Things to do in Jiufen and Shifen Guide, Taiwan

Jiufen

1. How to go to Jiufen?

2. Jiufen Old Street [eat eat eat]

    - Taro rice ball [famous local delicacy][link]
    - Mochi [link]
    - Grilled sausages [link]
    - Green glutinous rice cake [another famous local delicacy] [link]
    - Peanut and ice cream wrap [link]
3. Relaxing at tea house
4. Visit the tea house that inspired Spirited Away's creator [Jiufen A Mei Tea House]
5. Look at the Nine-Turns-Road which lead to Jiufen [Shooting place for Initial D movie]
6. Buy ocarinas
7. Watch sunset

Shifen

1. How to go to Shifen?
2. Shifen Train Station
3. Eat fried ice cream [link]
4. Releasing sky lantern 
5. Shifen Bridge 
6. Shifen Waterfall [spring, summer]
7. Shifen Coal Mine Museum

Planning a trip anytime soon to Jiufen and Shifen? You may want to try search for smart deals at Tripadvisor here. Have fun!

Taipei Day's View from Taipei 101

I just realised that I never post how's the view from the top of Taipei 101 in day time. For the night time's view, you can see it here. So here we come again, hello Taipei 101!

It would be great if we can come here on a clear bright blue sky kind of day. But that kind of day does not happen everyday so...we had to be content with cloudy weather. 

Well, at least you can still see the mountain. Hahaha. 

If you want to take picture with Taipei 101 as the background, you have to walk around and find a space. We were lucky to find this nearby park. <3

So do you prefer the view during the day or at night? =)

What to do in Tamsui (Dan Shui), Taiwan?

If you can spare a day in your trip to Taipei, you can do a lot of things in Tamsui.

1. Visiting Fisherman Wharf

You can get on the Lover's Tower to see the beautiful view of the wharf. And once you are done with the ride, you can walk to Lover's Bridge where the famous Taiwanese drama called Meteor Garden was filmed. If you are adventurous enough, you can cycle from the MRT station to here.







2. Have a taste of local food at Tamsui Old Street

Wherever you are in Taiwan, you shall EAT. A LOT. No kidding, street food in Taiwan is awesome. Both in taste and price. You can try a lot of food from a-gei (tofu dish) to fried gyoza to cake to iron eggs (black eggs in Tamsui Old Street .








3. Visiting Fort San Domingo/ British Consular Residence

Tamsui has a lot of history as this part of Taiwan served as an important fort for the Spanish colony in the old age. If you are interested in looking at an old fort and old British residence, you can simply visit these two places as they are located next to each other.









4. Visiting (or even considering to study?) Aletheia University

Walk further up from British Consular Residence and you will reach a university. This university is quite special as it was established by a famous pastor in Tamsui. The pastor is not Taiwanese though. He's Canadian and he's called Mackay.









5. Looking at Pastor Mackay Statue and Church

If you are wondering about the identity of Pastor Mackay (and thus, history of Tamsui in general), you will see his status and his church alongside the main road of Tamsui.

Places to visit in Taipei for First Time Visitors

Hey-ho! Here is a summary of places that you may want to visit in Taipei (including its outskirt attractions). Hope this helps!

Taipei / New Taipei City

1. Taipei 101
2. Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
3. Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall
4. Taipei Main Station
5. Xinbeitou (part 1, part 2)
6. Tamsui
7. National Palace Museum
4. Yongkang Street
5. Ximending

6. Night markets
    - Shilin Night Market
    - Raohe Night Market
    - Shida Night Market

7. Wufenpu
8. Maokong Gondola
9. Longshan Temple
10. Bopiliao Historical Site
11. Taipei Zoo
12. Wulai
13. Martyr Shrine
14. 228 Peace Memorial Park
15. 1914 Huashan Creative Park

Taipei's Outskirt

1. Shifen (part 1, part 2, part 3)
2. Jiufen
3. Yehliu Geopark (spring, summer)

Hong Kong Eats: Tsui Wah Restaurant

When you are in Hong Kong, make sure you visit the famous Hong Kong cafe. And the easiest cafe to find is Tsui Wah. Simply because they are everywhere. XD

We visited the one located at Tsim Sha Tsui. The place is crowded but there is enough seats for everyone as the place is quite huge (two floors). We immediately ordered the famous local food, crispy buns with condensed milk. Hmm, how come ours served a bit burned at the side? Oh well. 

We ordered Mushroom Fusili. I seldom eat fusili but I am pasta lover so I enjoy all kinds of pasta. 

Another dish that we tried is Risotto. Surprisingly taste quite good. Apparently you don't have to go to Italian restaurant to eat a decent Italian meal. XD

Don't forget to order a cup of milk tea. Hey, cute cup! 

I don't have the picture of the entrance of the cafe. But if you see this logo around, you are at the right place. LOL.

Eastern Eurotrip: Shopping at Mariahilfer Strabe, Vienna

If you want to shop in Vienna, make sure you drop by at Mariahilfer Strabe. Continuing my last post here, you have reached the city centre when you see this branded watch building. So now you know where to go to buy your branded watch in Vienna. Hahaha.

There were not many people back then because we visited this place like 10AM on a Sunday morning. Talking about enthusiasm to shop. =P

Food stall always distracted us. But we were not in the mood to eat fried stuff and sandwiches early in the morning. 

Spotted cute traditional local costume for kids. ^^

Posing in front of a huge shopping store which clothes are too expensive for my budget. So I just posed without buying anything #sadbrokeme. Don't worry though, there are those high street stores like Zara, Forever 21 and H&M too here. I guess you can still buy something from those shops if you (or your wallet) are not cut out for branded stuff. =P

The shopping street is decorated by my favourite yellow tree. Love! 

