Dine with Annna

TUUHUUU… I exceeded my photobucket bandwidth and hence, all the pichas cannot be viewed. Am still working on upgrading it, but it doesn’t accept my paypal payment because it’s not linked with my credit card. So babi one! Anyway, just enjoy this post lah!

On our second day in Taiwan, we had to wake super early like 6.30am to get ready and have our breakfast. We had to leave the hotel by 7.45am to avoid the jam towards the railway station.

Salad and ham

We had our breakfast at Holidays Inn Express’ cafe which is the smallest buffet space I’ve ever dined in. It is situated just at their lobby with many small tables and chairs. Very small space and we had to “squeeze” and “fight” for food (add in extra exaggeration).

Porridge and Miso soup

Immediately after our breakfast, we got all our luggage into our traveling machine, the Coach, and left the hotel for the railway station which was approximately 20 minutes drive away.

Taipei Railway Station

This is how Taipei Railway Station looks like on the outside. Our coach went around it and dropped us of somewhere inside the station. We didn’t have to get our luggage as the driver will be going to Hualien as well, by driving, meanwhile, we get to Hualien by train.

Reason being, so we can experience a different mass of transportation in Taiwan. Actual fact, the road to Hualien is mountainous and very geli, so, not very suitable for those who easily get car sick. Anyway, we get to ride train!

Ticket Counters

This is how the station looks like on the inside. Very nice! I like their architecture design.

There are a few 7 Eleven inside the station. I wanted to go in to buy myself a cup of coffee because I didn’t get to have one during breakfast – SuperRushHourBreakfast.

7 Eleven Express

We quickly walked past the first 7 Eleven because the tour guide was so anxious to show off Taipei Railway Station. Couldn’t believe I cussed because I couldn’t stop for 5 minutes to buy my coffee.

City Cafe in 7 Eleven

We stopped by one of the 7 Eleven because some tour member needs to use the toilet before we ride the train.

They have this City Cafe selling in 7 Eleven. The Americano is not bad, but the lattes are tasteless because they put too much milk in it.

Taiwanese lok lok

This is the famous “lok lok” we always see in the Taiwan channels (to those who has parabolic, you’ll know what I mean). I managed to capture this before my camera kena halau (got shooed). Apparently, no photo taking allowed in 7 Eleven. I wonder why.

Me and Bro

So, we end up camwhoring outside 7 Eleven instead.

kopi-ing with leng lui

And another shot with City Cafe leng lui.

Hello Kitty Playing Cards

I bought 2 packs of Hello Kitty playing cards. Nice kan?  Bought them so that we could play in the train in case it gets to bored. It was 3 hours ride worr…

Rails

We reached the basement of the station via escalator and this is how it subway rails look like. *sakai* We don’t have railway in Kuching (except in Peninsula Malaysia). Even though there’s a place called Jalan Keretapi (Train Road) but that does not mean that we have railway tracks there. =x

Monitor

We have to check and double check the time of arrival of our train, in case there is any delay. Also, to ensure that we get on the right one.

Tickets

These are our train tickets. It costs us NT$441 (approximately RM49)  for our train ride from Taipei to Hualien.

with the rails

I am very nervous standing so near the tracks. I is scared someone who walks pass might push me down when the train comes. @.@!!! *Final Destination dilemma*

people mountain, people sea

The station is similar to KL LRT/KMT stations; it is packed with humans. The only difference is that, Taiwanese are very organized. They wait till everyone gets off the train, then, they go in. Unlike Malaysians so kiasee the train will leave them behind, just squeeze through when people are trying to get of the train.

#Random picha:

cute terrier

The one thing you can never get to see in Malaysia’s public transportation is doggies! You get to see doggies riding public transportation in Taiwan. Saw this cute terrier with its owner patting on its head to keep it calm.

The Train

This is how our ride looks like. Chuu chuuu...

Our trails

The train ride from Taipei to Hualien takes about 3 hours. As you can see from the map above, throughout the whole journey, all we see is mountain, villages, farms, rocks and etc on our right; the beach on our left along the coastline.

Seating

The seats are pretty comfortable with plenty of leg room plus, there’s a leg rest in front and you can adjust the height to your liking.

