Busy. Busy. Busy.

Work is extremely intense right now so I won't have the time/energy to post for a while.
Wish me luck because I really need it right now.

Daiso

Somebody needs to stop me from going to Daiso (think Dollarama but with cute Japanese stuff everywhere!) I'm pretty sure I spent the equivalent of a week's worth of lunches in less than an hour. Gah! Curse the Japanese and their cute innovative items!

Weekend 1: Sunday

What would I do without my trusty notepad? While it may just look like the rumbled writing of a crazy person. I assure you there IS a system in all that chaos. It shows all the stops planned for the day and the bus routes between them, plus any additional information that may be pertinent.


Stop#1: Maokong

While some of you may have already noticed that I've done Maokong already on my last trip but it's different going with friends. Plus, I wanted to try the new gondola cars with the glass floors (What can I say? I'm an acrophobe with suicidal tendencies!) Anywhoo, there was a huge promotion (the second person rides free) so tons of people and their kids were there. While we were waiting in the station, the sprinkler will turn on and spray mist to keep everyone nice and cool. By the way, the gondola is right next to the Metrozoo MRT station, hence the picture of cute pandas riding the MRT.

 

How cute is this? Everyone and everything is so happy. 

Look! Night market diorama!



Stop #2: Lin Family (no relation!) Garden
The Lin family in Banqiao was (and still is?) one of the richest families in Taiwan. They built a huge manor in Banqiao, which became famous as the paradigm of the architectural style of that time. I've been wanting to visit for ages but other things just kept coming up. The main house was closed for renovations (darn! what's with all the renos?) and a section of the manor remains unavailable to the public because it still belongs to the Lin family (it houses the plaques of their ancestors.

From what we saw, the place was complex. Passages and hallways intersect with one another, leading to side rooms or small ponds and gazebos.

Some more pretty scenery for ya! Towards the end of the journey, we were greeted by this little dude. Poor guy, he must be boiling hot with all those feathers.

Finally, the exit! I was starting to fear that we may never get out. And what did we do after we found the exit? We immediately went and sat in the 7-11 across the road to cool down for a bit. While we were cooling down, we had a CELLPHONE FACE-OFF!!!

And of course I won! Just look at it! My phone display is BLACK-AND-WHITE for pity's sake. AND it's bulkier than all the other phones. Awesome reception though.


Stop #3: Taipei 101
Technically, we didn't go to Taipei 101. We went to a mall next next to Taipei 101. There are at least half a dozen department stores/malls within an 1-km radius of Taipei101. I am not making this up. Google it! I dare you. The B1 foodcourt was so busy. People were like vultures looking for tables, ready to swoop down on anyone who gives off even a remote vibe that they're getting ready to leave. We were lucky we didn't had wait too long for a table. But while my friends went off to order, there were at least 6-7 people asking whether the table was available. Some just sat right down without even checking first. Pure insanity.

This is what I ordered. Seafood risotto(?) with cheese and soup. Yum!

Weekend 1: Saturday

Stop#1: National Palace Museum
     NPM has become an essential stop for me whenever I'm in Taiwan. I have yet to get sick of visiting it. The Qing ceramics are just breathtaking. My favourite so far has to be the "Hundred Deer Vase." NPM is just a bus ride away from my dorm and I get a 50% discount with my youth travel card. Double yay!

     NPM was also having a special exhibition on Alphonse Mucha who is one of my favourite artists. I especially love his lithograph collections. Here's a sample. I love the details in the borders and backgrounds (notice Ophelia lying dead below Hamlet's feet.) Females are heavily featured in his advertisement/poster lithographs. A lot of the posters are in collections of four: seasons, starlight, arts, etc... I love how the lines flow. He really defined the art nouveau movement. The exhibition was really good. I saw some of his pieces that I've never seen before, such as cutlery, jewelry, wallpaper. He even did book illustrations. I find myself more partial to his earlier works, the more mainstream work. His later works are a little too dark for me. Unfortunately, no cameras inside the exhibition so alas, no pictures. I really wanted to buy some posters/postcards but they didn't have complete sets, only one or two from each series so I opted for a pressed coin souvenir instead. All in all, it was time well-spent.

