Taiwan rawks ! ~~ XD

Last weekend was a very2 longg weekend hahaha.. I went to Taiwan on Friday (4 May) til' Sunday (6 May). XD Haf to wake up very2 early in the morning coz need to catch up the group check in at ard 8.15 am. Yeah, me and Adi took a reserved cab to the airport but guess wad, the cab was sooo damn long.. and actually we need not to reserve a cab since the cabs passed us by was quite a lot too, can just simply flag.. haiz... =.= hahaha.. We reached the airport at ard 8.30 (phew.. not that late anyway..) and did the group check in .. Nothin' much to do after that, just strolled along the Terminal 1, hopped on from one shop to the other to wash away boredom :P hahhaa.. haf to wait ard one and a half hour before boarding the plane. It was a 4 hours flight from S'pore to Hongkong hohoh, we had another 1 hour flight from Hongkong to Taiwan then.

Upon arriving in Taiwan, it was ard 6 o' clock already, and we prepared to go to Shi Lin Market to have dinner there. Our tour guide, Betty, told us that Taiwan is famous for its local foods! hahaha.. So, our first destination is the place where we can find very2 great local foods. However, on the way there suddenly our group leader realized that there was one person that shud be in our group left behind in the airport.. weww.. haizz.. hahaha. We turned around and went back to the airport to fetch him.. haha.. Yeah, we arrived at Shi Lin Market at ard 8 pm, and we had time til' 10 pm. Shi Lin Market can be compared with Bugis in S'pore, but perhaps the term 'Taiwanese Hawker Center' suits it best.. ahhahaha.. Wow, what Betty said was really true.. hahaha.. The local foods were very2 delicious XD The poor thing was, me and Adi cudn't even read the stalls' name coz all are written in Chinese XD LOL hahaha, so we joined other employees who understand and are able to speak Chinese. Then we did an 'eat-by-hop' method :P, we tried the food in a small2 amt each stall. We tried dumpling soup, oyster omelette, Taiwanese carrot cake, big chicken satay, etc :P wakakaka.. all were great ! hahaha.. After finishing our dinner, we strolled along the 'night market' area to 'relax' our 'fullness' :P:P. Then, we went to Taoyuan Hotel, our hotel for 2 nights hihihi. It's a four-star hotel, but still quite nice except the surrounding since the hotel itself is located in a suburb area of Taipei.

The second day.... It was a cloudy and rainy day.. phew.. First we started off with National Palace Museum which is an art gallery and museum in Taipei city housing loads of artifacts from ancient China. It is said that The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds one of the largest collection of Chinese artifacts and artwork in the world. hohoho.. XD

Next, we went to a 'Jade shop' (which I can't remember the name XD) hahaha.. The ppl there could actually read your element and your Chinese zodiac by examining either your Chinese name or your birth date. Then they will show you which color of jade stone (the color represents the element) you need to buy, to bring you more luck and stuffs. Yeah, I actually didn't buy one since it's too expensive.. hikzu...can't afford it .. v_v

Our next destination is Chiu Fen Village, and the weather was getting worsen and worsen... and immediately the rain poured down from the sky... hehehe.. To get there, we had to take local bus from so called 'bus terminal' there. The surrounding was super duper amazing ! I kinda like that place man.. hahaa XD It is situated near the top of mountain, and quite similar with Bugis Street here in S'pore LOL. Along the sideways, there are loads of shops selling delicious local foods, souvenirs, and so on. Unfortunately we only had one and a half hour there, me and Adi didn't even reach the end of the street wew... and had to go back already to have our lunch in the 'Beef Noodle' restaurant. The beef noodle reminded me of rawon, one of Javanese (esp East Java) local foods.. hahaha.. The only difference is the rice in rawon is replaced with noodle. hohoho.. XD

Next was Taipei 101 Tower, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world and we had a 'small race' there, which is a part of the team bonding activities. We were grouped into a 10 separate groups, then each group was given eight pictures of something that we should find out where it was located inside the 101 Mall... and it was a race, thus the fastest one will be the winner. Phew.. not as easy as we thought, but in the end we could finish third hohoho... The mall was an ordinary mall, nothin' special on it.. The bad thing was we couldn't go to the upper level of the tower to see the Taipei city from the top (yeah, it was raining, so there's no point to go up since we would see nothin' up there anyway...). Yosh, it was dinner time then! We had a sumptuous dinner at Five Cents Driftwood House Restaurant hohoho.. The building was very2 super duper unique ! Both its exterior and interior hahah... :P In contrast with the nice atmosphere and surrounding there, the foods were an OKAY for me.. hahaha LOLzzz

We left the restaurant at ard 7.30 pm and headed to Xi Men Ting for our second team bonding activity. Xi Men Ting is the place similar to Orchard Road in S'pore, the center of fashion in Taipei, I can say.. hohoho.. Yeah, let me introduce you the Amazing WET Datacraft X Race hahaah.. The word WET shouldn't be there anyway, but due to 'fantastic' weather that nite, I should add the word WET on it.. haha.. It was raining.. *again.. and almost all of my group's members were drenched.. thou it wasn't a total.. We had to finish each post by doing sumthin' the postmaster asked us to do.. In one post, we had to eat roasted duck tongue ahahhaha.. fantastic.... just imagine yourself how the taste was.. :P I didn't eat the entire tongue anyway, only bite some small small parts of it.. XD and in another post, we had to do a 'skipping' together in the middle of the rain :P LOLz.. hahaah.. sooo GJ .. We didn't care anymore about the race, just tried hard to finish it.. and get the hell outta that wet wet place.. hahaha...

Finally, at ard 10 o clock pm, we finished the race and went back to hotel.. It was another 1 hour journey to the hotel.. with my wet hair and shirt... hahaa.. Luckily I didn't fall sick hahha :D Upon arriving at the hotel, we had a debrief, prize presentation (of coz the winner wasn't us :P ), closing speech, and group photos... Yeahhh, that concluded our second day ! hohoho...

Third day.. it was a quite shiny day actually.. hahahaha... LOL It was like the day before our activities were not 'blessed' or sumthin'... :P XD After finished our breakfast, we went back to our room and I took a bath, packed up, and just watched tv to kill the time.. at ard 10.10 am we went down, did a check out and shopped a while in the hotel's souvenirs shop (yeah, the day before I didn't have much time to buy some souvenirs to be brought to Indo later.. =.=" ) And.. finally we made another 6++ hours journey from Taiwan to S'pore and arrived in S'pore at ard 8 pm hahaha.. Yosh, and the next day had to go for IA again.. phew.. and here I am, stuck in here, doing log book and IA report.. hahahaa.. back to the usual activity...