Exploring around School

Decide to explore the area around school these few days and discovered a few nice places.

Went with Shirlynn one night to find a dinner place and chanced upon this restaurant/cafeteria selling lunchbox sets. Erm, train lunchbox sets supposedly. Thought it was quite interesting so we decided to settle our meal here.

The order counter decorated as a ticket counter. So cute.

From the inside of the "train"

And this is my lunchbox! It's actually alot. I can't even finish it. But it is really nice. 

And today, I was searching for cafes online, and found that there's one near our school, so Xinrong and I decided to check it out. 

and here it is: 舊是經典咖啡室

The menu. All the drinks cost 100ntd with a small snack like a bun or crackers. Rather affordable for students.

Their shelves are full of home decor books.

And snoopy figurines!

After waiting for a while, our beverages are finally here!

This is Xinrong's Iced Chocolate Latte

And I decided to try something new - Iced Rose Cafe Latte. A flavour that I have never encountered.

This place certainly didn't let me down. According to Xinrong, the chocolate latte isn't too sweet. And for me, the rose cafe latte really has the subtle fragrance of roses. It is neither too sweet nor too bitter. Just the right amount of taste. Even after the ice has melted, the coffee doesn't taste diluted as well. 

Definitely a cafe that I will go again. 

Week 2 and 3 of SCHOOL~

It has been a lot of weeks since I updated. Haha. School has been quite busy I would say, there's already homework! And I have tests in two weeks time.

So let's see, where have I gone and what have I been doing?

27 September 2012
Since I only have class in the afternoon, Xinrong and I decided to do our hair. She wanted to have it cut and I wanted to have it dyed. Found a salon near our school. At first I was quite worried how the service and the quality of the outcome would be, but I guess it is not bad! What is best is it is really worth the money. I had my hair dyed plus treatment for 1340NTD (~SGD 50+)

The colour was much brighter when I first had it dyed. But still nice now! Although at the moment is laksek until cannot.

Then at night, Hyunmin brought the three of us to 東門市場. Which is actually the city area. There is a mini shopping street there, but I was too out of the shopping state to buy anything. For our dinner, I had 魷魚羹米粉 while Xinrong and Shirlynn had 炒米粉. Conclusion: 新竹米粉 is damn nice.

30 September 2012
Typhoon passed, so we decided to go Taipei once again! This time, we went to Taipei 101 building! Although I went before last time, always can go again! Haha. Ate at the food court downstairs. The food is not bad! But kind of expensive. (like duh~)

After that, we went to 師大夜市. The clothes there are really fashionable, and I bought my jackets there, since I needed them for the cold season. Recommended for youngsters I would say.

Oh, forgot to mention. That day was Mid-Autumn Festival. At first we thought we would not be able to see the moon because of the typhoon, but we saw it! It was so round and big and bright :D

3rd October 2012
It's october! Yes time has passed so fast. Anyway, as a dancer, how could I bear not dancing for so many months! So on this day, I mean, night, I went in search of my dance studios in Hsinchu. There are 2 so far, that I knew of. MIX dance studio and MerryMonarc.
Decided to try MerryMonarc's class, and realised that in Taiwan they kind of focus more on techniques. For a 1.5 hour class, 30 to 45 minutes will be spent on warming up and stretching. It's super thorough. And the remaining will be teaching the choreography, but the length of the choreography is not very long. I suppose I will be able to train my basics and techniques here....

First week of School

Well, it has been a week since I started school, and there's not much time to travel around anymore..

so,

on the 22nd of September,

Xinrong, Hyunmin, Hahye and I went to Taipei. It was Hyunmin and Hahye's first time there so we decide to bring them around. Went to 西門町 so that they could try 阿宗麵線! And of course I had to get a bowl too! Who could resist!

And for dessert, we went to...

Their 雪花冰 is a must-try! Highly recommended haha. Loved it to the max. There are many other flavours too!

After which, we went to 五分埔 for some shopping! This place is totally a heaven for girl's who love to buy clothes. It is an area that gathers wholesalers. So the clothes here are really cheap. What's more attracting is that they change their clothes every week. So you will never have to worry that there is nothing to buy!

五分埔 then leads to a very popular night market - 饒河觀光夜市. Which is where we went next.

