Destination: Taipei, Taiwan
Duration: 3 Days 2 Nights (Jan 15 ~ Jan 17, 2012)
Day 1: Penang -> Hong Kong -> Taipei
This trip came as a surprise from a short notice. Apparently I was supposed to fly to Taipei on Sunday, attended some meeting (read: sitting there dumbfounded when my boss rambled) on Monday and flied back to Malaysia on Tuesday. Strange arrangement! Anyhow, I couldn’t be complaining since I was not the one paying.
After a last minute packing and boots hunting (Aldo! RM145 only! *gasp*) at Gurney at the night before, I finally boarded the early morning CX flight. The flight was half empty (or half full for the optimist) and amazingly, I had the whole 3 seats for myself! It was such a rare occasion so I took the opportunity to take off the chair handle and lay on the 3 seats as if it was a bed after takeoff. =)
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| Sammy gets his own seat... again! |
I guess the plane was an old model as the onboard entertainment system was a centralized broadcast rather than being able to pick and play independently at our discretion. Menu was also not being offered or displayed on screen. The flight attendant simply asked you on the spot whether you want omelet or chicken rice. Breakfast was omelet with sausage and it was bland.
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| CX Omelet Breakfast |
After around 3 hours, we were told that there would be a slight delay to land into Hong Kong Airport due to heavy traffic caused by bad weather. Thus our plane was in holding pattern for another 30 minutes before we finally landed. I was quite worried on the plane as I had another connecting flight to Taipei but logic told me that flight would be delayed as well. My instinct was right – my Taipei flight was delayed from 12.25pm to 1.45pm! In fact, my whole trip was plagued with delays! UGH! It cost me precious time to romp around the city! The food on board was a pathetic pork bun.. CX, you could do better than this!
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| Stranded in HK Airport |
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| CX Pork Bun |
It was already 3.30pm when I finally walked out from TaoYuan Airport. I was looking for taxi counter but there was none. A guy came and asked me and some other passengers whether we needed a cab and told us to follow him to another level of the airport. I was a bit skeptical on the legitimacy of the taxi. I was like: “Is this even legal?” But apparently they are the legitimate airport transport taxi and the driver gave me a formal receipt after 1 hour ride from taxi to Westin Taipei Hotel.
The hotel lobby and some of the floors were in some sort of renovation. The service was great though and I was quickly served with a cup of tea during my check-in process. My room was King Deluxe on the 6th floor and I must say I was impressed. Really nice room equipped with PRINTER.. Hmm...this was definitely my 1st time seeing printer in a hotel room.
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| The minibar |
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| Bed for the 2 nights stay |
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| TV and workstation |
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| Printer!!! |
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| Shower Room and the loo... |
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| The Bathtub! |
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| Nice Soap! |
After throwing everything in the room and checking my email, I jumped out from the hotel immediately as tonight would be my only chance of exploring the city. The hotel bellboy helped me to grab a taxi and off I went to Taipei 101. The floors at the bottom were basically shopping mall with high class brand such as Prada, Tiffany etc so I didn’t bother with that and went straight to the 5th floor to get myself a ticket (TWN400) to the observatory deck.
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| Leaving the Hotel Lobby... |
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| At Taipei 101 - on the way to Observatory Deck |
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| Here we are... |
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| Nice Illustration! 101 in daylight |
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| The Nightview! |
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| Information at Queueing Station |
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| What a long Queue... |
There were a lot of people going to the observatory deck and the elevator was totally crowded but luckily ascended and reached the 90th floor in less than 1 minute. The sky turned dark early in Taipei and I was treated with night view of the city. Luck was not on my side as the outdoor deck was closed due to weather. So I could only walk around indoor. There was also some coral exhibition at the floor as well.
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| This is what greets me once i step out of the elevator... |
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| Shameless Self-potrait! |
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| Happy Valentine? |
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| View from the Top |
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| Night view in Taipei |
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| Coral Exhibition in 101 |
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| Chinese New Year? |
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| Wow, Look at these! |
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| The Mascot of 101! |
The thing that stood out for Taipei 101 from other skyscraper was the tuned mass damper was displayed for all to see. It was suspended from the 92nd to the 87th floor, the pendulum sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong gusts.
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| The Pendulum |
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| Mini Pendulum = Mascot |
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| Darn! |
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| Walking at a dark alley.. |
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| The Floor illustrates scenery when people walk past |
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| Self-Potrait again! |
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| Oh Hello! |
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| How are you? |
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| Giant Mascot! |
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| More Coral.. |
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| More Coral again.. |
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| You really have to zoom it this to appreciate the craftmanship |
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| Astonishing |
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| Love this! |
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| Lobster!!! |
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| GiftShop at the Observatory Entrance |
After coming down from the observatory deck, I’ve decided to grab a taxi to get to Shilin Night Market. I was in no mood to explore the city metro train as I was simply running out of time. Taxi would be effective and fast. Not to mention the taxi drivers in Taipei were all really friendly and polite.
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| Leaving 101 with Taxi.. |
The taxi driver asked me where I prefer to be dropped off as the market is huge, since it was my first time there, I told him I had no idea *facepalm*. The driver who was quite elderly took a concern and told me to take good care of my belonging and he proceeded to told me which direction to take to go around the market.
Taiwan was famous for its street food so it was basically my goal tonight to try them out one by one. My strategy was simple – whichever stall had the longest queue, I would go queue up as well! Hehehee… dumb huh? My first queue was to buy the papaya milkshake – there was some newspaper clipping on the stall stating some Taiwanese actress bought the milkshake from them as well. It cost TWN40 and it was yummy. There were also a long queue of an oyster mee sua stall but I didn’t try it as I was not a fan of oyster. I then stopped and ate some minced meat rice by sitting directly in front of the stall. The minced meat and sauce was really flavorful and it only cost TWN20.
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| Arriving at the night market |
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| Chicken Chop! |
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| The "Grand" entrance? |
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| The street is crowded!!! |
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| The Famous Papaya Milkshake |
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| Here it is! Yummy! |
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| Minced Meat Rice |
I walked past another famous stall - “sausage wrapped with sausage” but I didn’t try it since apparently Taiwanese sausage didn’t appeal that much to me. Then I saw another long queue for a stall selling vegetable wrapped in grilled meat. Thinking that it must be good, I queue up and got myself one (TWN10 only). Unfortunately, this street food was definitely not to my taste. The meat outside was fine but what I thought was vegetable inside was apparently spring onion! EEWWW!!! The smell was so awful that I had to buy more food to wash off the taste in my mouth. I came upon a stall selling “fried milk” (TWN20), it looked like fishball but in fact it was deep-fried milk cube. It tasted slightly like custard but not as strong. I didn’t take a photo of it as it was really inconvenient to balance out bag, camera and food at the same time. Guess this was the downside of traveling alone.
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| Sausage with Sausage? |
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| Grilled meat with Spring Onion.. Eeewwww.......... |
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| Fried Milk! |
Rain started to fall from the sky and I was too full and too bored to go walking among the crowded street. Did I mention the place was crowded? Gosh! You can hardly walk in that place! I halt a taxi in the street and headed back to the hotel to enjoy the luxurious bathtub with seasalt instead.
Next Day
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