Taiwan Day 2 - Taipei 101 (Part 2)

To purchase tickets for the observatory, ticket booths are located on the 5th Floor. Food & Drinks are not allowed at the observatory. There are designated lockers which can be used to store your items for free & they are located beside the ticket booth. 

The elevators to the observatory are also located on the 5th floor. The ride up the high speed elevator from 5th to 89th Floor only takes 37 secs. That's super fast! 

**pssst... WIFI is still available on the 89th floor**

Way up at 89th floor, you can get a 360 degree view of Taipei. There are also platforms for children to stand on so they can have their share of the view... :)

Lucas was fascinated by the binoculars but he's still too short to use them. Love this picture of my sister and lucas :)

The view, even though partially covered by the mist, was breathtaking but I didn't really have much chance to enjoy them... I was so busy chasing Lucas around as he just won't sit still.

Hey, it's me at 89th floor....

We also made a short trip up the 88th floor to see the Wind damper. It is said to be the world's largest & heaviest wind damper! Due to the weather, the outdoor observatory was closed. We then head on down, walk to the station & took our ride home.

Taiwan Day 2 - Hello Kitty Cafe & Taipei 101

Day 2 on our itinerary is Taipei 101. One of the most famous landmark in Taiwan. From Ximen station, take the Bannan line (Blue) & alight at Taipei main station. Then, changed to the XinYi Line (Red Line) towards Xiangshan.

NOTE : Gotta be careful when getting on this train line as the board will show Xiangshan or Xindan. You don't want to board the wrong train. To go to Taipei 101, board the one towards Xiangshan. Alight at Taipei 101/World Trade Center Station. Taipei 101 is just above the station.

*extra note : You can take the blue line and alight at City Hall Station as well. From the City Hall Station, there's a good photography spot where you can actually capture Taipei 101 in the background. (will blog more about this  soon)

Because we heard about the hello kitty cafe in Taipei & we wanted to check it out, instead of the above mentioned route, we actually took the Blue line from Ximen station all the way to Zhongxiao Fuxing. We then took a short walk and did a little asking around & arrived at the famous Hello Kitty Sweets Cafe.

They open at 11am & we were half an hour early. There was already a short queue inside. We took some photos outside the cafe. Then, the crowd started to build up quickly. We took more photos while waiting.

The price is quite pricey for the small sized desserts.

Finally, it was 11am, everyone started to line up at the small entrance, where waitresses dressed in cute outfits attended to us. When it was our turn, the waitress told us that we must order NT$600 min to dine in. @.@ So, my advise is unless you are willing to spend NT$300 for a person, else you may wish to skip this place. :D We decided not to dine there & we left.

So, we walked back to the station & we had a simple lunch at the famous Ding Dai Fung in the mall beside the station, SOGO. If you wish to dine in Ding Dai Fung, please expect to queue. On weekends, you practically have to stand and wait quite long. We were lucky not the queue was not that long that day.
We waited about 10-15mins & it was our turn. Love the service at this restaurant. Baby Friendly - As Lucas was asleep in his stroller, the friendly staff actually arranged the chair & make sure there's a walk way for my to push my stroller in. So thoughtful of them. They even help me cover my jacket, which i hanged on my chair, with a case, I guess to prevent the jacket from getting dirty & all the stir-fry smell, lingering around which is common in a typical chinese restaurant.

Must have in Ding Tai Fung *Xiao Long Pau*. They taste as good as the one we have at Dragon-i :)
Price NT$120 for 6pcs.

We also ordered a bowl of mince pork with salted vege noodle. Quite Nice. No Complains here.

After lunch, we took the train to Daan Station & alighted at Xinyi Anhe. Read in a blog somewhere that is the station to alight, but end up it was quite a loooong walk! Just to find out that there's a stop right below Taipei 101. *(face palm)*

We took pictures of Taipei 101 from the opposite side of the road (HSBC building)

Inside Taipei 101, it's a shopping mall, where most familiar branded names are. The gold interior is very posh looking. The best thing about being in Taipei 101 is FREE WIFI. :) No Password required. The bad thing about Taipei 101 is there's very limited elevators. Gosh, to find one we have to walk from one end to another.

We were deciding whether we want to go up to the observatory tower or not as it was quite misty. I told my sister if the price is NT$500 or below then we go. Funny enough, when we reach the counter, the price of admission for adult is NT500 each and free for children under 12 years of age. 

Will blog about Taipei 101 Observatory in the next post :) Stay Tuned!

Taiwan Day 1 (Night) - Shilin Night Market

After freshening up at the hotel, we head up to Shilin Night Market for more food! :) We get on board the MRT from Ximen station using the Red Line (Tamsui Line). I think it cost about 20-25yuan (RM2-RM2.50). We then alight at JianTan station. There are sign boards guiding passengers towards the night market. You just won't miss the junction anyways, as it is the one pack with people.

