I have to wake up slightly earlier on Day 2 at 7AM because it is the One day free city tour by local agency. My very cold and sleepy morning has start with not a good breakfast in Hotel as they only provide a very simple meal, like DIY toast, some fried mini sausages, hash-brown, steam bun, steam vegetable and congee. for drinks, they have fruit juices and 2 DIY coffee machine. Surprisingly, the coffee taste great. Trying to know what coffee that they use, but i failed to do so because quite number of people queue-ing for that. well, browsing through Hotel free Wifi with not that full, and the tour guide is arrived on time at 8am. Huff.....
The early in the morning tour starts at the first destination, Shihlin Presidential Residence Garden, Taipei City. As the name is ShihLin Guan Di 士林官邸, the place is more homy with large plot of garden around. This place used to be the official residence for Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife . Basically, the place is just like a smaller version of Singapore Botanic Garden but more colorful and more visitors from China overall. The weather that day is quite cool around 22degree. with a cup of warm Hazelnut coffee around, it makes me well warmer. lolz. However, despite of the cold weather, i still asking people around to help me take photo with my coffee. haha... :) In addition, the grounds also include Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's former Cadillac limousine, Chiang Kai-Shek's personal Victory Chapel, and the Xinlan Pavilion (新蘭亭).
Continued the journey to National Revolutionary Martyr's Shrine (國民革命忠烈祠). There are several Soldiers on site that will do some kind of performance 表演 once every 3 or 4 hours until 10PM (as what the tour guide told us on that day). Although the Martyrs Shrine is located in Taiwan, most of the soldiers honored served China and were born in Chinese provinces. With my very limited knowledge of Mandarin, i only understand 60% - 70% of what the tour guide told us. However, the main point is to take Photo.
After that, tour guide bring us to those place like Feng Shui Master, Mushroom &
Honey distributor and Tea Retail. Well, i do understand that tour guide
make get some commissions from the place that they bring people to buy,
such as; buy some VERY EXPENSIVE Jade from Feng Shui Master, some weird
mushroom tea and expensive honey. But honestly, it doesn't mean that i
hate it because i do enjoy the free sample of tea and knowledge about
Feng Shui, but i don't feel the necessary of visiting those places when
you don't even have intention to to buy = Waste of Time. And also it is
out of the actual Tour Schedule. Aish... But i actually ask the tour
guide to skip the Tea Retail after the Buffet Lunch as it will be another time wasting journey and straight away go to the next destination, which is
JiuFen 九份.
After a very FULL stomach buffet lunch around 1.30pm, we continue the journey to Jiufen.
The Journey from Taipei to JiuFen take about 45-50 minutes bus ride to
the mountain part, heading toward north east of Taiwan. I feel amaze
with the number of tourist there. thousand of people is visiting that
Historic Prosperous Gold Mining Town. The pedestrian street at
Commercial District of JiuFen is rather small and pack with people. The
surface is rather up hill. But they have A LOT of good food and snacks
there. I bought few packs of Black peanut (NTD100 each), Taiwan Mochi (NTD100 Each), some pineapple, Green tea and red bean cake. at the same place, i also bought some Cute Magnetic toy souvenir for friends. The size is same size with my thumb and if i'm not mistaken it cost NTD40 each.
From JiuFen, we went over to a hot spring place. i have no idea what place is that, but it is rather up hill village and not a resort kind of hot spring. Rather than disappointed, i just enjoy the Sulfur hot spring for an hour there. Not as strong as the hot spring in my country, but i feel relax. If you have a plan to visit Hot spring, not to forget to bring your own towel. They sell it for NTD250 for just a simple yet not a good quality towel, and maybe it is re-useable, as i found a washing machine behind the place. lolz.
Last place and the most exciting of the day is Shilin Night Market. Nobody will visit Taiwan without visiting this Largest Night Market in Taiwan. We reached there around 6.30PM and most of the shops and street food has just started to sell, so just nice to start the mission, EAT and EAT and EAT. haha...
With unexpected yet happy feeling, i found my most favorite Shanghai Sheng Jian Bao along the street there. With no regret of getting fatter, i bought 3 Bao at the same time (NTD25 each) and eat them warmly. This Bao is one of the famous 上海生煎包 in Wu Jiang Lu, Shanghai. I used to queue and eat this Bao almost every week during my study time in Shanghai 3 years ago. Not too healthy because they use Styrofoam to pack as it melt of the heat from the Bao. So, need to eat that BAO almost immediately. For those who don't know, BAO = Dumpling.
Shilin Night Market also famous with their Oyster vermicelli Noodle (蚵仔麵線) Taiwanese (hokkian)
they called it O A Misua. Basically, this dish is made primarily with
wheat flour and salt, and gains its
unique colour due to a steaming process which caramelizes the sugars in
the dough allowing it to be cooked for longer periods without breaking
down. However, knowing this from the tour guide earlier, OA Misua also quite famous in XiMen Ting. But i can't found it there, sadly.
Another famous eater in Shilin Night Market is Fried Chicken Steak (炸雞排). Looking at people eating those chicken make me more eager to find "where the hell" is the shop. lolz. After exploring for 20minutes, i finally found it at the end of the Road, which the another entrance to the Night Market. Again, surprisingly need to queue AGAIN for another 20 minutes just to but those Fried Chicken.
To end the day, i tried the famous Taiwan Ice Kacang at one of the stall there. Because i saw quite alot of people eating inside and queue-ing outside. Talking about Queue, this remind me of my morning conversation with my tour guide. He told me, "If you see no one in the shop, it is either Not delicious or too Expensive". in my heart, they also feel like Singaporean, KIASI. lolz.
