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Gastronomical Tour of Taiwan Part VII

The last part of my Taiwan food series. When i was in Taichung, we had 'Ma La' hotpot, something of a Taiwan specialty. Initially i thought it would taste something like Tom Yam, but to my disappoinment, it was spicy but that was all. No tangy or any eccentric tastes, just flat out spicy. What a letdown!

Most food stalls in Taiwan allow people to try before buying, so we had a ball of a time trying out everything. This 'Almond Sesame BBQ Pork' tasted so nice we decided to get a bag to eat in the bus!

Hehe... of course i didn't forego the chance to have a cup of Bubble Tea. They have more choices over there, more flavours and you can even choose if you want extra sweet, sweet, less sweet, or no sugar. The tea has a very strong taste and the pearls were chewy and supple. Plus, they are not expensive at all.

I saw these cute cups in 7-Eleven stores in Taipei. They are actually cups of milk. When you snap the top, the cornflakes will fall into the cold milk, a healthy cereal on the go.

Doraemon's pancakes! These come in several flavours there. Nice snack to eat whilst watching Doraemon on Channel 28 (GTV) on Taiwanese TV.... =P

Taiwan Visit Day 7

Finally back to Taipei after going in a loop around Taiwan. This is National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院). It is like the National Treasure of Taiwan, with lots of historical items which were ferried from China, for safekeeping during the war, but never returned to them. The most prized possession in this museum is without doubt the Jade Cabbage. I had to wrestle with a bunch of Korean tourists just to get a glimpse of it. If i have the opportunity , will definitely go back to this museum again for a more thorough tour.

Tallest building in the world ( at least for now), Taipei 101. Visited the 101 mall on the first few levels, but they are mostly selling high-end products, sort of like Suria KLCC.

After lunch, i headed to Martyr's Shrine, a place to commemorate the soldiers who fought for the country. They normally have the changing of guards here, but i was unlucky for it was raining and it was cancelled due to bad weather.

I got to pose for a photo with them though, there was a display warning people against touching them. Such a shame, i was dying to tickle him

國立中正紀念堂 ( Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall) is a very grand square, with a buidling housing the statue of CKS.

It is without doubt, the landmark of Taipei. Before 101 was erected, this building appeared the most on postcards and was seen as a symbol of Taiwan tourism. It was a long walk from the Freedom Square to the main building.

Finally, this is the statue in the shrine, flanked by two Republic of China ( Taiwan) flags.

After returning to the hotel for the night, we left immediately to explore Ximending (西門町), the Orchard Road of Taiwan but with more clothes and lights. There were so many nice things for sale when i was there. It was autumn going winter, so there were lots of cute winter clothings for sale. One would be so tempted to buy a shirt or two or even some accessories here.

After navigating through several confusing roads in Ximending, i finally found the shop i was looking for, Xiaozhu's Stage shop!

Gastronomical Tour of Taiwan Part VI

How can i miss eating Xiao Long Bao in 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung) when i'm in Taipei? Even if this can be found easily in Singapore, the Taiwan version is still the original... OK, but i have to admit, they taste the same as the Singapore version... duh....


Of course, another must-not-miss is the Shilin Night market. This photo was taken as i was in the queue for the Giant Chicken Chop, which has also spawned a copycat in Singapore. Even though the queue was outrageously long, the stall owner was surprisingly efficient in tending to their customers.

This is what the chicken chop looks like. We also got the Bitter Gourd milk to go with it, which we read and heard we must get. It's been said that the chicken chop-bittergourd milk combo is a tantalising treat, and the stalls are just next to each other for convenience.

Do you recall i tried the Oyster Omelette in Kaohsiung earlier. This is the Taipei version, which tastes a little different. I prefer this one actually, and i scouted for this stall for the owner of this stall was the one used to train Show Luo for his hawker character in 'Corner With Love'....akakakaka.....

Ohhh, look! A stall selling ice! We were absolutely spoilt for choice, just look at the numerous flavours they offer!

After minutes of pondering, i finally got the Mango Ice.... it was grrrrrreat!

Another attraction that i found here was this : 大餅包小餅 ( translated as small biscuit wrapped in big biscuit). Looks like 'hum chim peng' right? It comes in multiple flavours for you to choose from. You can either pick salty ( curry etc.) or the sweet ( red bean etc.) versions.

After making your choice, they will proceed to wrap the 'hum chim peng' in something that looks like roti canai, and they use some sort of tool to pound the inner 'hum chim peng' to pieces. This is what it looks like after having a bite. Groovy!

Taiwan Visit Day 6

Day 6 now... we had the chance of visiting the very scenic Sun Moon Lake ( 日月潭), where the quiet little lake on serene hills are dotted with hotels and yet still retain a nice calm air.


