10D9N Taiwan Trip: Fengjia University, Taichung

"Oh angel sent from up above, you know you make my world light up."

It is finally the long weekend and the end of GST filing season. Oh my gawd, I think I'm so gonna cry of happiness. The road ahead is not really free from challenges and workloads but at least I am free from any compliance deadline, at least for the next two months. I   Oh-I Oh-I Oh-I got me feeling drunk and high so high so high~~~~

Continuing out journey in Taichung, we still have a few hours before it's time to explore Fengjia Night Market, so we started our wandering in the 3rd biggest city in Taiwan by visiting Fengjia University.

Fengjia University seems to be the biggest university in Taichung and its location is super convenient as it is so near the night market district. I bet the students here eat at the night market every day. Well, at least that what I would do if I am studying here. 

Fengjia University is pretty big from the map, I suppose our exploration gonna take a while. Not that we mind though, since we have been doing nothing but eating during our trip in Taiwan so far. This was probably a great chance for our body to burn. 

The main road of Fengjia University which connects the main entrance to the farthest building within the university complex. Not many people sighted although it's probably because we visited the university on Sunday. 

We did not do anything much aside from walking until we reached the "more interesting" part of Fengjia University. That big building over there is the sports hall of the university. Not sure what is inside but since Shida University at Taipei has its own swimming pool and gym, the sports hall of Fengjia University probably has at least the same facilities for its students. 

My travelling buddy and I were more attracted by the outdoor sport facilities like running tracks. Not that I am a fan of running but at least the dorky side of me would not let go of this chance to pose. I don't think I have the right starting pose though, I should have watched Megan Lai's movie, 10,000 Miles over and over again to get the right pose. Hahaha. 

The next prop that piqued my curiousity is this pole which I think is used for obstacles run. Oh my gawd, running alone has been such a difficult challenge for me throughout elementary school to high school, I don't think I can go through life if I need to run and jump over this kind of obstacles. I can, however, play with it though. Happily somemore. Hahaha.

The next prop that we stumbled upon literally make me wonder how these people has the willing to try out this kind of sport. Well, I suppose rock climbing is supposedly fun if you have the right props to climb the wall with. But with heavy body like mine, it gonna take a whole lot efforts to climb this wall. I suppose for now, this is all I'm gonna do when I see this kind of wall in my life. Hanging on. LOL. 

After all those fun activities that we do over at the sporty section of Fengjia University, we continued our walk to the most corner part of the university complex, a lovely pond. Is this where all the university couples go for date? Hmm~~

Hungry after all those walk and random weird activities, we ended up at McDonald's because we need to use their wifi connection to find our way back to Le Parker Hotel (our Changi Wifi modem is not stable when we use it at Taichung, not sure why). As usual, I try to order food menu which is not available in Singapore's McDonald's and this is what I got, McChicken with Cheese. XD

Tried not to eat so much because we have our foodie adventure coming up at Fengjia Night Market soon. Woots!

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Le Parker Hotel, Taichung

"Don't let your dreams be dreams."

Hello everyone! It's finally one day to Friday. Currently, I have no idea why this youtube stop playing in the background of my Ipad but until I figure it out I suppose I just have to be satisfied with Spotify for now. Continuing our journey in Taiwan, we are now ready to continue our journey to the next city on our list, Taichung. The fastest way to reach Taichung from Taipei is by taking the High Speed Rail (HSR). Do you know that you can actually book the HSR ticket online (with allocated seats) and then collect the tickets later one upon arriving in Taiwan? It was so convenient to buy the tickets at this website: https://irs.thsrc.com.tw/IMINT?locale=en and the best thing is, everything's in English. Yeay! 

You would have to collect your HSR tickets from either convenience stores (e.g. 7-11, Family Mart, etc) or the ticketing machines at Taipei Main Station though. We prefer to collect the ticket at 7-11 (with handling fee charges of 20NTD per ticket) because the 7-11 staff is always ready to help us whenever we got lost in reading the traditional Chinese characters. After paying the NTD 20 fees, the 7-11 staff will give you the pink ticket like above where you can scan your way in to the train platform. Since there are many trains leaving Taipei (once in every 15 minutes), you have to pay attention to the train number and the destination before boarding the train. 

Within less than an hour, we have reached Taichung HSR Station. I was kinda having a mixed feeling because I love taking train and yet, I also like the fact that I don't have to waste time on commuting. Such a conflicting feeling. We stayed at Le Parker Hotel in Taichung and as expected, our bedroom was not ready when we arrived around 12-ish. 3 hours later, we finally got our twin bedroom key. The twin bedroom at Le Parker Hotel is definitely more spacious and comfortable than our twin bedroom at Diary of Taipei in Ximending. The room rate for Le Parker Hotel is usually lower than 100 SGD per night so I think this is quite a great deal to find for accommodation in Taichung. 

