KL Trip

A week after Taiwan Trip... I went for a KL trip...

I seems very loaded to do this two trips at such a short time period but I am not. I am completely broke. Haha... Taiwan is not in my travel plan initially when I planned this KL trip. But since Mrs Goh is sponsoring me so why not, right?

KL trip started on Friday. We flew. We arrived. We checked in to our hotel and we went straight to Ikea to lunch and to start shopping.

After shopping, we went to a friend's place to rest and for the guys to shower. Then... in two cars, we 'chiong' Genting.

For your info, I didnt gamble. I was there to see see look look. I dunno why I dun have the intention to gamble.

Next Day... in 2 cars again. We 'chiong' Melaka. Oh panas... Warm weather... Loads of walking around. Sight seeing. This time, I get to see A Famosa upclose....
And also to eat the famous chicken rice balls.
Then... we headed back to Damansara... actually, Elaine and I went to relax at JWei's place while he showered ...while the other 3 guys went to Jer's place.

We dined at Tao... an ala carte buffet dinner where we ate insane amount of salmon sashimi. I dun want to eat any salmon sashimi for the months to come. Urgh...

Day 3... Sunday. Elaine, Klaus and I went to KLCC for lunch and shopping. Then Dennis joined us and we went to Pavilion and also Sunway Pyramid... all to shop shop shop...
Day 4

Did a bit more shopping at Midvalley and we are packed to leave KL... Felt like time is not enough and so is the money. Hehe.. Not enough money!!

Ah... this trip is also about pampering this kid here. Eat no need to pay. Fuel no need to pay. Toll no need to pay. Lucky kid.

Taiwan Trip - Day 5 & 6

Sorry.. missing in action for a few days. Miri has been immersing in the excitement of state election.

2 more days left to tell about my Taiwan trip.. here goes... Day 5

We get to use the high speed rail from Tao Yuan to Taipei... weird thing is that by the time we reached Taipei, so has our bus driver. hehe...
Then off to shop for Taiwan local products~ Tour guide kept telling us about how hard it is to stop the tour bus in city area. We must try our best to get off and on the bus as quickly as possible. Lunch...
After lunch, we went to Tan Shui Fishermen's Wharf... Oh! Forgot to mention the fact that I was wearing my short pants with stocking on this day... I almost froze at Tan Shui because of the strong wind and the small drizzle. Darn~
Right after that, we headed to Taipei fashion district ( i think), Xi Men Ding. Raining again. urgh.. spoil the mood.
Dinner is a buffet at this restaurant that served something called Mongolian BBQ... which is actually just the chef cooking ingredients on this huge flat iron surface... looks fun though.
Hotel is at this secluded road... I didnt realise how secluded till the next morning. Cough.. accidentally stumbled upon some 18SX channels. hehe... Anyways.. Mum and I had a really nice room with jacuzzi... and I realise not everyone get as nice room as ours. Some of our tour group get really plain looking room.

That ended Day 5. I couldnt find any wireless to go online on Day 5. Felt a little disconnected from the world.

Day 6... We actually had a little change in our itinerary. In order to go to this Flora Expo, we ditched a few places originally in the itinerary - which includes regretfully Shi Ling Ye Shi. Anyways... Flora Expo was interesting despite of the rain. Mum and I donned the raincoat the whole time and I took 300 pics there. Haha...About 2.30pm, we left the expo to go to Taipei 101. Since it was rainy therefore a little foggy, I decided not to bug mum to let me go up to the ...err... i forgot which floor to look at the whole of Taipei so... instead we walked around the super expensive shopping mall.
Our final dinner at Taiwan... It's at this really unique looking restaurant. I dont put the pics of the restaurant because it is actually quite dark... Not much lighting. lol...
After dinner, we left Taipei for Tao Yuan...because the airport is Tao Yuan and we dun want to make an early ride the next morning. At Tao Yuan, we stayed at a 5 star hotel... Nice. I went to the mall behind the hotel hoping to buy some stuff at the supermarket.. but it doesnt have a supermarket. -___-
Erm.. Day 7. Departure Day. Breakfast is a feast. 5 star. They cant do bad breakfast, right? Hehe... The trip is fun. I want to go back there again but not with a tour group. :p

Taiwan Trip - Day 4

Day 4 started with another long bus ride. Now we are heading to Sun Moon Lake area...and we started with lunch.

