Another Chapter...Hong Kong!

Hey! So after a 1.5 hour plane ride I am now in Hong Kong! The weather here feels even hotter than Taiwan. I will be staying with my relatives, so I may not be updating as often like how I did for Taiwan. But I will update as much as I can. I will be here until the end of December, so there's plenty of time to share about my experience in Hong Kong!

Hong Kong Airport

My aunt's home view in TuenMun

Day 13

My last day in Taiwan...so sad...
I will really miss all the friends I met throughout this trip and all the food I ate!
Today, I went to cut my hair for the first time in Taiwan and tried something completely new!
We went to CrazyCuts in XiMen. The haircut was a great experience and I paid only TWD 1200 for perming and cutting together. This was my first time perming my hair, so I was not sure how it would turn out, but it ended up looking great!

Afterwards, we went for dinner back in DongMen like last night. But this time, we went to eat Vietnamese pho. I ordered their combination pho bowl. This was very different from the ones I eat in Hawaii. The broth was very bland, unlike the ones I eat from Hawaii.

To finish off my last day in Taiwan, we caught the MRT to JingMei to eat food on skewers. We had skewers with: mushrooms, bacon wrapped green onions, a corndog, dried tofu, and pork. At the end, we caught the last MRT back to Gongguan, which was 12:06am today.

I even got a gift from Anthony's relatives! It's called fenglishu, which is a pineapple pastry. These pastries are Taiwan's specialties, and make good gifts for friends and family.

 
Well, this completes my adventures in Taiwan. I'll be heading to Hong Kong tomorrow!

Day 12

  Today, we had to say goodbye to one of the new friends I met on this trip. We started heading to the airport around 2pm because we had to take a bus from Taipei Main Station to TaoYuan airport that took an hour to get to. We then hung out in Starbucks at the airport to try their new Green Tea Pudding Frappuccino until her boarding time at 4:30pm. It was a nice moment as we all said our goodbyes. The airport here was a lot bigger than our Honolulu Airport, and we got lost for about 30 minutes trying to find the right exit to the bus station. That...was not fun. By the time we got back to Gongguan, it was already 7:30pm. We went back to my room to drop off our bags, and headed to DongMen to eat dinner.
  Dinner was so good and filling! We went to a Japanese okonomiyaki restaurant called Japanese Teppan Dining. We ordered the beef okonomiyaki, salted pork fried noodles, and a side dish of yakitoris. That pretty much sums up my day! Tomorrow will be my last fun-filled day in Taiwan since Friday will just be preparing for my flight to Hong Kong.

Day 11

My eleventh day...I can't believe my two weeks in Taiwan are almost over. We went to XinYi to meet up with a friend from ISA last semester in UH. We had a nice, simple lunch at a cafe, and chatted there for a couple of hours. It was great seeing old friends again.

I ordered the beef and noodle bowl

Afterwards, we caught the MRT to Taipei Main Station and ate dinner at a restaurant called Wellington Street. This restaurant was supposedly Hong Kong-style cooking. This was a farewell dinner for one of the new friends I met during this trip. The food here was great. We had 5 main dishes, and my favorite was the soft shell crab.

Char-siu

Soft shell crab

Fried salty egg w/ shrimp

Scallop and vegetables

Crab Cakes

YouTiao and vegetables

To finish off the day, we went to watch World War Z! Now...as some of you who know me may know... I am NOT good with thriller movies. As ashamed as I am about saying this, I watched the movie with sunglasses on and my fingers in my ears. It's bad enough watching stuff pop up at me; the music just makes the experience even scarier! Apparently I was the only one who could not handle this movie, so...all of you who plan to watch it, I guess it shouldn't be that bad.

Well, time to sleep and then go to the airport to see of our friend.

Day 10

Hey hey, today I was finally able to go to one of the restaurants I needed to eat at in Taiwan which was....Modern Toilet! This place is very cute with toilets everywhere, located in XiMen! You literally sit on toilets to eat and your food comes in a toilet bowl. I ordered a pork katsu curry bowl. The food here may not be the best, but you are paying for the experience. It was very cute and fun eating out of a small toilet bowl, drinking out of a mini urinal, and eating ice cream out of (I believe) a standup toilet. I mainly just enjoyed taking pictures of the food in this restaurant, but it is a little pricey compared to usual meals in Taiwan.

Afterwards, we caught the MRT for like five minutes and reached Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. This is a nice landmark that honors the former president of the Republic of China (Chiang Kai-shek). Unfortunately, the memorial hall closes at 6...we arrived there at 6:30 and were unable to go inside to see the chamber. This area is a very nice place to take pictures, though...and so...we did!

The weather hasn't been the best these past 2 days, but it's clearing up so we'll see how tomorrow goes!

Day 9

Soo sad...it was raining most of today. Thunderstorms everywhere! Or at least just in my area, so I stayed in my dorm the whole day. At least I got to recuperate after last night. For dinner we went to Momo Paradise, which is a very good sukiyaki (hot pot) place. It was at Taipei Main Station in a place called Q Square. This place is highly recommended for hot pot lovers because it is ALL YOU CAN EAT for 90 minutes! (Except dessert and drinks...but everything else...freeee!) Okay, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and I'll be able to show you more of Taiwan!