Apparently, apart from food stalls on the street, there are also stalls down below at a basement. There's a banner that says night market food court midway along the street. Just take a lift / escalator down. Although I must say, this place is too pack & "smelly" (from the smelly tofu) for a stroller to manoeuvre, but Lucas was soundly asleep in it, so no complains.

First stop we ate, beef noodle soup! Thumbs up!

Next is the Oh Jian (Fried Oyster)... erm, Kinda too soggy with the sauce & it has lots of starch.

Next, I tried the bitter gourd juice (recommended by my husband & sister in law). @.@ it was so bitter! Apparently, this is not from the stall they mentioned. The stall the mentioned will put some honey to it, hence it's less bitter. So, yup, I have to finish up my bitter juice... >u<

Almost every other stall sells the same thing. Like exactly the same things... the special ones stands out and have a long line.

Next, we saw a line at this stall selling "little-cake-in-big-cake". Okay, this looks different. We saw a lot of picture with celebrities hanging around the store, since we don't read any chinese, we figured, this must be good. When lining up, the guy pass us a "selection menu", sweet or salty. It has both english and chinese... good :) We ask the guy to recommend. He pointed Peanuts. So, Peanuts it is.

It is made from a crepe like skin. Somewhat similar to chapati. 

They will place the crusted looking pastry (the one that looks like curry puff) and blanket it and hammer it into pieces. Then, add the flavour chosen earlier & they will roll it up like a spring roll.

Taste quite yums! I've tried the pork floss version too, not bad.

We had back up to the streets. We did some shopping. Manage to buy a few pieces of top for mum. It was hard to shop as most shops has steps, or are very narrow. A stroller is not so appropriate, a carrier would be a much better option for those travelling with lil ones.

We also had some fried milk. Yup, that's what it's call. Weird names they have. It's actually something like a toasted mochi, then you can choose the flavour for it. I chose the sweeten Condensed milk as recommended by the seller.

The thing about not being able to read chinese, we don't know what we are ordering sometimes. We see a line, and we start lining up for it (making assumptions it's good). This stall for example, sells sausages. we were kinda conned by the long line. LOL... it's long because aunty is so SLOW..... strategy maybe? Well, it one of those things we end up buying but not liking it too much. The condiments she put in the sausage was too strong for our liking.

We had a few more other street foods as we walk. Before we head home, Lucas woke up, so we bought some sugar coated strawberries for him to try. We ate the sugar coating as it's hard for him, he had some strawberries.

So, that ends our makan makan trip at the famous Shilin Night Market. (*I can still remember the stench of the stinky tofu while typing this...EWE**)

Taiwan Day 1 - Our Hotel & Ximending

Our flight to Taiwan was a late flight, when we reach taiwan, it was almost midnight. I'm not gonna blog much about it, will start from what we did on the first day.

Day 1 ( Morning ) - Ximending
A vibrant and one of the most happening place in Taipei. This is where our hotel is, and where we will be staying for the next 8 days... :)

This is taken right outside of our hotel.

When we first arrived at our hotel, Dairy of Taipei, The location was great as it's just beside the Ximen, MRT station & in the centre of the most happening place in town. But, we had quite a hard time looking for the hotel entrance. The entrance is actually a small walkway in between the shop lots. It is located at the 5th floor of this building. 

 We were early, so they allowed us to put our bags at the lobby until 3pm. So, we left our luggage at the lobby and head downstairs to our shopping haven.

I think we ate more than we shopped! The moment we went down we saw a street stall selling fried chicken & fried mushrooms. We wanted to try the friend mushrooms but they were sold out, so we opt for the chicken bites. Not too bad, but a bit oily. Could take much of it.

Next, we saw "yu tan" (fish balls) the lighter colour ones are the normal ones, & the darker one is the spicy one (hot pepper or "ma la").

We ordered two of each... feels great to have something hot when the weather is so cold!

OMG....The red pepper one was fiery hot!! Almost couldn't feel my tongue after taking one of those.

We ordered bubble tea along the way to cool down our burning tongue. Forgot to take pics >.< The price was reasonable for the bubble tea. Price starts from about RM4.50 for quite a large cup.

Next ,we saw some fried sweet potato balls. Lucas loved this one.

 Then we head to a shop for some "lunch" or maybe should call it tea. The oyster noodle & pork rice was just so-so.

How quickly time passed. Soon, it was 3pm. We head back to our hotel & check in to our room. First impression was good. Spacious, clean & simple. We booked a 3 pax room, as my sister in law will be joining us soon :)

Toilet was clean too. 

Quite satisfied with the overall room. I would recommend it to any of my friends or family who wants to visit Taipei :)

Hotel info :

Dairy of Taipei, Ximen

Address: 5F., No.152, Sec. 1, Zhonghua Rd., Wanhua Dist., Taipei City 108, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

Tel:(02)2314-4003