19 Nov - 你不是日本人吗？
That was the first thing a local said to me when I asked for directions to my hostel - strange cos I thought I looked less Japanese after cutting my hair.. Anyway, that was when I started re-learning the Taiwanese accent; perfected it by the next day. No one can tell I'm foreign unless I stumble upon some phrase I'm used to saying only in English, eg it's 公车 for cab, not 德士 or however you write that, which exposed me as a foreigner!
This is one side of the National Theatre. I find this cultural contrast interesting: Italian style cafe right outside, under banners advertising very Chinese Chinese operas. There were two men playing traditional tunes on erhu and keyboard just a bit away from the cafe, and above them just next to the banners were a few groups of students having their hip hop and cheerleading practice sessions.
As the sun set, I found myself in Ximending and guess what, I got lucky!
My eyes popped when I read "五月天" - I could barely believe my luck as they had only just started! 吴克群 was singing his new songs when I reached the concert area, where I stood for the next 2-3hours. A new band 轻松玩 led the audience to a new high - thought they were quite good - and the concert also featured some amateur bands - I doubt Singapore will hear them any time soon! - and then Mayday finally appeared to much cheer!
Took a few clips of the singing but I’ve no webspace to share them..
I was amazed at the crowds in Long Shan Temple even at 9-ish; perhaps cos I don't go praying in temples..
Snake Alley night market near the temple specialised in snake soup etc. I listened to this woman talk about the benefits of snake stuff but my eyes were fixed on the rabbit in her hand - what was she going to do to it?! I didn't stay to find out..
Met a Jap student in the hostel who was studying Chinese in Taipei, Shiomi. We chatted in Mandarin for a while as we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on HBO. His Mandarin was great though he had learnt for only about six months! Man, I would just die if we were to redo our conversation in Jap =(
20 Nov - almost brave
Took a day trip to a few towns along/ near the north coast. Jiufen was yummy!!!!! The whole street was full of food and some souvenir shops. The yam cake queue was at least 5m long, overshadowing fours stalls on its right side - I'm not kidding! I had one and it was indeed the best yam cake for me :) Didn't try the round round yummies but they were so pretty!
Bought six boxes of Huang Mama "ju3ruo4" - can't find the Chinese characters in my writer =/ Had two little cubes earlier on, very good chewy jelly! See the HUGE block of caramelised peanuts in the last picture? The peanut shavings on popiah skin formed the crunchy bed for icecream - the thing was then rolled up and stuffed into that big hole in my face :p
While transiting at Jilong for Yeliu, a Caucasian shared her faith with me in perfect Mandarin (wow!) but she wasn’t preaching, just asking me to visit them in a nearby church if I had time. Was surprised when she said, "你好漂亮" - I felt anything but pretty that day with a runny nose and besides, I thought she was much prettier! Nvm, cheered me up a bit cos I was rather pissed with the rain that whole day..
Side: Is it me or is it just plain weird that someone obviously prettier than you tell you you're very pretty? Or when someone obviously very thin say you're thin enough (I accept "you've become thinner"), and worse, that they're fat, right in your face?!
Anyway, the long journey to Yeliu was really worth it; had a lot of fun looking at interesting rock formations named ginger, Queen's Head, Fairy's Shoe etc - see for yourself:
Cool right?! I was so taken with that place, just standing around looking at the rocks and the huge waves from the sea. At one point where the waves looked like they were going to hit me in my face, I felt like Wong Fei Hong in this very old Hong Kong comedy starring Alan Tham (I think): he was a coward and the waves splashed onto him at the beginning of the show, but at the end after some hardship etc, he became a brave hero and managed to COMMAND THE WAVES TO RETREAT!
Now whose (rough) butt crack was that?!
Oh, it was a mushroom! :p There were plenty of these on one side of the rocky coast.
Nothing, just that I happened to look at the ground and spotted this little hump - thought it looked like a breast! :p
Spent a lot of time on buses and trains that day with my Zen nano plus - did I mention a bought an mp3 player a few weeks ago? Love it :) One song kept appearing on my randomised playlist: 20:30:40. Like the lyrics, especially "规则随便一改女人越坏男人越爱" :p Watched movie of same name with CY some time last year, about three women in their 20s, 30s and 40s and their respective exploratory lesbian love and naivety, multiple relationships and confusion, and failed marriage and strength in recovery.
