Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Day 6 - Bye Bye Taiwan

Finally is time to say Bye Bye to Taiwan, decided to take a cab to the airport instead of dragging so many luggages to the airport bus station. The CityInn hotel's staff arranged for a cab for us and it cost NT1100 from the hotel to airport. The staff were friendly and helpful throughout our trip, appreciated so much. If we take the airport bus is only NT125 per pax x 4 people = NT500 for 4 pax. But this trip we did a lot of shopping hahaha, so wiser to take the cab.

After checking in our luggages, we went to the food court located at Basement 1 of Taoyuan Airport Terminal 1.

Lots of varieties and prices were reasonable.

I had Hainanese Chicken Rice

Hubby had curry pork chop rice

Saw some display of insects sculpture along the way as we walked towards the boarding gate.

Finally, we boarded the plane and was sad this trip was so short.

Had some chicken noodle, hubby did not had an airline food, he was suffering from gastric.

This being my 3rd trip to Taiwan, this trip being more of relaxation and shopping and some personal errands to run. For more photos and sightseeing of other places in Taiwan, you can visit my previous trip in 2011.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Day 6 - Taiwanese Traditional Breakfast Soy Milk at Fu Hang Dou Jiang 阜杭豆漿 at Huashan Market

Our last day in Taiwan, decided to head to the famous Fu Hang Dou Jiang 阜杭豆漿 at Huashan Market.

It was just one mrt stop away from taipei main station. Took the MRT to Shandao Temple and exit 5 to Huashan Market on the second floor.

Exit 5 has no lift or escalator, need to climb a number of stairs.

Once we exit out of Exit 5, we got a shock, there's along queue to almost to Exit 5,the time was around 8 am,if after 9 am, the queue could be even longer.

The queue was even in the market and on the stairs from first to second storey and took us about 1 hour to queue. We took turns to queue, brother in law and sis queue for the first half hour, while hubby and me browse around the area and then we queue the next half hour.

There's lot of sitting areas so dont worry about going up to "chope"/reserved seats first, it will derived those in the front queues of sitting places.

Once we reached the counter, the staffs were very fast in taking orders and calculating the cost of the breakfast. We got our breakfast in very quick time.

The breakfast were freshly made in the large kitchen and the buns were baked via the charcoal grill.

We had the hot soy milk.

Some yu tiao (the fried fritters- a bit too oily), buns, etc.

If you dislike queueing, there's another taiwanese breakfast eatery nearby called Yong He Dou Jiang with no queues.

After breakfast, we went to the market on the first storey, where they sold vegetables, meat, fruit, etc.

Spotted huge and beautiful looking wax apples. Been eating these wax apples during the night market during our trip, love it so much.

They were so costly, one box contained about twelve wax apples and sis bought 6 and I bought 6, 6 for NT500 but they were really juicy and sweet.

It really tasted so good, sweet and juicy.

Short video of Fu Hang Dou Jiang Eating Place

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Day 5 - Shilin Night Market

Dinner is just some burgers at KFC just opposite our hotel.

After dinner, we took the MRT Train to Jiantan MRT Station to visit Shilin Night Market. Please note to alight at Jiantan MRT Station and not Shilin MRT Station.

Nice place to do some last minute shopping and souvenirs at this night market.

Vendor selling some badges, no need to display the badges on any tables, just pin them on umbrella for display, very creative to attract customers.

Almost every night market selling almost identical street food.

This night market had more games stalls, very interesting to watch.

Playing mahjong game

Catching prawns to win prizes

Did not take many photos as I had been here before, you can view more photos from my previous trip.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Day 5 - Lunch at Ding Tai Fung at Yongkang Street, Taipei, Taiwan

Decided to head to Ding Tai Fung Flagship Restaurant at Yongkang Street for lunch. This is their very first restaurant.

Take the MRT and alight at Dongmen MRT Station Exit 5, once out of Exit 5, can see Ding Tai Fung Restaurant and Taipei 101.

During lunch (and also dinner) time, the queue is crazy. We were there around noon and the waiting time for a table is 80 mins. The queue number is different for the number of people. Different queue number for 1 to 2 people, 3 to 5 people and 6 and above people.

After taking our queue number, we wrote down what we wanted to order on the ordering sheet. There's a picture menu pasted on the glass window for easy reference.

As we had around one hour before our queue number is up, we took a stroll along Yongkang Street, there's lots of other restaurants and small eateries too.

Spotted this bakery shop selling very pretty looking pastries and bread, yummy.

Always love visiting fruit stalls. Saw these big beautiful wax apples, they were very expensive. I did not get any from this shop but on my last day of my trip, I bought some waxed apples from a market. They were really very juicy and sweet. Will post about that later.

Finally our 1 hour is up and we returned to Ding Tai Fung Restaurant just in time for our queue number to be called.

Pork Xiao Long Bao

Fried Rice with eggs

Steamed Sticky Rice Dumpling

Steamed Shrimp Xiaomai

Noodles with minced pork

Noodles with spicy sauce

Steamed Pork Dumplings

Pork Bun

Our total bill for lunch at Ding Tai Fung was NT1375

After lunch, we saw the waiting time for a table is reduced to 20 mins only and the time was around 2.30 pm.

We continued strolling around Yongkang Street and had desserts at Smoothie House

Desserts cost NT190 per bowl