Arrived Hualien station

After the 3 hours of non stop sightseeing and picha taking (took few hundreds pichas just sitting in the train =____=) train ride, we finally arrived Hualien.  We didn’t get to play cards because we are so sakai with the sceneries. LOL

Hualien road

Hualien is unlike Taipei, where there are cars everywhere! This part of Hualien is more like the country side city. All you see from here are trucks, buses and very few cars = NO TRAFFIC JAM

restaurant for lunch

We had lunch in this restaurant just opposite Hualien Railway Station. Don’t ask me what is the restaurant’s name because I don’t know (I can’t read Chinese,) but you can figure it out by looking at the restaurant’s name on top of the building.

Fruits sold in the restaurant

They even sell fruits at the entrance of the restaurant. Everywhere also can berbusiness.

Now, into the food business…

Hualien is the largest county in Taiwan and is located on the mountainous eastern coastline of Taiwan. Hence, we get to taste the different side of Taiwan. According to the tour guide, the village taste, in other words, the kampung style cooking.

Spicy sauce

Everyone had a serving of the spicy sauce to go with the dishes. It’s pretty spicy and tasted like sambal minus the belacan.

brown rice

We were served brown rice. It’s red in color and it is exactly the same as the ones we find locally. The shape of the rice is slightly different from ours. It’s short and rounder, whereas the local brown rice we have is long and thin.

chicken soup

We had wintermelon, red dates and wolfberries chicken soup. It is a clear and yummy soup.

red dates and wolfberries

steamed fish

The fish is very fresh and the gravy tasted real good with the rice.

The round thing sitting on the fish is some kind of fruit in Taiwan and according to the rest, it tasted sour like sour plum. hmm… mysterious mini ball.

sauted veggie

Similar to our local veggies.

Okay.. So it is here I am in the meat dilemma. I can’t remember which is the venison or lamb or ostrich meat =x

meat with onions and spring onions

wild guess, this should be the venison meat.

some meat with fern leaf

wild guess #2, this should be the lamb or ostrich meat with the fern leaf.

fern leaf

The fern leaf cooked with the meat is really that fern leaf we normally see sitting on trees leeching on the trees nutrients, that fern leaf! Its texture is slimy and similar to midin and ti wang miaw. Super slimy!

fern bud

The “bud” or the baby leaf looks like the midin head. lol.. It is crispy! Looks like bird head. =x

pork ribs

Oh boy! This is like the nicest pork ribs I’ve ever tasted! It is hong something pai kut. The porkie is very tender and juicy. Slurps~

seafood with greens

Crispy celery with seafood of fish fillet and squid. Also sedaps.

glutinous rice

The glutinous rice with dried shrimps on top and mushrooms and porkie on the inside. Not bad not bad.

glutinous rice

I had a spoonful of it. Don’t want to take too much rice because I….

steamed prawns

….want to eat more prawns :3

prawn heads

I is ji lucky yi xia lo.. (I’m very lucky) Because bro and I sat with the senior citizens and most of them don’t eat prawns. High cholesterol bah..

prawn heads

Hogged the whole plate of prawns to myself :3 sibeh happy. For this, I classified lunch in Hualien as the best one. LOL!!

If you ask how’s the food in Taiwan? Will you get used to it and etc… Aiyo, their food is like ours lah. So, if you travel to Taiwan, you don’t have to worry about food as they tasted the same. Don’t need to pack Maggi Mee to Taiwan. There are plenty of food to taste and they are very sedaps one. Don’t need to worry about getting tummy upset due to the food and etc. JUST EAT!

oranges for dessert

Throughout the whole tour, we are served with oranges as dessert in almost all the restaurants we dine in. blerk..

ice cream for dessert

Being the not-orange-for-dessert-again-please, Bro and I bought ice cream from the restaurant. Meiji ice cream wei!

meiji ice creams

Even the packing looks so nice. Recyclable some more.

MEIJI A-CHINO

Vanilla ice-cream coated with chocolate and nuts. Tasted far better than Magnum. =x

MEIJI HI-BLACK

Chocolate ice cream coated with black chocolate. Super NAIS!!

enjoy by squating

Then, we sat by the roadside in the cold weather while waiting for the rest to get ready (toilet visit).

