We ♥ T.A.I.W.A.N [Part 1]

I had a wonderful JANUARY ! Because January started off with a new year, my birthday falls on January, January has lots of public holiday. Last but not least, I had my Taiwan trip on January too. January is a fun-filled month! . How great is January! :)

Always wanted to have a trip to Taiwan and it came true when we had finally bought the flight tickets on May (http://pet-sim.blogspot.com/2012/05/opps-its-may.html). So excited when I know that we had bought the flight tickets, even more excited on the day before we depart. The planning actually just started a month or two before we depart. Sound rush, but thanks god we had planners among us, Choy and We how. Thanks for the planning and searching. Of course, thanks all for the corporation. 

And here we come, Taiwan!

The blue sky with whitish clouds and AIRASIA :D

Travel by airplane for 4 and a half hours was suffering. Can't even have a nice nap due to limited spaces and stomach felt hungry. Anyway thanks to Airasia because 'Everyone can fly' now, including me :) 

Finally, we landed on this lovely island after 4 and a half hour with hungry stomach. Driver that we 'pre-booked' already waited us there once we stepped out the gate. It's a wise way of hiring a driver although this is a free and easy trip. The schedule was given by us and we searched and booked the accommodation by ourselves. You will know why I said so later. Let's start the journey at Taiwan ! 

Day 1 : Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport --- Feng jia 

All of us can felt the ice cold wind that blown on us once we stepped outside the plane, because it's WINTER time in Taiwan! Purposely choose to visit Taiwan on winter time because our home country is really hot 365 days in a year. I am not sure whether my friends will feel regret because of coming Taiwan on this winter time or not but I am definitely not! Because I got the chance to wear my jacket that I wore in UK last 2 years :) 

Driver sent us to feng jia and we checked in our first accommodation in Taiwan, Tomato Rooms. And next, food hunting time! Our first food hunting station was feng jia night market. Feng jia night market is near to our accommodation, it's about 10 minutes walking distance. 

Feng jia night market is just located next to Feng Chia University. 

Night markets in Taiwan are absolutely different with pasar malam in Malaysia. The first difference is their road within the night market is clean and odorless (at least my hair and clothes won't smell of foods when I back from there). Secondly, night markets here not only food heaven but also shopping paradise! Tones of clothes, shoes, accessories besides foods and drinks. I know pasar malam also selling these but I just couldn't shop in pasar malam comfortably and buy something that are really nice. Besides, there are many hot chicks and handsome guys around the night markets :p I know Malaysia also have lots of pretty girls and good-looking guys but seldom see them walk around pasar malam, right? LOL!

We managed to try some of the popular foods that people recommended which we need to queued up to buy the foods. There are really lots of delicious street foods here but too bad we only have 1 stomach. We had tried doubled layer roll (sausage) 大腸包小腸 , stinky tofu 臭豆腐, papaya milk 北回木瓜牛奶, fried & grilled chicken chop 86碳烤鸡排, tea-flavored egg 茶葉蛋, deep-fried shrimp pancake 月亮蝦餅 and etc. 

All the street foods ~

We went into 7-11 when on our way home. Ate a lot in the night market but still like not filling (stomach been expanded, I guess). So we decided to have instant cup noodles as supper. Always feels that others countries 7-11 are much more better than Malaysia. They have plenty choices of foods and drinks in their store which impressed us a lot. Don't worry of getting starve or getting boring of the local foods in Taiwan, because 7-11 can save your life :)

The coffees on the second row are damn nice ! 

We can find pork instant noodles here~ So nice! 

 Even snacks also have lots of choices

Supper that ended our first day in Taiwan !

Day 2 : Feng jia --- Sun Moon Lake and Wen Wu Temple --- Carton King --- Cing Jing Farm --- The Small Swiss Garden

Departed to Sun Moon Lake after our breakfast provided by Tomato Rooms. Forced to have nap when on our way there because the condition of the road to highland. And we reached our first destination of the day - Sun Moon Lake 日月潭.

