Location: Shandao Temple, Taipei
Time: 8:10am
Date: 27 December 2009
Woke up early on the 2nd day. The weather wasn’t that cold as the day before. We had to travel down to Shandao Temple station for breakfast. While waiting for Bowie and Terynn, we took a shot of how the Taiwanese subway looked like in the cold morning.
After they came, we walked to a nearest shopping mall. At the 2nd floor we saw a crowd of people in a certain corner. We walked towards it and noticed how freakin long the line was. Everyone who was eating there looked really happy and enjoying their food. It felt like this breakfast was gonna be really something.
After a really long 15 minutes wait, it was finally our turn to order. So, here’s what we had for breakfast:
Location: National Palace Museum, Taipei
Time: 10:00am
Date: 27 December 2009
After breakfast we headed down to the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院). It wasn’t as grand or as beautiful as the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was all painted in white with green roofs. Guess it was just another museum.
The exhibits weren’t as nice as I thought. We walked around the museum looking at some old old scriptures, some old old paintings, some old old vases, some old old sculptures, and more. It was kinda boring though. I guess we had more fun taking pictures outside the building instead.
We imitated the handsome emperor Yong Zheng who looked really bored sitting at the walls of the museum. He didn’t seemed happy so we befriended his lion statue instead.
It was already noon when we reached the subway station. So before we left, we needed something to fill our tummies again. On the way, we grabbed ourselves some chinese dumplings – Taiwanese style. Woo~
Cooked Dumplings (with prawn)
Location: National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei
Time: 8:10am
Date: 27 December 2009
We then headed down to the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂). You know that you reach a really special station because here, it looked different from the others. It had golden plates all around and looked like granite was used for the walls and pillars and floors. It was really well decorated.
Even the blind man with the accordian was a major hit underground. He was surrounded by artisitic posters and a naked butt.
As we walked out of the station, The memorial hall was standing there majestically awaiting us. It looked pretty nice, exactly like the one I saw on Discovery Channel. Surrounded by greens all around, and the place was astounding.
National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
Panoramic shot
Fann & I at the memorial hall
Location: Ximending, Taipei
Time: 2:15pm
Date: 27 December 2009
Next, we went to Ximending (西門町) for some small food and shopping. Ximending is somewhat like our Bintang Walk. Famous among the youngsters, it sells many things, from watches to clothes like those greek sorority jackets, shoes to condoms, food to DVDs and more.
Condom world
Furthermore, Ximending became a well-known theater street in Taipei in the 1930s and grew even more prosperous after the defeat of Japan. The posters here are gigantic!
Fried Quail EggsAs we were walking, I heard Fann shouting: “I want this, b!! I want this, b!!” Well, as I turned around, it was no mistake, fried quail eggs. What more would she be so excited about than quail eggs. We stopped by and bought a stick for her. It looked pretty much like fish balls but tasted delicious! yummy~
We got ourselves quite a lotta stuff here at Ximending. We wrapped up our day at Ximending when it started to drizzle. We headed back to the hotel for a short rest and shower. Then for dinner, we had beef noodles. This was one of the best beef noodles I’ve ever had in my life (It really felt great to have beef again since my boycott on beef for 2 years)
Beef noodlesWhat’s special about this beef noodles is that one of the sets came with pork leg… WHOA~~ yes…pork leg! yum.
Pork legAnyways, beef noodles always taste great when the soup is hot and the weather outside is cold. It felt really comfortable. Oh, and also never forget your Chinese tea as well.
Chinese teaIt was a tiring day, we all went back to rest again after dinner. Our feet felt like jelly and needed to soak our smelly feet in the hot tub. Everything that is hot in a cold place really is comfortable.
Cup NoodleAfter soaking and resting, me and Fann went to 7-eleven to go and try out their cup noodles. Why the cup noodles? Instead of being an instant noodle freak, the both of us saw on the Taiwanese telly that their instant noodles had real meat inside it. So, we were curious and wanted to get a taste of this incredible invention. Unfortunately, there was no meat inside. It was like any other ordinary bowl of cup noodles. We were a little disappointed but what could we do right? We had more big plans planned for the next day, so after the noodle fest, we head straight to bed.
Slurrrrp…
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