Taiwan Food Trail

"Daxi is famous for Tofu," that was what we were told by the locals when we reached the old town, "don't you know?" Sheepishly we smiled at our own ignorance. We are not the kind to search for every single food, to track down the most obscure yet highly recommended food on blogs or variety shows. So bear with me, while I show how limited food we tried :P

It was quite an eye opener to see so many different type of bean curds. When we first saw these, I asked the shop owner if these were pig internals which Taiwanese are so fond of. 

Look at the variety of Tofu!!!

You know they love their Tofu as much as we loved our instant noodles, when you see tofu stations in 7-11... Yes... 7-11 has Tofu station, sweet potato and hotdogs station too!!!

Still in 7-11, check out the price of beers!!!

Walking out, this little van was seen on the streets of Taoyuan, serving typical breakfast of egg pancakes, onion pancakes and burgers. 

In the night market in Danshui, Shilin and many others, we found lots of snacks, which typically ended up as our dinner due to the huge portion and the variety offered. 

Deep fried baby crabs!!! Taiwanese love to deep fry their snacks, one which is recommended is deep fried king mushrooms in Sun Moon Lake.. we bought it twice, once upon arrival and another upon departure from the lake.

Look at these work of art.. wow!!! I wouldn't have eaten them if I were to buy these..

Mountain Top Home Stay

Our accommodation in Cingjing is Starry Home, one of the few home stays at the top of the mountain.

The owner, Mr Lee, is very hospitable, flexible and friendly. He offered guests pick up and drop off at places of attraction and also can arrange for local trips if required. We have steamboat dinner for the two nights we put up there, and he receives many tourists from Malaysia and Singapore.

It was quite high up in the mountains, come summer the view from the top will be great. When we visited was nearing the end of Spring, with showers in the evening and throughout the night. We were fortunate enough to have clear sky the next morning, else we could not have marveled at the magnificent view of the mountain ranges and the villages.  

Taiwanese Highlands

Cingjing Farm is a cluster of farms located at 1,750m sea level in Nantou County. The view from the mountains were absolutely breathtaking. We were lucky enough to have a window of approximately 5 hours in the morning for the views and the lamb farm show.

The trip from Puli took nearly an hour, as we held our breaths as the bus captain cautiously maneuvered along the mountain side roads to bring us to the farm.

The air was fresh and cool, the farm was filled with tourists, the mountain ranges were visible as the morning mist cleared.

We finally had the opportunity to wear our hand knit scarf and vest, painstakingly knitted by none other than my Mum :) It felt absolutely heartwarming, having them on us as we walked along the hilly terrain of the farms.

Evening by the Lakeside

Sun  Moon Lake is the the biggest body of water in Taiwan. It is shaped like the moon on one side and the sun on the other, hence the name which embodies the two celestial bodies.

The epicenter of the 921 Taiwan earthquake was located a mere 9kilometers away, and this changed some surrounding landscape around the lake. Tour guides on the ferry rides told us of the names of the landscape before and after the earthquake.

There are many stones such as this around the lake for photo taking opportunities. As it was near nightfall, there were not many tourists around this particular one and we had quite some fun with our tripod and camera. If not for the chill and impeding darkness, we would have continued on with more funny poses.

The area where we stayed in, Shui-se Pier was a highly commercial area, filled with tourists from local and abroad, eateries and souvenir shops. In order to escape the crowd, one needs to embark on any one of the numerous walking trails around the lake to feel the serenity of the lake and its surroundings.

Taipei Memoirs

Taipei 101, once the tallest building in the world, stood upright next to Taipei City Hall. Look closely and you can see various traditional Chinese designs incorporated to the exterior of the building. We chose to admire it from afar, a plaza in front of the City Hall proved a good spot, and out came the camera.

Get any closer to the skyscraper and you will find it hard to compose its whole grandeur design into a single photo.

It is quite an iconic building in the sense that by showing only parts of building, it can be easily identified.

We then took a bus ride around the city center and visited the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and subsequently the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall located around the Liberty Square.

Both memorials featured changing of the guards every hour and inside each, a giant statue of the revered national leaders. The political arena of Taiwan is an interesting one and we spent hours looking up for information about the formation of the republic and the lives of these two leaders.

The memorial hall forms one side of the Liberty Square, with the National Theater and Concert Hall forming the other two.

 

National Theater located in Liberty Square follows the traditional Chinese architecture similar to the ones in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. An untrained eye could easily mistaken the two. We didn't linger long in the square as we were in a hurry to the bridal studio for selection of our photos for the final printout. Yays..

Blooming Oasis

Direct translation of 花海 would be "Sea of Flowers", however the official English name for the farm is "Blooming Oasis". This intends to portray more, bringing into mind an oasis of flowers in the middle of the valley of plain greenness and it did the flower farm justice.

The flower farm had grown in popularity, thanks to various Taiwanese drama shot in the farm and the bridal photo shoot industry, which salivates at the multitude of colours in a single location.

We however chose to visit this place on our own instead of with the bridal photo crew, they can bring us to better locations around the city, we thought to ourselves.

We spent about 90 minutes in the flower farm, had great fun posing for the camera, with timed shutters and scrambling into position after the timer was started. There were a lot of hit and miss with this method, however, it was fun, nevertheless. Looking at the failed attempts, the number of trials we had to take, before the final one was accepted, we could relive the moment at that time.

Walking into a Movie Set

Link to YouTube Video used.Use arrow keys for volume control.

Stopping by the bus stand, we took the long way around to Jay Chou's school and shooting location for the movie "Secret", Tamkang High School located in a quiet alley in Danshui, a district north of Taipei.

We hesitated a while before entering, only after being encouraged by one of the parents by the gate. Apparently the high school was open for public, as long as they abide to certain visitor rules.

 

We were thrilled to find ourselves inside the school in front of the the iconic facade of the main building, which was prominently shown throughout the movie. Students were seen going by their normal school lives and oblivious to our presence, they must had received numerous visitors the likes of us.

 

Located next to the high school was Aletheia University. We found it amusing to find buildings with European architectures in Danshui. Apparently Danshui is one of the first few ports opened to foreign missionaries and was the entry point to Taiwan. During that time, this island was known as "Formosa", Portuguese for the term, beautiful.

 

We were glad that we gained entry into the school, various scenes of the movie flashed before our eyes as we walked along the corridors, past the iconic arcs and past students in uniforms, not unlike those in the movie.

 

Another famous landmark in Danshui is the Lover Bridge around Fisherman's Wharf. Upon nightfall the bridge was illuminated by rainbow coloured lights on both sides of the banks. It was very windy that evening and we cut short our visit around that area, only to return to Danshui the next day.

Sneak Preview

Guess where...

Again, I will need time to get a footing at work, to acclimatize to the hot spell in Singapore, before I can organize the photos and resuscitate this photo blog.