21 Nov - arty farty day
Well, I had thought the National Palace Museum would be the highlight of the day but I was out in two hours! It wasn't very big and I must say porcelain bowls measuring 60cm in diameter and little bronze figurines didn't do it for me, although there were a few exhibits I liked. The ivory and jade ornamental pieces on display were simply beautiful. And "After work, what did the Emperor do?", which featured some curio boxes that must be opened and closed in a certain sequence. (Actually with the title I was thinking emperors usually had a number of concubines.. :p) Then there were all the imperial and leisure seals, beautifully carved – oh, I bought an acrylic seal with one character of my Chinese name in Jiufen :)
With time on my hand, I covered some itinerary for the next day too. Dozens of people were waiting for their turn to let the old ladies "collect their fears" - 收惊 - at Xing Tian Temple. I've never heard of that! So I watched for a while like an idiot.. Made a mental note, now written, to check out local temples one day..
Oh, a lot of people were at the temple to ask for their fortune or for permission to do things etc. Besides a whole room dedicated to written oracles (you draw a lot from a whole cylinder of lots but you've got to ask the deities if that is the correct oracle for you), there were a lot of fortune tellers lining the pedestrian underpass nearby. I was tempted to try but with so many, it was difficult to settle on one.
Finally I got to try the chicken chop from Shilin night market!!! But it must have been overhyped by too many people; nice but I didn't find it particularly fantastic.
22 Nov – cold cold hands
Rain rain rain! My hands were freezing the whole damn day and I was feeling so depressed most of the time! The miserable British winter came to mind but it seemed far too distant for me to be used to such weather again. Like in Japan, cold weather got to me again, and I was seriously reconsidering my future solo trips to China and UK, not aborting but finding suitable travel mates.
Felt much better when CY and Kel arrived. We had a fabulous dinner as you can see :) That was the beginning of our crazy days together, nonsense and crap at every corner, accompanied by Kel’s diabolical laughter as evil thoughts bloomed in his crooked mind!
23 Nov - 那你们就认了吧！
Hualian was honestly quite boring without a car or a bike. We asked a lady at a tiny cafe if there was any interesting place nearby that we could visit.
She: You can go to *somewhere*.. Just rent a motorbike, very easy..
Us: Huh, rent motorbike??
She: Aiya, very cheap, only NT300 odd dollars for the whole day!
Us: Um, we don't know how to ride a motorbike..
She: Eh? 那你们就认了吧！
Sighs.. It was thus destined that we had to roam the quiet city centre for that afternoon..
A pink motorbike with its pink biker!
Election campaigns were on-going and this guy apparently was fighting with some pro-nature policies. When we passed a huge banner by the same guy later, there were actually a cow and a goat chained there!
Two Nsmen stopped by the cafe and we took a pict with one of them. They sat with us for a while after that and we chatted for a while. The one not in the pict said he studied English in Singapore for a while some years ago, and commented that Singaporean English was weird! Haha! I had to agree :p
24 Nov - away from civilisation
See our breakfast choices? Amazing! And we had such choices almost every day in Taiwan, heh heh..
But this was the only eatery with such a cute waitress! She first appeared from behind, holding out my ice tea without a word. I took it from her with a big smile but she just walked off innocently to get other stuff! So lovable :))
We hired a cab driver to bring us to Taroko Gorge. This calligraphy was carved into the rock at the entrance of the gorge. There were a couple other calligraphy pieces as we went along, reminding me of this character in one of Louis Cha's novels who could write calligraphy on cliffs with his weapon but I couldn't recall who - help?
The shrine behind us was built in memory of the hundreds who died building the road into the gorge.
*blog fatigue, pant pant*
Reached this part of the gorge that looked like a frog and with a crown - it's *gasp* the Frog Prince!
We were crazy..
.. and we were "poetic" as well!
Like this 2-ton rose jade as you can see.. CY bought two necklaces and two pieces of 天禄 for her parents and herself, Kel bought a necklace for his mum, I bought a 天禄 for myself, no gifts! :p
And then we took a train back to Taipei and headed straight for Shilin, where Kel obviously didn't like fermented beancurd.. I couldn't take it too so after a few mouthfuls by unappreciative tastebuds, CY finished the rest!
