Taiwan 2016 : Day 1

 

January 12-18, 2016
Taiwan

I’d like to apologize for the quality of the pictures because they were from different cameras :)) Thank you Cherith, Jane, and Dexter for sharing 🙂  I wouldn’t be able to finish this if I edit everything, soooo, here it goes!

We were supposed to start our day at 8am but we were dead tired from last night’s flight.  But since we have our own itinerary, we were not pressured to wake up early, haha.  Headed out around 10am for brunch and it took us a while before we decided where to eat.  Since it’s our first day, we ate somewhere cheap first just to have an idea how much we will have to spend for food.

Found this small restaurant nearby and many people were eating so we figured that either the food is cheap or delicious.  Good thing it was both, lol.  We only spent around NTD 240 (almost PhP90 per person) for the four of us. I ordered pork chop (???) with rice and three side dishes.  Yum. :3

Rainie Yang, yo! I made sure that whenever I recognize a Taiwanese celebrity, I’d take a picture.  Haha. 

My boots failed me! Huhu! I didn’t wear this for a year so after just MINUTES of walking, it started to fall apart huhuhu so we had to go back to the hostel 🙁 But before that, we had an OOTD photoshoot first, HAHA. PRIORITIES.

Since our hostel is across the Peace Memorial Park, we went there first.  Had fun watching the people feeding the birds. It was also the first time I saw a squirrel up close! *___*

This gives Spirited Away feels! If I remember correctly, the bathhouse was inspired by the buildings in Jiufen.  More on that later.

228 Massacre Monument

Korea vibes!!

We discovered that all four of us love bread and we’re super lucky that bread shops are everywhere in Taipei 🙂 We ate a lot of bread since we came here. Even 7-11 breads are delicious and cheap too.

Ariel Lin is everywhere, I swear.  I think she’s more popular than Da S now…

Hello Kitty makeup!

Selina Ren! I guess S.H.E.’s still active…? No?

Train station nearest us.

Went to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall after eating (again).  The weather was a bit gloomy so it’s hard to take decent pictures outside.

Inside the Sun Yat Sen Museum

Sun Yat-Sen, first president and founding father of the Republic of China

Taipei 101! ^_^v

While we were trying to figure out how to use their reloadable MRT card, lol.  I loooove the public transportation here in Taiwan.  Everything’s convenient, like this machine for example.  We can get a new card, reload, and change is also provided.  We later found out that we can use the card for bus rides too.  Ahhh, Taiwan.  I love you already.  I can’t help but compare their public transportation vs. ours.  It’s kind of sad.

Moving on…

So much space *__*

Next stop: Mengjia Longshan Temple.  It’s almost sunset and we were freezing, I had to use a bonnet and gloves! O_O It’s funny because while Cherith and I were having our photoshoot (naks, Europe peg?), some locals actually stopped to watch and laugh at us 😀 Maybe because we were wearing too many clothes while they were just wearing jackets over their everyday shirts? Hahaha.

No idea how to properely use these incense sticks

The place looks so beautiful in pictures and even more magical in person.  All the lights and every little detail is amazing O_O

Before it got dark, we were surprised because there were a lot of people outside already.  We had no idea that Taiwan National Election is in two days! Eeep.

When I return to Taiwan, I’ll make sure to bring Dex with me because he can understand and speak Mandarin! Hahaha. It helped us a lot, tbh.  Taiwanese people are very friendly but because of the language barrier, it’s hard to communicate.  So thank you so much Dex for translating everything for us! I felt like I was in a Taiwanese drama (without subs!!!) the whole time 😛

LOLOLOL.  I have A LOT of pictures with this facial expression.  Resting bitch face much? Hahaha but I SWEAR I was happy and having a good time! Hehe.

Xi Mending Night Market aka Taiwan’s version of Harajuku.  We were excited to shop and eat all the street food!

TAKE ALL MY MONEY

/side story because I don’t want to forget/ : I met a really cute guy in the jacket shop where Dex bought his coat.  He looks a lot like 2012 Yook Sungjae and he speaks English so well ASDFGHJKKL!!!! I hate myself for not taking a picture.  Huhu, I’ll be back for you! I’ll even buy your clothes even if they are too expensive! Haha! /end/

Souvenirs! We didn’t buy a lot since it’s just the first day..

Bought a pair of boots for only NTD 200 (Php 350!!!!) because I needed something warmer for the next few days..

I regret not buying Yakult in Taiwan! Huhuhu.  We found a huuuge 7-11 store when we were looking for a place to exchange our USDs.

The highlight of Xi Mending is the local street food, of course.  We ate a lot but idk, I felt like we didn’t eat ENOUGH.  Haha, bitin! I want more :'(

Baked Oysters with Cheese!

Potato Salad

Cute Takoyaki Boys

Another reason why I wanted to visit Taiwan is because of cute Chinito boys.  LOLJK.  They were everywhere! If only I could take pictures of everyone, hahaha!  We stared at them for quite some time because the queue was long, thank god. HAHAHA. They look so much better in person.  Black polo guy is better-looking but grey long sleeves guy with a scar on his face is hotter.  Maybe because of the scar?  And he rarely smiles! The whole time it looked like he hated his job so much, lol.  Good job Jane for capturing his smiling face! 🙂

When I got our order, they both said “Kamsahamnida” and I replied back (good job self for watching Korean Dramas!).  I didn’t realize (until Jane or Dex?) right away that they thought I am Korean! *faints* *heart eyes* Squeeee~ That made my night. Wahehe <3

It was almost 10pm when we got back to eat.  I know we were supposed to eat there at the stalls but it started to rain 🙁 We just wanted to eat comfortably.  I know it doesn’t look tasty in this picture, but most of it was delicious! The oysters and takoyaki were so good 🙂 We spent almost PhP 400/person for the street food.  Haha!  It’s much more expensive than we expected but hey as long as my stomach’s happy, I’m good 😛

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It’s not eayt for me not to have wifi / mobile data when I’m out because I tend to get lost + I use google a lot for things that I don’t understand, haha.  But surprisingly, for this trip, good thing we didn’t have wifi (except when we were at the hostel, so that’s only in the morning and before we sleep) because we were more productive and there were no distractions 🙂

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WHEW.  Finished Day 1! Three more days! :3 I haven’t even uploaded our pictures yet, it’s so hard to sort, choose, and edit photos 🙁