Taiwan Hotels At a Glance

Day 1: Taoyuan Holiday Hotel (桃园假日饭店)
Located @ 269 Dah Shing Road, Taoyuan

The hotel looks a bit old from the outside. The duty manager was very friendly and helpful, although he gave us a room that belongs to another tour leader from the same agency (we had arrived earlier than the main group).

Day 2: Gold Coast Hualien Union Hotel (国统大饭店)
Located @ 50 Jian Chang Road, Hualien

This hotel got lots of marble and other type of stones at the lobby. There is also a pool table and a treadmill like machine at its basement.

Day 3: Chih Pen Toong Mao Hot Spring Hotel (知本统茂温泉旅馆)
Located @ 61 Lung Chuan Road Pinan, Taitung

As its name suggest, its attraction is the hot spring, though very much like a swimming pool.

And the room looks like this.

Day 4: National Citizen Hotel (星辰大饭店)
Located @ 134 Chung Chen 1 Road, Kaohsiung

This hotel is at the main road. There is a Mos Burger just beside the hotel, which we bought and ate in our room.

Day 5: Twinstar Hotel (双星大饭店)
Located @ 158 Fu Hsin Road Sec. 4, Taichung

This hotel is just beside the Taichung Central Mall.

And the hotel room door is made of metal.

Day 6: Sunny Business Hotel (朝日商务饭店)
Located @ No. 213 Bade Road Sec. 4, Taipei

Nothing special here, just that the glass wall of the bathroom in this hotel is a bit translucent.

Day 7: Friends Hotel (友莱大饭店)
Located @ No. 23-1, Shuang Cheng Street, Taipei

Our hotel for the next 3 days. They provide quite a lot of services, e.g. free DVD player rental and internet access in the room. Furthermore, they also provide free shuttle bus service within Taipei City, just that you need to tell them in advance. Unfortunately, we did not utilize this service at all.

They also have free tissue paper at the reception counter which we diligently took everyday when we went out... :P... One bad thing about this hotel is its breakfast. They served the same food everyday, and the food were not appealing. What's more, the cafe only has about 4 ~ 5 small tables.

There was also an LCD TV in the room. And there was some interesting TV channel on show every night... hehe...

A Day At Singapore Expo

Spent around half a day at the Singapore Expo today. There was quite a number of sales going on. First went to the L'Oreal Sale. A lot of stuff are going pretty cheaply, from cosmetic to hair dyes to skin care products.

Next up, went to the Adidas Post-Season Sale. Gotta queue up to get into the hall.

Not many items were left that I would buy by the time I went in. The Zizou Real Madrid jersey was selling at $50 though. The Singapore Marathon 2005 merchandizes were also on sale (but I already got the 2006 ones liao... hehe)

Came out from the hall with only one item to show for. Then went for a quick lunch before going to Fish Leong's autograph and mini concert session at the Max Pavilion.

There was a super long queue by the time I reached (think around 400 metres?!). Luckily, I got the tickets for VIP and there was a separate and shorter queue for that. And managed to get a seat at the front rows.

The concert began at about 440pm. Fish sang a total of 10 songs, including 7 from her latest album. I haven't listened to all the songs in her latest album yet, and actually there are quite a few that I like. She could sing live pretty well and performed all the songs effortlessly IMO.

After the performance, there was an autograph session for her latest album. Bought her new album just for this purpose... :P. The queues were very long as usual.

And finally got her autograph.

Final destination of the day was the Popular Mega Books Sale. There was nothing there of interest to me and I left after some 15 minutes. Think this one was more for parent to bring their young kids here.

Yet Another DotA Gathering

Date / Time: 23rd November 2006, 1930hrs
Venue: Newton Circus Hawker Centre
Attendees: =.=, Bigaro, Dragon, DM, Hellspawn, kian, lioncub, Mao, marcus, Newbie, Obiwan, ps, sotong, templar and thierry

A 3rd gathering for satay, and there is a change of venue from the last time. This time round, there were more people from ECQ that went, 10 in total. I only went right at the last minute when some of them were leaving office, and I just tagged along. Total orders were around 140 sticks of satay and some side dishes like BBQ Stringray, and sambal squid.

And I just made a cameo appearance and later become an early "leaver"... :P ... But I was not alone though.