We went to a nice Japanese restaurant for lunch. Deep-fried pork cutlet with miso sauce. Delicious.

Stop#2: Shilin Residence

     After lunch, we headed off to where CKS used to live. Luckily, we made it just in time for a tour of the actual house. Unfortunately, the second floor is still closed for restoration/organization with no foreseeable opening date. The conspiracy theorist in me suspect that they're looking for/securing down secret passageways/vaults. It wouldn't do to have random tourists finding secret, potentially damaging government documents just lying around right?
The decor was extravagant. A giant dragon craving greets you in the doorway. Matching red sandalwood furniture with mother-of-pearl inlaids with "pig-liver red" ceramic pieces (apparently lady CKS's favourite) furnish the rooms. The walls are also adorned with her artworks. Again, no pictures inside. The house is next to a huge rose garden surrounded by various smaller gardens. According to the guide, the weather has been very unpredictable this summer so flowers were sparse in the garden. :(

Stop #3: Shilin Night Market
We had to make a rest stop at an eslite bookstore. Walking around all day was taking its toll. I bought a guidebook to Taipei/New Taipei. Should come in handy for planning future trips. Also, it makes for good MRT reading. I wanted to read "One Day" before the movie comes out but it was $20 Cdn for a paperback copy. No thanks. I'll just have to borrow it from the library later.
Lots of goodies at the night market. The very big fried chicken cutlet was a must. I also had the 煎包 (the bun-equivalent of a potsticker.) I wolfed the food too quickly for any photos, sorry guys.

Contengency Plans: Epilogue

This is the story of how I almost missed my flight out of Narita, all because of takoyakis.

Wanting to squeeze in some shopping before my flight to Taipei (19 hours after originally planned) I went down to breakfast at 6:30 hoping to beat the crowd. Lo and behold, a huge crowd of people had the same idea and beat me to the punch. Luckily, I was still able to snag a seat. Happy to report that the breakfast was so much better than dinner!

So I got to the airport three hours before my flight. Checking in took a while but the Japanese airport workers were super polite and efficient. Considering how long the line was, I got through in a quarter of the time I would have estimated had I been anywhere else.

I really REALLY wanted to get a souvenir to remember this little unexpected side trip. So many kawaii items! But talk about sticker shock. I couldn't justify spending $50 US on a Japanese wooden puzzle box, however cool it was (and it was really cool. 10 steps are required to opening it.) There were also some very cool handmade dolls. Exquisitely made but unbelievably pricey. Pictures will have to suffice.

Here are some more pictures of cool/cute items in the shops.

Dogs doing crunches?!?! Crazy~ Maybe it serves as an inspirational tool for lazy people like me? And the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service. So cute.

The only things I could afford was a pack of postcards. Unfortunately, the post office didn't open until an hour before my flight (leaving me very little time to go through security checks and etc...) The info centre was welling to send my postcards for me but didn't sell stamps (why not?) In my search for stamps, guess what I saw?????

THAT'S RIGHT!!! DING DING DING!!!!

TAKOYAKIS!!!!!!! *happy dance happy happy happy dance*

The shop at that time wasn't open yet but I didn't care. I was a woman on a mission. A box of that delicious octopus morsels will be mine!!!! I couldn't afford any of the souvenirs but I could definitely afford this! So I waited and waited by the little window for the shop to open, waited while the woman pour the batter into the griddle, waited for her to flip the semi-cooked batter with a little wooden stick into perfectly golden spheres. And then I grabbed them and ran for it (yes, I did pay for them first.) It was already 9 am and I still hadn't pass customs, security, buy stamps, mail the postcards, or found my gate.

After the security check, I had to take a moment and breath in the takoyakis. Look at it! There are eight per box covered with mayo, special sauce and bonito flakes. My mouth was starting to salivate just by the smell alone.


