Another must go place. It’s definitely on the touristy side but still worth a visit to get an old town feel. And for fans of “Spirited Away” like myself it was nice to finally visit the location that gave the artist, Hayao Miyazaki, inspiration. The name Jiufen or Nine Portions was derived from the nine families that settled here during the Qing Dynasty. The would go down to the town to order nine portions of whatever they needed and that nickname stuck till today.

The place that everyone visits in Jiufen is the Old Street where all the shopping and food is located. It’s a narrow street with endless choices and lots of people!

We walked till the end of the street for the hilltop view before slowly exploring the dozens of tiny shops. As usual the shops that got my attention most were the food stalls! Choices and more choices!

One of the most famous stalls is Grandma Lai’s Taro Balls. They actually have balls of different flavors like taro, sweet potato, green tea and so on but I liked the taro ones best.

Handmade mochi, tarts and sweets were at every corner and you can get free sampling before you decide to buy some. I bought quite a number of foodstuffs back as well.

Their form of carrot cake… I found it to be rather bland.

Braised meat rice “Lu Rou Fun” with home made fish balls was yummy! The fish-balls were huge yet very bouncy and has a lovely texture.

They even had these meatballs with fish paste fillings! It’s an interesting concept to have meat balls over fish-balls and the taste doesn’t clash either!

Home made noodles. Looks a little like lao shu fen but it’s much thinner and taste slightly different.

Century egg toufu. A cold dish. Taiwan is supposed to be know for their yummy century egg. I’m not a big fan of century eggs as a cold dish… I like them hot in my congee.

My sister’s bunny… not for consumption… =)

Grilled garlic butter cheese escargot and cuttlefish!

My sister with her ice-cream popiah.

Greedy face dad with the mini guava juice! It’s good for digestion but on the sour side though.

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In Danshui there are a couple of attractions to view.  The Hongmao Castle (Fort San Domingo), Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf and the lover’s bridge. You can also take the ferry to Ba Li. But in this post I’m only gonna focus on Danshui Old Street. The main draw for me is multitude of local specialties.

The street stretches from near the Danshui MRT station all the way to the ferry docks. Some of the local foods include iron egg which is stewed in spices then air dried so you get a chewy tiny egg at the end of the process. The famous stall is Grandma’s Tiedan 阿婆鐵蛋.

Another local specialty is A-Gei 阿給 which are deep fried tofu that have been stuff with flavoured crystal noodles (tang hoon) and sealed with fish paste and some sauce over. Apparently Danshui is the place of origin for this dish.

You can also try the Danshui fish balls 淡水魚丸 and  fried fish snacks 魚酥. Among these I also tried the fried cheese which is great for cheese lovers but might be overpowering for those who are not used to the strong taste of pure cheese.

Not forgetting the famous Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang. It looks like a hotdog but like the name suggests, instead of using bread to wrap over the sausage, they use an even bigger sausage to wrap over the smaller sausage and stuff it with pickles and lettuce and sauce. The content of the larger sausage is filled with a mixture of meat and glutinous rice.

My personal favorite is the muah chee!

Freshly made with a spoonful of peanut inside every muah chee ball before getting coated with more peanut. It’s so very soft and chewy! I came back for seconds!

I’m now gonna leave you with a video of the hot spring session we had at Beitou and shots of Danshui old street. Hope you enjoy! You have to be on www.renzze.com to view the videos though.

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I guess you must have read about my early birthday celebrations with friends in Singapore at 1-Carmel. If you haven’t you can click here to read it. But my actual birthday was celebrated in Taiwan with my family.

Whether planned or incidentally, almost 80% of my actual birthday has been spent abroad. Sometimes with friends and sometimes out of necessity so I’m lucky this time that I had my family to spend it with me.

We took the metro to a surprise venue for my birthday lunch! And it was the Hello Kitty Sweets, a Hello Kitty themed restaurant! I’m sure I’ll get many requests for the address in Taipei so I’m putting it down here.

台北市大安路一段90號

90 Da’An Road, Taipei, Taiwan

Ph: (02) 2711-1132

If you have a large number in your group or will be going down on a weekend it’ll be wise to make reservations first. I was told that you might have to wait for hours!

