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Taiwan Day 2 - Wu Fen Pu and Taipei 101



So in continuation to my first post about my trip to Taipei (Day 1) with my family, we visited Wu Fen Pu and Taipei 101 on the second day (27th of December 2015).

Since it was a Sunday, we went for mass first at the Holy Family Church located at 
No. 50, Sec. 2, Xinsheng S. Rd., Da'an District, Taipei 106.
We cabbed from our Airbnb at Jihe Rd., Shilin district to make it for the English mass at 9.45 am. But for those of you who are taking the MRT, you can alight at Da'An park station and the church is on the west side of Da'an Forest Park. For more mass times, at this church follow this link.
Image credit to blog.udn.com

Inside the church
It was drizzling the whole day and the temperature dropped a little from the previous day. I should have brought an extra umbrella. My hat came in handy though.. It got a little wet but it wasn't too bad. 
After that we took the MRT and alighted at Houshanpi station and stopped at Formosa Chang for brunch! The restaurant is not difficult to find. Just follow signs that point towards Wu Fen Pu when you exit the station and you will definitely come across the corner lot restaurant.  But just in case, here's the address:

No. 533號, Yǒngjí Rd,
Nangang District, Taipei City,
Taiwan 115
+886 2 2788 8081

First up!, Lu Rou Fan.. Way better than the one we had at Zhong Cheng Hao
Lu Rou fan (滷肉飯 )
Similar to Lu Rou Fan but instead of using pork, this one had chicken. Oh, that orange carrot looking side is some kind of pickle I think. 

This bitter gourd pork rib soup was the highlight for me especially with the cold weather. I had an extra bowl all to  myself  *claps claps claps claps* :D . Oh and the bitter gourd is the white bitter gourd that seems to be everywhere in Taiwan. 


With happy, full tummies, we headed off to our intended destination, Wu fen Pu (五分埔).
One of the many many shops and I mean MANY shops there, haha.
There were so many articles of clothing, accessories, bags and shoes in one place, LOL. That being said, the price of the things at Wu Fen Pu were not very cheap, and if there were cheap items, the quality leaves much to be desired. Not very worth buying. But! if you look hard enough you might find good buys so be prepared to spend a lot of time here.  :D
I ended up buying alot less than I expected (which is not a bad thing really :P). We still spent a good 3 hours there I think. We only went through a small fraction of the shops there though. Daddy and the lil' bro were getting really bored.. hahahahahaha.
We went to Taipei 101 next. Since it was raining a little heavier and getting a little colder, we cabbed to Taipei 101 from Wu Fen Pu. We did not stay longer to go to Raohe Night Market because we figured that we hadn't even really explored Shilin Night Market yet. We decided we'd go back to Shilin after Taipei 101 instead.

Taipei 101
 Honestly I kinda knew that I wouldn't be doing much at Taipei 101 but it was the touristy thing to do so all of us went anyway. You can see that it's really cloudy and kinda gloomy but ya.. that's a very tall building, hahahaha.


Of course, when you're there, you take a tourist shot like this. LOL.. (can't even see the whole building..XD). I did not go up to the observation floor because all the rest of them did not want to. Maybe next time. :) We ate in the food court in the basement of the shopping mall though. Mummy was feeling a tad bit too cold so we all decided to warm up indoors before leaving. By the time we came out, the sky had already turned dark and it was colder. Btw, there's a Ding Tai Fung in the basement of the shopping mall but the queue was nuts so we didn't even bother, hahaha.

Taipei 101 at night
Anyway, we took the metro back to Shilin Night Market. If you are heading there yourself, get off at Jiantan Station. NOT Shilin station. The night market is just a few hundred metres from the former. You won't miss it. The temperature dipped a little further so again, we didn't stay too long at the night market.

