Been really busy with life recently, work and dance and work and dance and [ALL]titude pulse has come to the end. Feeling a little empty and restless because there are no more rehearsals to look forward to. It is so weird, when we are in it we look forward to rest days and breaks but once it is over we feel weird and empty.
Yes so I am finally done with dance for the time being and yes I know I am still in JULY posts!!! Hmmmm, slow like tortoise but pardon me. At least I am determined to continue blogging.
Day 5
We were all looking forward to our one day road trip off to the mountain.We hired a driver for the day to bring us around as we have quite a few places to visit.This is the friendly and passionate 高先生, our driver cum tour guide of the day. He brought us for breakfast before setting off for the day.
1st stop: Yeh Liu Geopark－野柳, it was about 45minutes drive from where we stayed(Taipei City).
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Sometimes I am so amazed by mother nature's ability to create such beautiful and unique work on Earth. So Yeh Liu Geopark is famous for all the mushroom rocks, featuring the iconic Queen's head.
We were too lazy to queue for a proper image so we photo bombed from the back of the statue. Can you see the Queen's head is sitting on its thin neck:(
Following two images are imitations(or replica) of the actual Queen's head. In the past, there were no barricades around the statue which allows tourist's inappropriate behavior like touching/sitting on it that resulted in accelerated erosion. There is a more detailed explanation of the Queen's head II in the image below.
My friends doing some Jazz moves in the park!
The weather in Taiwan is so erratic! It was bright and sunny in the day which some of us became one shade darker just from walking around in the park (I got slight tan lines from it). And in the afternoon when we reached our second destination it was dark and gloomy then it started to rain.
Anyway, how the name Jiu Fen came about is in the past, there were nine families living in this village and it was very inconvenient to get out of this place since it is high up in the mountain and far away from the city. So they will always request for nine portions of shipment, for each family. Hence, the name 九份, nine portions in chinese.
This is the first stall at the entrance of JiuFen－九份
Photo credit: @lovethekisses
Photo credit: @lovethekisses
All my friends had the beef noodle and they really like it. We were all starving from the bad breakfast we had and I guess its perfect to have a hot pipping bowl of soup in the cold weather. I tried the 卤味小菜 which wasn't very tasty because of the salty sauce.
Photo credit: @lovethekisses
I love Vermicelli, no flourish taste, light and keeps me filling. Their hand made fish ball are very bouncy and fresh. I also added their handmade Tau Pok, which was delicious too.
Despite the rain, we still managed to explore Jiu Fen with sheltered streets and we began trying all the snacks we could spot.
Milk Cheese Sticks! One of my favourite, I am a fan of cheese and I really love the melted milk with cheese, it wasn't too gel at and especially appetizing when eat warm.
Hand carving on your brushes:
My favourite peanut ice-cream wrap! The first time we had it in ShiLin market was pretty awful. But this stall in Jiu Fen serves really good peanut ice-cream wrap! Peanut shavings with Yam ice-cream, not really sure of the other flavor but this is AWESOME:D
Doraemon's favourite snack- Dorayaki with ice-cream!
Yayyy another scoop of Taro ice-cream. I love Yam especially Yam buns and desserts(DTF YAM XLB, only Singaporeans will understand my abbreviations). My friends used to laugh at me for loving this auntie flavour ice-cream. I was really satisfied with my dosage of Yam.
Grilled mushrooms snacks! I love mushrooms too especially the huge and chewy 杏鲍菇, very tasty but also very oily.
Beautiful sea-shells bedside lights. I was quite tempted to get one but I am so lazy to decorate my room and I think I might prefer to just keep it plain and simple. I am trying to psycho my friend to help pack and decorate my room for me, hehe. Any kind soul wants to help me decorate my room?
Another famous snack that you have to try at Jiu Fen- Yam Mochi Balls. There are two famous stalls in Jiu Fen. The first is 赖阿婆, I actually prefer this stall more, I took away a ball of mix pumpkin and yam balls before we left for our next destination. I think the mochi balls are more Q.