I may not be a Hello Kitty fanatic but I do love the cute adorable kitty and all the sweetness and girly tendencies that is associated with her.  My sister was so excited that day she was almost hyperventilating! LOL… nah… I exaggerate but suffice to say she was way more excited then the birthday girl.

Before I even entered, I was already captivated by their beautiful range of desserts!

Visiting this official Sanrio approved restaurant for Hello Kitty fans is a must and you can be sure that there will be lots of photo taking involved =)

The whole 2 story restaurant is filled with all manners of Hello Kitty products! Ranging from deco to napkins, to crockery and food! In fact the place is totally infused and submerged in pink! I believe that all the men in the restaurant were there only because of their wives, girlfriends or children.

We were ushered off to the 2nd floor of this kawaii-mecca and after making orders and removing my trench, it was time to explore the place in detail.

A glass panel on the 1st floor allows you to see the chefs at work, churning out the pretty kitty themed cakes.

The waitresses uniform are as frilly and pink as to be expected in a Hello Kitty themed restaurant. I was told that they used to wear kitty ears but now they just wear ribbons on their hair instead.

My sis  and I even took photos in the Hello Kitty themed wash room! LOL.

Back at the table to wait for the meal to start!

First up were the drinks.

I can’t remember whose fruit drink this was cause we all ordered different drinks. I know I had a chocolate milk shake with hello kitty face stenciled on it.

Next up was a pumpkin with cream sauce soup. Creamy and rich. We all had the same soup as it came as part of the set lunches we ordered.

Then, the main courses.

The next picture is actually a Hello Kitty burger and since we had to cut it eventually, we couldn’t resist stabbing it with the knife and adding some ketchup for blood. (Die-hard Hello Kitty fans must so want to kill me now!)

The last part of the set meal is the dessert and a serving of coffee or tea.

We ordered way more food then the pictures shows… everyone was snapping photos with their own camera that day so I didn’t take all the foods thinking that I could always get the pictures from them later. But then I came back and I forgot about it so the photos on my blog are the photos that were taken on my camera only. The desserts were the prettiest so I really should remember to get the photos from my parents.

After the meal, my sweet little sister decided to surprise me by ordering a little chocolate souffle for me so she could sing me a birthday song.

Unknown to all of us, my dad had secretly planned to surprise me with a Hello Kitty cake! Haha! So imagine my surprise when after my sister sang me my birthday song and I blew out the candle on this chocolate souffle, the staff presented me with my large Hello Kitty cake with the Happy Birthday song playing over the whole restaurant.

Once again my family sang Happy Birthday to me and I got to make another wish before blowing out the candles. I guess you can never be wished too many times! Other patrons of the restaurant must be wondering why I seem to have a never-ending birthday celebration!

We were all so stuffed from the meal that we could hardly eat anymore so we only had half the cake and brought back the 2nd half to the hotel so we could have it for supper.

Thank you to my dearest family for spending my 28th birthday with me. I feel really blessed. I have to say it was such a cute feeling to be like a little 5 year old having a theme party thrown for me by my parents… something I didn’t do as a kid because when my peers were having their McDonalds or My little Pony theme parties, my parents felt it frivolous. Somehow now that I’ve reached 28, they probably felt that I had earned enough experience in life to have a themed birthday and not risk growing up a brat.

I do have the video taken that day of my Hello Kitty themed birthday celebration below. You can only view the video at www.renzze.com =)

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I had a couple more request to blog more about the food I had in Taiwan and what was nice to recommend. I’m honestly no expert in Taiwan but I did try quite a no. of food stuffs at the Ximending area since my hotel was nearby.

As mentioned before, my family love the donuts especially the simple sugar ones. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the bubble teas in Taiwan!

I highly recommend the 50 Lan bubble tea. They allow you to customize the amount of sugar level, type of ice, amount of ice and type of pearls or jelly. My personal pick is milk tea with 25% less sugar, 50% less crush ice and mini pearls. The texture of the pearls are perfect and extremely yummy! I had 50 Lan bubble tea almost every day while I was there!

