Mr Chin: Taiwan Holiday

We took the EVA flight from Singapore to Taipei on Sunday 20 Dec 09, departing at 1.10 pm. We landed in Taipei 4 hours later. The flight was comfortable. At least there was in-flight entertainment, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch a full movie. Wanted to watch 2 Japanese movies, but both didn’t seem interesting. I played Sudoku and Mahjong instead. The meal was curry chicken rice for me.

After we landed, one of the first signboards that greeted me was a reminder not to bring in agricultural products. That’s so AVA. From the Taipei Tao Yuan airport, we took an express bus to Taipei Railway Station. From there, we walked to the Keymans Hotel, where we stayed for the night. The weather was cold, with the temperature at 12 deg C. It felt colder than the 9 deg C I experienced in Tokyo. There is a lot of Japanese influence here – and it made me feel like I was in Tokyo, except that the people were speaking Chinese. During the drive, the coach passed through streets that reminded me of North and South Bridge Roads back in Singapore. There are many many 7-11 stores dotted throughout, and Mos Burger too.

Sook Hwee had already done the check-in at the hotel for us, and she was waiting for us in the room. It’s the Keymans Hotel on Huaining Street, a small business hotel, but comfortable. The bathroom / toilet is nothing to shout about. At least there is free wireless internet, but there was no connection when I tried. After depositing our bags in the room, we went out, the whole group of us, together with Shirley and Wei Quan. We took the subway )(also called MRT), their equivalent of our MRT, to Jiantan Station, where we walked around the Shilin Night Market.

The Shilin Night Market is very interesting. There is a food court or hawkers centre, where you can get all kinds of local food – smelly tofu (yes, I tried it for the first time, and it’s quite nice – quite unlike the ones we smelled in Hong Kong, which was really stinko), oyster/egg omelette (unlike ours in Singapore, the version here is wetter, and is served with a sauce), chicken cutlet (the stall we bought from had a very long queue of customers waiting their turn), bitter gourd juice (although served with honey, it still left a bitter after taste which I didn’t like), and hot mini dumplings (equivalent to our wantons – but the skin was really smooth). It was nice because the weather was cold. The steaming hot mini dumplings in soup were very soothing. There were other food, like the usual western steaks and cutlets, pig blood cakes, cuttlefish stew, and the local tempura.

After the food, we walked along a street nearby where the locals peddled their goods. Along the street, there were stalls, selling food, clothings, and even games stalls. Much like our pasar malam. We went into a shop to try pork ribs in medicinal soup (shi quan tang – the black soup). Disappointed actually. It smelled so good in the shop front, but inside, we couldn’t smell anything, the soup was not steaming hot, and the pork ribs were really ribs with very little meat.

After the gallivanting, we took the MRT back to Taipei Railway Station and walked back to the hotel. Yew Moi was back from dinner with a local customer. Christina and Peh Ping came to our room to chit chat. They were also in Taipei with Meng Chye for a holiday, and leaving for Singapore 2 days later.

Arrival