The other relatives who saw us enjoying our ice cream by the roadside, jumped back into the restaurant to get some too. LOL

ice cream cone

cone case

If only Sugarbun can also come up with something like this! lol..

red bean ice cream

Real red bean ice cream! They said it’s very nice. So, it is very nice lorh..

reflection

We had to finish our ice cream before going into the coach. The tour guide doesn’t allow us eating ice cream inside, afraid that we are 3 years old that we might dirty the seats. bleh…

Done with our ice cream, we continued our tour to the Tarako Gorge . The scenery there are super nice! I shall share that in another post

#Random picha of the day:

Kou Ke Kou Le

Super slim and long Coca-Cola from Taiwan.

Last Sunday (March 7, 2010), I was at the Spring to witness the launching of The Star Sarawak Edition with Allen, Fahriee and Norman. We went there as kelehfei to cover the event.

The Gunners....pick your size

The Star Sarawak Edition was officially launched by YB Datuk Amar Abang Haji Abdul Rahman Johari bin Tun Abang Haji Openg, Minister of Housing and Urban Development Sarawak, representing YAB Chief Minister of Sarawak. YB was accompanied by The Star’s Executive Deputy Chairman Dato’ Clement Hii, Datin Linda Ngiam, Mr Ng Beng Lye, Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai and Mr. Rajah during the launching.

Dato' Clement Hii & YB on the stage

The event started with registration of invited guests and members of the media. The invited guests were mostly from business organisations and associations. I went over to register as a Media. :3

Registration Counter

Each registrants received a copy of The Star and an envelope consisting of one month FREE subscription of The Star and 10% discount voucher to shop at LEA Centre.

FREE copy of The Star Sarawak Edition of the day

While waiting for the arrival of the VVIPs, guests were seated and entertained by the Sarawak Cultural Village’s ethno-fusion band, Tuku Kame.

Tuku Kame entertaining guests

Upon the arrival of the VVIPs, Silas, emcee of the day,  gave a short introduction of The Star Sarawak Edition.

Emcee of the day, Silas

Then, there’s the opening speech by Dato’ Clement Hii.

Welcome address speech by Dato' Clement Hii

“The Sarawak edition will be presenting local stories and events in a fresh, exciting and comprehensive manner. The main focus of The Star Sarawak edition will solely be on Sarawak alone and our readers will be able to receive a copy of their newspaper by six in the morning daily at a price much lower than previously.” – Dato’ Clement Hii

Abang Jo's turn

YB expressed his impression on The Star Sarawak Edition during his speech, “I was impressed to see The Star at my breakfast table this morning. Normally we have to wait till about 1pm for the paper, but today it came together with the other papers at 7.30am.”

Launching via laptop on the stage

Abang Jo was accompanied by Dato’ Clement and Datin Linda during the launching.

View of the launching from the registration counter

The press conference took place after the launching.

Press Conference with the Media

There were refreshments prepared for the guests and media.

food to feed the guests and media

Someone arrived on time for the food..

Kenny: Just in time

The food they prepared for guests and media (mostly nyonya kuih):

Egg sandwiches

Rojak

Chai Kueh

Kuih Melaka

Curry puffs

some coconut kuih

Nasi Pulut Panggang

Tropical fruits

There were chill out session which include games and quiz. There were giving out 7 units of Celcom Vodafone USB modem stick. I won one unit on the first round :3

My stick

Fahriee, don’t jealous, k? lol

After that one round of quiz session, Hafiz, the Juara of Akademi Fantasia Season 7, made an appearance on stage and sang a couple of songs.

Hafiz, Juara Akademi Fantasia 7

Hafiz looks like Fahriee kan kan kan?

From left to right: Norman, Allen, Me, Fahriee, Bongkersz

We met Bongkersz during the launching. Nice to meet you, Bongkersz!

* * * * *

The Star Roadshow will be at the Spring from March 7 till 14, 2010. There are promotions and mysterious gifts to be redeemed. Visit The Star Circulation Counter and check out The Star Sarawak Edition subscription offers (valid for a limited time only)!

Package A
Subscribe 2 months + get 1 month FREE at only RM56 (save RM52!)

Package B
Subscribe 8 months + get 4 months FREE at only RM224 (save RM209!)

* From 7th to 14th March, Package B subscribers will also receive a special gift: a Starbucks voucher or two free music lessons from Maestro Music School (on first-come-first-served basis)

I’ve calculated, if you subscribe for the promotional packages, you are paying less than RM0.70 only for a copy of The Star! Subscribe now and jimat!

On our first night in Taiwan, we stayed in Holiday Inn Express, Taoyuan City.

Triple beds

Mum, bro and I shared a room. So, we got the triple room for three. The bed is super comfy! Almost didn’t want to get out of it when bro and I were watching TV while waiting for the rest to get ready.

The see through bathroom

The bathroom damn sexy lorh. See the shadow? That’s where the shower is. Plus, they have this 400ml “Lux” shower gel attached with the shower. So, you can lather yourself up with more shower gel. hakhakhak…

After we checked-in to our respective rooms, we went out for a stroll. Initially, we were just planning to cross the road and buy something from Family Mart (24 hours convenient store) which is just across the road from our hotel. When we saw a coffeeshop not far from it, we ended up having supper in that coffeeshop called “Yong He Dou Jiang”.

Yong He Dou Jiang, Taoyuan

I forgotten to take a picha of the signboard but I managed to locate the shop from google map, and best of all, Google Map Taiwan has 3D satelite images!!!!!! How to not love Taiwan the IT advance country?

How come our Malaysian google map don’t have such 3d images geh?

Anyway, if you google for Yong He Dou Jiang, Taiwan, you will find lots of Yong He Dou Jiang in different districts in Taiwan. It’s such a common name that you only recognize the shop by its location.

Menu in Chinese

Now, here’s the trouble we (Mum, Bro and I) Bananas (don’t know how to read Chinese characters) faced throughout the whole trip in Taiwan. Everything is in Chinese! We would be able to sample more Taiwanese delicacies if it’s not more the Bananaisme. T____T Fortunately, we went with relatives who reads Chinese unlike us cina sesat.

Anyway, as you can see from the menu, there are so much to choose from, if we had black hole in our tummy, we would have ordered them all. So, to keep things simple, we just order whatever we see.

Of puffs and pastries

These puffs and pastries are the Yong He Dou Jiang’s specialties. There were all freshly made on that particular day.

Curry puffs

Yam puffs/balls

Special type of baked sandwich

This special type of sandwich is super freshly made. We witnessed how it is done. Simply eye opening experience.

The making of the special sandwich

Plain Mantou

And of course, there’s also the “traditional” bun, plain mantou. Normally, eaten with hot soya milk or hot tea in the Chinese kung fu movies. *LOL*

Soya bean milk

The soya bean milk, the everyone’s favourite hot drink (not mine because I don’t take soya bean). According to them, it is very delicious like very fresh and not too sweet. I tried a sip and………almost fainted. Hot tea is good for me.

They also serve this bean bean soups:

Soya bean soup

something peanut soup

This one smells like peanut butter in hot water. LOL.. Saw someone having it with the yew char kueh.

Yew Char Kueh

The yew char kueh is simply the best! It is very long and crispy. Super nice and tasted better than the ones we buy from the Kuching Festival. We had a lot of this.

Still undecided on what else to try, we peeked at what our Taiwanese neighbours wre having, and we kinda followed. So, we can get to taste like the locals. =x

Family having supper

These are the copycated menus:

Xiao Long Bao

The Xiao Long Bao is like steamed dumplings but in the shape of mini bao. Also, the taste is pretty similar to “Guo Tieh” (wok dumplings), just juicier. At every bite you take, the juice inside would flow out and it is extremely hot! On our first attempt (which was during dinner), most of us burnt our tongue while having this mini bao.

sweet juicy porkie inside

The hot steamy outer skin with hot sweet juicy and tender porkie inside. *licks lip*

Some noodles with egg on top

Then, there’s this plate of noodles we saw our Taiwanese neighbour enjoying to the very bits! So, we reckoned it should be very sedaps and we ordered one.

egg done right

The “egg bag” (egg white wrapping around the egg yolk like a bag) sitting on top of the noodles is superb. The yolk is not overcooked and still very jellyish waiting to be poked. I was so tempted to poke it and let it flow into the noodle, mix it and take a bite.

Oriental Spaghetti

I’m not sure what exactly is the name of the noodle, so I call it the oriental spaghetti. Simply because the thickness and texture of the noodles is similar to spaghetti and the taste, well, Asianised bolognese without tomato paste and replacing minced beef with pork.

The lost Chinaman

To me, I don’t quite like the oriental spaghetti. But for bro, he enjoyed it like our neighbour.

After our fulfilling supper, we headed over to Family Mart for some Taiwan Beer and Papaya Milk .

Taiwan Beer (NT49; approx. RM5.40)

Uni-President Papaya Milk (NT33; approx. RM3.60)

Slept late that night and had to woke up very early in the morning the next day at 6.30am! T____T A train to catch. Next on, our train ride.. chuuuu..chuuu…chuuuu…

Kuala Lumpur to Taipei via AirAsia X

I went to Taiwan for vacation with my family during Chinese New Year 2010. Last CNY, we went to Jakarta. Comparing both the vacation, gotta admit that I enjoyed my trip in Jakarta more. Reason being, the vacation in Taiwan was superly rush (everyday move to new city, new hotel. Very short time to shop – practically can’t enjoy shopping).

Taipei, Taiwan

Anyway, I managed to sort out some pichas on Day 1 of my trip but I won’t be able to update the whole trip in details, otherwise, Dine with Annna would be Traveling Taiwan with Annna. *LAMAO* Well, I took more than 2,800 pichas (350 pichas a day in average) and I can’t possibly post them all up here. However, I’m sharing the pichas (still uploading) in Facebook and you may check it out to have an idea how the 8 days tour in Taiwan is like.

Map captured from AirAsia X screen

The 8 days tour covers 4 cities in Taiwan, namely Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hualien, and Taichung. Altogether, I think we visited approximately 20 (plus minus) tourist spots. We visited several famous temples and also those “tourist marketing” spots which makes us sit in a classroom to listen to some herbal stories and how good they are, namely, Ling Zhi, Deer plasenta, pearl powder, royal jelly and etc.. Not cheap lah! All those costs < RM1,000. To me, visiting those places are a waste of time because I have no interest in them, except sampling those expensive stuff. Plus, not like I can afford any of them. Piff.. Those time should be properly spent in night markets or shopping malls where NT (Taiwan dollars) are fairly well spent.

Few "thousands" richer

Anyway, I’ll just highlight some places of MY interest and MY makaning (eating/dining) experience in Taiwan. So, just bear with the sudden change of nationality of this blog and feel free to comment or enquire about the trip.

me at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Upon arrival, we were brought to the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. We spent most of our time there taking pichas and me, camwhoring around.

Long neck & Co.

They have dinosaurs in Taiwan. *LOL*

They have this beautiful garden on the other side of the area. We were like sakais children who visited the garden of candies when we saw the Sakura trees (cherry blossoms).

Sakura trees

Sakura flowers

Love the sunset effects here. <3

We had dinner our first dinner in Taiwan at Taroko Restaurant. It was an eight course meal and it was a really good meal.

To-raku Restaurant

After dinner, we were brought to Shihlin Market, as if dinner was not fulfilling (how can not get fat).

Shihlin Night Market, Taipei

Shihlin Night Market is located in the Shilin District of Taipei City, Taiwan. It is considered as one of the biggest and well known night market in Taipei. There are 2 parts of the market; Eateries and Clothes. They are both just accross the road and we need to walk across via the underground bridge to get to the other side. Oh, jaywalking is a very serious offence in Taiwan.

The famous Super Big Chicken Chop Stall

The most popular food in Shihlin Night Market (according to our tour guide) is the Super Big Chicken Chop. It is NT50 (approximately RM5.50) for a gigantic piece of deep fried chicken fillet with seasoned powder on it.

