven got our angbao! So we comtemplated if we should just outright ask for it.

If not now, then when?? We can't be asking the bride for it, and we won't be seeing the groom after that same day!

Luckily, we got very thick skin!
So, Claris was the one who went up bravely to the bride and asked for our ang bao and then she ran to hide behind us!! It was hilarious!

Who needs enemies when you have friends like these??

We were super desperate cause we need more NT dollars for our shopping trip! MUahhahah!!!

BUT of cause, it's more for the good luck mah! heeheeeeeeeee


Anyway, we are all happy for our friends.(we know the groom too but hang out more with the bride)
Another one who is married!!! Never mind, I still got a lot of single friends! I won't be lonely yet! muhahahhahah

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Next day at Shida 'night' market. It opens during the day because of the University nearby that caters to students.


OOooooo I love toys...



My dream come true........ Noooo I did not buy any pillows back.. Though I would love to!


Lunch:

Lunch was beef tendon noodle ! (I super regret giving you that huge piece of tendon girl!!)
Very good! very very good!

After Shida, we went back to wu fen pu again because we were not satisfied with our shopping and the area is ~3 times bigger than bugis street!


Dinner:

My dinner was a mini bowl of lu rou fan. Don't have enough money to try the famous roast meats at Hu Xu Zhang (supposedly famous for their roasted stuff) Pathetic.....

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Last free day of trip:
Gong guan 公管


Fan of the Kitty cat


street of shopping district 'gong guan'







Melancholy me....

no lah! i just want to pose only!






I tell you, this wanton mee is delicious! I love this kind of noodles, handmade kind. There is garlic mixed in with the minced meat so its super 香!



This is a self taken shot... Pro right? :D.


After expending what ever cash we have at this shopping district, It's back to XMD and further deplete all our cash on last minute stuff.

We came across the cutest donut poster ever seen:

This little lamb has a donut crumb on the side of her cheek!! hahhaha! Her 'mane' of wool is donut ! What a clever way of advertising.....

My dinner for the day was instant noodles and bamboo shoots as side dish....

Where got people go holiday until like that one??!!!
*Whine!*
I don't even have enough money to buy the cutest bedroom slippers ever!!!!


Arghhhh.....................

Never mind, people always say the instant noodle is damn good in TW so this is a chance to test out the taste. It is yummy alright but the portion is too big and I couldn't finish it. What a waste....
Our friend, Meiwen got carrot cake and some taiwan sausages. The carrot cake is good but the sausages taste like what we have here. So nothing special....

After dinner, off to bed we go. We got an early flight to catch the next day! Sian..............

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At the airport.



Interesting looking fish eggs that look like kidneys.... How come the fish eggs in Spore look nowhere like those here??

Dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this marks the end of my wonderful holidays.

I'll be back TW!!