The second famous store，阿柑姨 is located on the slope. You can get a nice scenic view at their dine in area. Sadly, it was quite foggy due that day to the rain.
Taro balls with red and green bean soup.
A souvenir shop that sells artsy and cutesy cat related -Postcards, pens small gifts etc.
The cat shop not only sells cat related merchandise, they also have a house cat. I am terrified by the cat hahaha, even though the cat looks harmless and pretty timid too.
高先生 brought us to this tunnel where in the past, people uses this as their passage way to their neighbours' place. I guess this is really useful because it is always raining in Jiu Fen so it explains this is the best and only sheltered route to take during rainy days.
Another prominent cultural attraction to visit here is ShengPing Theater －昇平劇院. It was built during the Japanese occupation. It has also been also used for the set of 'City of Sadness' big hit movie which helped to revive JiuFen as a popular tourist attraction.
Nostalgic much…
Us trying to be in character, well I think we are better off as dancers. HAHA
And it was still raining when we departed. While heading to the next location, we dropped by the golden waterfall －黄金瀑布. Despite the heavy storm, we braved the rain and went down to take a few pictures. It would be a waste if we didn't.
The joy of dancing in the rain.
After another hour of journey, we finally made it to ShiFen 十份. Because of the heavy rain, 高先生 intially recommended to bring us else where for sight seeing since there was a high chance we could not fly the sky lantern. But I am glad we girls insisted to try our luck, and we got lucky:D
The iconic rail track where tourists set their sky lanterns- a place where wishes come true.
Shortly after we arrived, we saw some sky lanterns floating up the sky and we hurried went into the shop and get ours before the rain returns.
Yes our mission of the trip, other than dance, food bonds us together!
So eager to fill up the lantern with all our wishes. We can only make one a year during our birthday so this is the only exception where we can write all our wishes down and send it high up in the sky. We got the four different colours sky lantern. Pink stands for romance, Yellow for wealth, Red for health and blue for career.
All rushing to fill up the romance!
So thankful for Mr Gao, busy snapping all the behind the scene photos. He was super helpful and enthusiastic. He knew we girls love to take photos so he just snap and capture all the possible moments.
The lady who helped us set our lantern was very friendly too, and helped to take the pictures below:
Some of us so busy grabbing our phones to capture the moment and me not willing to let go. Glad we had a video to capture the whole process.
Our contended and overly excited faces!
After setting the sky lanterns, we went to set fireworks at the hanging bridge. Such a hype night, it was pretty scary to set the fireworks. Plus it started raining again and we did not bring our umbrellas along so we had to set it under the rain. Again, Mr Gao was really very nice, he accompanied us to the bridge, risked his life and helped us set the fire heeee. It was really memorable, getting all drenched but it was all worth it.
After a day of adventure, he drove us back safely to the city. We took a selfie with him before we bid goodbye. We will definitely recommend his service, anyone who is interested to hire a driver in Taipei or even travel out of Taipei city, you may contact his cousin Mr. 郑金聪 at 0917-807158 / jin016888@yahoo.com.tw to arrange.
Dinner was at HuXuZhang 胡须长, the best 卤肉饭 we ever had. We were famished and cold by the end of the day and just can't wait to gobble down our food. The hot pipping hot corn soup saved us from the cold.
We really loved the 卤肉 and had to order additional scoops. They also offered take-home packs and we gladly brought some back to SG.
Immediately after dinner, we had supper at the YongHe near our apartment. Remember to google the authentic one because we went for the imitation YongHe in the morning and everything just tasted weird and wrong.
After shower, I was tempted by Candice to supper again, I am such a glutton to give in to temptations haha. But since we were all having beer and snacking on our last night, why not? I love the real chunk of meat and salty soup from this bowl of yummy cup/bowl noodle.
Some wefies for the last night, okay I can only show the two most decent shot, we did so much unglam poses in between but all for our own laughs only.
XOXO
AHHAH wtf the last photo
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA U never see the rest that we took that night.
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