台灣～ 內灣，阿里山，苗栗

I keep forgetting to update, so here it is, the rest of my trip. I hope I remember most of it though.

Anyway, sometime in November, my family came to visit me and here are some of the places we went together.

內灣
this place is very near hsinchu, reachable by TRA on the 內灣 route.

here, there's the 內灣老街, basically a street selling food and stuff.

the landmark here would have to be this theatre, but it has been changed into a restaurant as well as a souvenir shop.

i would say this is the main attraction here! it's a must eat for all who come here. although a dumpling, it's not the big ones like the nonya dumplings. it's actually quite small, and the rice is not too sticky.

don't have a close up view of it but this is a stall selling the dumpling. there are many stalls around actually.

another landmark, the bridge.

basically there's not much to do here, but since that day i ended school quite late, this was a good place to go.

阿里山
so, during the weekend, we travelled down south, to alishan. we took the rail down to chiayi, were there would be someone to pick us up. by the time we reached, it was late afternoon, so we stopped by to have dinner while on the way up to alishan

in chiayi, there would be loads of these stalls around, because this place is known for their turkey. Not the kind we eat for christmas, but a smaller kind.

look at it, it's just like chicken rice, just that it is turkey. haha. not bad to try i would say.

so after dinner, we continued our journey up.

and we arrived at our accomodation!

the people here are really nice, like they just treat us to tea, without wanting us to buy any of their products. the guesthouse owner has his own tea plantation by the way.

we rested early because we were gonna be up very early the next day to catch the sunrise! and indeed, the next early morning, we went up into the mountains further to by tickets to go up to watch the sunrise. here's the catch. there's only 700 tickets being sold for the train up to the platform where people would see the sunrise. so you have to go early to queue.

it was so cold up there, because it's so high up in the mountains i regretted not wearing thicker >< but the view when the sun rose was amazing~~

after watching sunrise, we decided to walk around alishan. the forest is known for their very tall and old trees, many of which are more than a few thousand years old. it was a refreshing walk because the air is so fresh and the surrounding is very peaceful and quiet. a good getaway from the bustling city

so after a few hours in the forest, we left and went down to another railway station that is no longer in use - 奮起湖

a must do here would of course be, to eat their railway lunchboxes! what is special about these lunch boxes is they are made of wood.

the trip to Alishan roughly concludes around here, as we headed back to our accomodation to rest and pack up to leave the next day.

So, I happened to be free in the middle of the week, hence we decided to go to Miaoli. What made me want to go there was because of the Hakka culture, and my dialect group is Hakka. Again, we took the TRA down to 三義鄉, where we got into a taxi and travelled to our accomodation.

didn't manage to take a photo of our accomodation, but it was called 向陽田園 and it had a very nice environment. The owners were very nice too, helping to suggest the places we could go and how we could plan our route. They even offered to drive us to one of the attractions. there were only two attractions that we went to, but i would say it's quite sufficient. The only regret is that we didn't get to pick fruits because none was in season at that time. (strawberries picking season only starts in december).

龍騰斷橋 (broken bridge)

from the name itself, it is obvious that this bridge is broken. what made it a tourist attraction is probably its history i guess. however, if you are one that likes to explore, there are several paths you can go which actually take you to a different sight, for example:

otherwise, there's not much. we didn't stay here for long, because this wasn't the main purpose we came to miaoli.

勝興車站 (Sheng Xing Train Station)

this train station is not an abandoned one. however, it is only in use during a certain period. hence the tracks are actually open to tourists. just beside this train station is a street, full of hakka cuisine restaurants and cafes, and this is what i came for.

so we went to this restaurant recommended by many other bloggers - 勝興客棧

the place is not big, and quite cosy. and it had a retro feeling to it. the owner then passed us the menu - not the normal kind but:

and of course we had to order the well known hakka dishes. we ordered 4 dishes:

from top left clockwise: 梅干扣肉， 客家小炒， 菜圃蛋，客家豆腐
sliced pork with preserved cabbage, vegetables cooked in hakka style, scrambled egg and tofu 

as a Hakka, i'm very proud of these dishes, and i can't describe how nice these are. I can only show it to you:

