taipei - yangmingshan national park, danshui, beitou hotspring

i shall continue to blog about the 2nd day of my trip in taiwan. We are still in taipei, and i am so excited because we are going to visit the famous yangmingshan(阳明山), wohoo!!!

so how to get there? we took a bus from taipei main

station (no.126 or 260) which will take us to yangmingshan. However, this bus doesn't take us to the tourist spot, we will need transfer to bus no.9 in order to reach the national park. Unluckily, we missed the bus no.9, and it's going to take 30 minutes (if not mistaken) for the next bus to come, it's so frustrating!! so we asked around to know whether these tourist spots are reachable by walking, but different person giving us different answer. Finally, we met this taxi driver, who approach us to know where we plan to go, we want to go to Siaoyukeng(小油坑), Lengshueikeng(冷水坑), and also Mt. Datun(大屯自然公园). After listen to his explanation, we understand that each of these spots are quite a distance from one another, and it's going to take us whole day if we plan to travel by bus. He charged us $1000 to take us to these places and also other famous spots and i think it's quite reasonable.

He is a very friendly driver, told us a lot of his own stories and explained to us all the places that we are visiting and also recommending nice food that we can buy in taipei. I'm so thankful that we met him. Plan to introduce him to others, but too bad, he is going to retire soon.

One thing i love the most when you travel by taxi, you can

ask the driver to stop by when you saw some beautiful scene.

So, the 1st place that he brought us to is Cingtiangang(擎天岗), this place is just marvellous, we spent a lot of time here taking lots of photos, mainly because of the big field there. There is people taking wedding pics there too. The driver told us that it's been a while since there is such a good weather in taipei, that's why there are a lot of people taking wedding shots.

just loved the view at Cingtiangang

feel like i'm in new zealand

our jump shoot , love the blue sky

Next, we move on to Lengshueikeng(冷水坑), which is also being called as Lake of Milk(牛奶湖) due to the colour of the water.

Lengshueikeng, look at the color of the small lake

After that, we moved on to Siaoyukeng(小油坑), one of the best-known tourist spot, it's quite crowded over here. The view is really breathtaking, a must-visit place if you came to yangmingshan. However, you might find this place quite smelly due to sulfur.

Siaoyukeng

Next station, Mt. Datun Nature Park(大屯自然公园). However, due to time restriction, we didn't get to spend much time over here.

inside Datun Nature Park

Our final station, Chutzuhu(竹子湖), for those who understand mandarin, don't get confused, chutzuhu is not a lake, it was, but it was thousands and thosands of years ago. We were having a really nice lunch over there.

photographed Chutzuhu from top

Chutzuhu is very famous with Calla Lily(海芋), however, something bad happened to me when i try to take picture with it. I stepped into the water where they plant the flower and my shoes get so dirty :(

Calla Lily

Next, we get on bus no.9 which will bring us to B

eitou MRT station. From there, we travel to DanShui station and walk our way to Danshui harbour. It took us about 30 minutes. I have been longing to visit this place for a long time. It is especially famous for its sunset view. The scene is definitely breathtaking. We saw 2 couples taking there wedding shots there too. Again, when i'm taking pictures, the wave came up and my shoes --- get wet again, sigh~~

nothing's more beautiful than the view of Danshui's sunset

after that, we walk towards Danshui Old Street(淡水老街), when you come here, must remember to buy the famous 阿婆铁蛋，we also tried a few foods there such as pepper biscuit(炭烧胡椒饼),a gei(阿给).

炭烧胡椒饼

阿给

After having our dinner, we travel to Xinbeitou(新北投) MRT station, the middle coach of the train has been decorated with hot spring theme, as you can see the hot spring bathtubs with LCD monitors on top which you can find the information for beitou specialties and tourist spots.

nicely decorated MRT

bathtub with LCD monitor, cute~~

We walked our way to QianXiTang(千禧汤), 10 minutes walk from Xinbeitou MRT station. I experienced the hot spring there, wow~ it's so hot!!!~ we were having a hard time to get ourselves into it. people were looking at us due to the noise that we make when we were entering, it's a bit embarrassing, haha... I also tried the cold spring, getting into a cold spring during winter night, it's really freezing!!! but, at least i tried, hehe....

that's all for my day 2 in taipei, shall continue with day 3, 4, 5, 6...... in my next post :)

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 ^^