你好 台湾 (Ni hao, Taiwan!)

I have been meaning to post stories about my trip, but life just kept getting in the way! Boo. I can't sleep right now, so I decided to update. :)

Taiwan Day 1!

I went there with my family - my mom, dad and brother. It was only an hour and 50mins flight from the Philippines to there. I loved the flight, not only because it was a fast, seamless and short one, but also because of the teeny tiny fact that the pilot's last name was Silva. Yes, Silva. I absolutely freaked out and my mind went haywire for obvious reasons. And as Gina said, that was some serious fate working there...

Anyway, as we landed and got our luggage, we boarded the Airport Bus and went to our hotel. We stayed at Delight Hotel in Taipei. It was really nice! It was so homey, my room was so spacious, the bathroom was big and the best parts - it had a spa shower and whirlpool jacuzzi in it! Here are pics:

The bed and sofa

The whirlpool jacuzzi and a lounge chair


The shower with the jet stream water spa thingies

The rest of the bathroom

We rested for a while then headed out to have lunch. We walked around for so long because we were trying to find a good resto. Turns out that Taiwanese cuisine is best eaten on the streets. We finally decided on one that had many customers, and had delicious looking roasted stuff. I chose to have roast duck and roast pork. I failed at my Mandarin - I couldn't remember all the vocab words for food, and I only managed to remember kaoya (roast duck). Good thing the girl taking our orders understood my broken Mandarin and little English. Anyway, the dish came with three different veggie sides, and spicy anchovies, and a tofu side. They were all yummy. The soup that came with it was so good too.

My food!

So after we had lunch, we strolled around for a bit and found this cool drink shop. I really love those, I always, always order milk tea. This time, I ordered it with custard.

That is me enjoying my drink :)

We went around the district some more, and then decided to go to Ximending, which is the popular hangout and district for the youth. All the stylish shops are there, and all the young ones hang out there. There were so many people as it was the weekend already. It reminds me of Times Square in New York. :)


We found some awesome street food too! I picked this one, and chose the spicy, peppery, garlicky grilled squid. It was goooood.

And then an interesting thing happened! While the man was grilling my squid, a siren suddenly blared, and all the carts on the street turned off their lights, motors, stoves, etc, and ran away. Literally ran away. They hid their carts and they were nowhere to be found. Turned out that it was illegal for them to sell there, and the one who blared the siren was a cop on a motorbike doing his rounds. Once he left, the carts came back, the man finished grilling my squid, gave it immediately, accepted our payment even if it was still short by a couple of dollars and hurriedly shooed us away. *shrugs* We went away quickly too, we didn't want to get caught by the police lol.

More walking around, then resting for a bit in the square. I took the time to practice my photography skills. I wanted to catch bright lights from the vehicles and turn them into different bright colored lines with a clear object at the back. I think I took a hundred shots trying to get the effect that I wanted, lol! I was in between successful and not. Er, I dunno. You be the judge. Here are the best pics, imo:


Before we headed out to Shilin Night Market, I found *drumroll please* COLDSTONE ICE CREAM! :) I've discovered this wonderful ice cream shop back in New York, and I have been craving for it for so long! I was so happy to find it there. I ordered the Cookie Doughnt You Want Some sundae, which is French Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, caramel syrup, chocolate chips and cookie dough smooshed in it. YUMMMMMY. It was pure heaven.


We went to Shilin Night Market after that.

A scene in the night market

I only took one picture cos there were so many people and I had to store the camera away for safety. I shopped for some tights, leggings and shoes. :) We headed back to our hotel after that loooong and eventful, and fun day.

Taiwan Day 2 will be posted soon. :) And I would like to leave this pic in honor of the hubby who played well while I was away. :)