Shower room is pretty standard and there is no fancy bidet on sight but we are quite satisfied with the clean bedroom and bathroom.  Amenities such as tooth brush, tooth paste, comb, sanitary bag and hairdryer are available too. 

While waiting for the room key, I managed to drink this popular convenience store item in Taiwan, Uni-President's papaya milk. It tastes so good and always makes me want to go back to Taiwan whenever I think about it. 

After we are done checking in, it's time for us to walk around the vicinity of Le Parker Hotel. The main reason for us to choose to stay at Le Parker Hotel is actually because it is located within walking distance to Fengjia University and Fengjia Night Market, which is supposedly the biggest night market in Taiwan. 

But the night market is still empty in the afternoon obviously so we just spent our time walking around Fengjia University (weird post coming up) and convenience stores. Oh look, Gudetama biscuits. It seems that Gudetama is well loved here in Taiwan. 

Le Parker Hotel is located at: 

No. 16 Lane 234, Chih Shan Road, Situn District

Taichung, Taiwan

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Craftholic Cafe, SYS Memorial Hall

"I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror."

And worrying about what others may think about me but the time has finally come for me to stuck my tongue and say "No" to those people who do not really care and deserve my attention. Anyeong goodbye adios, annoying people! To be honest I did not even have to stick my tongue out because the exact person who annoyed me the most has reaped what he sow without me doing anything. It must be God avenging me. Hahaha thank you Lord! #feelsloved 

Since I am in such an upbeat mood, let me share with you one of the cute themed-cafes which I tried back in my trip to Taipei. If you are a lover of a plush toy/ huggable stuffed animal, you must have known the brand called Craftholic. My ex-colleague loves them so much up to the point she has so many of these dolls at her room. Beyond reasonable size of her bed, personally speaking. There's a themed-cafe specifically featuring Craftholic in Sun Yat Sen (SYS) Memorial Hall area of Taipei so we decided to pop while resting our tired legs.

Craftholic Cafe looks so vibrant and cozy at one glance. Since we did not make any reservation, we could only hang around here for one hour sharp but we did not mind at all because we had other place to visit that night. Every seats are decorated with Craftholic seat cushion and if you manage to secure the sofa seats, you will be seated next to a character from Craftholic. 

Even though I know about Craftholic, I have totally zero idea that each character made by Craftholic has name. I usually refer to them as what they are for example, the bunny, the monkey, etc. Super not creative I know but that seems to be the easiest way to tell them apart. Since we had other place in mind to eat heavy dinner later on, we decided to skip the mains and checked out the character dessert menu instead. 

For easy reference, you can take a peek at the cake display before making decision of which cake you want to order. The big cakes look the most exciting but the size is kinda too big for our purpose that day. We also did not want to gain so much calories from hanging out at Craftholic. LOL. 

After making our decision, we took the time to check out our surroundings. That's when we noticed there are so many cute stuff on display at Craftholic Cafe. Some of the merchandises are for sale near the cashier. Do check them out if you love Craftholic because I think there are many limited edition items which are only available in Taipei store. 

If I recalled correctly, there is a minimum order of drink for each diner at Craftholic Cafe. Since that is the case, my travelling buddy ordered the only latte drink which should not make her lie awake at night, Matcha Latte. She also treated me a tiramisu cake in Sloth's shape (Sloth is supposedly the name of the bear) because that day was my birthday too. Yeay, thank you so much for the cake, my bae. <3

Bored with the usual milky stuff, I ordered a glass of fruit tea instead. I think it was cranberry something because all I could remember was the sweet and sour taste of the cranberries inside the fruit tea. The fruit tea came with bunny toy but I totally forgot where I misplaced him/ her. Haiz.

Craftholic Cafe is located at: 

1F, No. 28 Lane 280

Guangfu South Road Daan District

Taipei 

Nearest MRT: SYS Memorial Hall

Opening hours: 

Daily 11AM - 10PM

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Yummy Lu Rou Fan at Formosa Chang

"93 million miles from the sun, people get ready get ready."

I always wonder why weekend passes so fast. But I guess it's because weekend is so fun no matter who you are spending your weekend with. I can even have fun spending it with myself. Anti-social at its best. My weekend date and I were initially about to have fun at some kind of street party but it was so not happening up to the point we got lazy to even check it out. Geez. This experience kinda make us just want to save money and spend it somewhere else instead.