My mother’s favorite food in Taiwan was teppanyaki. While it was not authentically Taiwan in origin, it can be found in most places and if you do try it, you have to order their Gindara! It’s really tasty and fresh!

Other then the recommended Gindara fish, they also have a wide selection of vegetables, seafood and meats served with Japanese rice and a bowl of miso soup.

Lastly, if you are around the Ximending area, any local or guide book would tell you to try out the famous Ah Zhong Mian Xian.  Be prepared for a long queue and lots of people standing around with a bowl in their hands because there is no seating.

I know of many die hard fans both Singaporeans and Taiwanese that will swear by Ah Zong Mien Xian. But if you want to know my personal experience, I have to admit that I wasn’t WOW-ed by it. But a good friend that loves it to the core told me that it was probably because I didn’t eat the pig intestines and didn’t add enough chilli oil and garlic to the noodles so I couldn’t feel the full blast of flavor. It’s pretty cheap so if you happened to be around the area you could give it a go.

Taiwan has way more street food to offer but I’ll end my post here for now cause I’ve got a movie to catch. I will be posting more places and food I’ve encountered in Taiwan in the next couple of days.

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Oh… I’m so bad at cutesy Japanese poses but I do try! My sister is really good at them though… maybe it’s simply a sign of my age!

Anyways, back in Taipei, we wandered into this Japanese fast food like store in Ximending. I don’t remember the name but the food was alright with free flow of self-serving drinks. I believe it was probably a popular student joint judging from the crowd I saw there.

On the whole, I find the food in Taiwan to be affordable and pretty good. They have tons of Japanese restaurants everywhere and they serve nice portions for a really good price.

We did the usual photo taking before heading to the Mister Donut store to pick up more yummies on the way to the train station!

My sister loves their donuts and I think my family bought them almost everyday while we were in Taipei. They are not bad though I still prefer J.Co Donuts over these.

This is such a frivolous post but I’ll blog about the other sights we saw in Taipei in the next post. The trains system was such an ally and we got to all our destinations by train! No cabbing at all! Even though I don’t think the cab prices vary much from the Singapore ones.

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In this post I’ll try to cover all the yummy food I had in Hualien.

First up, we have the xiao long baos and soya bean drink. The bao was not bad but I think it pales in comparison to Ding Tai Fung’s version of xiao long bao.

In this famous 24 hours bao store, it was pretty crowded and you can see them making the baos as you eat. Just look at how high those steamer baskets stacked up!

Just as with most parts of Taiwan, you can find betel nuts sold here too.

Next stop was the famous wanton stall.

Once again, this is all freshly hand made on order! We had these wanton soups to go so that we can enjoy them on the train ride back to Taipei.

I would have loved to stop by to try the famous Lai Chen Pork Rib Noodles but we simply didn’t have time. For those who have tried it before, was it good?

Our driver then kindly sent us to the very famous roadside store to pick up our pre-ordered  scallion pancake ( green onion pancake) or otherwise known in Taiwan as 葱油饼 Chong You Bing. When we got there, the queue was really long so it was a good thing the driver called an hour in advance to reserve our orders. It was a quick pick up and go.

The scallion pancake 葱油饼 is a tad oily but pretty good. It’s made with dough rather than batter and fried.

We also made a stop to get the famous Muah Chee  at Zeng Ji 曾记, a local specialty chain! They had loads of pre-packed goodies to buy home for friends but I was more keen on the freshly made muah chee that has no preservatives. Unfortunately, that meant the freshly made ones have to be consumed immediately and cannot be brought back to Singapore.

I picked quite a few flavours including peanut, taro, red bean, sweet potato and green bean. My personal favorite is the peanut flavored one. The rest were fun to eat for novelty sake but not as tasty as the peanut version.

They also sold muah chee ice-cream and I bought the chocolate one for dessert.

Last stop was the 7-11 store at the train station where we bought some hot (yes they sell hot can drinks!) and cold Ovaltine drinks for the journey back to Taipei.

And this concludes my Hualien side trip!

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I know a couple my readers emailed me about Taiwan or Hualian. Unfortunately it got sent to my spam mail and I accidentally permanently deleted them. I only saw the titles and never even got  a chance to read the message. So if you sent those emails, please resend them or I won’t be able to reply.