The uber long queue

#Tips to shop for food in Taiwan: the longer the queue, the better the food. If you see a stall with a long queue, the food sold there must be good.

Needless to say, we joined the queue to have a taste of the popular chicken chop. It was a long queue, bro volunteered to wait in line while I hunt for the other Taiwan delicacies: Pearl Milk Tea and Taiwan sausages.

The satisfied brother

The long wait was paid off. Bro was satisfied with the chicken despite the long wait.

Crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside *thumbs up*

I took a few bites off the chicken chop and it is indeed very good! Now I know why it is so popular.

Since Taiwan is the pioneer of pearl milk tea, it is the first item in our must have list. While bro was waiting for the chicken chop, I went to the next stalls (both left and right side of the chick chop stall) to buy a glass of pearl milk tea – original flavour.

Drink stall on the left side of the Chick Chop stall

Drink stall on the right side of the Chick Chop stall

The size is like Starbucks Venti and the price is averagely NT30-35 (RM3.30-3.80) each.

Verdict: Kuching’s pearl milk tea is much nicer =X

Another must have item in our list was the Taiwan sausage:

Ta Chang Bao Xiao Chang

There were many sizes of sausages to choose from. From big to small. The big ones are sold by weight and then, cut into smaller pieces for easy chewing. As for the small ones, they are slightly bigger than the ones we have in Kuching.

Taiwan BIG sausages

Pricewise, they are pretty slightly more expensive by a few-ty cents. How funny, right? And we thought we would be able to enjoy cheaper Taiwan sausages since they are from Taiwan. Small ones cost NT25 (approximately RM2.75). Big ones cost NT100 (approximately RM11).

Verdict: Even though it is slightly more expensive, but tastewise, it is supremely yummy! Worth the price you paid for it.

Giant white bittergourd

The week before I leave for Taiwan, my colleagues recommended that white bittergourd juice it is a must try. I gave the “ewww..” face and they assured me that it is not bitter. Despite their assurance, I was still reluctant to try it. But mum bought it and I stole a sip to try.

Verdict: Not bitter, yet sweet and very very very refreshing!

Real white bittergourd

In case you don’t know how white bittergourd looks like, I took a picha of it (above). It looks fake and even feels fake! But it’s the real thing.

Lemon tea

They have a lot of this kinda drinks – something something tea. Didn’t try them because we had so much to try in hands.

These are among the look see look see inside the night market – eateries side:

The crowd inside Shihlin Night Market - Eateries side

So many signboards to blind the banana readers

Then, we stumbled upon this one Oyster Omelet stall with lots of “Corner wit Love” pichas at the signboards.

Some pichas of the stall with the stars from Corner with Love

Corner with Love cover with the celebs' autographs

Could this be the famous oh-ah-jien from the drama? We didn’t try it due to the time as we need to queue for it and that we had to leave the place to check-in to our hotel for the night. T___________T <CIS!!!)

The Oyster Omelet smells so good~

The oyster omelet smells so good, while the stinky tofu is damn smelly!

The 1 mile away smellable Chou Tofu (Stinky Tofu)

Varieties of food

Spicy Stinky Tofu

Since we don’t have the time to queue for the oyster omelet, I went to buy a packet of this stinky tofu since every corner of the night market, there is at least one stall of it. So, I reckoned that I should at least give it a try.

P/S: I don’t eat tofu.

Spicy Stinky Tofu @ NT50 (approx. RM5.50)

Verdict: The smell is already a killer. The taste is suicidal. First and the last try for this. *strangles self*

Here are some pichas of the other part of the night market which is just across the road from the above.

some cow tongue pancake

the other part of the night market with more shopping - clothes & accessories

preserved fruit stalls

About 5 minutes walk from the night market, there is this huge wholesale-like fruit stall which sells all varieties of Taiwan fruits.

fresh fruit stall

After loitering for about 1 hour an a half at Shihlin Night Market, we gathered at our coach on time and we were brought to our first night stay at Holiday Inn Express. As if the night was not tiring enough, we went out to loiter on our own after throwing our luggage in the room.

The supper part, will be in the next post…