Day 2: To HsinChu

HSINCHU/ HIGH SPEED RAIL

To save us some time, we took a cab ride from MaoKong MRT station to Taipei High Speed Rail station. Taking the high speed rail ranked high on my to-do-list. This worked for me as I needed to get to Hsinchu in a hurry. Why? Because today's the last day of the Taiwan Lantern Festival and HsinChu city is about 85 km away. That would have taken me more than an hour to get there. It would be even more challenging when the Lantern Festival moves to Nantou, about a 213km away.

But with the high speed rail, we would arrived at the city using only half the time. Even from end-to-end - Taipei to ZuoYing, with a distance of 355km, it would take the train just 96 minutes to get to the end point. Come to think of it, I was literally flying!

We bought the tickets direct from the station as my wife and I could not predict what time we would get to the station (If you book early online, you can get up to 35% off). I paid NT580 for a return ticket.

LANTERNS

When we arrived, we were treated to a wide display of lights and colours. In truth, not many people would have visited HsinChu if not for this national-level lantern festival. I took the opportunity to look up on how the land where the lantern festival was held was previously used, thanks to Google Map. It was just vegetation. Largely, nearly all High Speed Rail stations are sited quite a distance from the various cities, san Taipei.

There were so many lanterns that we truly got lost within them. Lanterns included those from the local culture such as the indigenious and other dialect groups, cartoon characters, and many other giant lanterns. What intrigued me were the religious lanterns, both Buddhism annd Christian that were on display. I was pleased that religious freedom was on show.

FOOD

The Taiwan Lantern Festival brought together food from all over Taiwan.  We really fed ourselves crazy! Meatball and bee hoon and the super large cuttlefish for NT100 each. We then had a go at the Chou TouFu for a second day running. We also tried a skewered meat - I took the lamb meat and thid smell was definitely not to die for. To wash all our food down and at the same time, to keep our bodies warm, we purchased ourselves a cup of piping hot ginger tea.

CLOSING CEREMONY/ TAIPEI

We stayed till the end of of the closing ceremony. The weather had turned much colder and the wind brought us much chill. Still, we persisted as the fireworks lighted up the sky and it was for the very first time that two sets of fireworks were on display at two corners of the grounds. The music was enchanting and the call of "Taiwan Formosa, the heart of Asia" still rings loudly in my head. Taiwan's Vice President Wu Den-Yih was there to observe the hand over of responsbilities of the 2014 festival to the mayor of Nantou.

We took the last train back to Taipei. I'd thought it might be more appropriate if they had extended the timing instead of making 11:30pm the last train. On the journey back, I found a flip-down hook that allowed me to hang my pullover. I did not know that there is such a thing as a coat hanger within the train. I know, I know, I'm such a country pumpkin right? :P

Arriving in Taipei at about 12 midnight, we took a taxi back to the hotel. Something to note, there's an extra surcharge of NT20 if it's past midnight.

Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 4

As the sun started to set in earnest, my wife and I made a quick stop at the local tea leaves shop called Maokong Teahouse. They do have a teahouse and have set aside a little corner to sell their own brand of tea and tea cups.

Other than the regular oo-long, jasmine and tiekuanyin teas, I had to try out their very own maokong tea. I believe that the maokong tea is being produced in a small quantity and thus, overseas sales are very limited.

All that we have purchased so far are perishables. In order to keep a part of Taiwan as a momento, I saw these lovely tea cups. I was intrigued by its colour and the label tells me that its covered in the 50s design. I so had to buy it. Anyway for keepsake, I was willing to part with my NT400.

By now, it was starting to get dark. It was the weekend, so we had expected a queue and all in, we waited for about 45 minutes. It was drizzling a little and I was praying for the rain to be kept at bay. One point to note: Always bring along a small umbrella as the eather can get quite erratic. Thank God that the drizzled stopped after about 10 minutes.

One other thing we had to note was that the Maokong Station is not opened on a Monday. There are buses up to Maokong though I think it will not offer you that lovely panoramic view. 

Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 3

Walking along, we then came to the second tea house called Ah Mei Si DaChaShi. One thing that I thought will be tough for a number of foreigners is that the teahouses in MaoKong bear no English signs. Even the menu is in Chinese. 

The teahouse is perched precariously (I'm very sure the building is on solid ground) at the edge of the mountain and it truly gives diners such a wonderful view. In clearer weather, you can even see Taipei 101.

Looking at the menu, we scratched our heads in trying to figure out what to order. In truth, we barely understood what is listed in the menu as its written in traditional chinese. So when all else fails, go for the set menu. They can give us anything but what I was eyeing at was the pot of hot soup that every table seemed to have.

We were served with a plate of tea leaves fried rice. Never had I had tea leaves in my fried rice. Next came the carrots, vegetables and mushrooms, followed by my CHICKEN AND MUSHROOM SOUP HOT POT. Mmmmmmm. Some cold vegetable dish and prawns completed the set meal.

After all that feasting, what better way than to end it with a hot cup of chinese tea.

Day 2: Being MaoKong-ed Part 2

When we arrived at MaoKong, my wife and I were like deers in the spotlight. We stood there not knowing where we should head towards. It was a Y shaped road that pointed us to three different directions. So which should we take. The "Follow the crowd" mentality rear its head once again.