Still felt cold although it was a bright day 

                                                                                                       文武廟

Next, lunch time! We planned to have our lunch at Cing Jing because we got to check in our second accommodation. The way to Cing Jing was really terrible. The sharp, curved roads nearly kill us. I forced myself to sleep all the way because afraid of throwing out if I am awake. I had totally no mood to enjoy the mountain scenery although it's nice. Felt nausea and dizzy once we reached the villa, Stargaze Villa 摘星花園山莊. I felt that my stomach was not belong to me at that moment. Damn suffered ! 

And thanks god, we reached Carton King 'safely' with the mountain roads again. Carton King really impressed us. Almost everything there are made of corrugated paper, such as tables, chairs, lanterns, plates and etc. Nice ambient and delicious foods ease our uncomfortable stomach.

The Carton King Restaurant 紙箱王 

The dining tables 

 My lunch of the day which cost 360 TWD if I am not mistaken

 We were here at Cing Jing Farm 青青草原 - 清境農場 with all these cute sheeps! 

Beautiful view  

Sheeps all around the farm. Eating and running freely ~

Back to Carton King and The Small Swiss Garden when sunset, but actually it was just 6 in the evening =.=

Dinner time !

Had our super full dinner at restaurant that recommended by Stargaze Villa. Total 7 people but 10 dishes! This sound so crazy, right? I have no ideas how we finished all the dishes that night. But the dinner was not bad. Haha...That's the end of our second day~

Day 3 : Wu Ling --- Taiwan paper --- Puli Liquor Store --- Shilin Night Market

We slept in extremely cold room at the second night. The Stargaze Villa will be perfect if they provide warmer in the room. Guess that Taiwanese already adapted to the weather there so they don't even need a warmer in the room. But pity us, can't have a nice sleep over there although with thick blankets. In addition, we need to wake up at 4 a.m. and departed to Wu Ling 武嶺. Why? To see the sunrise. 

It was me with 3 layers of clothes, gloves, scarf, legging under jeans but still not enough to fight with the low temperature >.<

I can't even remembered how pretty was the sunrise of the day, I just can recalled the terrible curved and sharp roads that made me vomited and the extremely cold weather. We were waiting at the highway highest point of Taiwan,with an elevation of 3,275 M (10,746 ft), under -1.1 degree celcius! This was our first time stayed at this extremely cold weather. Everyone were freezing there, jumping and moving around to gain some heat while waiting for the sun to come out. Everyone of us looked terrible with pale look that morning. 

 Can you see that? @@

Where was the sun? 

The 1 hour (or more) up there was really torturing ~  Luckily there was a warm breakfast that waited for us when we reached the villa. Simple but warm and light porridge and dishes as breakfast. 

 The dining area of Stargaze Villa

Let's proceed to the next station ^^

Going down the highland was torturing as well. As usual, I took a nap in car and we reached Puli in hours time. We visited Taiwan paper 廣興紙寮 and Puli Liquor Store 埔里酒廠 which are not really interesting for me. Then we proceed to Taipei. Had our lunch half way at a Hakka restaurant which looks expensive but in fact cheap and tasty. Thanks to the restaurant manager that provided us some free dishes and drinks. So lucky we were! 

Thumbs up ! 

Shilin Night Market, our next destination !

Shilin Night Market is known as one of the largest night markets at Taipei, however we were quite disappointed with the foods at Shilin Night Market. Not really nice for us, perhaps all the foods there had been commercialized or Malaysian have different and unique tastes (LOL). But we still managed to try some popular foods that recommended there, such as oyster omelets 蚵仔煎, wrapped biscuits 大饼包小饼, stir-fried cuttlefish 生炒花枝, Huge Chicken Cutlet 豪大大雞排, Frog lays eggs 青蛙下蛋, Oyster noodles 蚵仔麵線. 

Part of the food pictures ~

Although the foods there not really attracted me, but there were others thing that attracted me much more a lot! Guess what? Shopping! Clothes, shoes, bags and all the girly stuffs there are really cheap. We shopped from store to store and it has a large selection that we can bargain for reasonable prices. Too bad they are selling winter attires, so I didn't shop too much on clothes. I spent on shoes, bags and accessories :D 

What a happy shopping day at Shilin night market! 

Stay tuned for the Part 2 :)