台湾之旅 (II)
(am waiting for Mr Ig. to put up his pics which are way better than mine so until then...no visual support for watever follows)
Day 2 of adventures in Taipei
After numerous trips to the reception counter asking for directions, we finally settled our itinerary for the day. Simply put, it was: TianMu --> Danshui --> Fisherman's Wharf --> Raohe Street Night Market.
One good thing that came out of our slightly messed up itinerary was that it meant that we did not have to miss Sunday mass. Ig had found a church from a website, which was located somewhere in between the Zhishan and Mingde stops on the MRT. There was no indication of the mass timings on the site (that being not an uncommon trait of Catholic churches - lax in updating internet sites) so we had to dash for it and hope that we were in time for something. Made the error of choosing to walk instead of taking the bus (No.220), coz we were heading for 中山北路七段 from 中山北路六段, which turned out to be a very very long stretch of road. Thankfully we just had to keep walking straight (uphill) till we reached the Mother of God Church (No. 171 on Zhongshan North Road, Section 7). Was grateful for the view of the mountains on the horizon (that's a rather common sight in Taiwan btw, isn't that just fantastic) which kinda kept me going on our arduous journey to church. After a good half hour of brisk walking, we stumbled onto the steps of 天母教堂, and by the grace of God, were just in time for the 10 am mass.
It was a very tiny chapel (by Singapore church standards), and mass was mostly attended by Caucasians (Americans, judging from the accent), presumably all expats living in Taipei. I've read somewhere that Tian Mu is the congregation point for expats so there are quite a number of international schools in this area. Shall note that that was my first time attending the First Sunday of Advent mass in another country. That's the cool thing about being Catholic - mass is celebrated in the same way everywhere else on earth. =)
After mass the trio took a bus back to Mingde station and chugged along to Danshui (淡水), a famous attraction on the north coast of Taipei. It's a nice cosy seaside town with lots of alleys lined with shops selling foodstuff. Randomly picked a stall selling beef noodles, which was so good that it basically rendered our stomachs incapable of consuming anything else. The most fun stretch is the row of stalls lining the coast, where one can play cute pasar malam type games (e.g. throwing hoops to "catch" porcelain ornaments, shooting at balloons, dunking basketballs), browse through a wide range of trinkets and keychains and pins and whatnots found in quaint little shops, or just sink your teeth into grilled octopuses, sausages, and oversized ice cream cones. Found a ferry (it's quite cheap, only NT100 (S$5) to and fro) to Fisherman's Wharf and spent the evening there, chilled to our bones from the sea breeze, and missing out on the famed sunset scene coz the sky was too cloudy.
Decided to head to the other end of the MRT line (Houshanpi 后山埤）to visit Wu Fen Pu 五分铺 and Raohe 饶河 night market, a less famous counterpart of Shilin 士林 night market (of which I will elaborate upon later in my next post for Day 3). The former comprises of this large network of streets lined with shops selling a variety of clothes. As expected nothing was relevant there as it was winter season, so we just walked through it till we reached Songshan Railway Station and found the night market across it.
Raohe is not very big, just one street long, pretty cramped with food stalls lined up tightly in two rows in the middle and clothing stores at the side. Unfortunately for moi I was very bushed and near collapse at that stage, but it was still very fulfilling to sample the food and get bargain deals for cute merchandise (it's a girl's haven la). The place rates high on atmosphere and also weighs heavy on one's olfactory organs coz there's a pervasive smell of 臭豆腐 every couple of metres. Found it nauseating so din muster any guts to try the offending source.
Embarrassing episode: Now you will find that if you're a Chinese conversing in English in TW, stares will come your way coz ppl there all speak Mandarin/Hokkien. So there I was rumaging for a wallet of my choice amongst a pile of boxes, and discussing (rather loudly) with J my preferences for wallets, when we noticed this lady staring at us and laughing. She came over and I think she was very amused to find that we could speak English and understand their 国语 at the same time. And throughout my wallet search she and her workmate were just beaming at me with amusement in their eyes. Felt rather uncomfortable with attention so hastened my search and ran off after paying.
Returned to XMD and to comfort of hotel. Now if you're looking for a good 3-star hotel in Taipei, then Rainbow is a good choice. It's a three-minute walk from the Ximen MRT station and has very helpful staff (So helpful that I jus had to get them a box of chocs to thank them before we left). We had a comfortable spacious room for 3 and had all we needed. The water boiler was especially appreciated, and we thought it was a nice touch that the cleaning lady actually rearranged our scattered toiletries in the bathroom. ^_^
Day 2 of adventures in Taipei
After numerous trips to the reception counter asking for directions, we finally settled our itinerary for the day. Simply put, it was: TianMu --> Danshui --> Fisherman's Wharf --> Raohe Street Night Market.
