I went to Taipei recently, and it was so, so good! =D It was my first trip there and I must say that it's my new-found favourite country to travel to now!!! It was such an eye-opening experience, and even my mum who didn't want to go with me in the first place, I dare say she enjoyed herself too! :) She bought like truckloads of stuff back... it was insane! I dubbed her as the 'Shopping Queen #2'! Hahaha. My aunt's the 'Shopping Queen #1', that's why, but my mum (her sister) is trailing behind her, by a close shot!
I didn't manage to go to much night markets as I had initially planned to go for with my friends. Due to a car accident that I had 2 days before my planned trip, I had to back out and let them go instead. Boo. :( Was quite bummed out, but thank God for His Grace that I was able to go just before I flew back to Adelaide. :) My mum just doesn't fancy night markets and after visiting one of it, I think I'm not that used to it either. Haha. But I ate A LOT of fantastic food at Taipei, including seafood! My tummy was super happy the whole trip! It was gastronomic heaven because everything is like so much cheaper that you just tend to buy and buy, without considering thrice. Haha. Seafood and sushi were like 50-60% cheaper than SG and so, so fresh! Pretty much like visiting Japan, but much cheaper, I reckon. :)
For myself, I bought quite a number of facial masks and facial products. The masks there were so cheap. I think the most expensive that I bought was 2 boxes (5 masks each) for NTD 189, that came up to an estimate equivalent of $7.56 for 10 masks, so one mask was $0.70. The cheapest mask that I bought was <$0.50 for one sheet I think. =D Singapore is like at least twice of that for the cheapest and can go up to 6x for the good range. :O Yes, I know Korea is cheaper definitely, but I haven't been to Korea yet, so I can't say.
Food-wise: bought some cup noodles back, the 满汉大餐 instant noodles that all my friends and relatives raved about; we bought back mostly beef (because it tasted so much better) and some pork. I also brought back some Taiwan snacks, which was meant as souvenirs for my friends in Adelaide. I just wished I had brought back more Taiwan snacks because they were soooo good! The 太陽餅 (Sun Cake), 鳳梨酥 (Pineapple cake) and 芋头酥 (taro mochi pastry) were really good snacks that I recommend anyone to buy!
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| Taro Mochi Pastry |
I don't really like to eat taro because it's usually quite sweet (especially when it's served in the Chinese yam dessert, orh-nee) but I actually love this one! It's super good, this flaky pastry has taro paste and a chewy ball of mochi inside! And it's not too sweet. Mmm. It was really delicious! :) I think it can only be bought at the airport in Taipei so it's not that fresh, but still better than nothing.
This is my shopping cart of things that I bought from Taipei. It looks a lot but only because I placed each item as individually whereas for my mum, I had to stack them up because I wouldn't be able to take a shot of her cart otherwise! Lol.
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| My shopping cart! =D |
Photo's a tad blur because I didn't realize it much earlier on, if not I would have taken another shot. :( Oh well. Half of it is facial stuff, the other half is food and maybe a quarter of it is shoes. Haha. I didn't buy any clothes this time round, mainly because I didn't have any money left to shop!! Most of our money was spent on EATING the food there!
My mum's.
Actually most of my mum's loots went to our relatives. She just kept buying and giving, and in the end what's left was not much at all. Haha. We even brought fruits back because they were so unbelievably cheap! But I didn't get to taste much of them just because I flew back to Adelaide 1 day after I came back from Taipei. :( Sigh. It was so insane trying to cart so much things back though, I think we had the most hand luggage amongst the 2 of us. I was so tired after packing and carrying all these stuff.
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| The cartons of fruits that were so cheap! =D |
My advice would be not to ever pack fruits back, it's too troublesome, unless you check them in! But I dare say the next time I go Taipei and if fruits are that cheap, I would most likely do it again. (face palm) Haha. I would buy extra check in luggage and check them all in!! =D Then, my headache would be facing all these boxes at Changi Airport. Hahahaha.
Maybe I'll do a day by day catalogue of my trip there, but I don't know if I have time. I have quite a number of backdated posts to do! =/ I'll see how! :) Maybe I will start and stop halfway, maybe I will start and continue on through the very end. :)