Look at those custard apples ( the ones in light green). So tempting. We didn't get any though. haha.
Arranged so neatly. :D


And the famous Hot Star Fried Chicken. I'm sure you have heard and seen many bloggers mention this and yea, the line was pretty long but they were really efficient at moving things along. It was pretty good. Try it if you have the chance. :)




I also had some juice, bitter gourd with honey  juice. I know, I seem to have a thing for bitter gourds and yea, I kinda do :P
It was so good!!!!.. I forgot to take a picture though, darn it.. and you do need to go to the right stall for it (which i also did not take a picture of.. epic fail). But its not difficult to find, just look out for juice stalls ( you'll find that there are plenty!) and try your luck.
Took a picture of white bitter gourds. I think its not as common in Malaysia as it is in Taiwan.


And that, concludes this post. Yea we didn't really go around the night market as much as we would have liked.  We were not really dressed enough for the cold at the time and were quite tired from the lack of sleep from the night before. We went back the following night though. I'll tell you more about that in the next post. :D
Next up Taiwan, Taipei - Day 3 ( Tamsui Old Street and Ximending)


Taiwan Day 1 - Shilin Night Market



Day 1 - Shilin Night Market
We arrived at Taoyuan airport on the 26th of December pretty late at night (10.30 pm or so.). The weather was WONDERFUL!!!! Compared to the humidity and heat in KL. The cold in Taipei was so pleasant (about 15°C - 18°C) I really didn't want to leave *cries* :( . Took a cab to the Airbnb I booked and by the time we arrived it was nearly midnight. I didnt take any pictures of this room because we already settled in and the room looked messy with all our stuff.. LOL. Mind you, I was travelling with two other adults and an 11 year old boy, with 5 bags in tow.

The room was pretty small for four persons but it was affordable and had everything we needed for our short 3 day stay in the city. For those of you who might be interested, you could look this listing up here.

Oh, did I mention that the famous Shilin Night Market is just several steps away from this listing? :D. All of us were famished when we arrived in Taipei (didn't order food on the flight because didn't think it was worth it) and luckily, several stalls in the night market were still open for business.. hehe. so we just dropped our stuff and off we went.
The very nice night receptionist in the lobby of the building recommended this 盐水鸡 that was just outside the building itself.
Aunty's Salted Water Chicken (阿姨盐水鸡
Think of it as boiled chicken cut into smaller pieces tossed with a mixture of vegetables, fruits and some spices.


'Rojak (mixture)  ingredients' 
As you can see, there are quite a few ingredients to choose from. We picked vegetables and fruits mostly. If I remember correctly, each piece of ingredient, was TWD 20 or so? And I think half a chicken was about TWD50? So outs came out to be about TWD 150 and it looks something like this:
Yan Shui Ji (盐水鸡)
I can't remember all the ingredients that mummy selected but yea, that's what  it looks like.  There's about half a chicken in there tossed with all the other ingredients and it costs about 150 TWD? ( I think?) It was alright to me. Different i suppose but taste wise, nothing out of this world to be honest. Oh that's white bitter gourd on the stick btw. Its not that bitter actually. 
We wanted something warm to fill our stomachs so we stoppped at this restaurant, Zhong Cheng Hao(忠诚号)that was still open even though it was almost midnight. 
Menu at Zhong Cheng Hao


Lu Rou Fan, (Braised pork on rice). I suppose one cannot say he or she has been to Taiwan unless they've eaten one of these right?? :D
Lu Rou Fan
It tasted alright. But this one wasn't as good as the one at Formosa Chang which I will tell you about in the next post. But like said we were hungry and anything was fine at that point. 

Here's the famous oyster egg omelette. I didn't know the sauce was sweet! they also mixed the eggs with starch so the dish was gluey which i didnt not expect as well. LOL Not really my cup of tea but you might like it. :)


Anyway, by the time we finished eating I think it was way past midnight but daddy, mummy and myself wanted our coffee fix. Fortunately, there's a 7-11 that's just next to the building where our Airbnb was situated. Yippee!!!! 
Granted there is definitely better tasting coffee elsewhere but at that hour, cannot be too choosy right? Besides, warm coffee  + cool weather =  AWESOME!!!!
IMG_20151227_005442
7-11 coffee
 Anyway, I think that will be all for this post. Stay tuned for the next one.. More in Taipei.. :D Next up: Wu Fen Pu and Taipei 101.. :)
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