It was not very crowded during our visit which made the trip even more fulfilling. We were just soaking in the fresh air, and feasting our eyes with the greenery in front of us.

There was a peacock farm nearby which had a pretty large number of peacocks, but none of them wanted to open their feathers for me!

Just look at how green the water is up there at Sun Moon Lake! It looked so clean that even a hydrophobe like myself wanted to just jump in and chill out.

Right in the heart of it all is the Wen Woo Temple which has its main entrance facing the lake. Talk about good fengshui huh?

There you go, another angle where you can see the lake on the background. This temple has 2 very huge stone lions sitting just after the archway. This very colourful and attractive temple was crowded with visitors and people praying in its main hall.

Later in the day, we headed to the town of Taichung, which is famous for its cheap shoes. We spent some time combing 逢甲market which is located just outside the university with the same name. This market specialises in clothes, shoes and accessories and is a popular hang-out place for university-goers.

Gastronomical Tour of Taiwan Part V

This was the meal i had in Five Cents Driftwood. There were at least a couple meals where we had sweet potato rice. This was one of them....take a look at the bowl, it sure was heavy...


We had Chinese dinner....here are the first few dishes that were served. The herbal soup was refreshing, and free-flow...so we could top up as many times as we liked. The drink that we had tasted something like tea with a tinge of coffee flavour in it. I can't really put it into words, but it tasted downright odd...and this drink was also served at a multiple of our meals, so i suppose it is some sort of Taiwanese drink that people enjoy having there.

Ahhh...here it is...the free-flow herbal soup i was just mentioning. It came with a cute little handle that had a small flame to keep the soup warm for consumption.

At first glance, i thought this was 2 large pieces of omelettes cut up into smaller pieces. Upon tasting, i realised it was actually fishcakes... my favourite among the dishes served here.

Prawns!!!....are so not my kind of food =(

And for dessert, we had soft gooey Muah Chee....our chaperone from Singapore was gushing about this, cos according to him, he looks forward to this muah chee during each of his visit to Taiwan. It tasted really nice, but i was already too stuffed to enjoy it.

This is a nice snack we had in Tainan...direct translation from Mandarin meant 'Bamboo Charcoal peanuts'.... but i'm really not entirely sure how you incorporate bamboos and charcoals into peanuts...

Chinese-style spaghetti! The sauce is actually not the tomato or bolognese sauce you normally have at Italian restaurants. It is in fact those sauce you have along with your 'zhajiang' meat la mian....haha....

When we ordered this chicky meal, we were baffled cos no utensils were provided. Instead, we were given a pair of gloves.... and well, when you're in Taiwan, do as the Taiwanese do!

Taiwan Visit Day 5

Our 5th day was spent entirely in Janfusun Fancy World in Yunlin. Even our hotel that night was Janfusun Prince Hotel, in the grounds of the theme park.

This theme park has a major weakness. The rides are either too mild or too wild for me. There are no intermediate rides for not-so-cowardly-yet-not-too-brave folks like me. Anyway, here's the mascot of Janfusun Fancy World, the unfortunately named Kuku and Kiki.

From anywhere in the theme park, you won't miss the Ferris Wheel...apparently the largest in the Ferris Wheel obsessed Taiwan. From the Ferris Wheel, i could see miles and miles of vegetable farms and beautiful forests as Janfusun is situated in the middle of nowhere.

There are 2 major roller coasters in this theme park. This is the Crazy Coaster, which Kenny went on...i almost peed in my pants just looking at it... however this one is considered the milder of the two. The other one called the G5 coaster has an almost 90 degree vertical track where the roller coaster just dives vertically into a tunnel in the ground and shoots right back up again.... not for the faint-hearted!

We also went to the Water Park, which has some very nice tub rides....one of them is this ride that looks like a filter funnel from my lab. We had to sit in a tub which comes down from a slide right into this funnel. At least now i know how my products feel when i force them down the filter funnel at work...

It started raining at around 2 pm, by the time we've just completed what we wanted to experience. Lucky for us there are actually some indoor attractions in this place as well. There are 2 museums, the Tea Museum and the Coffee Museum.

Both museums show the history of the beverages and the different customs in each country consuming them. They also show how the drinks are processed.

Our entrance ticket also included a night entry into the theme park when it's all litted up. After freshening up and having dinner, we returned to see the lights in the theme park and there was a show in the mini stadium on weekends (we were there on Sunday). On the day we were there, they were featuring a Russian acrobatic show... very interesting.

There were also fireworks on weekend nights but i decided to forego it to return to the hotel to watch Episode 11 of 'Hot Shot' on Taiwanese TV....muahahahaha