18~22 MAR 2014 TAIPEI+TAICHUNG F&E ITINERARY

Hello!

I just returned from my Taiwan trip 6 days ago and I've a few friends requesting for my itinerary.
So, instead of emailing them my itinerary..

I might as well fill up a skeleton itinerary of my trip in this blog and share with everyone who loves Taiwan just like me!

Now... HERE GOES...

5D4N TAIPEI+TAICHUNG F&E (18~22MAR)

18MAR :

TR2922 SIN-TPE 0830-1310

·         Upon arrival Taoyuan Airport, transfer to Jogging Bear Min Su by Taxi (NT1000 per way).

·         Checked in Min Su around 3pm, meet friend to drive up to Yilan for Seafood dinner and prawning.

·         Drive from Taipei to Yilan is about 1hr15min.

·         Dinner at around 5.30pm. (dinner area is just beside prawning area)

·         Prawning for 2hr, ended around 8.45pm.

·         Drive to Luo Dong Night Market to do a bit of shopping and eat local snacks.

·         Drive back to Taipei around 10.30pm, reached Min Su almost 12mn.

**SLEEP**

19MAR:

·         7.30am – Rise & shine!

·         Depart at 9am via our pre-booked taxi to have breakfast at Yong He Dou Jiang, then continue to Jiu Fen.

·         Drive up to Jiu Fen takes about 1hr, reached around 10.30am.

·         Shopping and lunch at Jiu Fen till 2.30pm.

·         Returned to Min Su to unload shopping loots.

·         Leave Min Su around 4.45pm. Took their Metro to Shih Lin Night Market. (Cost about NT20~25 per pax per way from Xi Men Station to Jian Tan Station)

·         Dinner and shopping at Shih Lin Night Market till around 10pm.

**SLEEP**

20MAR:

·         8.30am – Rise & shine!

·         Depart around 9.30am to have breakfast at a small stall located below “Airline Inn Hotel”. (3-5min walk from Jogging Bear Min Su) They serve really nice fried chicken toast, carrot cake and ice milk tea!

·         Took Metro to visit Crayon Shinchan Exhibition (Entrance fee NT250 per adult)

(details here : http://avex.com.tw/SHINCHAN/ ) – Exhibition till 4^th Jun 2014

·         From there, take a cab to visit LINE Exhibition because there is no direct metro to take. (Entrance fee NT250 per adult)

(details here: http://en.ntsec.gov.tw/User/Article.aspx?a=178 ) – Exhibition till 27^th Apr 2014

·         Returned to Min Su to unload shopping loots and wash up.

·         Dinner at Ximending’s飞天麻辣火锅. It’s about NT330 ~ NT360 per pax. You must attack their seafood and beef!!! The fish is nice~

·         Continue shopping at Ximending Night Market before returning to Min Su.

**SLEEP**

21MAR:

·         7am – Rise & Shine!

·         Leave  Minsu around 8am for breakfast at the small stall located below “Airlines Inn Hotel”.

·         Booked a mini van to drive up to Taichung departing from Xi Men Station Exit 6 at 9am. You can choose to travel up via high speed rail. We booked the mini van because there is 9 of us, so it is cheaper. The driver will drive us to the places we want to visit for 15hr at NT10000. (From Taipei to Taichung by car is about 2hr 30min)

·         First stop : Carton King at Da Keng (Reached around 11.30am, so we had lunch there.)

·         Second stop : 妖怪村

·         Third stop : Feng Jia Night Market – Reached at about 5.45pm. Dinner and shopping till 9.15pm.

Tip : Feng Jia Night Market’s stuffs are usually cheaper compared to those sold in Taipei. So just buy more from there.

**SLEEP**

22MAR:

·         8.30am – Rise & Shine!

·         Breakfast at Xi Men Ding – Ah Chung Mee Sua (they open at 10am if I never remember wrongly)

·         Return to Min Su to do last minute packing.

·         11am – Check out.

