Taipei Trip Day 2
Woke up at 730 in the morning. Yes, we had 7 hours of sleep at least, but the hotel room was 
freezing cold, so I won’t exactly say that we actually slept well.
Our first stop for the day was 永和豆浆油条. Ok, I’m sure many Singaporeans have heard of this shop at Geylang, but it all started from Taipei. We took the MRT to 丁溪 station, and we had a fabulous breakfast there. The 豆浆 was fresh (you can really taste the natural, unprocessed Soya bean, and its not overly sweetened), the 油条 was crispy, and not doughy like some places in Singapore’s. The light burnt smell further enhanced the taste. It was indeed heavenly!
Next, we went to take a look at the 总统府. It was indeed big and lovely, and we even saw a dignitary been escorted by some police vehicles into the building. We also saw the KMT party’s HQ which was just a short distance away from the President’s house. Oh, then we saw C.K.S. memorial, and we didn’t stayed long there as we knew it was going to be covered in our 1 day tour on Monday. But we walked past it, and it was really humongous! Of course, it was lovely as well, and you could feel the grandness of the place.
We took a stroll down to the highlight of the day – 鼎泰丰. We reached at 11, and we quickly found a seat (fine, amazingly, my friend actually managed to reserve a seat!) The service was good, as the staff was warm and friendly. Amazingly, the boss even came to welcome us! God, that was a really huge shock! There was also a Singaporean staff who also came over to take our orders. His name is 郭仁德 (if I remember correctly), and apparently he’s there training to become the new captain at its 5th outlet in Singapore, which will open in Raffles City soon. After hearing their recommendations, we placed our orders.
So let me slowly attempt to analyse the food. The first to appear was the Chicken Soup, and it was great! I can’t describe it, but it wasn’t too oily, and yet you can feel the entire fragrance of the chicken. According to the staff, it is because Taiwanese chicken are fresh, unlike Singapore’s dead, refrigerated ones. I guess that is the most probably the biggest reason why their chicken soup tastes so much nicer than Singapore’s. Next, we tried their 棕子 since 端午节 was approaching. It was nice. Their glutinous rice is not like Singapore’s one, which tends to be sticky. Hmm, I guess different people have different tastes, so I can’t exactly say which country’s棕子 is better, but it was nice.
The boss was real nice for he treated us to a few side dishes. I don’t exactly know their names, but there was 泡菜，花生， some 罗汉斋, something that is like our achar. They were quite nice, especially the achar-like thing. Oh, then the highlight of the day (possibly the trip as well) came. The 小笼包!!! Yes, after all the hype we heard about it (being the world’s best!), it finally appeared! In terms of appearance, it was beautiful, and there’ nothing you can fault it for. When you eat it, it was literally, amazing! Ok, initially I took a nibble and started drinking parts of the soup inside and it was wonderful! The soup was fragrant and tasty. Oh, then you pop in the rest of it in, and wow! The skin was thinner than Singapore’s one, and you can’t feel the taste of flour. The 馅 was good too! It just melts away in your mouth! And then, I popped in 1 whole小笼包, and you literally went on a high. The 包 literally explodes in your mouth, and its whole richness just overflows and fills up every part of your mouth. Yes, at that instant, you do feel as if you are on the top of the world!
Ok, apart from 小笼包, we also tried the 虾仁烧麦. That was fantastic too! Essentially, it is the same as 小笼包 except that the skin was thicker, and that there was a whole prawn on top of it! The skin was thicker in order to support all the feelings, but the experience was lovely too! You can actually feel the richness of the sea, mixing together with the lovely soup and meat filling, creating a different experience from the小笼包. The only let down was that because it has a thicker skin, so you actually feel full, and the starchy feeling is there as well. So I will still rate the小笼包 higher. Hehe.