Remember I told you we stopped to pick up some bento sets? Well, our driver stopped us at a park next to Taroko Gorge visitors center for us to enjoy our lunch. There was actually some Taiwan variety show filming going on behind us while we ate.

The food was pretty good (either that or I was really hungry) but I found the local version of homemade picked chilli extremely spicy and tasty which went nicely with the food.

After lunch we explored the visitor’s center for a bit. It shows you the Taroko Gorge habitats and history.

As promised, here’s the video of the 1st part of my Hualian trips… a consolidation of all that I’ve posted so far on Hualian.

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If I had gone on this holiday alone or with like-minded company, I would have loved to spend a couple of days in Hualian and do some biking, trekking or white water rafting in the beautiful Taroko Gorge. But since I was in Taiwan with family, my priority was to make sure that everyone had a great time.

Mum loved to sightsee but would not be able to take hiking the gorge or anything strenuous so I had engaged a popular driver, Mr Lu, to take us around the place. My sister is less of a nature person and dying to do more shopping rather than enjoying landscapes so I planned Hualian as a day trip rather than an overnight one. It goes to show that when travelling with different people of different mindsets it may be tough to make everyone happy but a small compromise and lots of understanding goes a long way.

While there are very few ang mo (caucasians) tourist in this part of Taiwan, this area is still pretty much touristy as there are loads of tourists from China. There are only a few restaurants and guest houses once you are inside the gorge and they are usually rather expensive so we picked up some set lunches from a local store highly recommended by our driver before heading up the cliffs. It was rather affordable too.

The set lunches we bought came with free self-serving soups. It was some sort of pork and vegetable soup with some pig blood cubes.

Now into the tunnels and up the cliffs we go.

This is known as the Cingshui Cliffs and it faces the gorgeous pacific ocean. Our vehicle just emerged from that tunnel beneath that waterfall! It’s amazing!

This was probably the sight that the original tribesman of the Truku aboriginal tribe beheld when he walked out of the gorge. The beautiful blue of the Pacific ocean made him exclaim “Taroko!” and thus naming the gorge. Taroko means the “magnificent and beautiful” and I couldn’t agree more!

It was only the first pit stop of the day and I was already contented to lie on one of the nearby rocks and let the blue of the ocean and the rushing of waves lull me to sleep.

Seeing as to how we all enjoyed the view, the driver told us he could drive us up a little higher on the cliffs so we can have a different vantage.

We went further up the cliffs and learnt a little about how these tunnels were carved. They were actually first made by the Japanese when they had control of Taiwan and were mostly meant for bicycles. In the later years the government enlarged and reinforced the tunnels so cars could use it.

On a random side note, while we were admiring the scenery with the strong winds blowing (my hair was totally messed up!) my sister realized she had a splinter on her finger. LOL… we spent the next 10 mins or so trying to get it out!

Anyways, one last look of the lovely ocean before we head back down the cliffs and start moving into the gorge itself.

Heading down the bridge and to one of the landmarks that marks the beginning of the Central Cross Highway.

As you can see the river in this part of the gorge is grey and murky. This due the the coal mining in the area. Still my sister and I gamely headed down for a closer look.

My hair was all over the place most of the time cause of the really strong winds in the gorge. And with the strong winds, it brought along dust! In the video which I will post in the next Taiwan post you can see what looks like fog… well… it’s actually dust but not all parts of Taroko Gorge are this unpleasant. Only the coal mining areas… in future posts I will show you the other areas that are still rather pristine.

I’m gonna end here for now but I’ll post the video tomorrow!

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I guess you can’t have gone Taipei and not take a little trip to Shilin Night Market 士林夜市 . It’s one of the most famous night market in Taipei!

A quick MRT ride to the Jiantan Station 劍潭站 on the Danshui line. They also have a Shilin Station but oddly the Shilin Night Market 士林夜市 is actually much nearer to the  Jiantan Station 劍潭站.

The old Shilin Market 士林夜市 was actually torn down in October 2002 due to hygiene reasons so all the food stalls were relocated to a temporary area a short walk away from Jiantan Station 劍潭站.