One good thing that came out of our slightly messed up itinerary was that it meant that we did not have to miss Sunday mass. Ig had found a church from a website, which was located somewhere in between the Zhishan and Mingde stops on the MRT. There was no indication of the mass timings on the site (that being not an uncommon trait of Catholic churches - lax in updating internet sites) so we had to dash for it and hope that we were in time for something. Made the error of choosing to walk instead of taking the bus (No.220), coz we were heading for 中山北路七段 from 中山北路六段, which turned out to be a very very long stretch of road. Thankfully we just had to keep walking straight (uphill) till we reached the Mother of God Church (No. 171 on Zhongshan North Road, Section 7). Was grateful for the view of the mountains on the horizon (that's a rather common sight in Taiwan btw, isn't that just fantastic) which kinda kept me going on our arduous journey to church. After a good half hour of brisk walking, we stumbled onto the steps of 天母教堂, and by the grace of God, were just in time for the 10 am mass.
It was a very tiny chapel (by Singapore church standards), and mass was mostly attended by Caucasians (Americans, judging from the accent), presumably all expats living in Taipei. I've read somewhere that Tian Mu is the congregation point for expats so there are quite a number of international schools in this area. Shall note that that was my first time attending the First Sunday of Advent mass in another country. That's the cool thing about being Catholic - mass is celebrated in the same way everywhere else on earth. =)
After mass the trio took a bus back to Mingde station and chugged along to Danshui (淡水), a famous attraction on the north coast of Taipei. It's a nice cosy seaside town with lots of alleys lined with shops selling foodstuff. Randomly picked a stall selling beef noodles, which was so good that it basically rendered our stomachs incapable of consuming anything else. The most fun stretch is the row of stalls lining the coast, where one can play cute pasar malam type games (e.g. throwing hoops to "catch" porcelain ornaments, shooting at balloons, dunking basketballs), browse through a wide range of trinkets and keychains and pins and whatnots found in quaint little shops, or just sink your teeth into grilled octopuses, sausages, and oversized ice cream cones. Found a ferry (it's quite cheap, only NT100 (S$5) to and fro) to Fisherman's Wharf and spent the evening there, chilled to our bones from the sea breeze, and missing out on the famed sunset scene coz the sky was too cloudy.
Decided to head to the other end of the MRT line (Houshanpi 后山埤）to visit Wu Fen Pu 五分铺 and Raohe 饶河 night market, a less famous counterpart of Shilin 士林 night market (of which I will elaborate upon later in my next post for Day 3). The former comprises of this large network of streets lined with shops selling a variety of clothes. As expected nothing was relevant there as it was winter season, so we just walked through it till we reached Songshan Railway Station and found the night market across it.
Raohe is not very big, just one street long, pretty cramped with food stalls lined up tightly in two rows in the middle and clothing stores at the side. Unfortunately for moi I was very bushed and near collapse at that stage, but it was still very fulfilling to sample the food and get bargain deals for cute merchandise (it's a girl's haven la). The place rates high on atmosphere and also weighs heavy on one's olfactory organs coz there's a pervasive smell of 臭豆腐 every couple of metres. Found it nauseating so din muster any guts to try the offending source.
Embarrassing episode: Now you will find that if you're a Chinese conversing in English in TW, stares will come your way coz ppl there all speak Mandarin/Hokkien. So there I was rumaging for a wallet of my choice amongst a pile of boxes, and discussing (rather loudly) with J my preferences for wallets, when we noticed this lady staring at us and laughing. She came over and I think she was very amused to find that we could speak English and understand their 国语 at the same time. And throughout my wallet search she and her workmate were just beaming at me with amusement in their eyes. Felt rather uncomfortable with attention so hastened my search and ran off after paying.
Returned to XMD and to comfort of hotel. Now if you're looking for a good 3-star hotel in Taipei, then Rainbow is a good choice. It's a three-minute walk from the Ximen MRT station and has very helpful staff (So helpful that I jus had to get them a box of chocs to thank them before we left). We had a comfortable spacious room for 3 and had all we needed. The water boiler was especially appreciated, and we thought it was a nice touch that the cleaning lady actually rearranged our scattered toiletries in the bathroom. ^_^
posted by gleekzuh @ 2:55 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:18 AM,
Anonymous said…
now that's service man. something SG sorely lacks.
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