Ok, after such a great meal, we took a bus to Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall. Along the way, we passed by their pubs area, the 忠孝敦化 area as well. Yupz, it was a good time for us to take in the sights of downtown Taipei, as well as see their bustling Orchard Road-like area. When we reached our destination, we had a brief time snapping photos of the memorial. Then, we walked to Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building. Along the way, we saw the Taipei City Hall, World Trade Centre and Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Taipei 101 is HUGE. Not just in height, but in terms of area as well. The shops there are up-end ones, shops like Louis Vuition, Cartier, Bvgalri; essentially shops that I can’t afford to shop at. We made our way up to their observatory, and their lift was super fast – 600m/min was the highest speed we reached! Essentially, we took just 38secs to reach their 87th storey, which is approximately 380m above the ground!
The view was breath taking. You could see far across Taipei, and the cars below look like Lego. We also saw the wind damper too – an enormous ball of steel that weighs (if I remember correctly) 600 metric tons. It is amazing how they actually brought it up there, but the ball is essentially to maintain the stability of the building. Oh, we also went outdoors to experience the chilling cool winds at the top. I must say, it was indeed a once in a lifetime experience. I mean, how often do you actually experience the winds at 390m above the ground? On the whole, I thought it was a worthy experience.
Next, we walked past their Warner Village, some other major shopping malls before we finally reached 五分埔. Ok, it’s not within walking distance, as we had to take a cab over. But五分埔 is big, like Bugis Village, except that it is way much bigger. The shops there sold a lot of clothes (most of them were female clothing though), and there were some good deals around. I got a T-shirt for just SGD$10. Ha, I thought it was a bargain.
After shopping for the evening, we walked to 饶河夜市. Again, like all 夜市in Taipei, you could feel the vibrant life of the streets. We had oyster omelette, pig’s blood soup, smelly bean curd, duck’s blood and roasted sweet potatoes. Hmm, hopefully I never missed out on anything else that we ate. There were quite a lot of shops there selling clothes and some of the stuff was really cheap. On the whole, I must say I enjoyed the night market a lot.
Finally, we took a bus back to our hotel. On the way, we passed by most of the places that we walked in the day. It was a good recap. We also bought some cup noodles as supper (Taiwanese cup noodles really have meat, as in whole chunks of it if you haven’t tried before). Jacky also stayed with us for the night.
freezing cold, so I won’t exactly say that we actually slept well.Our first stop for the day was 永和豆浆油条. Ok, I’m sure many Singaporeans have heard of this shop at Geylang, but it all started from Taipei. We took the MRT to 丁溪 station, and we had a fabulous breakfast there. The 豆浆 was fresh (you can really taste the natural, unprocessed Soya bean, and its not overly sweetened), the 油条 was crispy, and not doughy like some places in Singapore’s. The light burnt smell further enhanced the taste. It was indeed heavenly!
Next, we went to take a look at the 总统府. It was indeed big and lovely, and we even saw a dignitary been escorted by some police vehicles into the building. We also saw the KMT party’s HQ which was just a short distance away from the President’s house. Oh, then we saw C.K.S. memorial, and we didn’t stayed long there as we knew it was going to be covered in our 1 day tour on Monday. But we walked past it, and it was really humongous! Of course, it was lovely as well, and you could feel the grandness of the place.We took a stroll down to the highlight of the day – 鼎泰丰. We reached at 11, and we quickly found a seat (fine, amazingly, my friend actually managed to reserve a seat!) The service was good, as the staff was warm and friendly. Amazingly, the boss even came to welcome us! God, that was a really huge shock! There was also a Singaporean staff who also came over to take our orders. His name is 郭仁德 (if I remember correctly), and apparently he’s there training to become the new captain at its 5th outlet in Singapore, which will open in Raffles City soon. After hearing their recommendations, we placed our orders.
So let me slowly attempt to analyse the food. The first to appear was the Chicken Soup, and it was great! I can’t describe it, but it wasn’t too oily, and yet you can feel the entire fragrance of the chicken. According to the staff, it is because Taiwanese chicken are fresh, unlike Singapore’s dead, refrigerated ones. I guess that is the most probably the biggest reason why their chicken soup tastes so much nicer than Singapore’s. Next, we tried their 棕子 since 端午节 was approaching. It was nice. Their glutinous rice is not like Singapore’s one, which tends to be sticky. Hmm, I guess different people have different tastes, so I can’t exactly say which country’s棕子 is better, but it was nice.
