Wandering Fel

But I was kinda happy I was not alone when I was roaming around in Taipei. My best buddy from high school, SL, has always been my best travelling companion and she's here with me enduring all the nonsense given by her travelling mate, me. Hahahaha. 

The moment after we touched down at Taipei after our days spent outside Taipei, we quickly filled ourselves with so many food from unagi rice bowl to bubble tea to cheese tarts and ice cream. Needless to say, we need to walk and burn some fats right now. We decided to wander around Taipei's most glamorous shopping district, Xinyi. You can reach Xinyi by taking the train to Taipei City Hall station. Xinyi is the so-called Central Business District of Taipei. The area was nicely lit up even though it was not Christmas or anything when we visited Taipei in early March. Street musicians and performers are plenty in this area making it a cheerful place to wander around. 

Alternatively if you do not want to go via Taipei City Hall station, you can also take the train to Taipei 101 Station instead because the skyscraper is located in Xinyi district as well. Plan your timing carefully if you want to go up to the observation tower because there are so many tour groups going up there, you don't want to be stuck in the queue with them. There was one time where I had to queue for nearly two hours because turned out one of the elevators to bring you up was spoilt. So yeah, plan carefully. 

Few blocks away from Taipei 101, we saw a small park right in the midst of big corporations building. The trees in the park were lit as well and we were getting pretty excited to take picture here. Big names for banks, insurances, consultancy firms can be spotted from the surrounding buildings. I wonder if the Taiwanese office workers have time to enjoy and walk around in the vicinity. Working hours for such industry in Singapore are pretty crazy, after all. Maybe it's about the same in Taiwan. Sad notorious Asian working culture. 

Oh hello! Did I tell you I was getting pretty excited taking picture here? I never get excited taking picture at Raffles Place of Marina Bay area in Singapore though despite the same "Central Business District" tagging. LOL. 

The magnificent Taipei 101 tower can be seen clearly from the park that we were at. The weather was kinda foggy that day so we did not bother to go up after all. Taipei 101 is leased for both retail and office space. So the first 5 levels below belong to retail space while the rest are leased for office. It will be kinda scary and cool at the same time if let's say I'm working at level 40 of the tower? I don't want to be there when earthquake or typhoon strikes the city though. Hahahah. 

Other than Taipei 101, here are some places that you may be interested to visit at Xinyi District:

1. Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall

2. Elephant Mountain

3. The flagship Eslite bookstore

4. ATT4 Fun

5. Shinkong Mitsukoshi Xinyi (you can do tax refund here)

4. Breeze Songgao (a must visit for LINE Friends lover)

There is no queue at BAKE cheese tart in Zhongshan and we really love that because the queue at the same outlet at Singapore's ION Orchard used to be so long (up to 3 hours wtf). However, I heard the queue was not that bad nowadays since the hype should have gone down after 1 year later. The BAKE cheese tart in Taiwan costs NTD70 for one piece and NTD390 for 6 pieces. Oh right, did you see the thing displayed under the price display? Oh yeay, BAKE cheese tart in Taiwan sells soft served ice cream. The same is not available in Singapore at the moment. 

The size of the soft-served ice cream is pretty big so if you want to save some space in your tummy, you better share the ice cream cone with someone else. It tastes like Hokkaido milk and sadly, there is nothing cheesy about the ice cream. A pure milky soft served ice cream. 

With a very full stomach, we decided to just move on to our next destination, the shopping district of Wufenpu. In order to reach Wufenpu, you have to take the train to Houshanpi MRT Station. From the MRT station exit, you can follow the sign to the Wufenpu Shopping District. Alternatively, you just have to follow the crowd as there will be many people heading to that direction after 6PM. 

There are so many shops at Wufenpu, it will take you a while to browse the store one by one. Not that we mind though because we were very very full and need to walk off whatever we have consumed. Most of the stores at Wufenpu don't allow trying though so you must have a good skill of estimation or measurement. Both skills I don't possess in term of buying clothes. Sadz. 

BAKE Cheese Tart is located at: 

 1F, No. 15, Nanjing W. Road

Zhongshan District

Taipei

Opening hours:

Sunday to Thursday: 11AM - 9.30PM

Friday to Saturday: 11AM - 10PM

Google Maps – BAKE Cheese Tart Taipei

Since we reached Taipei around lunch time, obviously the next to-do-thing in our itinerary is to EAT. There is one place that we felt like revisiting in Taipei. Four years ago, I did my research when I was staying in Taipei and brought my travelling buddy came to Fei Qian Wu in Zhongshan area to have a go at their famous unagi-don. Yes, it is a Japanese restaurant and it is very popular with both local and tourists (even Japanese tourists!). There is always a long queue in front of the restaurant but since we came slightly after peak lunch hours, the queue was not so bad. We managed to get in within 10 minutes. Yeay!

There is no English translation for the ordering chit but if you only want to order the unagi rice bowl, you just have to decide between the first two items on the list. The first one with the price of NTD 250 is small portion of unagi-don meanwhile the menu right below it with the price of NTD 480 is big portion of unagi-don. Easy-peasy, no?

Well, that's basically all that we ordered at Fei Qian Wu because we wanted to keep space in our stomach for other stuff. After all, Taipei is a foodie heaven. The restaurant is not big but the restaurant staff ensure that orders are made fast and there are no diners who are allowed to linger for so long after they have finished their meal. Yep, Fei Qian Wu is not the place to linger for a long chat. You have been warned. 

Here comes the small portion of unagi-don. The small portion is good enough for a lady I feel. The rice that they use is Japanese white rice which is my favourite. The unagi (grilled eel) is still as good as last time but I recalled that the size of the unagi used to be bigger back then. Hmm. Oh right, please note that Fei Qian Wu only accepts cash. No credit cards accepted here. 

Anyway, the smaller unagi worked well for us as well because since we were at Zhongshan area, we wanted to visit the famous tea house, Chun Shui Tang. I have never eaten here before but they have rice and noodle dishes. The tea house was packed up to the point there were no seats at all in the tea house. We had no choice but to take away our drinks. 

Chun Shui Tang is tourist-friendly and it displays English translation for its menu. Hahaha. 

I came here for one and one thing only, their bubble tea. Do you know that Chun Shui Tang is the creator of bubble tea in Taiwan? I have to buy this bubble tea whenever I am in Taipei despite its higher price tag (if let's say compared to 50lan). 

When we bought our bubble tea, we saw a group of Japanese tourists excitedly posed in front of Chun Shui Tang with their drinks. Hmm, since it's apparently a must do for tourists, let me take a shot of my Chun Shui Tang's cup with its restaurant logo. I'm not in the mood for selfie because I look kinda like a hobo after walking for so long. Hahahaha. #vanityissue

Fei Qian Wu is located at: 

1F., 13-2, Alley 121, Chungshan N. Rd., Sec. 1, Taipei 

(台北市中山北路1段121巷13-2號1樓) 

Opening hours:

 Tuesday to Sunday: 11AM - 2PM, 5.30PM - 8PM

Closed on Mondays

Chun Shui Tang is located at: