Travel: #Brunchdategirls go to Taiwan | Day 1

The reason why my blog header -Wanderlust of Smileybrows is because I am an avid supporter of traveling and I love to go out to see the world. Be away from constant things for a short while and expose myself to the unfamiliar faces in those countries I visit. In short, I love holidays. A couple of years ago, I was on SIM Education Abroad Programme and I exchanged at University of California-Berkeley for 6 weeks and I took the chance to travel for about 2 weeks. The following year I visited the  -- Europe for my grad trip. It was tiring to be constantly moving and packing but now looking back at the memories I built, I am glad I did. Anyway, if I ever have a chance or time, I shall back date all the way to 2012 to my US days and share how I met A.

So yes, naming my blog wanderlust of Smileybrows will remind me to take a break and go away for a holiday. I rather my friends say 'traveling again?!' to me. That's a privilege, is always a privilege to travel and explore.

So presenting Taiwan to you...

This is more of a shopping and eating trip with my girls, #brunchdategirls. 

We came together because of SIM dance art, we all share the same passion for dance and also good food! Hahaha. 

Day 1

After taking the first flight in the morning, we arrived at Taipei in the noon. The first thing we did was to go get the 7 days unlimited data plan phone card from Taiwan Da Ge Da, one of the oligopoly for phone service in Taiwan. So important to get these card for easy contact between us and Instagramming, we are all social media addict/slaves, however you want to call us.

The lady whom we rented the apartment from arranged for airport transfer for us. We were picked up by a pretty huge Volkswagen van for just 6 of us:) So here's the apartment we rented from Air BnB and we stayed here for all five nights for our stay in Taipei.

It is situated at 忠孝东路五段, pretty near to 台北101, a metro station away from where we stayed. So this is where we called home for the 5 nights in Taipei; two decks loft, with two bedrooms, each with a queen size bed.

There are two other sofa beds at level 1, which are quite comfortable to sleep on. The fact that the apartment can accommodate all our luggages and we still have room to move around easily, it is really quite big. There is also a small kitchen and washing machine for us to do our laundry.

After dropping our luggage and freshen up, we hurried head out to take the nearest train also known as 捷运 to our lunch place. #brunchdategirls always know where to go for good food!

Got caught using our selfie stick in the photo! Honestly, selfie stick is such a clever invention! We are putting it to good use here.

金锋卤肉饭，the girls ordered the signature 卤肉饭, braised pork rice and I ordered the 梅菜扣肉饭, which comes with one huge piece of fatty meat and preserved vegetables. We added braised eggs and tofu for sides:) There was a moment of silence while we gobbled down our lunch. That's our first meal after getting off from the plane.

Pretty crowded even at 3pm.

Our first tourist location was at Dan Shui Old Street, 淡水老街，which is near the pier accompanied with a nice sea view. Through out this TW trip, our main transport was their Metro. We took the Red line (so used to SG lingual) to the final station-淡水. It's just a couple minutes of walking to the shopping street.

 

KOI originated from 50岚, so this is definitely a must try but sadly we were disappointed with the flavour we ordered. What sets 50岚 apart from KOI is that they have fen tiao 粉条, similar to pearls but in grass jelly shape. A recommended flavour your should try is 黑糖奶茶加粉条.

Some of us were on the mission to buy a pair of sneakers from TW. I really wanted to get a new balance sneaker since I heard good reviews. It is really comfortable to walk in and they come in beautiful colours but it took me forever to decide on the model and when I finally made a decision, they didn't have my size. Anyway, we walked into almost every retail store selling sneakers until we got distracted by the first 盐酥鸡, crisply salty chicken.

As the signboard reads first 盐酥鸡 but oh well it was quite disappointing. Taiwan fried chicken usually comes with bone. They doesn't help to remove the bones and it irritates me quite a bit. We added broccoli and some vegetables which tasted really weird, I thought it will be like M'sia Lok Lok style though.

Spongebob egglets family that comes in a set of 6.

The girls picked their characters really quickly and I was only left Squidward and Gary.

I chose Gary the snail!

TW Food streets that filled up the rest of the street and we had to remind ourselves not to overeat because we would be heading to night market later that evening .

Kitty cafe, we only spotted one kitty and one doggie. I will never step foot into this cafe because I really dislike cats, or rather I am scared of them, cat-phobia.

I realized that there are quite a lot of coffee houses in Taiwan, they usually serves beverages and light snacks/ desserts. Slightly different from what we call cafe, which serves all day breakfast.

To get across to the Tamsui Fisherman Wharf, we had to take a ten minutes ferry across. It costs us NT100 for a round trip, which is about SG$4.50, you can also choose to pay using your Easy Card, 悠游卡，it works like our EZ link card. At the end of you trip you can refund the card and get the unused value back with only NT20 administration charges. 

The beautiful night scence of the Lover's bridge with the lights reflection. This white colour cable-stayed bridge illuminates a spectrum of lights at night. It changes colour about every minute.

It was pretty quiet and peaceful during the evening. We were told by some of the friendly Taiwanese that we can enjoy barbecue food over beer, with a view and nice breeze. But we only managed to find a couple of restaurants near the pier, didn't have any luck spotting people barbecuing there.

This is where the lovers will tie their love messages or wishes to, quite similar to the lover's lock bridge in Paris. A. asked if I left a message on the fence, bu too bad, I didn't. It was pretty late when we got there and we didn't see anyone selling the boards. Well at least I made a wish under the bell and rang it loudly.

This yummy but extremely sinful corn that is deep fried and with seasoning powder on. We can still taste the sweetness of the corn under the thin layer of fried seaweed batter. I was so guilty after seeing the whole frying process, it was in the oily pot for a good 5 minutes... See greedy Cand cand chewing on the corn!

On our way back to the train station, along the shop houses, a few stalls were having these arcade games. Shooting balloons, throwing hulas to hook soft toys, DIY cotton candy machines, all pretty old school unlike our modern and highly advanced arcade filled with violence video games. We decided to give it a try and I think we all played very well. Don't you think that I looked like a professional shooter below?

We finally made it to one of the most popular night market in Taipei, Shilin Night Market after braving the heavy rain. We were so excited to try all the highly raved street food. Note that the nearest train station is JianTan station instead of Shilin.  It's about 5 minutes walk from the station to the start of the night market where you will see a lot of street stalls lining up down the road. We did our research on all the must-try food in Shilin. But looking at how greedy we are, even if we don't google about it, I don't think we will have any chance missing out any food.

You will definitely see this cheese potato stall, be sure to see a long queue outside. It is diagonally across the street when you come out from the train station. 

This is my fav chicken cutlet stall, after deep frying it will be BBQ over charcoal. Food/soup cook using charcoals is always more fragrant. I love this stall chicken cutlet so much that when we revisited Shilin, I just have to eat it again. This stall is just in front of the cheese potato stall, nearer to 7-11 covenience stall.

The first time when we ordered and requested it to be sliced, but I realized it is so much easier to bite off from the whole piece of chicken, you can just bite off the bones. The skin has a honey glazed taste and the meat wasn't too dry. I know the XXL Chicken is also highly raved but they already have it SG now and it just taste like another overly fried chicken. 

大腸包小腸 is basically TW pork sausage being wrapped in glutinous rice sausage, also known as small sausage in big sausage. Go ahead and eat it with the sauces and it will really fill you up.

The JUMBO sausage king, the name says it is is really huge with juicy hotdog in between the dough. Go ahead and eat it with chili, mustard, pepper or chili powder to add more flavours to your tastebud.

Fried fresh milk, sounds so interesting. Probably is just milk candy being fried  with a very very strong milk taste. Very cheery lady there, I must say Taiwanese are really very friendly, helpful and polite. 

This was our first round of food. Everyone loves the cheese potato, they are so generous with the amount of cheese given. 

The girls also tried the smelly tofu, told ya we will hunt down all the food available. I didn't particularly remember the tofu being very smelly when you eat it, but you can definitely smell it when you are near the stall. 

This is also one of our fav food in the night market. This reminded me of Singapore Prata wrapped with additional egg and drizzled with some salty sauce.

Shopping wise, the girls also prefer to go to Shilin night market. Personally I prefer to shop at WuFenPu, wholesale shopping district but to be honest we got some pretty good buys from the night market. We revisited the night market on one of those nights for more shopping, and more food before we head back to our apartment. 

The must try squid balls, crispy on the outside but chewy inside. Super salty with the flavouring powder but thats what made street food so addictive. 

Fried mixed mushroom, I love mushroom especially fried golden mushroom. They are so crispy and juicy at the same time. 

Peanut ice-cream wrapped in pohpiah skin. Not a fan of this, but if you do go to JiuFen, you will find a much better version of this.

Amazed that they have two person mahjong in the night market. So guys you know where to spend your time while your gfs do their shopping. 

We were all super tired from the lack of sleep the night before and non stopped walking plus eating. Day 2 will be an adventurous excursion to Tai Chung. 

Till the next update. 

XOXO,

Smileybrows

Photo credit: Some photos are taken by @Lovethekisses's & @Cheeksbag's Camera