The boss was real nice for he treated us to a few side dishes. I don’t exactly know their names, but there was 泡菜，花生， some 罗汉斋, something that is like our achar. They were quite nice, especially the achar-like thing. Oh, then the highlight of the day (possibly the trip as well) came. The 小笼包!!! Yes, after all the hype we heard about it (being the world’s best!), it finally appeared! In terms of appearance, it was beautiful, and there’ nothing you can fault it for. When you eat it, it was literally, amazing! Ok, initially I took a nibble and started drinking parts of the soup inside and it was wonderful! The soup was fragrant and tasty. Oh, then you pop in the rest of it in, and wow! The skin was thinner than Singapore’s one, and you can’t feel the taste of flour. The 馅 was good too! It just melts away in your mouth! And then, I popped in 1 whole小笼包, and you literally went on a high. The 包 literally explodes in your mouth, and its whole richness just overflows and fills up every part of your mouth. Yes, at that instant, you do feel as if you are on the top of the world!Ok, apart from 小笼包, we also tried the 虾仁烧麦. That was fantastic too! Essentially, it is the same as 小笼包 except that the skin was thicker, and that there was a whole prawn on top of it! The skin was thicker in order to support all the feelings, but the experience was lovely too! You can actually feel the richness of the sea, mixing together with the lovely soup and meat filling, creating a different experience from the小笼包. The only let down was that because it has a thicker skin, so you actually feel full, and the starchy feeling is there as well. So I will still rate the小笼包 higher. Hehe.
Ok, after such a great meal, we took a bus to Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall. Along the way, we passed by their pubs area, the 忠孝敦化 area as well. Yupz, it was a good time for us to take in the sights of downtown Taipei, as well as see their bustling Orchard Road-like area. When we reached our destination, we had a brief time snapping photos of the memorial. Then, we walked to Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building. Along the way, we saw the Taipei City Hall, World Trade Centre and Grand Hyatt Hotel..jpg)
Taipei 101 is HUGE. Not just in height, but in terms of area as well. The shops there are up-end ones, shops like Louis Vuition, Cartier, Bvgalri; essentially shops that I can’t afford to shop at. We made our way up to their observatory, and their lift was super fast – 600m/min was the highest speed we reached! Essentially, we took just 38secs to reach their 87th storey, which is approximately 380m above the ground!The view was breath taking. You could see far across Taipei, and the cars below look like Lego. We also saw the wind damper too – an enormous ball of steel that weighs (if I remember correctly) 600 metric tons. It is amazing how they actually brought it up there, but the ball is essentially to maintain the stability of the building. Oh, we also went outdoors to experience the chilling cool winds at the top. I must say, it was indeed a once in a lifetime experience. I mean, how often do you actually experience the winds at 390m above the ground? On the whole, I thought it was a worthy experience.
Next, we walked past their Warner Village, some other major shopping malls before we finally reached 五分埔. Ok, it’s not within walking distance, as we had to take a cab over. But五分埔 is big, like Bugis Village, except that it is way much bigger. The shops there sold a lot of clothes (most of them were female clothing though), and there were some good deals around. I got a T-shirt for just SGD$10. Ha, I thought it was a bargain.
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After shopping for the evening, we walked to 饶河夜市. Again, like all 夜市in Taipei, you could feel the vibrant life of the streets. We had oyster omelette, pig’s blood soup, smelly bean curd, duck’s blood and roasted sweet potatoes. Hmm, hopefully I never missed out on anything else that we ate. There were quite a lot of shops there selling clothes and some of the stuff was really cheap. On the whole, I must say I enjoyed the night market a lot.
Finally, we took a bus back to our hotel. On the way, we passed by most of the places that we walked in the day. It was a good recap. We also bought some cup noodles as supper (Taiwanese cup noodles really have meat, as in whole chunks of it if you haven’t tried before). Jacky also stayed with us for the night.
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