Taiwan trip part 3

...continuation of Day 2.

The dance party was amazing!! Seriously....a dance culture shock for me!! When I entered the club, it was packed with dancers doing their thing on the dance floor without a care in the world. Their freestlye and musicality was super good. When the music style changed, so did their dance style. It seems that many of the dancers there were well versed with several different dance styles.

Super cool~~

We headed to the 3nd floor where we were allowed to place out luggages in the VIP room since we didn't have time to go to the hotel first. We were already late anyways. The battles have already started.

Almost everyone is there to join the battle and not just 1 category...There were seriously many participants e.g for hiphop alone, there are more than 100+.

The judges were seated in front and the participants would all gather in front of them. Numbers will be called and for each number, there will be 3 dancers on the dance floor battling it out. When their turn is over, another number will be called. So you've got to be alert if you're participating as you wouldn't wanna miss your turn. Newbies might feel lost and dunno when to enter or exit as the music continues without stopping and you just gotta go out when ur number us called....

After the auditions is the quater finals, semi-finals and lastly finals. Half-way through the battles, we got hungry and left for lunch during the bboy session.

Walked out to find yummy street food. We stopepd by this stall where all of us ordered the same thing. For me, it's because it's the only thing that looks safe to be eaten. hahaa.....

The food was great! Super filling~ but I gobbled everything down.

Yummy glutinous rice + wontons...at least 10 of them + duck soup + old fashion glass bottled soft drinks for only RM10+.

wontons

duck soup.....first time tasting something like this....not bad~

see....old-fasion glass bottles. Couldn't even see this in malaysia nowadays. Plus this fanta orange drink....never even seen it before.

Old fashioned Fridge....

Before the finals was the long awaited judges showcase!! I thought that I would only be fascinated by the hiphop and poppin category but boy, was I wrong. My jaw totally dropped during the house showcase because I never thought that anyone's feet could move so fast and light too!!! My mouth was wide open the whole time!!!!

Ahh...it's soo nice just to sit down there and watch everyone dance!!! *happy* After the event, dancers swarmed around the judges, bombarding them with questions about dance.....and I just squeezed in to listen!...which is why there's this funny pic....

Smile!!!

At night the local dancers there brought us to this cafe for drinks but us girls were soooo tempted to shop that we went shopping by ourselves around the area and only got supper when there took us to a night market there.

It's actually quite easy to buy clothes to dance in around the area because I guess ppl there dresses up more stylishly or that there are a lot of dancers in that area.The only catch is that you can't try anything!!! Every single piece of clothing that I bought there were based purely on luck because we were not allowed to try anything on! Plus most clothes are free style, so it's take it or leave it!!

Whee~ after shopping we headed to the Liuhe night market....

First stop was to taste this delicious pork soup. hehe...it's like the taiwanese version of bah kut teh. Aaahh~ nice hot soup on a cold night! Yummy! the radish was tasty as it has absord the flavour of the soup and the meat was.....QQ??? about RM6 per bowl.

Whee...managed to try their aiyu bing....

Some stalls we passed by along the way...

Fried HUGE mushroom and octopus tentacles~ tried the fried tentacles and they were yummy but I dare not try the mushroom because I was afraid that I might get mushroom poisoning. Dare not take the risk as I'll be performing the next day.

Oooo...the super delicious "tigua".....fried, cooled and then coated with a layer of sugar syrup or honey!! I love this sooo much!

Yea, really hope that I can find this lovely snack in Malaysia.....yummylicious!!!

Another yummy dessert that we tried was the "leng dong yu tou"...cold yam soup which came in a clear sweet soup with a huge piece of yam, served cold. It looked plain at first but one bite andooo....ur in heaven! but among the 2, I still prefer the syrup coated fried potatoes....

...and that's the end of Day 2.

Yay! Yamapi's face is a guiness world record...

Yay! Yamapi's face is a guiness world record...

.....er....not exactly his face....but his face was still used!!!