·         Booked a taxi to transfer to Airport at 11.30am

TR2993 TPE-SIN 1355-1835

**HOME SWEET HOME** 

Some other places you might want to go which I’ve went previously via Metro;

TO DAN SHUI (淡水)

1. Take the Metro to TAIPEI MAIN STATION and transfer to DANSHUI LINE (Red line)
2. Alight at terminal station (About 40min ride) 

TO SHILIN NIGHT MARKET (士林夜市)

1. Take Metro to JIAN TAN STATION (Danshui Line / Beitou Line)
2. Go to Exit 2
3. Walking distance, approximately 5min to arrive night market  

TO WU FEN PU &  RAO HE NIGHT MARKET (五分埔 & 饒河夜市)

1. Take Metro to HOU SHAN PI STATION (後山埤)
2. Go to Exit 1
3. Walking distance to both locations is about 10-15min 

TO MIRAMAR SHOPPING CENTRE (美麗華 FERRIS WHEEL)

1. Take MRT to JIAN NAN STATION (劍南路站)  
2. If you have time, you can go have a meal at one of their unique restaurant called : Five Cent Drift Wood Restaurant (五角船板)

TO HELLO KITTY THEME RESTAURANT

1. Take Metro to ZHONG XIAO FU XING STATION (忠孝復興站)
2. Go to Exit 3
3. Walking distance about 5min  

TO DING TAI FUNG RESTAURANT (鼎泰豐)

1. Take Metro to ZHONG XIAO FU XING STATION (忠孝復興站)
2. Go to Exit 2
3. Walk to SOGO Basement 2 - it's somewhere there

Some food that I personally like and MUST EAT whenever I visit;

Feng Jia night market -大肠包小肠 by 管芝霖

(Actually they have a stall in Shih Lin Night Market in Taipei, but somehow this food originates from Taichung)

Luo Dong night market –臭薯条

(Personally I don’t dare to eat smelly tou fu.. but this is quite special cos it is being cut into the size and shape that resembles French Fries! I tried eating smelly tou fu for the first time and i like it!)

In my opinion, the one with Thai Chilli Sauce tastes the best.

Shih Lin night market – Cheesy Potato !!! It is really sinful but it is a MUST TRY! They actually have a stall in Xi Men Ding too, somewhere near KFC. Look out for it;

Another food I will not miss in Shih Lin night market is : 棺材板

It is actually a really thick bread, but they emptied the centre and filled them with creamy soupy meat and vege. You can choose the type of meat, but personally I like the chicken and the pork.

Jiu Fen :  Popiah wrap ice cream! This stall is quite prominent when you walk through Jiu Fen, definitely will be able to spot it. It’s my daughter’s and my personal’s favourite dessert after having a main course in Jiufen.

For my main course in Jiu Fen, I always go to their Beef Noodle stall which is just the first three shops on your right upon entering Jiufen from the 7-11 entrance.

  

The signboard;

NOTE : If you want to order, please just say “牛肉面”.. then your bowl will consist of beef+noodle+soup.

But if you say “牛肉汤面” then your bowl will only have beef soup base+noodle and no meat at all. LOL!

That’s almost about it.

Enjoy your trip! =)

**Disclaimer : All photos in this post are not mine. All are sourced from the internet as I do not have my own pictures in this computer.**

Fujifilm Instax Share Printer Sp-1

Bought the Fujifilm Instax Share Printer 2 weeks ago, experimented with it and found it really useful.

Firstly you can connect to it using your Smart Phone(Android or iOS), your tablets or iPads.

You just need to download their Instax Share App, available on Apple App Store or Google Play.

A few good points about this app is that, you can print real time, which is the current Date/Time, Temperature, Humidity Etc.

Or you can print your Facebook and Instagram Photos which you can link to the printer using the App.

Or you can print from your Phone's or Tablet's photo album, meaning you can upload/transfer those hi-res photos which you took using your Digital Cameras and upload into your tablets and print out with higher resolutions.

Or you can take photos, edit and print using their templates.

Many kinds of customization available and not only limited to non-edited photos unlike other brands which we had used before. The prints are of the highest Quality and you can print over and over again the same picture which you want to gift to your friends or loved ones.

It uses Instax Films which is easily available in the market. The films are IC sized, you can keep the photo of your loved ones and you in your wallet. Decorate your sketch books with the photos taken with your friends etc etc.

No ink require. Runs on 2 CR2 Batteries or a 5V DC adapter which is sold seperately.
Comes with 2 CR2 Lithium Batteries which approximately can print up to 100pcs.

Best thing is each print only takes 16s!

We are currently selling the service of helping to print the polaroids. Plain types, comes with normal postage, registered mail charges accordingly. You can email to jocelyn@moomoopets.sg or leave a comment for more details. =)

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 5, Pack up and return to Singapore

Time to pack up and go home, it's been an awesome trip though not as cold as the previous trip, it's still cold enough for our enjoyment.

