Retail Therapy: April 2012

Full of anticipation, we left kaohsiung for kenting!!! Really want to go to the beach to see some eye candies LOL

And so, we first went to fang liao train station. We took a local train at 6.40am and we reached fang liao at ~8am. When we were on the train, we pass by the pacific ocean! After which we took a bus for around 2 hours to kenting!

Local train~

Fang liao train station! Walk straight turn right to go to the bus station.

Bus station to kenting !

This time round we found our hostel, kenting youth hostel easily :D first time so successful. We left our luggage there and we go to our first destination, eluanbi!

However our luckiness was only temporary, we waited for 1 hour + before the public bus come -.- So advice is that if you want to go kenting and explore many places, rent a motorcycle or a car (provided if you have the license), it is worth it, because the frequency of the buses are so scarce, even on a weekend (it will be much worst on a weekday).

When we finally reached elunbi, we toured the whole place in 1 hour time, because the next bus will come in an hour while the next next bus, 2hour.

KFC lunch. The chicken and fries there, so much better than singapore. The only bad thing is that they do not have chillie sauce ):

Walking to the public bus station.

Eluanbi

Tickets

Big nice field there

Must first go to hengchun transit station to change bus to mao tou bi

Then we bus to mao tou bi!
It was very very windy there ! We have trouble walking up the mini hill and strike a post on the 'clift'. However it was very fun there! First time experiencing mini typhoon~

Look at our hair. Imagine the wind.

This path is quite hard to walk with balance.

HAHA found the name funny so i tried this. Not bad.

This fish is called 那个鱼 HAHA

crabby.

After mao tou bi, we took the last bus (at 5pm) to a port to try the sea food there. The seafood there is really fresh even a person like me who hated raw fishes loved it! The sashimi dish was really cheap too (NTD 100)!

At around 7pm, we found ourselves stuck at the port. As there were no more buses back and no cab. And so we asked for help. A helpful uncle called his friend to fetch us back to kenting for a price of NTD 400. I think we are kinda scam, but we have no choice.

And a regret in kenting is that we did not go to the beach as that day there was a mini typhoon and it was really cold (~18oC). So no water activities ):

Walking to the port

No water activities shop open...

Nice sashimi and other fishes! i like the yellow one (made with fish eggs)

Our dinner!

This is the port we went

When we were back to kenting, we did not go to the night market as we had already had our dinner. We did buy some koi and snacks. :D

Corn and Koi. The corn tasted bad and it is expensive (NTD 75). The koi is warm! first time drinking warm koi.

moo moo

This is right outside our room -.- of all things...

Our tiny tiny room. Really tiny.

At the hostel, we can write down our wishes and hang it there.

the common area.

My wish!

Rise and shine!

Woke up early in the morning with great reluctant, eyes swollen and hard to open ... Slept too late the previous night. Have an urge to push back our schedule again! LAZY. But NO, we managed to get up as we need to catch an early train. And so we woke up and took a cab (yes again...price NTD 100) to taichung train station.

We reached the train station and had mos burger breakfast !~ :D

Mos burger's sandwich breakfast

After which we discovered something extremely shocking !!! We noticed that the TRA concession pass we bought does not include seat number!!! Meaning that we have to stand for a freaking 3h+++ to kaoshiung.

To our horror, the train that day is hellishly packed ...... we squeezed into the train with our enormous bag and stand for 3h++. At that moment we regretted not buying a train ticket and even had the thought of alighting at the coming station to get down to get a ticket. BUT WE ENDURED THE 3HOURS... i am kinda proud of us haha!

After surviving the trip and we reached kaoshiung. We faced another problem. The problem with walking story, our another hostel. I have been emailing the hostel for a long time when i am still in singapore, but there were no replies. So i just booked the hostel, putting in trust that it will not be a scam.

At Kaoshiung train station, i called the hostel. And the number is non available!!!!!!!! WTHHH i was really scared that it really was a scam and we will have no place to live. Nonetheless, we took a cab to find the place ourselves.

LUCKILY, we found the walking story........ A really bad morning to start with with all these kind of shocking news happening.

It was already 2pm++ after all these happened. We put our stuff in the room and went out to have lunch.

The place we were living at is really near liuhe night market (we choose all our hostels near a night market), and the street is really empty!! Very very little stalls were open when the sun is still there. Look totally like a haunted zombie street.

So we just go to a random stall at the roadside to order some food.
We ate 鲁肉饭 and pig intestine soup. And the 鲁肉饭 is SO SO SO delicious!! The meat is really fat, but it is those 油而不腻 type. And the sauce going with the rice taste so good. Yumingly delicious. This is actually the best 鲁肉饭 we have eaten in our whole taiwan trip. The rice is really cheap too, costing only NTD 25.

Yummy 鲁肉饭

After having lunch, we went to take the 'MRT' to dream mall. We walked around, listen to live performances, go to a carnival, drink bubble tea, took the famous ferry wheel, eat some food. And we noticed that it is already 6+pm. Time to proceed back to the liu he night market!! EXCITED ><

Rich colours in the station

Prettiest MRT station

MRT ticket

Train is coming

Free Shuttle bus service to dream mall

Carnival ~ By the local student

波霸奶茶。 noticed all along the 珍珠奶茶 i drank in singapore is 波霸奶茶 . The different between the 2 is that 波霸奶茶 has big pearl while 珍珠奶茶 has small pearl.

Dream mall~

Live performances outside the mall

Ferry wheel ticket

View from the tallest point of the ferry wheel

Meat wrapping rice! Taste really good..

Meat wrapping rice, added cheese. DAMN NICE WITH CHEESE

When we went back to liu he night market, the scene changed COMPLETELY. It was so much livelier, tooo lively till it is a bit scary. The night market was so crowded with all the tourists, making it so difficult to walk. So we ta pao all the night market food back to our hostel to eat.
We have, papaya milk shake (liu he marke is famous for the papaya milk shake which tasted so good. Just look for the papaya milk shake stall with the longest stall, you will find it), fried mushroom (this taste good!), oyster egg (the sauce is not nice to eat), 麻辣烫(not spicy at all and it tasted like crap).

The food is really disappointing with the exception of the papaya milkshake. Liuhe night market is mainly cater to the tourists, and i heard that all the locals dont really go there. They normally go to another night market where the food taste better and is less crowded. (should ask the host about where the night market is) In liuhe nightmarket, it is really scary, with all the auntie pushing around, stepping shoes and being really inconsiderate. Really dislike the night market there ):

After going back to the hostel to bathe and settled down, we went out again late at night ~10pm to have some dessert at the cake store near our hostel. The atmosphere there was really good, the cake is quite nice and is really cheap NTD 50 each. We then calm our nerve and relax at the cafe, looking at all the tourist squeezing at liuhe night market.