There's basically two entrances for this night market. At the entrance that we were at, there is definitely one stall that catches your eye. And this is something you definitely have to try when you come here.

This! It is like a bun with minced meat and spring onion filling. The most important thing, it has a lot of pepper. Enough for you to taste it when you eat it. The queue is always very long (well of course since it is so famous).

There's a lot of food around too. Many choices haha. And there are also stalls selling clothes. The store for the taiwan online shop PGMall (sells bags) is also here.

It was a Saturday when we went to this night market so as you can imagine. It is super crowded. But too bad weekends are my free-er days.

On Sunday, Xinrong and I decided to stay in Hsinchu because we were too tired to travel. So, we went to the shopping mall here - Big City.

It is actually very convenient because they have a shuttle bus from Sogo near the railway station.

Big City... is really big. Haha. It also links to another SOGO departmental store there. Inside, there is a cinema, foodcourt, hypermarket, there's even Daiso! It's not a bad place to hang out, and outside Big City there are shops to walk around too.

And I had a first time there ----- Cold Stone Creamery!

My first time trying it. There are stores in Singapore! But I have never gotten down to trying it. So here I am eating it for the first time in Taiwan!

That's all for travelling till now. Till the next time.. It's studying and more studying... XD

Administration and more

Woke up at around 9am today. Not knowing what to do. Wondered how am I going to settle everything alone, from school administration issues to setting up a bank account.

Luckily, I met the two Singaporean exchange student girls who live next door, and I asked if I could follow them. They gladly agreed. Thank goodness.

Left to Right: Xinrong, Shirlynn, Me, Bryan

Hence, with them, we met up with their buddy, Bryan, who is a very nice guy. He brought us to have breakfast first. The breakfast is really cheap. And nice. After which, he brought us to the administration building to find Juilin, the teacher-in-charge. After which, he brought us around to settle everything. From the registration, to the dormitory internet, to even our taiwanese phone line. He helped us sign the plan under his name because we could not get a post-paid plan without a second identification. That was when I first had my internet again. YAY.

We wanted to settle our bank account in Taiwan, but we have not gotten our student ID. After that, he followed us back to our room to settle the wired dormitory internet. YAY! internet on the computer! finally. I was so miserable the previous day because I could not call anybody in Singapore, not even my family :(

After that, Bryan had something on and had to leave. The three of us decided to go to 新竹後站夜市 to have a look, as well as have our dinner. XD

Now for some food recommendation!

If you can read the chinese words, good for you. if not, erm. well it is some kind of spring onion pancake. What makes it special is that, there is egg inside. and when you bite it, the egg yolk oozes out. Really nice!

Papaya milk! Of course! how can you miss this in Taiwan! It is a must to drink if you ever come taiwan. The milk and the papaya is really well blended.

Yup, Didn't eat alot because my appetite is not that big, but this is some of the nice things here in this night market. The night market is not very big actually so there was not much.

Taiwan Day 1

Woke up early today to head to the airport. The guesthouse owner was nice to send me to the subway station to take the airport railway, also known as AREX. It is a much cheaper alternative as compared to taking a taxi.

Reached the airport early and queued to check in. The bad thing is, my luggage was overweight and I had to pay for the excess baggage. No choice.. My two hand carry bags were already very very heavy. After checking in, I settled all the tax refunds, and went to board the plane. Coincidentally, nobody was sitting beside me again. Just like the plane to Jeju. The flight was 2 hours, with a meal included on board. Had a quick nap before the plane landed.

Passed the immigration counter and went to collect my luggage. Everything was smooth and I came out to the arrival hall. Had to find the person picking me up, but I didn't see any sign, so in the end I had to call the driver. The driver told me to wait at the tourism counter so that the person picking me up could find me.

After that, we still had to wait for two other people because their flight was delayed. :( Could have reached NTHU earlier but all these happened. Reached NTHU and collected my dorm key. The room is really small for four people..

At least it was relatively clean.

After that, went to buy my mattress, blanket and pillow. By then it was already too late to go and find the teacher-in-charge of exchange students. Had to do it the next day. So I went to have dinner and headed back to the dorm.

What I was actually surprised was that my "buddy" actually told me to settle all the administration stuff the next day on my own. It is only my first day and I was left alone without guidance. Great.

Didn't have internet for the day as well :(