Whee~~~ it's for kirin's namacha 10th anniversary. They decided to make a huge mossaic picture of Pi's CM for them using 4770 bottles, with 9540 participants.

Where? at the main stairs of Fuji Terebi.....

Over 4 days, people bought namacha at the event and were given tickets to have their pictures taken on either side of the board below with Pi's picture in the background. The pics were then printed onto the bottles....2 person per bottle.

The bottles were then used to build the huge world's largest mossaic picture as the one below. Participants were even given id numbers so that they could locate their pictures on the mossaic once it's completed. The full mossaic pic can be seen here :http://www.namacha-event.jp/pc/mosaic.html and true enough, you can really key in ur id number to track our picture. And here's the CM for the namacha......

What's better than 1 Pi is having 2 Pis....haahaa......

Taiwan Trip part 2

Day 2, leaving to Kaohsiong form Taipei

Last minute picture session at the beautiful veranda....

Looks just like a cozy home....

Last group pic before leaving...

How can we not pose with the sign board too?

Moving out huge luggages.....
Stopping to buy food at a local family mart.....super convenient! Anything....you name it, they've got it!!!

My favourite is still the plain and simple onigiri. the have rice, noodles....chinese, japanese, western....frankurts, cakes, puddings, sandwiches and stuffs.....You can basically get your 3 meals from there.

The yummy german sausage...which they'll heat up for you. Not really healthy in my opinion as the food is still in it's plastic packaging and they just heat it up for you in a microwave oven. ...but who knows, maybe the manufacturers used microwave safe plastics.

A lovely sign....must apply..... Some bento meal bought from a small mini mart at the Taipei Main Station. It comes in a think papaer boz and they'll reheat it for you. We saw a large empty area at the station where dancers are allowed to practice their dance. I didn't see any mirrors at this particular area but I heard there are areas with mirrors. This part where I saw has at least 8 empty slots with sockets for their portable CD players. At that moment, only about 5 slots were used with groups of dancers practicing dance.

It's really difficult to learn without mirrors but these guys seem ok and the sight it just so amazing. Over here, if 2 or more people gather and do something like this at our lrt station, we would be kicked out by the guards or charged for illegal gathering.

Me...waiting for the time board the bullet train......

Tada- the ticket for the shinkansen ride (bullet train). So excited to be on one since I've always wanted to ride in one. Ahhh...how I wish I was travelling from Tokyo to Osaka instead! lol...but Taipei to Kaohsiong is pretty cool too.....

Yea, finally get to enjoy my onigiri on the ride.... Just follow teh 1,2,3 instructions to open the wrapper. Picture session first......before we zzzzzzzzz............during the 2 hours ride. Someone who stayed awake doing waackin during the ride curi-curi took pic of us.

Yea....finally arrived at Kaohsiong Main Station and we need to change trains.....*dragged our luggage here and there*

Dancers hangin outside Dreams club when we arrived for the party. Actually...ppl were gathered around the legends and chatting happily with them. Original T-shirts were being sold at the entrance.

Spot my shoe!!! er...the most non-dance looking one.....but it's totally me!!!

hahaa..pink and flowery~~~

whee~ to be continued....

Taipei Trip part 1

Whee....

Part1 of my super anticipated trip to Taiwan!!! Glad that I made the trip even though it made me 3.5k or more poorer....

We boarded the plane on 16/04/20 at KLIA to Taouyuan, Taipei, at 3.20pm via EVA Air. The air fare costs about RM772. Not sure what the normal rates are but I think it's ok.....as long as the flight is comfortable and you're provided with all the extra stuffs without having to pay extra.

It's a good thing that we didn't get Air Asia because for such a long flight....almost 5 hours, you really need some in-flight entertainment, blanket, pillow and hot food to make the journey more comfortable. Plus you don't have to worry about getting lousy seats because EVA Air sends you an itenary which included all the necessary information such as flight details, travel tips and seat number! Oh and we get 23kg for baggage instead of only 15kg.