Taiwan Itinerary At a Glance: Day 7

Last day of the package tour was F&E. We went to the Pacific City Living Mall just diagonally across our hotel.

And found this stall in the food court.

Notice an interesting sign on the 8th floor. Can you spot what is wrong?

And SG posing as a receptionist at the information counter.

Overview at the viewing gallery.

We went back to check out from our current hotel, then took a cab to check into our hotel for the next 3 days, Yolai Hotel (友莱大饭店) at Zhongshan district. There was a food street just down the road but the hotel was some 15 minutes walk away from the nearest MRT station (民权西路捷运站). Not very convenient IMO.

We went to the Guanghua Market (光华商场), Taipei's equivalent of Singapore's Sim Lim Square. But it is just a one-storey complex.

Then we took the MRT down to Danshui (淡水), the very end of the MRT line. And we needed to make a bus transfer to reach the Fisherman's Wharf. By the time we reached, it was already dark, although it was only around 6+.

This is the Lover's Bridge (情人桥).

Another view of the bridge.

And scene from the top of the bridge.

There is a stall selling super big ice cream cone here.

We took a speed cruise back to Danshui Old Street (淡水老街), instead of bus. The journey is only about 10 minutes.

Walk along the street and grabbed some food in the process.

Head back down Wufenpu and also the night market that we missed the previous day (饶河夜市).

And we managed to walk, shop, eat and play at this night market.

Taiwan Itinerary At a Glance: Day 6

Heading back north on day 6 and first up was the fruit farm at Miaoli (苗栗).

Some of the plants that were grown here.

And the persimmons that we plucked ourselves (not for free though... :P)

After this, we made our back to Taipei, to CKS Memorial Hall.

Then XH brought us to the Grand Hotel (园山大饭店), built by Soong May-ling (宋美龄). It was just a stop-over for photo taking.

Next stop was Martyr Shrine.

There was a change parade on the hour.

And a fancy arms drill as well.

Had lunch after this. Then we were brought to Mao's House to look at some honey and royal jelly. I did not buy anything here though.

Taipei National Palace Museum (国立故宫博物院) was next on the agenda. A pity we were not allowed to take any photos indoor.

Then made another stop-over at the 辟邪展示馆 for some more sales pitch. Two more stops to go on a fully-packed day. And we went to Miramar Shopping Mall for a Ferris Wheel Ride (which takes 17 minutes).

The view on top of the Ferris.

And the final stop of our package, Shih Lin Night Market (士林夜市). We had our dinner here but was only given a little time to explore.

After this, we checked in to our hotel. Then still managed to find time to go Wufenpu (五分埔), a wholesale center for garments. Here we saw not only shoppers like us, but also people carrying trolleys to buy the stuff in bulk for re-sale. We had also wanted to go to a nearby night market (饶河夜市) but there weren't enough time, in fact, the shops here in Wufenpu were closing as well. Thus we took a cab back to our hotel, but not before stopping for supper at a soybean milk stall.

Taiwan Itinerary At a Glance: Day 5

Starts the day by boarding the little train (五分车) to go to The Cow's Home (乳牛的家).

On board the train.

And scenes along the way.

Here, we got to feed the cow.

And besides cows, there are other types of animals here as well.

Next, we went to the Sun Moon Lake (日月潭). Had our lunch first before going to the Peacock Garden (孔雀园). A pity it was raining, the peacock were not let out of their cage.

Some of the peacocks that we saw.

Then we travel a bit down the road to the Wen Wu Temple (文武庙). Wen refers to Confucius, while Wu refers to General Guan Yu and Yue Fei. This area was very much affected by a massive earthquake a few years ago. And part of the temple was re-constructed.

Statues of General Guan Yu and Yue Fei.

After this was another few hours of journey to Taichung (台中). We were brought to our hotel, and had dinner, before we were dropped at a night market. This was a different one from the itinerary (which was 蓬甲夜市). This night market is called Yizhong Night Market (一中夜市).

The night market stretches to a few streets and there were some small building with shops which we could go into. We bought a some little snacks as we go along.

We took a taxi back to Taichung Central Mall (德安购物中心), which is just beside our hotel. Explored a bit at the shopping mall before taking a drink at one of the shops at level one. Finally went back to hotel just before midnight.