Going overseas with my parents meant that I could sleep in even though Baby Jayne woke up at 7 plus every morning. My parents are used to waking up early, so they would bring Baby Jayne out for a morning walk before waking my brother and I up for breakfast. Very awesome. Haha. So one morning, my dad came back from the morning walk and told us excitedly that he found a great place for breakfast!
Walked a few streets before reaching the shop. Thank God that I bought this pair of slippers at Shilin Night Market for $5. It was so comfortable that abundant walking the past few days was chicken-feet!
Sights along the way…
We reached the breakfast shop!
It’s a shop with a long history…. Finally, some breakfast items that we are more used to. =P
The friendly boss who posed for me when he saw that I had a camera in my hands. =) He must be very used to this kind of tourist behaviour.
小笼包 (Xiaolongbao) and 油条 (you tiao)! =D
Baby Jayne was hungry! =)
And so was my brother apparently. LOL.
We were satisfied with our breakfast that morning! =)
And the xiaolongbao were yummy and piping hot!
The soya bean milk we ordered came served in bowls, and was not too our liking because it was in original state – Not sweetened! My mum said it was very authentic though. The boss probably made it himself.
After breakfast, we took an even longer walk in search of a place to change more Taiwan currency. We were nearly running out of cash and thought that any of the banks would provide that service. Turned out we were very wrong! None of the 7 to 8 banks we approached could help us. They all pointed us to the Bank of Taiwan Main Branch, which was quite a distance away.
Thankfully, along the way there were interesting things to see..
Tip: For those of you who would be travelling to Taiwan, do try to change your currencies at the airport so that you don’t have to waste time looking for a place to do so in Taipei City. And if you really need to change more currency, remember to bring your passports along to the main bank branch as they would ask to see your passports before changing. After such a long walk, we did not manage to change any currencies at all because our passports were NOT with us. Arghhhhhh! In the end, we used our Singapore ATM card to do a withdrawal from their ATM machine instead. An admin charge of $5 per transaction for any amount withdrawn (so make sure you keep to just one transaction). Should have done that right at the start! ATM machines can be found anywhere!
For lunch, we decided to visit Taipei 101. Although it’s a shopping mall, similar to those found in Singapore, we thought we should not leave Taipei without visiting its landmark.
You can pay about $20 to go to the top of the building to have a good view of Taipei, but we were not interested at all.
Lunch was at the Taipei 101 foodcourt. There’re lots of good food choices in that foodcourt, and when I visited Taipei three years ago, I also ate from one of the stalls there called 郭老师, so I brought my parents there to try.
I had their famous Sesame Sauce Chicken with Mee Sua. It was a tad oily but very yummy! The mee sua was soaked in their special vinegar and dark sauce. Interesting and appetising.
My mum chose the mushroom and chicken noodles and it was so super yummy!!
The soup was so sweet and the taste of mushrooms and chicken blended so perfectly together! My mum especially liked their handmade noodles which were very chewy.
Nothing else to do in Taipei 101 as it’s just a mega up-market shopping mall with shops like Gucci, Prada, Chanel etc. So we decided to spend our afternoon back at Ximending. We haven’t had a chance to walk around even though we lived near to it.
The famous historical building in Ximending - 西门红屋. It’s some kind of a museum where you can view exhibits and have a rest while drinking tea. Too bad it was not open when we were there that day.
Sat down for desserts of snow ice again! The weather’s just too perfect for that. =)
Walking in Ximending was a very energizing experience. Perhaps it’s the summer holidays for the young people, everywhere’s packed with people!
Still, in the midst of all the rowdiness, the uncle managed to snooze blissfully.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at 钱柜大厦 (Partyworld KTV Complex) as we had already checked out of our hotel room, and there was no where else we could return to for a rest while waiting for our night flight.
Another tip: Going to the karaoke is the best option while waiting for your flight time because in Taipei, KTV-ing is very cheap and a luxurious affair. Partyworld has a big 12-storey complex in Ximending, and every room is HUGE. Only 3 adults and a kid, they gave us a private room that could easily fit 20. Our room even came with an attached bathroom! A four-hour package that came with drinks and finger foods like potato wedges and chicken wings etc cost about $7/pax. I heard that some of the rooms even had billiards table and arcade machines. I was very impressed!!
Well, this could well be the end of my very perfect Taipei holiday, but like I mentioned at the very beginning of this series, we missed our flight. We reached the airport 2 hours ahead of the flight time, but only realised that we had forgotten our passports when we reached the airport. As the airport was an hour’s drive away from our hotel, by the time my brother rushed back to take our passports and rushed back to the airport, we were late by 15 mins. The check-in counters were closed strictly 45 minutes before flight time, and no matter how much we begged them, they could not help us. So we had no choice and travelled back to our original hotel to stay for another night. It was such a dreadful feeling to miss our flight!!! And we met so much difficulties in trying to secure air tickets for the next day’s flights and only managed to confirm our seats the next morning. But I know it definitely had to be God. We managed to get the last few tickets left for the next night’s flight!
To wrap up this Taipei holiday series, I’ll be posting a finale post tomorrow so that it does not drag till next week till you overdose on my Taipei posts! =P