There were supposed to be 8 of us on this trip but unfrotunately 1 couldn't make it and there goes his ticket! So I ended up with an extra empty seat next to me during the flight. Or else 8 of us would have occupied the entire row of 8 seats.

I love in flight entertainments esp. movies. Managed to watch Kaiji and bits of Avatar. Kaiji was a bad choice as it was scary and I started imagining bad things on the flight!!! haahaa......

I was so happy when the food arrived because it was getting cold and I was getting hungry.

"Chicken or Fish?"

"erm...fish??"

...and it turned out to be curry fish. haahaa......but not bad because I love caramel puddings....

Yes food is always better than No food....

Here's the chicken one.....
Realising that I'm now of age to drink alcohol......I immediately asked for red wine. It's not that I like alcohol.....but just for the fun of it. Lol.....Luckily I had a fellow drinker next to me!

Cheers!!!

Anyways I don't like red wine because of the bitter taste but it did help warm me up.

I soon found out that I couldn't use my phone when we landed. Sigh~ I also forgot if I was able to use my phone or not when I last visited Brunei with the same sim card.

The line for international tourists was super long!!!!! But the immigration officers were still managed to put on a nice smile when it was my turn and they can speak englishh well~

We bought bus tickets for NT160 which included return nus tickets to Taipei Main Station and from there we took train to Guting for only NT20.
I immediately realised that taiwan has a lot of mini marts esp. 7/11. During my short bus ride, I must have seen at least 20 7/11. Another thing I realised was that they have so many petrol stations own by different companies. Plus they have many tiny shops, as in really tiny..., along the road with huge glass walls facing the road. And inside, you can see 1/2 girls sitting there, doing something......erm...nail art shops?? or tailor???

Taiwan has really good public transport system. It's just like Japan, everything's underground and they have several types including shinkansen. Even the ticket machine resembles those in Japan.

The train stations are clean and tourists friendly with hanyu pinyin or english signs. They have even have maps at every exit so that you know you're exciting from the right exit and how to proceed from there.

The only things that were different from here was that they use fake plastic coins with computer chips in them instead instead of paper tickets. It's so easy to misplace them because they're so tiny and shaped just like a 20cents coin except for the fact that they're blue. Oh, and in Taiwan....."slow folks on the right please!" haaha.....I'm so used to standing on the left!!!

Plus we're travelling with our huge luggages. I had to make sure that my luggage stays right behind me when I'm on the escalator.....so that I won't block anyone and I had to do it fast!!!

Every where we went, we were probably the noisiest bunch because 7 of us....dragging 9 luggages as we walked on the streets on Taipei at night.

Was super happy when we arrived at the backpackers place but no one answered the door. We saw an enveloped stuck to the door with 1 of the guy's name written on it, opened it and found keys plus instructions to the rooms on it.

How nice of the person!!! Ain't she worried that some thief might take the keys instead? At that moment, I thought, "wow....Taiwan is really safe". haaha.... We walked up the dark scary stairs and tried the keys on different floors before we called the person and found out that it was on the second floor, haaha...we thought it was the whole building!!!

Dumped our stuffs there and went to the night market, located just right behind the Chocolate Box!!! yea~~~ I was starving by then.....

Even before we crossed the street to the Shida night market, I could smell this......

huu...it's was my first time smelling it. It smelled better than expected but I still dare not try it!

Instead I tried delicious takoyaki's, yummy hot steamed dumplings, hot peppery squid soup and CREPES!!!

Even though it was midnight, the place was still packed and we did manage to shop a bit for leggings, bangles, earrings, socks etc.

Before leaving, how could we not visit their 7/11 to get some snacks first??? Calpis drinks!!! here I come!!

Here's our room...it has 4 bunk beds! I slept at the lower compartment on the right. Bad choice!!!! Sun rises at 5.15.....and gah.....I can't sleep with the sun glaring!!! This bed has got to be the hardest bed I ever slept on!!!! But the comforters were super soft and fluffy!!!!