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Monday, December 30, 2013

Saturday Outing: A Day in Taipei

We are currently staying in Hsinchu City, some 80km south of Taipei. It is an industrial park that is home to hundreds of high-tech companies (including the one that daddy works in). 

On Saturday and Sunday, when daddy was not working, we went to Taipei for sight-seeing. The hotel that we are staying in provides free shuttle services to the capital city...

Chauffeur-driven in a luxury sedan! We were pleasantly surprised by this VIP treatment :)

We did a free and easy self-tour of Taipei by taking the subway (ostrich poster is taken from one of the subway station walls). 

The iconic Taipei 101. We did not go up to the observatory deck because the sky was not clear (foggy/hazy).

Since we did not go up the building, we just walked around its compound...

Colourful blocks (each with individual names engraved on it)

A sculpture made from retired cables from the Taipei 101 observatory high-speed elevators. The description says "... to create beauty from otherwise discarded material".


We walked to a nearby mall and had lunch in a busy food court

Wantan noodles

Tofu rice set

Cheese-baked rice with squid...

Bread and creamy soup

Creme brûlée 

After lunch, we walked to Eslite, a mega bookstore which sold more than just books. There were quite a lot of interesting stuff to see here. We like!

Taipei 101 looking blur in the background....that's what I meant by foggy/hazy.

On the way to a subway station, we walked past this nicely lighted-up street 
 adorned with many cute and whimsical figurines...

I took out an umbrella just to blend in haha!



Last stop... shopping and makan-makan at Shihlin Night Market. It was sooooooo crowded, we had difficulty walking without "rubbing shoulders" with strangers. 

The first thing we bought was this white bittergourd juice with honey. Daddy and mummy liked it but not me. Eww, no thanks!

Look at that huge block of peanut candy! This is "ice-cream popiah" with shaved peanut candy. Yummy!

Non-fried prawn crackers. I like! Mummy bought 3 packs.

Cute bear cakes. I like this too... got custard, chocolate and honey fillings.

Oyster mee suah. We had two bowls from different stalls. I just liked the mee suah but not the oysters.

Ooh, giant sausage! Brainwashed by my health-freak mummy, I commented "this is too oily...and too sweet!" LOL! So guess what, mummy fished out a piece of tissue paper and blotted the excess oil for me ;)

Tako (shrimp balls) with kimchi and pickled cabbage. Very nice!

Frog egg drink... refreshing drinks with jelly and some chewy stuff in it

Fried milk! This was the last thing we bought. We ate one stick on the spot and brought the remainder two all the way back to our hotel...

... to be enjoyed with beer (from the FOC minibar in our room) 

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas Holiday

Greetings from Taiwan! I am currently on a two-week Winter/Christmas break and what better way to spend the first half of my holiday... by tagging along with daddy as he goes to Taiwan for a 8D7N business trip. 

Christmas is not a public holiday in China and daddy had to go to work as usual but on this special day, daddy was given a "special assignment" instead. He was picked to do Community Service as part of his company's drive for a caring society. To support this cause, mummy and I accompanied him to the nearby park to pick rubbish haha! Yes, daddy actually walked around a park picking litter, no kidding! :D

On the same evening, we packed up and left for the airport to catch our night flight to Taiwan. 

Shanghai's Pudong International Airport looking rather quiet and deserted.... this was the first time we encountered such "emptiness" in this super busy airport!

Filled up our tummies at 6pm (at the airport) because we thought dinner would not be served in our 8pm flight

Our first time flying with EVA Air and we nearly took the Hello Kitty flight! Daddy and mummy are pretty impressed with their good service and seat comfort... plenty of leg room for them to stretch their long legs ;) Plus, a full-course dinner (supper) was served too.

A pretty air stewardess gave me some nice stickers, puzzles and activity set too.

We reached our hotel close to 12am that night. It is very spacious and comfortable and we are more than happy to have this as our "home" for the next 7 days....

View from our 19th floor window

It feels really great to be able to (temporarily) escape from Shanghai's bitter cold... the temperature has plummeted to subzero degrees this week!! 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Autumn Colours

Okay, this will be the final post on Shanghai parks, I promise! Just before the weather turned too cold for park visits, we hopped to the last one (well, last one for this year) on our park-to-visit-list, which was the People's Park 人民公园.

At one of the many gates in the park





If there is one thing "special" about this park, it has got to be this Marriage Market held here every weekend. At first we just noticed scores of people (mostly the elderly) flocking to a certain area....

"People mountain, people sea" at the "Marriage Market" 

Then we saw the "lonely hearts" advertisements (placed on umbrellas) and finally knew what this was all about!

Looking for love... hundreds and thousands of ads on display at the "marriage market".

Amusement park again, nothing new to us anymore... *yawn*

But I still insisted on ONE ride and picked the most expensive one... RMB20 (RM10) per ride per person! Cut-throat expensive, daddy and mummy grumbled haha!

Dragon roller coaster


At the end of our park-hopping experience, we realised the most beautiful park is actually the one closest to home.... just across the street from where we live!

The sidewalk just outside the park... the trees on the left are completely "botak" now.

Walking path covered with fallen leaves

Pretty roses still in full bloom!

Many of the plants and shrubs have turned colours

Lovely hues of red, yellow, orange...

... and purple! 

The Wonderful World of Ruoyi

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