We turned left and moved with the crowd along Zhongnan Road. Soon, we had little food stalls on our left and a food centre of sorts on our right. As its still the early parts of our MaoKong's exploration, we continued our walk. We passed by some tombstones on the hill before arriving at this very beautiful and picturistic tea house and its small tea plantation.

I'd thought the pink flowers were cherry blossoms. In reality, they were flowers from the apricot trees, displaying red, pink and white flowers. Still has lovely.

The very first tea house that we arrived at was called HongMuShi. We did not stop to have tea at this teahouse but the lady owner was quite an interesting character. She called out from the 2nd level to get customers to patronise her teahouse.

On the right was a shop that sells tea. We walked on. After two more bends on the road, we came across on the left a cafe that serves coffee and tea from a modified van. The dispensing area does not look too cool, but the view of the mountains was to die for.

Day 2: Being Maokong-ed Part 1

Today, it was clear blue skies. Today, I'm off to the mountains. I'm getting more localised now. Why? I don't really need to tread cautiously to see if we have boarded the train. We are one-day old Taiwanese MRT traveller by now.

On the right of the picture, I can see Park Taipei Hotel peeking out from the rest of the other buildings. So cheeky! The train took us southwards towards Taipei Zoo.

Once you pass the turnstiles of the MRT station, take the escalator down and look for signs that lead you towards the Maokong Gondola. Then turn left make your way to the station. It was a pretty long walk and the sun was out, making it a rather warm day. You'd need to pass by MacDonalds and other buildings seemingly related to the Taipei Zoo.

Well, buying the tickets is the easy part. you'd just need to give the counter person NT100 (This is totally worth the money) and she'll pass you two tickets for a return trip. There're two stations that you can alight at - the Taipei Zoo station and the Zhinan Temple station. I skipped both these stations as I'd really wanted to see only Maokong.

As it was a weekend, it was a moderately long wait of 30 minutes. I'm quite sure that if we'd visited on a weekday, it would have been less crowded. We had other plans for the other days. Also the Gondolas are closed on Mondays. You can still make it up via their bus services, but I really wanted to try the gondola. So Maokong on a weekend it was.

The 25 minutes ride up in the gondola gave our legs some respite after the moderately long wait at the gondola station. The scenes that you get on a clear day are just gorgeous. Other than a chatty set of grandparents and their grandchildren, the ride up was a thrill. You'll get to see the landscape of Taipei, tea plantations, temples being built at the edge of cliffs, and Taipei 101 in the distant.

Day 1: Continued Feasting!

So did I say that we were not feeding ourselves well at RaoHe night market? Enroute to the MRT station, we chanced u[pon this stall that was selling mushroom meat ball soup. If it's food, with a large crowd, and since we came across it, we were game to try it. For NT40, we were given two humongous meat ball. Gorgeous! Once again, anything soupy on a cool evening would just make ones stomach happy!

Reaching the MRT station, we spotted Wellcome, a 24-hour supermarket. For the fear of starvation, we went in to buy fruits for digestion and cup noodles just in case Taiwan runs out of food.

Buying this cup noodles brings me back to the 90s once again. There was a time where I was in Taiwan for my military training and the weather was cold. I remember buying such a cup noodle, hid below a staircase, and had a feast, because the noodles came with a sachet of beef packed in it. Instant noodles with real beef! Oh my goodness!!! I know, people are telling me that it's preserved food. But do you know what it meant to me when you're in a foreign country, cold weather, officers who were always on our backs. Ok, I've digressed.

Day 1: Rao He Night Market

After walking in rounds and even asking a local where the night market was (His reply was that it was a few MRTs away!!!), Jac and I managed to arrive at the gate of the night market. Though the gate is straight and narrow, there were many people squeezing through it. The food gods were drawing people to them.

We caught our very first whiff of Chou toufu or Fermented bean curd, and the smell was strong enough to lead us to the stall. I'd my very first chow toufu when I visited Taiwan in 1994 and then in 2008 when I was in China. Here was the oportunity for me to have a go at this "smell toufu". 

It looked like it was the crowd's favourite. We were squeezed with others at the same table and in a very while, four pieces of "chou toufu" were served to us. NT40. Haw haw, Day 1 in Taiwan and we were going to stink up our mouths. As the saying goes, "do what the locals do". So the first piece went into my mouth. AWESOME!!!! The smell was horrendous, but the warmth that emitted from the "chou toufu" just gave my stomach that oomph!

Roaming the streets, we picked up the Taiwan sausages (taiwan xiang chang) , and small dumplings (Shui jiao) both for NT35 each.

One of the most patronised stalls along the night market was the pork ribs soup dish (pai gu). A red banner stretched across the stall - Jin Lin Shan Xiong Di they called themselves. I counted, there were really three brothers and they definitely looked related. They had their wives there as well. Gets too long and complicated if we include the wives and children in the stall's name, I guess.

Their speciality also include goats meat and braised pork on rice (lu rou fan). We tried only the pork ribs soup with rice and the hot soup brought out the perspiration in me, even in that cool 22 degree climate. NT70 was worth it! Tender meat and can you see that whole entire tub of chilli they left for me? Yum yum!