12 June 2008 @ 03:48 pm
After staying at the Sun Moon Lake（日月潭） for 3 days, we headed for Kaohsiung（高雄）, which seems to be hosting the World Games in the near future. We went shopping in the area and there are quite a few shops which sell anime, manga, merchandise and the like. Oh and they sell Japanese and Korean drama serials too. Loads of them. My parents bought a lot of those, and of course I bought some merchandise too. :) They had a number of games shops as well, and they were all promoting the pre-order of MGS4. I had to tear myself away from the preview screen countless times in order to stop myself asking my dad to buy me a PS3.
So annoying! The poster was sooooooooo awesome too! I wanted one, but they said they’d only give it away to people who pre-order MGS4. DAMN IT!
Okay so anyway, we stayed at this hotel called Han Hsien International Hotel（寒轩国际大饭店）. The hotel’s not that bad. They had milk tea（奶茶） at the breakfast buffet!
The next day, we went shopping at this place called the Dream Mall（梦时代）. It had so many levels we couldn’t shop at every store. In fact, we sort of died at the 5th floor. After dying and not buying much, we headed to the roof where we rode on the Sanrio Ferris wheel! But it was raining so we didn’t have much of a view. Couldn’t take any pictures either. But it was a good 15 minute break from all the walking we’d done.
On 06 June, We left for Yang Ming Mountain（杨明山） in Taipei（台北）, where we stayed at this resort which had no elevators! That meant we had to carry our entire luggage up and down the stairs ourselves. Ouch.
Well, we went on a tour around the mountainside (in a cab with a reckless driver, no less), and we visited the Teresa Teng（邓丽君） memorial. It’s where she was buried, and they blast her songs every day. After that, we stopped by the sea to have some tea and cheesecake. I love the sea! What with the breeze and all. The scenery is really good, well, to me, that is. Living in Singapore doesn’t give me much of a chance to appreciate the scenery.
We left the mountain and arrived back in the city. We went for lunch at the Grand Hotel which looks like an old Chinese temple, and then we visited the National museum, where they store all the stuff that Chiang Kai Shek（蒋介石/蒋中正） brought away with him when he left China. We saw the famous Jadeite Cabbage and the Meat-shaped Rock (Don’t know what they’re called in Chinese). It looks kinda cool. Like the kind of meat you put in buns, with a fatty layer on them. I think it’s even found in Singapore. There were tons of other old relics. But museums filled with artifacts aren’t really my thing.
The next few days are just more shopping at various shopping districts (I saw more games shops!! ARGH!), so I’m going to skip all that. The only thing worth a mention is the night market. Busy, crowded, dirty night markets. It stank with the stench of smelly tofu （臭豆腐）, and this kind was worse than the kind we sampled in the restaurant on our first day. This is ten times more pungent. But things were sold quite cheaply there, so it’s quite a worthwhile trip.
On the penultimate day of our vacation, we visited the Taipei 101. It’s got 5 levels of shopping, plus an observation deck near the roof. It was quite cool. There were even fireflies fluttering around! The building was even swaying with the wind. A little scary, but cool. Oh yes. The Taipei 101 has one of the fastest elevators in the world. It travelled from the 5th floor to the 89th floor in just 45 seconds! But it wasn’t as fast as I would’ve liked it to be. Then again, it’s no roller coaster. Oh well.
I guess one of the highlights for me was the time I went to the night market to taste snake meat, crocodile meat and turtle meat. That’s right, SNAKE MEAT. Snake meat is actually quite tough, and there’s lots of bones in it. Crocodile meat tastes like pork. I didn’t really eat turtle meat, because it looked kind of slimy, so I merely drank the soup. It really makes me wonder how Jack ate all those animals (some were eaten RAW too!) he found in the jungle in MGS3? That’s just gross.
So, this more or less concludes my trip to Taiwan. It’s not bad a place to go. Just remember, they don’t like to be called “Chinese”. They prefer “Taiwanese”. And boy, do they know how to scold their presidents. I was in this cab once and the driver started talking about how the former president（陈水扁） and his wife were assholes, and how Singaporeans were just too obedient. That’s sort of true in a way. But that’s another story.
Current Location: At home
Current Mood: Calm
Current Music: Calling to the Night -- Super Smash Bros. X Loving Soundtrack
No comments:
Post a Comment