Thank you Korea for the great memories which Jocelyn and Me had, the wonderful culture, food, safe streets, cold weather, wonderful shopping and cosmetics. We will be back soon!

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 4, Highlight of the Tour! Whole day Trip to Everland! Pictures of the fun filled day!

There's so many rides to play, from excitement to fun to cute to kiddy rides. And my what a huge theme park! So many things to see, play, do, take photos and eat!

This is the first ride that we took! Spin spin spin! hahahahaha hin ah!

Lotsa of pictures to take at their walkways, parks and shops! hahaha

They have the Liger which only Everland has in the whole world! A mix between a Lion and Tiger RAWR!

They also have their own procession show at certain timings, makes you feel like you're in fairyland.

There are rides for couples, the family and kids

So many things to see, do and eat! But so little time! And it is time to leave the place, we'll be back Everland very soon! Thank you for all the lovely memories which we had while there!

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 4, Highlight of the Tour! Whole day Trip to Everland! How to go to Everland and leave thereafter

Day 4 of our Seoul Tour, we're going to Everland! Weather is fine, no rain!

We woke up around 7.30am to get ready and had our breakfast at the nearby Paris Baguette Cafe near our hotel. Set off before 9am because we will be taking their public transport today and Everland is at the outskirts of Seoul so it may take abit of travelling time to get there. Below are the directions for those intending to take their public bus transport system to Everland Theme Park.

1)   Take Subway to Gangnam Station Line 2

2)   Walk to Exit 10, go up the stairs and walk straight till you see Giordano Shop, the bus station is just right after Giordano.

3)   Take the Express Bus there, Bus No. 5002, One Way Fare of 2,100 won, can be paid using T-money

Takes about 1 and a half hour to get to Everland from the Seoul City Area.

4)   Bus will bring you to the Everland Shuttle bus Terminal, announcement will be made in different languages, English, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean.

5)    Get off the bus and transfer to the free Everland Shuttle Buses which will take you another 5-10mins to get to the gates of Everland.

*Intervals of the shuttle buses are quite frequent of 10-15mins.

6)   Walk to the tickets booths at the gates, queue up, show the brochure discount coupon for foreigners, prepare your passports as proof, 2 tickets set us back at about 48000 won, could not remember the exact amount =X.

*Coupon is valid up to 4 Pax, if you have more pax going you can pick up the brochures at your hotels lobby or get it from the Tourist Help Centres. However on coupon it states that the discount applies also with a valid foreign passport.

7) Off you go in, they have guide maps stands at the front of the gates  for different languages

Advisable to start leaving around 6pm, the travel back from the outskirts to the city area can take you up to 2hours

Leaving Everland(Approximately 1Hour 55mins to get back to Myeongdong, I find this fastest although you have to switch lines a couple of times)

1)   Take the Shuttle bus, the same bus stop that you drop off when you arrived to get back to the Bus Terminal.

2)   You can either take the bus 5002 back to Gangnam or you cross an overhead bridge to take the LRT to Giheung Station. Get off the station and walk to Giheung Subway Station, there are signages to guide you just follow the arrows.

3)   Take the subway from Giheung(Bundang Line) to Wangsimni Station where you can transfer to Line 2 to Dongdaemun History Culture Park Station and Transfer to Line 4 to go back to either Dongdaemun or Myeongdong.

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 3, Part 2, Lunch at the famous Chuncheonjip Dakgalbi Makguksu & shopping at Sinchon Ladies Street, Finale of the day at Namsan Seoul Tower

After taking countless pictures with many many many different scenes at Trick Eye Museum, time for us to go for lunch! You get hungry very easily in cold weather.

We walked back to Hongik University Station and took the train to Sinchon Station, it's only one stop away. Jocelyn said we should go try the famous dakgalbi there, lots of good reviews of the dakgalbi.
Below is the map that we found from another site to share with you of the location.

Directions to Chuncheonjip Dakgalbi Makguksu:
1) Take Subway Line 2 to Sinchon Station.
2) Exit from Exit 1, go straight turn left onto the first side street and then turn right at the end of the street (Hyundai Department Store is a landmark there)
3) Go straight for 130m and cross the street
4) The restaurant is next to Changcheon Children's Park

Ok for those we don't know, dakgalbi means Chicken Hotplate, it's a Korean dish where the marinated chicken is cooked over a hotplate infront of you, there's vegetables, onions, chicken meat, Korean chilli paste, you can choose to have rice or ramyeon cooked together with it or you can have the rice and chicken separately.