Shilin Night Market  士林夜市 opens from about 4pm to 2am and there are 2 sections. The food area and the shopping area. We headed over to the food area first.

Here I’ll try to show you some of the famous food stuff that Shilin Night Market  士林夜市 offers. In the picture above you can see Lemon Aiyu Jelly 檸檬愛玉 .

Above are some grilled taiwan sausages.

There were so many stores selling the same dishes we eventually just randomly chose one that looked decent enough.

This is a bowl of cuttlefish with gravy. I’m allergic to seafood so I didn’t try it personally. Dad said it was okay while Mum didn’t like it.

Another famous dish… Oyster omelet (蚵仔煎). I ate some of the egg… it’s not bad but on the slightly sweet side compared to our Singapore version.

And of course we ordered Smelly tofu. You may have read my post on Smelly toufu before but this version is not deep fried. It was just lightly fried with some gravy. My sister tried smelly toufu for the first time and you should watch the video attached at the end of this post to see her reaction! LOL.

My mum’s favorite store was this teppanyaki store on the right side of the food section. I’ve heard that is a rather popular store as well.  They ordered quite a few dishes and they were all really good. The best was probably the gindara or cod fish.

We ordered the drinks from the nearby vending machine. The lemon winter melon drink was actually quite nice!

My own favorite would probably be the Deep fried chicken fillet (豪大大雞排). The portion is huge so I strongly advise that you share it! I heard that this was the very store that sold those original fried chicken that sparked the huge trend.

There were quite a few food that we had and wasn’t captured on film so if you are there you can also try the Fried chicken steak (炸雞排), Small bun wrapped in large bun (大餅包小餅), Fried buns (生煎包), Peanut candy (花生糖), Tempura (甜不辣) and Bubble tea (珍珠奶茶) amongst many more.

A street away is the shopping area of Shilin Night Market 士林夜市. Here is like a huge maze of stores selling anything and everything. From clothes, bags, CDs, lingerie, pets, shoes and so on. The assortment is just too huge to describe.

My sister had an exciting day buying and buying! Mum decided to do some foot massage here as well. Although the market closes at 2am, do note that the last train leaves Jiantan station 劍潭站 at 12mn! Not much photos were taken once we started to shop so here’s the video below instead.

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I’m sure by now you’ve heard what a food and shopping paradise Taiwan is. And well… it’s true! Lots of little street side foods and stores at every corner!

I went scouting at the bridal shops near the  C.K.S Memorial Hall station for dresses and pricing for one of my friend who was interested in going to Taiwan and engaging a bridal studio for the gown and pre-wedding photography instead of buying a Taiwan overseas photography package from a  Singapore bridal store. It turns out that the choices were endless… An entire row of bridal boutiques! I didn’t even finish walking the street! I’m not sure if it was the low season but it seems that their bridal photography and family photography packages were a lot more affordable then those in Singapore. I didn’t really ask in detail but if you are a bride-to-be  that might be interested in going Taiwan for your photo shoot you can check out this row of bridal boutiques just opposite the National Theater.

In the guidebook lent to me by Bernice, they recommended trying the goose meat from this store in Xiamending 西門町. They have been around for 50 years! You can order it with rice or noodles though the noodles is highly recommended.

The meal was on the oily side though I really liked the noodles. The goose meat however was a little hard to eat and not as good as I expected it to be. But if you have not tired goose meat before then this would be a meal you can try just for the experience.

The XMD short for XiaMenDing or 西門町 is very vibrant and full of people in the evenings. Lots of food stalls and shops. I didn’t take much photos as I was darting in and out of stores. The photo above is actually a pink poop! He’s the mascot of the infamous Toilet Restaurant in XMD. The restaurant theme is of a toilet with toilet seats as chairs and food and ice-cream (shaped like poop!) served in toilet bowls as well! I didn’t go and have dinner there as my mum told me she would lose her appetite in an environment like that… but I guess it is popular with youngsters and many Singaporeans that visit it for the novelty.

I found the alley ways and back streets to be rather interesting and have it’s own distinct characters. I will post more about XMD next time since the hotel I stayed was in the area and I got to shop there on most nights.

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