I wonder if I should just fly to Taipei for a weekend trip but then again the flight takes 5 hours one way from Singapore to Taipei and I suppose it's really not wise to do that without taking any annual leave. Meanwhile, let's just reminisce of my personal must-eat-food whenever I am back in Taipei, braised meat rice (lu rou fan) from Formosa Chang.

Formosa Chang is a restaurant chain specializing in braised meat rice and the outlet usually has yellow sign with its mascot, the bearded man. My uncle and aunt brought me here for the first time during my first visit to Taipei 4 years ago and since then, I am hooked to this simple and yet, addicting food. It comes as a small bowl of rice (thankfully, because well rice makes you fat) and the braised meat is poured on the rice. 

Since the rice itself is so small in portion, Formosa Chang offers it in set meal (you can also have the option to order ala carte if you'd like to). My standard choice of set meal is the NTD 99 set which have clear radish soup, tofu with sweet sauce and the braised meat rice. The radish given inside the soup is generous, you will surely feel full from eating this soup alone. 

I love the tofu too and the sweet sauce that comes with it. 

We were very very full after eating the above meal and decided to walk the calories off. We went to Taipei Main Station area because this station is still vibrant even after 9PM. I was curious about Line Friends Store at Breeze @ Taipei Main Station but it took us a while to find this Breeze. Turns out it's located near to the HSR/ TRA gate. 

The Line Friends Store here is not as big as I thought but apparently there's a bigger one located at Taipei City Hall. But anyway since we were already here, I decided to just take a quick look at the store. 

But unfortunately, I could not find anything that I wanted to buy from Line Friends Store @ Breeze. Oh well. Better luck next time. 

Formosa Chang has so many outlets in Taipei. But the easiest outlet to find is near to Wufenpu Clothing Street.

  Formosa Chang (Wufenpu outlet) is located at:

 No. 533 Yongji Road, Nangang District, Taipei

  Nearest MRT: Houshanpi MRT

  Opening hours:  Daily 10AM - 11PM    

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Gudetama Chef, Zhongxiao Dunhua Part 3

"Oh this could really be a good life."

 A good life for an ordinary girl always involve good food and good companionship. I suppose it is not that difficult to please a girl. And that's why my travel buddy and I were so happy when we visited Gudetama Chef at Zhongxiao Dunhua in Taipei. Last time we had seen Gudetama oozing out from our blueberry pancake. Now, we are going to see more laziness from other food. For instance, this is the chicken cutlet with curry yellow Gudetama rice. The yellow rice is the main item here because otherwise, it will be hard to feature the lazy egg in this dish. The curry is totally not spicy at all. It even tastes a tad sweet to be honest with you. But it was nice nonetheless.

Oh right, by the way, every seat at Gudetama Chef is decorated with Gudetama's pillow. I got the Chef's special pillow on my seat. Remember to take picture with the cute pillow, ok? Super not important, I know. 

I nearly forgot about the fancy colourful drink. It came with a very funny straw where you could see Gudetama's butt. The drink tastes sweet like soda-kind-of-sweet and the color looks so nice now. However, once the three colors mix up, the drink will turn to a dark and gloom color, black. We were kinda wondering what on earth did we drink after all. We are still alive until now though so all is well. XD

The last food that we ordered is Gudetama Kimchi Pizza. It is actually kinda gimmicky because the only way to insert Gudetama's concept on the pizza is by adding that round-shape cheese and pit Gudetama's face sticker on it. While the pizza taste good, it was so filling, we ended up with a very "round" tummy after dining here. 

Apparently, the rounder and heavier tummy did not stop us from making a quick stop at a pancake shop named Taiko-Manzyuuu while we were wandering around at Zhongshan. 

If you are a fan of Mr Bean in Singapore, Taiko-Manzyuuu sells similar pancake but with so many various fillings from taro, red bean, chocolate, peanut, etc. 

Some ready-made pancakes are inside the display but we could not tell what kind of flavor are those. We chose Rum Cheese pancake at the end and we were pretty happy with our choice. :)

Gudetama Chef is located at:

No. 12, Lane 236, Section 1

Dunhua South Road

Daan District

Taipei

Opening hours:

Tuesday to Sunday 11AM - 10PM

Closed on Mondays

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Gudetama Chef, Zhongxiao Dunhua Part 2

"It's Friday, I'm in love."