TOTALLY GONE

we also went to a cafe, somewhat, to drink a famous hakka beverage - 擂茶

apologies for the blur photo, but this place is also recommended by other bloggers. the decor inside was also very special

anyway, my mother ordered the original 擂茶 while i ordered the almond flavoured one. it came in cups like this

there is also the kind where you can grind the powder before adding water to it. the DIY 擂茶 but we didn't felt the need for it. the owner was very nice though, he gave us free muahchee! freshly made

it came in a lump, with peanuts all over and you have to cut it up yourself. very much like the ones sold in pasar malams, just that this one is much nicer. the peanuts are very fragrant and the muahchee isn't as sticky as what we thought would be. what's more, it's hot so it tastes especially nicer.

so after eating so much, we had to exercise. so we decided to walk back to our accomodation via this:

by that time it was getting darker so we had to walk fast. torchlights are needed inside because the tunnel is actually quite long. while walking inside, two service trains passed us. but it doesn't really cause any problems because there are places for people to stand in when trains pass by. and this tunnel leads straight up to the doorstep of our accomodation! walking through the tunnel is quite an adventure i would say. 

and that's about the end of this little journey! more to come, though. :)

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. 

苗栗國際煙火節

27 October 2012

It was the last day of the Miaoli International Fireworks Festival, so Xinrong and I decided to go and catch the last few fireworks show. From Hsinchu to the venue by train is very fast! Around 30 minutes. Thank goodness the ticket counter person told us to go earlier because there really were a lot of people. The festival was really big scale.

We watched 3 fireworks show altogether. The first one was by Taiwan. And I would say it is the best out of the three we watched. My camera just snapped photos of it all the way. Almost nonstop. The second one was by America, the pyroshow. Heard about it, but it was actually quite disappointing as there's too much smoke. Way too much. Not much photos were taken because of the smoke. The third one was by China. Not bad, the display fitted the music perfectly. But the variety of fireworks isn't that much. But we still enjoyed the night :)

Now for some stills of the fireworks:

清境農場 + 墾丁 10/9 - 13/9

Woke up and travelled to 台中 with my big backpack. After about 2 hours, we reached 台中and met up with Xinrong's friend Miki. With that, we travelled for another 2 hours to our destination, 清境農場.

The weather there was so nice! It is so cooling but not too cold. Exactly what I wanted to experience when I came to Taiwan.

After leaving our bags at the accomodation, we went to 青青草原. What to do there? Very simple.

Get close to the sheeps! The sheeps here are free to roam so you can just go close to them and snap some pictures. There are also vending machines that sell sheep feed so that you can feed them.

There is also a shop where they sell 羊奶 and their products. There's even ice cream! Finally I got to drink my 羊奶. Haven't drank it for so long and they have it here! Super happy.

青青草原 closes at 5pm so we went to 小瑞士花園 after that. By the time we walked there, it was already dark. I forgot to bring my camera flash so no good pictures at night. :( But the night view is really very pretty! 小瑞士花園 isn't very big, so we came out very fast. The exit leads to a souvenir shop called Carton King. The things they sell inside are really interesting. All made of paper or cardboard. They even sell paper lights. I bought the Eiffel Tower one, but I'm only going to assemble it when I get back to Singapore.

The next day, we woke up early to go to 小瑞士花園 again, this time to see the day view. I can say it's really different. Actually we wanted to catch the sunrise but none of us could wake up. :/

It's the pinwheel festival apparently, so there were many exhibits that are all made of pinwheels.

After that, we travelled to 墾丁. We couldn't bear to leave 清境 actually :( But if we don't go 墾丁 now I don't think we will have the chance to go anymore.

It was a very very long ride down. Around 4 hours. By the time we reached it was already the evening, and we are all very hungry. To solve this, we went to the night market!

Ate so much until I was so full but the food is nice! Bought some souvenirs as well.

The next day! The main reason why we came to 墾丁 haha. After breakfast, we went to...

 yup the beach! and did so many water activities. We bought the unlimited package that entitles us to every activity offered, including snorkeling, jetskiing (but of course with the coach), banana boat, etc. The result? we were all sunburnt quite badly. But it was really satisfying!

At night we settled our dinner at the night market again. This time trying the 鹽酥雞 that the guesthouse owner recommended.

Take note of this yellow signboard!

Yup. At night we all crashed because we were all so tired from the water activities. Haha.

Woke up on the last day and it was quite a rush. Had to rush back to school for a health check-up, so we had to take the HSR. Took a taxi to 左營 HSR station and bought our tickets. The ticket is really expensive. 1160NTD for the journey to Hsinchu. But it took really fast to reach! only 1 hour 30 minutes.

And this marks the end of our short trip. After the health examination we all went back to our rooms to rest because we were so tired (and sunburnt) to do anything else.