Left side is Tonkotsu, Right side is Sukiyaki

In the mean time, you can check out some of the videos my friend Nial made of his move to Taiwan:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TaiwanisMoving?feature=watch

Day 8

Ahh my trip in Taiwan is halfway done. :( We ended up staying up all night last night, so that we could say goodbye to one of the new friends I met from the university. We stayed up until 8 am so that we could see him off as he returns to Japan. I spent most of today sleeping until 4pm, and then I went to eat dinner at a small Japanese restaurant for ramen. Afterwards, we all got dressed to go to LUXY! This club was very nice and sooo much bigger than Vice or Ginza in Hawaii. When we went pass the entrance and up the elevator we see a laser area, which was so cool! There were two decently sized dance floors, but most people gathered around the main center one. There was also a second floor for tables with bottle service. During the middle of it, there was a short performance by people wearing neon light outfits. This was a fun night, and I highly recommend if you go clubbing to go to LUXY.

Anyways, time to sleep.

Day 6 & 7

For these past 2 days I've finally been able to go...shopping! We first went to XiMen, which is a shopping district with main brands for teens. There were brands like: Fifty Percent, NIKE, Adidas, UNIQLO, and Chocoolate. One of the stores I was finally able to visit was STAGE! (Which is a brand opened by Show Luo - a Taiwanese artist/actor) Afterwards, we went to eat a mango shave-ice place called Mango Cha Cha, which supposedly Jeremy Lin ordered take out from before.

 We then caught the MRT to WuFenPu, which was like a market for clothes. Here you can find shirts for like TWD 100-200 each, which is around US $3-$7. This area was huge and seemed like a maze, so if it weren't for my friend I would have been lost walking in circles. I was able to pick up two shirts from there ^.^

For dinner we ate at a restaurant called Formosa Chang, which has a very good pork rice (a local Taiwanese dish). It was so good I had to get seconds!

On day 7, we went back to XiMen for more shopping and we got ourselves a pair of new glasses. These glasses were TWD 400, buy 1 get 1 free...so 200 each (US $7).

We then went to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant with Anthony's friends from the University. The food there was okay, so we went to the smaller night market in ShuangLian. The night market did not have as much variety but we got a good dessert with mochi balls and shave ice. There were so many people waiting in line for this. The shave ice was covered with sprinkles of black sesame and peanuts.

Day 5

Hey! How many of you have had xiaolongbao? XiaoLongBao is a dumpling with soup inside, and although that may not sound special, when you eat it...it is just AMAZING! Today I went to Din Tai Fung near Taipei 101. Din Tai Fung is known for making one of the best, and well...I agree! The skin was thin but enough to hold the soup in, and when you pick it up with your chopsticks, you have to be careful so that it doesn't pop and leak the soup out. When you eat it, all the soup explodes inside your mouth like gushers. I've tried some places in Hawaii with xiaolongbao, and they just don't compare. The pork xiaolongbao here was just so goooood! Aside from the xiaolongbao, there were other very good dishes like: spicy shrimp and pork wonton (this one had a sauce that tasted like it had 5 different flavors all mixed together), shrimp and pork shiaomai, sticky rice and ground pork shiaomai,  braised beef noodle soup, and noodles with minced pork sauce. For dessert, we ordered  taro dumplings, taro buns, eight flavored sticky rice dessert (this one was unique and had azuki beans in the middle), and a sweet soup with mochi balls stuffed with black sesame.

 By the time we finished eating it was already 4:30pm, and boy were we all stuffed! We then went to Taipei 101, which is a super high skyscraper with 101 floors! (well...101 above ground and 5 floors underground) What was even more amazing was that they had the fastest elevator that went 1010m/min! We got to the 89th floor in 37 seconds...it was crazy! But at the top, the view of Taipei was very nice.

After sightseeing at the top of Taipei101, we went to see Kal-El, son of Jor-El! Watching a movie in Taiwan was very comfortable. We had assigned seating, and the seats gave us a lot of leg room. Aside from that, the movie had Chinese subtitles.

At the end of the day, we went to a small restaurant for local Taiwanese food. The main dish that stood out to me was the sticky rice with shredded beef jerky on the side, topped with a sweet, sour, and spicy sauce. I've been in Taiwan for only 5 days and well...I'm just getting fat here haha. The food is so good!

Day 4

  We started off day number 4 by heading to Q Square food court to eat lunch since we woke up at 12pm. This food court was different from how our food courts in Oahu look. For example our Ala Moana food court has a mix of different vendors and each shop looks like its brand giving it a very diverse multi-cultural look, but the food court here was very unified where all the vendors looked the same with only the name (in Chinese) that was different. This sucked because I could not tell easily what each vendor sold without having to walk around the entire food court and looking at the individual pictures. Finally I decided on a combo meal with kung pao chicken and black pepper beef that was served on top of a hot plate.

  After lunch, we had to take a 1 hour long train ride then transfer and take another 1 hour long bus ride to finally reach JiuFen. JiuFen reminded me of Stanley Market in Hong Kong, but what's even more amazing was that this place was the inspiration for the movie, Spirited Away (which most of you should have seen!) and sold all sorts of souvenirs and snacks.

JiuFen (The lady in the wig was very nice too!)

The taro mochi balls were very chewy and cold; perfect for the hot day!

  We then took the bus back down towards Keelung, where there is another night market. This one seemed a lot bigger than the ShiLin one that I ate at the other day because this one had over 100+ different vendors. If you can see in the picture below, there are numbers next to each vendor...it was impossible for us to try EVERYTHING! The food was just indescribable!...and the fact that they were in Chinese and I don't know how to explain it, but it was good!

Random: This picture of Keelung just reminded me of Hollywood

Keelung Market

Simply Yummy!

  That's all for today, good night!