Here's a close up because it deserves one.

Five minutes later....

ALL GONE!! (I wish I bought more...)

It was denser than the takoyakis I've tried before and the chunks of octopus ball were bigger. All in all, absolutely delicious. I'm seriously considering entering Japan again on the way back just to grab another box of these delicious bad boys!

After I had my mini-break, finally found a store that sold stamps, mailed off the stamps, and found the departure gate (apparently it was in a satellite building, accessible by a small train [right].)

So concludes my one night stay in Narita, Japan. I hope to visit it again someday under better conditions.

Contingency plans [More Updates]

When I got off the plane at Narita and saw the list upon list of names (my name included) taped to the wall and the crowd converging on three poor AC employees, my spidey senses told me I was in for a rough ride. A) I was definitely not alone in missing my connection and B) oh man I'm going to have to wait for a good long time in line. [Blogger's personal note: I really wanted to take a photo of the crowd and the lists of names taped to the wall but ultimately decided against it. People were already pretty annoyed by the situation. They definitely did not need a camera flashing in their face on top of it all.]

So when it became my turn (after a good while, I might add,) I was handed one of these [see right]. Even my flight arrived at 6:40 pm and the last flight to Taipei wasn't until 8:10 pm, there weren't any more seats. So, I got a new flight ticket for the next day and a hotel voucher for a hotel stay.

My recollection of the next 30 minutes or so was slightly blurry. Ran around filling out the proper forms to enter Japan. Got fingerprinted and photographed at customs (gah! I'm in the system now.) Picked up luggage. Exchanged some money (the currency exchange guy didn't speak english. He basically pointed at some figures. I nodded dumbly and gave him an hundred dollar US bill. He ran the bill through a machine twice. Smiled and nodded. Gave the bill to the guy sitting behind him and gave me some bills and coins. He didn't count the coins out by hand like I thought he would. A machine automatically dispenses the correct change. Pretty cool.) All the while I was trying to find/connect to free wifi so I could call my parents and they (along with half a dozen relatives) can stop worrying. 

Shuttle bus. More lining up at the hotel waiting to be checked in. AC was nice enough to include a complimentary dinner at the hotel. Overall, dinner was not that great (kind of hurting my perception of Japanese food,) but the fried things were really good (prob. because they were the only food that was actually piping hot.)

Here's my room. It wasn't anything fancy but it was clean and well-maintained. I was half-expecting some sort of fancy toilet with buttons galore in the washroom but it was as normal as can be. One thing I thought was strange was that the toilet had its own room separate from rest of the bathroom but no sink. Weird right?

My parents were adamant that I not drink the water in Japan. To pacify them, I bought two bottles of Evian (ironically, I never buy this brand back home. Too rich for my blood.)


And finally, here's the view from my room.

Research&Planning

FINALLY got internet. Things have been pretty hectic but here's my plan for the next seven weeks. Look at my map. A work in progress, but isn't it beau-ti-ful?


I plan on doing A LOT of eating (about 70% of my estimated budget is for food) as you can see from the number of "food/drink" pins dotting the map. Most of the vendors on my list come from popular food blogs/tv shows so I'm looking forward to checking them out. The red/blue pins denote nightmarkets/tourist sights.

Taipei city also offers some really great hiking trails since it's surrounded by mountains. I've marked a couple of them here but there are at least a dozen more accessible (more or less) via subway/bus.

My "Taiwan" folder has been in progress for the better part of two years but to quote a chinese proverb, "plans never catch up to changes (計畫永遠趕不上變化)." Both times I was in Taiwan last, none of my research was of much use. There always seemed to be something more important or simply my ideas got vetoed nine out of ten times. Of course, this is not to say I didn't have any fun during those trips. It was just a different kind of fun (after all, there's no way I could have afforded those restaurants we went to and their delicious delicious foods.)


I have eight weekends to fit all this in. Start your watch for pure insanity...ready...set...GO!