La tournée de Taiwan 2013 : Taipei 101

We arrived Tao Yuan International Airport at about 10.30 pm on the first day.  We took the Da You bus which brought us to Taipei City Hall station and the journey from airport took about one and a half hour.  At the station took a taxi to the apartment which we booked through Air Bnb.  It was a nice a cozy apartment room, clean and tidy, with TV and air con, and everything u need including the washing machine and a Dolce Gusto coffee maker.

After a good night rest we went out to begin our adventure. The morning  8 o'clock sun felt like the afternoon sun. Found a shop which sold Taiwan local delicacies, walked in and ordered breakfast.

We ordered 煎饼which was basically is a piece of roti canai but it was done without flipping. Two 水煎肉包， a fried bak pao and a pair of very long yaw cha guai.  We also called 1 cup of naicha and soya bean drink. except for the yawchaguai, nothing tasted like the taste I liked. 

 The Yongchun MRT station which we had frequented.

 The Yongchun market

After that, we walked the Yongchun market and the surrounding areas. Yongchun market was like the Pokok Asam market except it was much, much cleaner.

The afternoon we  visited Taipei 101, currently the world 3rd tallest building. On the way we met a few interesting art works.

Surprisingly the area around the tower was not as busy as I thought.  There were a groups of young people staying outside like they were not going home and a group of this Falungong people meditating or were they protesting?  It was a working day, so may be not so many visitors here.

Entrance to the building.

We lunched at the food court.  A bowl of the Bakchui  rice...chopped pork rice, a plate of kangkong and a bowl of bitter gourd soup.  Topped up with a  bowl of peanut tauhua dessert.

La tournée de Taiwan 2013 : Yeliu

To go to Yeliu, we had to go to the Taipei Main station, Take the Guo Guang bus directly to Yeliu.

The signboard showed this was where we stopped.  There was a very serious notice  on the wall of the building at the junction of the road.

It belonged to the second nuclear power plant and that the building was the evacuation point if there should happen any mishaps.  It seemed that around Yeliu there were 3 nuclear power plants, one was in Jinsan, one  in Kuosheng and one still under construction, which was the nearest to Yeliu, the Longmen nuclear power plant.  No wonder they have all the precautions here.

On the way we stopped by a shop for some food.  We ordered a plate of fried beef noodle and a bowl of anchovy seaweed soup.Our destination was the Yeliu Geopark.  We had to walk quite a distant passing the fishing port.

It was only 10.00 a.m. The weather was terribly hot and the scorching sun was just above our heads. Finally we reached the geopark, bought a ticket each and in we went to see the strange rock formations.

Candle rock 烛台石

Elephant rock 象石

 Fairy's shoe rock and earth rock 仙女鞋石与地球石

Fairy's shoe rock 仙女鞋石

 Ginger rock 薑石

 Queen's head 女王头

 Ice cream rock 冰淇淋石

 Marine bird rock 海鸟石

Tofu rock 豆腐石

 Mushroom rock 菌状石

 Little Princess rock 小公主石

 Foetus rock 胎儿石

 Drumstick rock 鸡腿石

 Dragon's head rock龙头石

 Gorilla rock 猩猩石

 Urchin Fossil 1 海胆化石1

Urchin Fossil 2 海胆化石2

Leopard rock 金钱豹石 which theleopard's head had been severed during a storm by the powerful waves in 2012.  Too bad this was what left for us to see.  No wonder they made a replica at the entrance garden.

The original Leopard rock.

We left Yeliu by bus to Keelung.  There we took a bus to Jiufen.

La tournée de Taiwan 2013 : Shilin Night Market

After the visit to the hot spring in Xin Beitou and the Palace Museum, we went up Yang Mingshan. Came down from Yang Mingshan, the sky started to turn dark.  It was time to go to the Shilin night market.  We took the MRT from the Shilin station to Jiantan station which was just one station away.  The night market was just across the road right in front of the MRT station

As we walked along, the first food stall attracted our attention belonged to a very old couple selling 潤饼卷。It was sort of a roll with ingredients in it. Almost like the popiah in our country. Well, may be it was a popiah after all with a different name

Next was the stinking toufu again but this time with a twist.  It was charcoal grilled with sauce and garnishing. Poked in sticks like satay.  The taste? Well you know...all chou toufu smells alike...smellyy :D  But to be fair, this one was not as stinking as the one in soup found in the Rouhe street night market.

Now this was new to me.  This guy was selling fried hor fun, but the hor fun was  not in the form of strips but in thick pancake shape...with stuffing in it.

Round the corner we came to the main market itself , walao.... there was a hawker centre at the basement of the market !

The sheer number of stalls and the variety of food they were selling were just fantastic.  One will wonder, with so many sellers and customers, not to mention those who just came to take photos,  the basement food court was not stuffy and most the wonderful thing was.... where had all the smokes and smell gone when there were so many stalls cooking and frying and grilling? The ventilation system was just fantastic.

We went round food searching... the fried crab caught my attention.  Bought one and a grilled cuttlefish, then walked over to the owamisua stall to satisfy our hunger.  This stall seemed  to have a lot of customers, must be a famous one. The Big Dragon Head stall.

The owamisua was a bit different from the one that we ate a day ago.  Instead of having thick brown gravy, this one was in  clear soup with a number of XL size oysters in it.

We also ordered the fried oyster just to compare.  This one failed.  Though it was a thumb up on the size of the oysters, but it had too much and too thick starch which made it overall not as nice as the Penang's ojian.

One thing we learnt, here in Taiwan, was that their food stalls and shops did not sell drinks. Not even plain water.  So before you went into any shop to eat, go tapau some drinks outside first.