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| Image from Locky's English Playground |
Day 2 of the Taipei trip, woke up in a cold and
drizzling morning, the breakfast was not amazing but it seems to me that Taiwan breakfast is kind of like Japanese breakfast in a sense they both have rice with mini side dishes such as spicy bean sprouts and fried green vegetables.
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The hot spring hotel requires their customers to check in at 5pm but check out at 12pm, so there was really not enough time to spend in the room, but they do offer free shuttle for the customers and their luggage, or just their baggages and not the customers, so making use of this service to walk around without your luggage for most of the time and then have your luggage delivered to you at the nearby MRT stations is a great strategy!
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Leaving Beitou to Tamsui and there is a harbour walk with snack shops and restaurants. The snacks were all great! dry pork slices, Taipei 101-like ice-creams and potato crisps, pork sausages and many more. Their huge sizes definitely attract tourist to give it a go and kill their SD card memory, but the scenery is not to be missed.
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One interesting thing observed about the Starbucks Coffee in Taipei is that they don't just come in a shop, but the entire building! You see the photo below? That is a four-storey Starbucks coffee! Man, I would love to go there often to enjoy my coffee. Just look at the view from the above photo! The coffee shop is directly facing this!
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After picking up the luggage and went to check-in at a much cheaper hotel in Ximen, it was time for more walking around and snacking. There is this really popular noodles shop which serves fine melt-in-your-mouth noodles in soup in
Ximending and is always very crowded, not sure if the locals like it but definitely attracts tourists. You can see some people eating their bowl of noodles on the street while others take photos of other people eating in the photo below.
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Many stores and restaurants have Japanese-scripted lanterns and banners to attract their customers and they seem to work very well!
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Absolutely a place with a nice blend of the Japanese and the Taiwanese cultures!
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Took the following picture just before leaving Ximen Ding, not exactly the same as Japan's
-chō, but definitely an alternative if Japan isn't a choice on your list.
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Outside of the busy shopper's paradise, museums and artistic structures
harmonise the atmosphere.
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Dinner time arrived and it was this station we were heading. There was only one restaurant in the plan......
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Leaving a quiet MRT station? Just because it was still early, it was so packed on the way back.
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And then we arrived at THE ONE!
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Yes, Hong Kong also has Din Tai Fung, but I won't want to miss the origin of the restaurant. Hey! Must see how different they are, right?
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And the differences were great! Not the taste really, but the portion and the price. In Taipei, the same restaurant offers double portion for almost everything but charges only half the price of Hong Kong's!!! You will have to believe me with the bill shown below.
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It was definitely a great restaurant to visit and had the time been longer, I would have had the same food again and again!
Don't forget to "LIKE" this entry and the English Playground
Vocabulary:
drizzle -- (vb) [I] to rain in small light drops
-chō -- (n) [U]
harmonise -- (UK usually harmonise) [I or T] to be suitable together, or to make different people, plans, situations, etc. suitable for each other
Resources:
Travelling & Living: Day 1 in Taipei @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2011/12/travelling-living-day-1-in-taipei.html
Ximending @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ximending
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/drizzle_4
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/harmonize_2#harmonize_2__3
The taste of Din Tai Fung is not that good.
ReplyDeleteTotally Agree. I checked the travel book before I go, But absolutely disappointed.
Nope, I like it man!
ReplyDeleteI like that restaurant in tai wan too!!! not really like in hong kong branch... Celia
ReplyDeleteI think the HK branches are great though.
ReplyDelete