Day 6 (19/6): Taipei (Ximending, Wu Fen Pu)

As we dragged our luggage through the longest distance yet to the train station, burning in the hot sun and breathing in the exhaust fumes from passing vehicles, our moods weren't affected as the highly awaited Taipei awaited us. Bought a bento lunch box at the nearby 7-11 (in the train station itself) which was a really good deal. It was all heated up and tasted real good for such a convenient quick take out (I recommend the full bento set which came with side dishes).

Took us about 2.5 hours to get to Taipei and the ride there was smooth as ever. Train rides are highly reliable over there in Taiwan and provided quality comfort, with their adjustable leg rest and generous inclination of the seats without cramping the seats behind you as each individual seat was allocated lotsa of space.

We had to change a jie yun from the taipei main station, called the Bannan line, to the station where our hotel was situated at, Ximen station. It was only 1 stop away and was like 30 seconds train ride from the main station. Later found out that it was walking distance from the main train station. When we alighted the jie yun, wow, we were already overwhelmed by a nostalgic sight we haven't experienced since the past few days... the liveliness of the passing crowd. Kaohsiung and Hualien lacked the bustlingly vigor of passers-by but the crowd of Taipei reminded us of Singapore, where there was much more "life".

As we made our way to the visitor's centre once again, this time greeted by 2 ladies who weren't bothered to do their job, we grabbed a city map and headed on to check in at our hotel without asking much questions from the 2 bo chup staff. When we got out of the station, we witnessed what seemed like hundreds of passers-by zooming past us, shops lined the entire streets, there were huge billboards of the movie "The Killers" and Ryoko Hirosue's new advert (no idea what she was promoting), and dozens of street performers entertaining the passing crowd. We had no idea which direction to walk, but while trying to navigate ourselves, a street performer by the name of Husky caught our attention.

He first carried a black box, laid it down on an open area near the exit of the train station, opened it, set-up his stereos, took out his mike and starting addressing the crowd. Soon, he gotten himself an audience. During all this time, I took a photo of yq and one of the 2 mascots of a theme park, walked to and back from the middle of the centre of Ximending where we did stop a while to listen to what he had to showcase. Husky was a street rapper, similar to Enimem but less vulgar. He was rapping halfway when there was a problem with his sound system so we proceeded to locate our hotel and hope that he would still be around when we put our stuff down.

We did manage to find our hotel after about 15 mins of walking around, and realised it was actually very near the station (just that you need to know how to walk there). We checked in, left our luggage at the main lobby because we were told our room wasn't ready yet and was told to be back an hour later. We explored the area around us, bought "Koi" standard bubble tea at a shop by the name of 50 "lan", passed by even more street stalls showcasing raw talents such as Jordanian sand art (much much more pro than those you see in Singapore, where he could form shapes of the desert, camels, trees and landscapes. We entered this place called the "Red House", nope wasn't an old abandoned building where many where murdered there, but it was some heritage centre which they kept some part of the heritage and converted another part into a creative corner. Had several creative shops over there but none really did catch my eye.

We walked over to where Husky was performing initially and to our pleasant surprise, he was still there and had attracted an even greater crowd. He did impromptu rapping, where he asked 3 random on-lookers to name him a word which he would use in his rap, and his own versions and interpretations of various songs. He even did a rather touching rendition about his own background and why and how he started rapping. Kudos to the rapper who took stole my gf's breath for the day. ;p

Moving on, we checked out the bustling streets and came across an artist who did silhouette portrait cutting. I filmed most of the part when he cut a portrait of yq and after he was done, yq convinced me to do one for myself, facing the other direction so we can display it together. In the end, both of us had our silhouette portraits cut out (pretty cheap, $100NT per portrait). Other street talents also included fire painting and a street magician.

Around the corner was the famous Ah Zong Mian Xian, and we shared a large bowl of it together. Taste wasn't to yq's liking but it worked for me. I loved it because it wasn't overwhelmed by the oyster taste (like in Singapore, I don't even think they added oysters in them) but was more of a porky flavor. About $75NT for large I think and it was nothing more than just mee sua, chewy pork insides, and lotsa chong. But still, there was a savory aftertaste which left me wanting for more. But we left our stomach space for other street snacks. Also tried this bittergourd drink... white bittergourd that was supposedly, as claimed by the stall owner, less bitter than the green ones. We ordered a cup of bittergourd honey and eewwww... tasted... Let's just say its not my kind of fruit drink. Yq didn't like it anymore than I did because of the raw taste of the bittergourd but she had a higher tolerance than I did.

After checking the bustling streets of Ximending out (I asked my fren about whether its called Ximen or Ximending but she said it didn't matter. Even though the train station called the place Ximen, everyone else calls it Ximending. So it's not a matter of adjective or nouns, just... 2 similar sounding words which means the exact same thing), we made our way back to our hotel before heading down to Taiwan storyland. We passed by even more clothing shops along the main road towards Taipei train station and used landmarks to guide us there.

When we did find the place, however, we only had 1 hour left to explore the place before it closed. Nonetheless, we paid for the package ticket (admission fee + cash vouchers which would allow you to get food and souvenirs; total cost paid was less than the actual value obtained) and moved quickly to take digital photos and mental photos of the entire place. Taiwan storyland was a place re-created to bring out the feel of Taiwan in the 1970s. There was a gift shop which sold 70s stuff and the exhibits were a great eye-opener. We rushed through our dinner, Rou Zhao Fan and beancurd and hurried on to another souvenir shop where we would spend all our cash vouchers at, buying postcards and cute animal stitches.

After which, we headed out to Wu Fen Pu. We heard lotsa advice that that was a place which sold cheap clothings and it was advisable to check it out first so we would know the pricing of clothings over there in Taiwan.

The street shops were about 300m away from the train station, not that close so you'll need to get your bearings right before trying to walk towards the shops. Wu Fen Pu "shopping district" (I'm not sure what its called but I'll call it shopping district for simplicity's sake) sold t-shirts, males and females for as low as $100NT per piece. Colors mostly limited to white, pink and purple. Bought a purple t-shirt each and 2 vests that night. After which, we headed our way back to Ximending. We walked along the main streets after finding out that the smaller afternoon bustling streets were quite "dead". Before that, I saw the street magician from that afternoon and I asked him about where I could get magic supplies from.

He introduced himself as Rich to me and he was a really nice guy, gave me the address and the number of the magic shop, which was located in Xindian (the last station of the green line). I wasn't sure I was going to head down because I didn't want to waste time trying to find that place or to bore yq with that while we were supposed to be on a holiday. Nonethless, I thanked him for his help and like I mentioned above, we checked out the main streets once again where yq got another top at a reasonably cheap price.

One important thing about getting female clothings over there is that you'll need to do it based on "blind faith" because most of the street stalls don't allow trying on. You might be able to do so for departmental stores but definitely not street stalls.

And that was our hectic first day in Taipei, which we had already gotten ourselves lotsa stuff. I shan't reveal Taipei ratings yet and will do so only towards my last few posts to give proper substantiation to it.