TGIF peeps! It was a light at the end of the tunnel when the clock hits 6PM after gruelling slaving throughout the sunny and rainy day. But after all those hard works, it is finally weekend again! Yeay! Feels like I'm alive again~~~

Continuing on from our visit to Gudetama Chef, my travel buddy and I were finally seated after waiting time of 10 minutes or so because the waitress needed to clear the table and everything. We did not mind the wait though because we were busy checking out the souvenir store and taking pictures. A lot of pictures of Gudetama Chef. Hahaha.

Gudetama Chef is a lazy chef who has to use eggs in all his dishes. He speaks for the joyfulness of Egg World and he is heavily against 100% Egg Free world. Egg for the world! Since I love eating eggs, I probably would not mind this kind of way of life. LOL.

But let's flip and see what kind of food is served in Gudetama Chef. Like many other themed-restaurants in Taipei, Gudetama Chef specialised in fusion Western dishes and it offers a range of salad, pasta, and risotto. You need to order salad which have eggs if you want the salad to be decorated by Gudetama. Otherwise I don't know how Gudetama's gonna appear in the salad bowl. I don't think he wants to appear in something green. After all, this is one attitude egg. 

The drinks served at Gudetama Chef are very good-looking. There is soda, pop rocks yogurt and colourful slush. A lot of diners ordered the slush because they want to keep the cute plastic bottle. 

After we have placed our order, it is time to take a look at our surroundings. Did I see Gudetama hanging from the ceiling? The lazy eggs are basically everywhere in this dining room. Sleepy sleepy sleepy indeed. 

Gudetama also features himself everywhere on our table from the table mat, small plates, normal plates and pepper and salt containers. I spent quite a few minutes to take selfie with all these props. There's no way you are not gonna taking picture when you are at any themed restaurant in Taiwan. 

The funny thing is, the first order to arrive on that particular Sunday is the dessert, the Blueberry Pancake (which is served with blueberry ice crea). Gudetama oozing out from the pancake but there's nothing raw about this pancake so you don't have to worry so much about whether it's cooked properly. The Blueberry Pancake tastes so good, I can feel every bit of blueberries inside the pancake. And it was not too sweet. Yummy.

Gudetama Chef is located at: 

No. 12, Lane 236 Section 1

Dunhua South Road 

Daan District, Taipei

Opening hours:

Tuesday to Sunday 11AM - 10PM

Closed on Monday

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Gudetama Chef, Zhongxiao Dunhua Part 1

"Where'd all the good people go? We got heaps and heaps of what we sow."

It is so tiring to work with someone who does not seem to care to give his best in his work. To be honest I have reached the stage whereby I feel that he does not even care of how much pain he gives other people when he cannot carry his duty well. He could not even care about following a simple timeline. What I hate the most is by taking care of his irresponsibility, I had to work overtime. Sometimes I just want to act like an annoying egg called Gudetama. Meh. Hahaha.

Before my trip to Taiwan, I have heard about a themed-cafe revolving around this lazy and yet cute character named Gudetama in Taipei. A friend told me that a prior reservation is a must to avoid disappointment. You had to pay a deposit in order to make a reservation at Gudetama Chef but I thought it would be worth it at the end since we did not have to waste time in queuing.

Gudetama Chef restaurant is located at the neighbourhood area of Zhongxiao Dunhua. The interesting thing about cafe concept in Taipei is that the cafe can be located right at the ground level of apartments. Yes, there are people living above Gudetama Chef. That must be so cool right. Imagine when people ask you "where do you stay?". "Oh, I stay above Gudetama." Not cool? Is it just me? 

Since we had to wait for a while so that the waitress could clear our table, we checked out the small souvenir store right in front of the restaurant. Gudetama looks so cute in chef attire. I'm quite tempted to buy that "LAZY" pillow, to be honest with you. 

There are also stationaries sold in the souvenir shop like those cute files featuring Gudetama in different design. In addition, there are kitchen utensils too. 

If you are interested in featuring Gudetama as your kitchen decoration, you know what to buy. 

Don't forget to check the washroom every time you visit a themed cafe in Taiwan. The wall of the washroom is decorated in a very nice Gudetama way.

Cute small pictures of Gudetama saying Ya~, Lala~ and Huh. Feel like bringing them home. But I don't have anywhere to hang the pictures. Plus people will think I'm related to Gudetama somehow. 

Do you agree with Gudetama's way of life? All you need is egg. NO egg NO life. Humm...let's explore more about Gudetama when we have ordered the food. 

Gudetama Chef is located at: 

No.12, Lane 236 Section 1

Dunhua South Road

Daan District, Taipei

Opening hours:

Tuesday to Sunday 11AM - 10PM

Closed on Monday