Most of the shops here opens around 11am on Sunday. So you can be early if you want to avoid the crowd. Happy shopping! 

Find great hotel deals in Vienna here!

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan

You can call me a weirdo but Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall is one of my favourite place in Taipei. It's a good thing that it's located near to where I lived, two stations away from Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall MRT Station. Hehe.

When I visited the MRT station for the first time, I took the wrong exit and to my surprise, I could not go to the other exit without tapping my MRT card again (which means waste money!). After asking the station guard (using broken Mandarin), it turned out that I need to obtain this pass from the guard and he/she will open his special door to let me pass to the other side. 

Finally came out from the right exit (exit no 3) and welcomed by the glorious gate. 

When you walk toward the memorial hall, you will see the entrance. At the side of the entrance, there is a stairs which lead you upstairs. It's tiring to climb the stairs but it's worth the effort. 

Because the view from the top is amazing. <3

Inside the memorial hall, you can see and read the history of the man called Chiang Kai Shek. For instance, this is his office. 

His awesome official state car. Which is also bulletproof. O_O!

Oh hello, sir! You can see his statue at the level 4 of the memorial hall. At certain timings, they will hold the changing guard ceremony here. If I'm not wrong, it's on hourly timing from 10am - 4pm. 

The entrance fee to the memorial hall is zero. So what are you waiting for? =)

For more details, you can visit the official website here.

Singapore Cafe: Stateland, Bugis

"Rainy Saturday afternoon. A meeting with friend. What suits the moment better than a quaint little cafe?"

This Saturday my friend and I picked a cafe located at Bali Lane (near Bugis MRT), Stateland Cafe,  to try the hyped red velvet waffle. Last time we went here, we could not get a table. But this time, seems like we came at perfect timing. =)

Everything can be used as a table number nowadays with a little bit of creativity. 

The food and drink menu. 

We tried those items which seems very different from other cafe. One is called Laksa Eggs Benedict. The benedict sauce has laksa flavour too but overall the dish is served kinda sweet. I guess it's also due to the Thai chili sauce. Although the dish is not bad, I still prefer my usual benedict. Haha. 

Finally, the dessert that we have been waiting for, Red Velvet Waffle. We thought they use a normal whipped cream on the waffle but turns out it is cream cheese. The combination of the waffle, cream cheese and vanilla ice cream is heavenly. Yum~~~~bye bye diet. 

If you are interested to check the cafe out, you can visit their facebook page here. Happy eating!

Where to buy cheap branded bags in Vienna?

Whenever my friends and colleagues know that someone goes to Europe, the next question which usually follow is...are you going to buy branded bags? OR can you help me buy branded bags? But the thing that they seldom ask is "where to buy the so-called-cheaper branded bags?".

Even though generally the price of branded bags like LV, Prada, Chanel, etc tend to be cheaper in the high-end-boutique stores at European main street. It's still not considered very cheap, right? (to me, it still creates a HOLE in my bank account). XD

So as what's usually included in tour group itinerary, we visited a big factory outlet located a bit outside of Vienna called Vienna Designer Outlet Pandorf.

The factory outlet is big. And it has a lot of stores although it does not have all the big brand names. Some of the big brands that they have here are Burberry, Prada and Gucci. 

They have Michael Kors too and the collection they sell here is pretty extensive. I bought one here for 197EUR. <3

If you want to find your sport attires/ shoes, there are Adidas and Nike outlets here. The cutting for the clothes does not suit me though. The S one seems to be still pretty big for me. Nike Air Max's price is still too high for me to bear. U_U. 

If you are hungry, they sell some food too inside. For instance, big pretzels. The chocolate one taste good. The plain ones taste..well...plain. =(

Otherwise, they have fancy restaurant and fast food too. We settle for Burger King because it's nearer to our meeting point after we are done with some shopping. 

What we bought most on that day is...chocolate. Hahaha. But Lindt's price at designer outlet in Berlin is so much cheaper than here. It's probably because of the festive season sale timing. 

If you are interested to go here by yourself (not with tour bus), you can check the direction at their website here. I saw a lot of people queueing for shuttle bus too. So I suppose there must be a shuttle bus from city centre to the designer outlet. 

Happy Shopping!

Singapore Eats: High Tea at Brasserie Les Saveurs, St Regis

Happy New Year!!! It's time to write a lot of memorable memories of another 365 blank pages of yearbook titled 2015. So how did the first day go? I was busy burning away calories which I gained over the past week. And one of the culprit is the high tea session I had with by bestie. XD

She wanted to eat scones so we chose Brasserie Les Saveurs at St Regis to have our girl chat + afternoon tea + a lot of scones/ cakes. When we came inside, we immediately fell in love with the chandelier and comfy chairs.

Pretty desserts on display. 

All type of scones. Chocolate, cheese, you name it. I quite like their scones. Enjoyed with cream and jam. =)

On the savoury sides, Brasserie Les Saveurs serves variety of sushi, ham, and laksa (which seems like a mandatory dish served for high tea in Singapore?).

Other than the buffet spread, the waiter/waitress will serve a tray full of sandwiches, soup and pie to each table. The soup is pumpkin soup. I don't really like eating sandwich because they are filling and I always have the impression that I can make it myself. Not that I really make it at home. #lazybum

Brasserie Les Saveurs serves tea from TWG range. As other high tea places, we can only choose 1 pot per person. I can't remember the exact name of the tea but it has vanilla taste. Not bad. =)

Do visit their website if you are interested. You can click the link here. ^^