First Family Trip ~ Taiwan (22 - 28 Apr)

We have been talking about having a family overseas trip since last yr even way before my wedding but it has been delayed again and again coz bro busying w work, me busy w wedding preparation etc... So finally beginning tis yr, we decided tt we shd just do it in Apr!

This is the our very first family trip so was really looking forward to it and i think my parents were equally excited abt it too! =D

Day 1
We took the afternoon flight and reach Taoyuan Airport ard 630pm. We took the Fei Guo bus fr airport directly to our hotel, Nei Jiang@ Xi Men Ding. I must say the hotel is accessible (5 mins walk to mrt station), clean and nice. And for the price we pay (less than S$200 for 2 rooms per nite), it's really worth it. And the weather was very good! Very cooling! Quite unexpected coz i tot the temp is ard 29 degree celsius.

The very first thing we did was to find food! We went to the nearest nite mkt at Long Shan Temple station (1 stop away fr XMD) - Hua Xi Night Mkt, also named as "Snake Alley". It's famous for shops selling snake products like soup and live snakes. Of coz we din dare to try. Heehee.. This is the start of our feast for the trip...Tian Bu La, Lu Rou Fan etc *SLURP*

It took us a short while to walk the whole nite mkt as it's really small. We dropped by Long Shan Temple before heading bk to XMD for more food. Wahahaha.. Bought smelly Dou Fu and ate some fish ball noodles..yummy! this is only the warm up.

Day 2

Set off ard 9 sth in the morning to visit the Hakka Cultural Hall. Feel so cheated after walking for quite a distance. Nothing much to see there. Anyway we went there coz it's on our way to Jiu Fen Lao Jie. We took an 1 hr bus ride fr Zhong Xiao Fu Xing station to go there. Jiu Fen is on a hill top so it's much cooler there. Nice scenary and food! Haha. We ate the famous Gong Yuan, sth like meat ball (i am nt a fan of meat ball but i really like the meat balls here) & Fen Yuan (sth like the bobo cha cha starchy balls). We bought a few boxes of the famous butter tai yang bing too! We were eating all the way fr the start to the end of street lor! wahaha...

Next stop is Miao Kou Jie at Keelung. This street is famous for selling seafood. It's the same activity - Eat Eat Eat! Haha! We took the railway train fr Rui Fang back to Taipei main station, bought tics for our Sun Moon Lake and headed bk to XMD to eat our Ah Zhong Mee Sua. Yummy yummy!!!

Day 3

We took the first bus at 9am to Sun Moon Lake fr the bus station at Taipei Main MRT station. Bus ride was abt 4 hrs so it's time for us to catch up with our sleep and enjoy the scenery along the way.

Reach there ard 1pm, check in to Laurel Villa (it's not a hotel but like a homestay-Ming Su). And it's really a beautiful place to stay in. We were greeted by Wang Ma Ma (mum of the boss). Clean, neat, friendly family and v good service. They have only 5 rooms and it really make one feel v comfortable. We took a stroll before we took the boat ride at 4pm. The boat ride took us to the various places of interest at SML. Could not see much of the scenery coz it was quite foggy. The reason y the lake is named as SML is coz 1 side of the lake is round like the sun and the other side is curved like the crescent of the moon and hence the name.

We had dinner at Laurel Villa - homecooked dinner..nice. Dessert was ice cream bought from the stall beside the villa - we had fun trying each other's different flavour ice cream. I thought the sight was very heart warming, simple acts speaks a lot of the ties we share. The boss brought us to see fireflies after that. He told us that it's firefly season so we could see lots of them. So he brought us for a stroll up the Mao Lan Shan. He is really sincere, friendly and chatty. The whole family was very comfortable with him. Along the way, we had interesting conversations with him esp my dad. He told us that there is only 1 occupation that SML does not have ie thief. Plus the weather was really nice...very relaxing walk..

Dad and mum went bk rm to rest after the walk while the 3 of us bought some drinks and chicken chop, sat at 1 of the bench facing the lake, chit chat and enjoy the breeze and peacefulness of the place.

Day 4

The next morning, dear and i woke up early to try to catch the sun rise but it's too foggy to catch it so we took a morning stroll nearby the villa. After bf, we took the bus up to the Syuanzang Temple further up the hills to admire the scenery of SML. Luckily the fog has cleared and we managed to see more of the lake.

We reached Taipei ard 6 plus in the evening, dumped our bags in the locker at Taipei Main Station (they haf lockers in the mrt station juz like japan) and headed to Shi Lin Night. Market. It was drizzling shortly we reached the night market. We mananged to shop a bit and had a bit of food before the rain became bigger. Yeah, we ate the Ji Pa that is bigger than our face! Wahahaha..Mum was nt feeling too gd so decided to go bk to hote so tt she can rest early. As usual the 3 of us sneaked out the XMD to walk ard and without fail for the past few nites, grabbed some drinks and instant noodles fr 7eleven b4 we headed bk to hotel

Day 5

This morning is coldest out of our whole trip-temperature dropped to 16 degree celsius..Cool! Good weather to walk ard the park at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall.

We walked to Xin Guang San Ye and Taipei 101 to take a look and had our lunch at Taipei 101 food court. Made our way to take the bus to Wu Fen Fu (wholesale market selling clothes, accessories etc), shopped for the afternoon and went to Raohe Night Market for our feast. Heehee.. Raohe is well-known for food!! Dad was still craving for Ah Zhong Mee Sua so we went bk for the second round when we were bk at XMD.

Day 6

Vistied another Memorial Hall in the morning - Chiang Kai-Shek MH. Got to know more abt the relationship between SYS and CKS- dad's story telling time. ;)

Dan Shui is another nice place to go. It's another street of food and shops but the diff is it's by the sea. We took the boat to Yu Ren Ma Tou - nice place! with fantastic sunset view. There is also the lover's bridge. We waited for the bridge to light up but so so only. Not spectacular. But was a gd stop for relaxation =)

We went for a second round of food and shopping at Shi Lin Night Market after Dan Shui coz the first round it was raining. And since this is the last nite in Taipei, we shopped till late nite and ended the nite with another Ji Pa!! and the nite was quite cold - 18 degree. Eating ice in this weather is super shiok!

Day 7

We only have abt half a day for activities on our last day so we stayed in XMD for a gd lunch at a toilet theme restaurant and last minute shopping before we boarded the bus fr hotel to airport at 4pm. Bought more tidbits and shoes!

And the most drama thing happened when we were gg home. We almost missed our flight. Thought we still have time so took our time to eat our dinner. Only realised we were late when we were abt to clear the immigration. So rushed our way to the waiting hall...and lucky thing was the flight was delayed so we were in time. Heehee..

It's a wonderful family trip and we really enjoyed ourselves v much though i think dad and mum were v tired fr all the walking..heehee.. Seeing how happy they are made me v happy too! Look forward to our next trip together =D