We ordered dakgalbi with ramyeon, the fresh chopped uncooked chicken meats and vegetables were delievered fast to our table by the efficient staffs. At first look, you would think that you need to cook your own food however you are wrong, the staffs would ask you to sit down relax, have a drink and the side dishes while they move around and help you with the cooking. Service is good!

Look at the crowd and this is around 1.30+pm cannot imagine during lunch the crowd would be like how. Lots of tourists and locals come to this shop to eat the dakgalbi, 4 out of 5 stars for the food and service!

And they provide you with an apron to protect your clothings from any spurting from the pan. We added cheese to it, it kinds of mellow downs the spicyness and gave it abit of saltiness to it.

We ordered rice to be added later into it after we finished about 1/2 of the chicken and all of the rice cakes. You can order without Ramyeon and have rice instead because it is really very full afterwards!

After the filling and tasty lunch, getting some directions from Rachel earlier, we decided to walk to Sinchon Ladies Street Market.
It is not very difficult and you can tell if you are on the right track because you can see alot of people walking the same trial, lots of local young and old also walk to Sinchon Ladies Street.

Ok so from the restaurant, we crossed the street and walked along and turn left into the first side street and then go straight again until you passed Pizza Hut and you would see alot of people walking along these street and you would need to cross again at a T-junction traffic light. Follow the crowd and continue walking till you see this!

Sinchon old train station!, that's the landmark, continue walking along the street and straight ahead is Sinchon Ladies Street.

This is the start of the Ladies street, lots of cosmetics, 10,000won shops, ladies tops, street food etc etc.
A place where many locals and tourists alike like to shop.

Well Jocelyn personally like this 10,000won bag shop, all bags, big or small is only at 10,000won at this shop. She bought 2 bags one for her daughter and one for herself. I got myself a sling bag =D

I also got myself a nice lanyard with money clip at 15,000won at one of their road stalls, lots of nice things to buy, look and eat here!

After walking, window shopping, shopping, tasting street food till 4+ we decided to take a cab back to Hotel, drop off our shopping loots, rest for awhile before going to the Concierge and ask for directions to Seoul Tower.

Well silly me, I didn't realise that Seoul Tower is just so close to our hotel hahaha, it is just a walk across the street. Well the walk took us about 20mins - 30mins, as the pathway is rather uphill, good excersise to burn off the Dakgalbi this afternoon and such a nice cooling weather to walk. You won't even break a sweat at 18degrees celsius!

Finally we reached the Cable Car Station! Queued up to buy tickets, there's alot of people since it's a weekend, many locals and tourist alike wants to take the cable up to see the scenery.

Got us both a round trip ticket at 17,000won. Queued to go up to the topmost level of the cable car boarding platform.

The sky started to turn dark around 5.30 real quick, that's the shot of the tower at last light of the day in the cable car

That's a shot of Seoul from the cable car

 We're finally at the base of Seoul Tower! Pretty lights in the night, like a huge light saber hahaha

Bought both of us a ticket up to Seoul Tower, it includes a visit to the Teddy Bear Museum at the base of Seoul Tower.

Oh for couples. this is a very romantic place to come and take photos with your loved ones. A place for families to come have dinner, walk about, take photos.

They even let you and partner write your love down onto a padlock, lock it around the fences and then throw the keys away. It's called a Love Lock =) 

For those who forgot to buy the lock do not worry, the convenience store at the Cable Car Station sells padlock for a cheap fee, just a simple lock. If you are looking for prettier, fancier ones, you can buy them at the shop of the base at Seoul Tower but they are abit more pricier.

 It's really cold up at Seoul Tower in the night, for those who are afraid of the cold please bring your jacket up. You will need to walk abit of steps up once you alight from the cable car. The temperature drops real quick in the night.

Took alot of photos and it's already 8pm, decided to leave and head back down to Myeongdong for dinner.
Need to sleep early tonight as we need to wake up early tomorrow. Tomorrow is the highlight of our trip! Our postponed trip to Everland since Day 2 due to bad weather. In the next post, we will give exact directions on how to get there using their public transport.