The land up above.

The end of my holi-month streak was spend in the land up above 5 hours flight heading north away. At least I hope its the temporary end of holi-month (still wanna travel more). And after all the packing dilemmas, we start the holiday in a eerily familiar place for all. KLIA.

KLIA has this small miniature "forest within the forest" thingi, which was kinda lame.

Forest within forest.

After a hearty McDonalds meal, and the long wait in the C4 gates, we were on board. Heading north.

To summarize Taiwan in 2 words, it'll be food & fashion. Nothing else is worth visiting honestly. But the food make Malaysian food look like losers, and the clothes make Malaysia's boutique look like con-mans.

1st destination in Taiwan, was Taipei's Shihlin Night market. A place famous for everything yummy you can pop into your mouth. I pictured the night market to be more of like Malaysia's PasarMalam kind of concept. Walking outdoors and ngomngom-ing small snacks.

But ShihLin is INDOORs (lidet considered night MARKET meh?)

But food there is superb. Ahya anything you buy there also nice to eat one. Cos I think the air in Taiwan forms micromolecules of flavouring to give these food a Taiwan taste, which is the Yummy taste.

Here lets recommend a few items my small stomach allowed me to devour in the short one hour's time.

Here's Big Biscuit Wrap in Small Biscuit. "Da bing bao siao bing".

It's actually a flavoured biscuit (flavours - peanut, redbean, greenbean, yam, black sesame) , wrapped inside popiah skin. Although popiah doesn't really qualify as a "bing" but I guess they wanna make it sound catchy like dabingbaosiaobing so have to cheat people a bit.

I felt a bit cheated lor cos in the tour bus the tour guide described it to be more of a "siewbau" inside got another "tausarpeah" lidet. But instead I got a popiah skin.

But who cares? It's yummilicious. I rate it 8 outta 10.

Next on the menu is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SMELLY TOFU!!

Wah this one is ten times more orgasmic than those I tried in China/HK. 1st time I see smelly tofu in soup form (there are also the fried ones available). These smelly things put the Connaught's tasteless-yucky tofu to major major SHAME!!!!

I should import them and sell next to Connaught's tofu. Hehe.

And of course there is the mandatory TAIWAN BUBBLE tea. Go to Taiwan don't drink bubble tea is like not going Taiwan at all. Because, any store in Taiwan serves good thumbs up bubble tea. Don't have to worry about ordering weird flavours like strawberry or winter melon and risk it tasting like medicine.

And since only Shihlin has the "coffin bread" I decided to give it a go. It's called "guan chai pan"

Honestly, it taste like eating bread and tasteless starch. I don't know why they wanna give me so much starch for its really yucky.

What man yucky food also I write. But must warn you readers out there marh right?

And of course, the MOST FAMOUS NGOM IN SHIHLIN IS . . . . *drumrolls*

Hao Da Da Ji Pai!!

Hao da's BIG chicken Fillet. It taste exactly like those fried chicken stalls you see in pasar malam, except the chicken is about 3 times bigger (I had to throw half of it away cos too big cannot finish), and a hundred times crunchier and yummier.

I is not exaggerating on the yumminess.

Day 2 was started by a few visits to the not-so-interesting places, but still must see cos you're in Taiwan.

Here's Chiang Kai Shek's memorial Hall for ya.

Big front door arch

Nice garden

Cute soldiers

Fancy ceilings (Guo Ming Dang's trademark sign)

The noon itself, was spend in Wu Lai, for hot spring. The place is on a volcanic area so all the soil black black one. The hot spring infested area gave opportunities for a lot of villagers to open up hot spring pool for tourist and locals.

There are those who just dig a hole in the ground, surround it by concrete and let people jump in naked.

Of course, we all shy shy tourist are brought to a high class hot spring place with private rooms lah. Who in their right mind wanna strip bare bare and go in naked in the open?

Hot Spring private room

But still 2 people have to share one room. Great news for couples lah, but for me and my sister we were literally going "HARH" with the whole big eye open and jaw drop kinda response. Apparently last time it was a one person one room policy, but someone fainted inside and nearly drown. Hence the new rule.

So you can imagine all the shrieking our room have. All the "don't peep ah!!", "turn around now!!", "stop staring!!"

Well hot springs have a lot of minerals and it'll make your blood circulate faster. But each time only can soak inside for 15 minutes max cos if not I think it's bad for you. And the water is supposed to be a bit yellow-fied and smell of burnt charcoal. But this high class place filter and purify the water so it doesn't smell. (cheat us give us hot water also we wont know actually)

And guess what I found in Wu Lai?

Lemang!! Lolz. It's known as Zhu Tong Fan in Taiwan, and it taste the same except in Msia you dip it with curry, but in Taiwan the rice inside the bamboo is already flavoured.

For lunch, we were at ChuiFen.

This place is famous for 3 things.

1) Beef Noodles (which I cannot eat, hence no pictures on it)

2) Fishball/Meatball noodles/soup.

which is a uber uber crowded place and have to wait for seats in a pewny shop.

Apart from the balls, you can order mince meat rice (the meat damn fatty wan), glass noodles, vege and etc etc.

3) Taro Balls aka *yu yuan*

If you guys remember how SNOWFLAKE in subang serves them.

Of course it had to be originated from Taiwan right, because it's a Taiwan small eat "siao chi".

It's as yummy as those served in SnowFlake. Except more variety here. There are 4 flavours on the balls. Yam, sweet potato, greenbean, black sesame, and you can choose to dump them into any soup you wan. Cincau soup, red bean soup, or on shaven ice.

Can mix with QQ balls, jelly, red bean, sago, little tadpoles, peanut, barley blablabla.

Apart from the 3 famous things, there are also loads of other nice food.

For example, "kai bei ku"(canto) aka chicken drumstick mushroom.

And grape juice puree.

After lunch was a long ride to Tou Cheng Farm for our night.

Scenic ride to TouCheng

For dinner was BBQ. And errr. . . nothing much to elaborate la BBQ in Taiwan and BBQ in Msia same same only. I give you one chef picture can d.

Best part of the farm stay, was the "Tian Deng" activity. Aka "Kong Ming Deng" in Msia. You know you always watch in movies where people build this huge lantern and and write their wishes on it, and then put fire inside create hot air then the lantern will fly up in the sky.

I doubt if you can build one in Msia cos the weather here is so hot I don't think it'll cause much of an elevation of the lantern since there is no air temperature difference.

Dad says its illegal to release things into the air anyways.

Its the first time I made something that actually flies and I was so so so excited afterwards. Still am actually at the thought of it.

And when it was being released into air I felt like crying it feels like I am this big mommy watching my small little baby make it into the sky and achieve great things wah so dramatic.

Not only me lor, my sister felt the same

Here I give you a video of the process *wipe tears* !!!!

Enjoy.

Day 3 next post. *grin*