Naruwan, Welcome to Taiwan

Apologies netizens, this is seriously a delayed post. But still, it's up now:)

Having been to Malaysia, Hongkong, Bangkok, the next stop is Taiwan. An awesome 5D4N Taiwan trip to mark the start of the year 2011. A good start and may my family be blessed for this whole year. Despite the previous short semester break i had, my family and i managed to plan a short get-away to Taiwan. Yesh!!! It's Taiwan, the place that i've been longing to visit since few years back. Dreams come true. I finally got the chance to do so last semester break. You could imagine how eggciteddddd i was when it was nearing my Taiwan trip. We went during first week of january after the countdown. Our flight was Singapore Airlines and it was a nice flight with meals provided on board plane. This is the reason why i prefer SA to budget airlines 'for there are better services, media facilities and definitely more comfy seats. When it comes to long hours' flight, I'll definitely not go for budget airlines, haha.

Check out the first part of my video here as we bid farewell to Singapore and welcome Taiwan.
OFF THE CHECKPOINT TO OUR DESTINATION




How great it is to be able to bump into my idols first thing upon landing in Taiwan. Though it's only a poster... hahahahaha! Photo as keepsake, definitely!!!;)

There's no time to waste when you're overseas. Every minute counts, especially when it comes to this food and shopping paradise, Taiwan. I believe most must have heard about the ravings of food in Taiwan. You can never have enough of them. Alone the streets down Xi Men Ding, you can see hell loads of stalls, selling all sorts of Taiwan delicacies you can ever find. In particular to this Ah Zhong's mian xian which i would like to recommend it to you. This is one of the best food i've savoured in Taiwan. It is heavenly delicious, keeping one warm during the winter season. The taste is lingering in my mouth now. The thought of it every now and then makes me feel like teleporting back to Taiwan to have another bowl again. The interesting thing about having this Ah Zhong's mian xian is that there's no proper tables and chairs for you to have your meal. You'll have to stand to eat. Despite that, there's still hordes of crowd queueing for the food. I'll be updating you more about this food paradise in another entry.

Speaking of shopping, Taiwan is no doubt a shopping paradise. To me, food still rank top, then shopping. The reason being some of the items are still exorbitant or of similar price to Singapore's. Definitely if you were to make comparison to Bangkok's shopping paradise, Bangkok's one is dirt cheap! Well, but i'm not saying that Taiwan's shopping is not good. I still enjoy and indulge in its shopping paradise during my stay there. Perhaps, partly it is due to the winter season and i can't find those normal t-shirts when i was there during that season. Nevertheless, i got my accessories, bags, shoes, light winter wears (both tops and bottoms)...etc) Bags and shoes are best buys in Taiwan. I bought a checkered design sling bag as well as a black school bag and they cost around sing dollars 9 plus each. Shoes are also going at around this price. Near 10 sing dollars for a pair. So worth the buy given the cheappppp price! My shopaholic fever is back always when i'm overseas.

I love my bags and shoes' designs! Now i can wear flats to school.

With that, check out the second part of my Taiwan's video to find out more about the hot spots we visited in Taipei.

You must not miss out Shilin Night Market, Xi Men Ding, Dan shui...etc if you ever visit Taiwan. There are many more places for us to explore and we've yet to even comb the entire Taipei. Just alone Taipei is 6 times larger than our Singapore! Oh my goodness. Imagine if Singapore is this big, you'll have endless shoppings each day...

A quick post for now. That's for the shopping paradise in the video, more of the food recommendations in another entry. Stay tune. Watch this space.

That's for now.

A smile costs nothing but gives much

Multiple shots, aha's ritual norm. Unglam shots, inevitable...well, but to maintain a good image of ourselves, i should try to avoid uploading them here (*laughs*) It's another aha's outing once again last sunday. Initially was planning to go zoo with them after my tuition, fortunately it didn't turn out as planned. i gave it a miss in the end. Anyway, that's not just how i'm going to spend my sunday after tuition idling and lazing around back at home. Initial plan was changed due to some unforseen circumstances. The rest of them did continue their zoo trip and me and dor changed to meeting them in the evening for a dinner instead. we indulged in high tea session once again, this time round more like a night-tea session! haha. Mocha Chips New*, my favourite at mc cafe now. Once again, it's not a full clique outing. One is missing in action!!

And as you can see the above two combined pictures are taken with different gadgets. The first combined piece was taken with my samsung omnia II and the second one was by deb's lumix digital camera. Definitely, the turn-out of the photo and its quality will be different between using a camera phone and a digital camera. Speaking of digitial camera, i've this urge to buy a new one for myself. i'm disappointed with my old lumix camera for the quality of photos isn't up to standard. You can usually see i don't bring my camera out most of the times. Any good recommendations? (Actually i do have one in mind, but it's a bit expensive.) Thank you to this kind person who helped us take this group photo at mc cafe that day. We were having second thoughts on whether to approach this man here to help us take a picture 'cause he was busy chatting away with his girlfriend and we wouldn't want to disturb their lovey-dovey couple chats. But still, in the end, we approached him...

i'm satisfied with this group snapshot, with everyone showing our radiant smile, haha...

Time flies, May is coming to an end soon and june is drawing near. Anyway, i would most probably not be going for my bangkok trip. We've asked for a refund from jetstar airlines and the hotels in bangkok. Fortunately, the hotels in bangkok acceded to our request and they will refund us our money within a month, phew. And for jetstar airlines, most probably we will get our refund back either by vouchers or full cash refund payment. Of course, cash will be better! i just hope the money will be credited into my bank account soon...in a month's time... Seriously it's such a hassle to cancel your trip when the country that you're intending to go happens to be in a chaos state. Dampens one's spirit. Luck just isn't on our side. i would say we're just not fated to go bangkok together. However on the flipside of the coin, to think it positively, giving this trip a miss would serve us better rather than risking our life by making a trip there. Well, there will be plenty of chances in future...

More activities coming up the next two days. Gonna' meet deb tml to try out The Coffee Club's new promotion of Tea- DeLites at Raffles Place, Just Acia's(probably) dinner during the night along with xiaoli as well as coming's thursday wild wild wet with sok and deb:D Saturated with happiness!!! Looking forward:)

That's for now. Signing off from this entry... Stay happy and cheerful always, my motto continues. Enjoy life to your fullest, peeps!