Strawberries and cherry tomatoes dipped in red sugar syrup!
Now, these were different from the ones in Singapore - they were HUGE! Like the guy making them :p And besides octupus, there were broccoli, prawn etc in the same tako ball. We did some shopping too, some facial masks and socks!
25 Nov - 消费愉快
We woke rather late and headed straight for a hotspring treat in Beitou! The weather was great and the outdoor pools were filled with young and old in colourful swim wear. No photos were allowed because "what if people bring their mistresses here?"
!!!
Took this on the way back to hotel, it said "first Korean style cosmetic surgery centre" - the results, if real, were unbelivable!
The hotspring brought a nice red flush to my cheeks and we were all sleepy. Ended up sleeping in the hotel for a while, CY and me with our facial masks. Then, it's karaoke time!
Must sing and dance!
Partyworld was this huge karaoke chain and their latest branch was this BUILDING! We went to the cheaper but older branch across the street and took the extra small room to save some money. But the room was actually bigger than the small room in our Kbox here! And it had an attached bathroom, excellent and almost immediate service at the touch of a button, and lovely dim sum snacks. Yes, Mr Service-who-said-消费愉快-to-us-everytime, we had indeed 消费愉快!
We were still full of energy when we got back to the hotel - oh I moved into a small but very nice and cheap hotel with them - so we decided to have a bit of fun with..
.. Kel's eyes! His right eye had mascara, can you see? How about side view?
We usually bought some drinks and snacks from 7-11 on the way back to our hotel, and gathered in either room to talk rubbish and watch TV. The selection was amazing - 100 channels! It was usually variety shows or movies. We watched an episode of 我猜 and it was as good as ever. And also 女人我最大, which inspired me to do something more exciting with my hair! Then we found very old Hong Kong movies, classics starring Andy Lau, Mr Vampire - I like Mr Vampire though I was very scared watching his shows as a kid. Then some were porn-ish but revealing nothing. They were hilarious! Titles included what 满清十二酷刑 - you can imagine!
26 Nov - happy birthday to CY!
CY, you're 25!! :) We had planned to go clubbing at night but my nose was acting up very badly, sighs..
We lazed in a nice cafe for a few hours, sipping coffee/ tea and reading magazines, cos we were too early for the fashion market..
Now guess who was the biggest spender of the day? Not mf, not CY, so it must be Kel!! In fact, mf didn't bought any clothing during the trip, what an achievement :p But I bought two pairs of shoes, kena nagging from Mother already..
Discovered this great dessert 烧仙草 near Tonghua/ Linjiang night market. And it's not difficult to make! I've told Mother about it, hee..
27 Nov - 何必减肥
I like this photo, taken as a train came into the station. And check out Kel in his new clothes!
On the way to Mitsukoshi, we decided that we were very huggable that day :p
There was a promotion campaign outside Mitsukoshi to discourage women from smoking. Girl on left should be singer Lin Yi Chen, quite cute :) The day CY and Kel arrived I also saw a launch for no-smoking restaurants. mf supports!
We spent a couple of hours browsing books at the huge Eslite bookstore and got ourselves a few books and magazines. I was happy to find very cheap text on Jap grammar! Then as usual, we must have tea..
One day, I told Kel he should smile more widely, not so prim and proper.. Then he said his smile was very - get this - 庄严! CY and I were laughing like mad! 庄严?! You couldn't have meant a 庄严 event so it must be like a 庄严 BUDDHA STATUE?!!
Waiters at the cafe had very cute shirts!
So I had my cake in peace :)
28 Nov - magical Monday
Sighs, we came to the last day very soon. We were all tired but we were also having so much fun!
We thought we would just walked around the Taipei Main Station area before leaving for CKS airport at 2pm. But we chanced upon a magician! I was a metre away from him but could spot nothing until he revealed the secret of a few simple tricks. We had to drag ourselves away before the end of the free lesson..
My flight was earlier than theirs so they sent me off at the gates. Then I received them at Changi :p And so, we are back! Now I'm sure we all miss the food and laughter..
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