my 1st day in taipei

finally, i'm back from taiwan!!! haha... my initial plan is to blog about my taiwan trip right after i was back from there, but, secret garden totally attracted all my attention, followed by my girlfriend is gumiho, then start cleaning house and preparing for chinese new year ....... now only i get to start blog about my taiwan trip (after i was back from taiwan for a month).

on 28th december 2010 around 2.30pm, i finally reached taoyuan international airport, first of all, we go to the visitor information center to get the digital tour buddy(phone) + sim card that we apply earlier on through online. For young backpackers who are going to taiwan, i strongly advice that you visit http://youthtravel.tw/ , there contains a lot of information that you may need. This is the website that i apply for the taiwan sim card, it's free and the sim card given contains NTD 100 to be used. It is more than enough if you are just going to use it contact the hostel owner that you are going to stay. At least for me, i didn't top up throughout my 10 days in taiwan.

so, now, we need to get ourselves to taipei city. the cheapest way is by bus. There are signboards that lead you to the place where you can purchase the bus ticket. We chose guoguang bus (国光客运), which cost us NTD125 to reach taipei main station.

Taipei main station is somehow like kl sentral in malaysia, but a way bigger version. it contains all types of public transport system, such as taiwan railway, high speed rail, bus station, mrt ... You can totally experience the hustle and bustle of taipei city here. everyone is walking in super fast pace and this place is always crowded. In order for you to travel more conveniently in taipei city, i encourage all the travellers to purchase an easycard, which will cost you NTD500 (contains $100 deposit).

throughout our trip in taipei, we decided to stay in ximending(西门町), the place that had been called as "Harajuku of taipei", the source of taiwan's fashion and japanese culture. A lot of nice food, cinemas, etc.... that's why this place is always full with youngsters. One thing that you must try out when you were in xi men ding is the Ah Zong Mi Sua(阿宗面线), a small bowl costing NTD45, super damn nice. You can see a lot of people are eating outside the shop, there is no table, only chairs provided, and normally it's not enough and many people will need to stand while eating.

our accommodation at ximending

ximending

yummy yummy -- 阿宗面线

my 1st day in taipei, we only managed to visit ximending, will talk about other attractive tourist spots in taiwan in my next post :)

Reasons to watch Secret Garden

it has been a really long time since i was so addicted to a korea drama. Yes, I'm a big fan of boys over flowers, you're beautiful.... but secret garden, it makes me unwilling to leave my laptop since i watched the 1st episode, and i managed to finish 18 episodes within 2 days and without skipping any part of it (not even 1 second). luckily i just realized about this drama when it's showing 17th episodes, can't imagine how i'm going to suffer if i need to wait for 2 episodes each week.

when i first looked at this wallpaper, i tot it's going to be a funny drama since it's going to be about a guy and a girl exchange their soul. Yet, it is such a romantic drama (as romantic as winter sonata). it's been a really long time since korea produced this kind of drama.

Reasons to watch secret garden :

1. Casting - Hyun Bin, Ha Ji Won, Yoon Sang Hyun, names that korean addicts should be familiar with, the main reason that attracted me to start watching this drama.

2. Characters -

Kim Joo Won, a rich, handsome, arrogant, but childish guy, who doesn't understand why he will fall in love with a stunt woman, Gil Ra Im and gradually deeply falling in love with Ra Im and willing to give up everything for her.

Gil Ra Im - stunt woman, have great passion in her job and suffer a lot because of her love towards Joo Won.

The exchanges of their soul actually make their bond of love grow stronger.

OSKA - Joo Won's cousin, Ra Im's idol, he creates a lot of fun scenes in this drama. A top star whose talent is not so "top", a casanova, and always being threatened by Joo won. He owned a very touching love story with yoon seul, who attended matchmaking session with joo won.

another 2 characters that i love the most will be the cute secretary kim and ra im's best friend, ah young. both of them made a lovely couple.

i guess the most pitiful person in this drama will be director Im. He loves Ra Im for such a long time but Ra Im never noticed and now, the only person that she loved would be joo won.

3. OST

the OST is superb!!! every single song in it is so nice that they keep looping in my mp3. My most favourite song will be baek ji young's that woman. you may recognize her as she had played a cameo character in episode 13, the gal who was dancing to gether with OSKA. the male version of this song, that man, was sung by Hyun Bin too. never thought that his voice could be that nice too :)

the background music also match the story extremely well,

oh god, how can i not addicted to this drama?

4. Scenery

the scenery in this drama is extremely beautiful. especially joo won's house, the house which was built brick by brick by a designer from new york....haha

oh, and the garden, so prettyyyy~~ how i wish i could stay in a place like tis~

this weekend, will be the last 2 episodes of secret garden. the 19th episode had been showed in korea, by tomorrow morning i shall be able to watch it with sub, can't wait for it!!!

p/s : to listen to baek ji young's that woman, you're welcome to play it @ my mp3 section ^^