Right after lunch, we went to Taiwan's smallest yuan zhu ming's population's race, i forgot what race...'s shop. They are selling the uterus of the deer....royal jelly bee...i forgot what else. After that, we stopped by the Peacock Garden. We are lucky to see one of the peacock fanning out its feathers although its feathers arent so nice. :p Mum and I shared a roasted sweet potato and it was yummylicious. Hehe...

Temple! Ok...temple is just temple. see see look look and it rained. I left my hoodie in the luggage today so I had to make do with Mum's scarf. The weather got a lil colder and the mist were moving in fast. So fast that by the time I had my taiwan sausage, I only get a very misty view of the lake.

-___-
Oh well... We got on the bus for another one and half hour ride to reach Tai Chung and we had our dinner at Feng Jia Ye Shi...Considerably less stuff than Liu He Ye Shi but the "Da Zhang Bao Xiao Zhang" is quite good.
Nevertheless, we still go out after we put our stuff in the hotel...to the nearby "Zhong Hua Lu Ye Shi" to search for more food. I only bought an onigiri at the convenient store instead.
Hotel at Tai Chung is a budget hotel.... Hmm...
Ah... the breakfast is this hotel is horrible. I almost had nothing to eat. And btw, main breakfast staple food are porridge and bread. Every morning the same staple food. Oh... I am seriously sick of these two things.

Taiwan Trip - Day 3

Day 3 started with us leaving the hot spring hotel early morning... I managed to sign in to play Restaurant City. hehe... It was a long bus ride to our next destination and we stopped a roadside restaurant to have lunch. Nothing to complain about the lunch despite of its location - middle of nowhere.

First stop of the tourist attractions - Temple. I forgot the name of the temple and I couldnt find the temple's name anywhere in the temple. Oh well... The temple has a lot of facilities and it's huge.

Next... Pearl Shop where they sell pearl powder. Err... nothing much to talk about this place... I got persuaded to buy a bottle of the powder. Erm. Deeply regretted it. :p

Next - KaoShiung's Dream Mall. Only give one and a half hour to shop here. Not enough time!

This is the night we get to try the food at Liu He Night Market... Mum and I had (1) bbq pork stick and chicken butts stick, (2) smelly tofu, (3) strawberry drenched with sweet milk, (4) papaya milk, (5) bitter gourd juice, (6) pork kidney fried with sesame oil and (7) oyster ball. I got treated by our tour mate - taiwan sausages and deep fried shisamo (pregnant fish). Yum~ We have been out whole day and it's time to go back to the hotel of the night. Btw, the weather was not cold... in fact, at one point, it was too warm.

Taiwan Trip - Day 2

Ah... Glorious 2nd morning at Taiwan... After breakfast, we put all of our luggages back into the bus again. First stop - Taroko National Park to see Taroko Gorge. See water see hills... Mum and I walked to see the temple and then back to the main area. Then, our tour lady helped out a China tourist who got left behind by her tour group. Her husband and daughter are in the tour too and we wondered why they did not inform their tour guide immediately that their wife/mum has not boarded the bus yet. Anyways, we left the tourist with the policeman and go on our way.

Food is such an important aspect. Straight after Taroko National Park, we had our lunch. The restaurant we went to seems to be specially catered for tour goups. In fact, the day before, we did pass by the restaurant and it is flooded with people who looks like tourists...

Anyways... next stop is a marble factory. The disadvantage of following a tour group is that they will bring you to such factory where you will be required to listen to the salesperson talking about their product then after that, they expect you to buy some of the products back home. Not for me!

Next stop - Dairy Farm! We thought it's going to be some dairy farm show or something like that. But it's not. It's a free time activity. We can do whatever we want to do there - either drink milk (buy your self) or go look at their dairy cows or take pics at their farm...

Then, we went on the road again...and we arrived at our accommodation of the night. A hot spring hotel. Before we settled into our rooms, we had our dinner.

There are public hot spring pools available. I didnt go because reason one is that I didnt bring my swimsuit, reason two is that the sulphate in the hot spring water will ruin the swimsuit (so lucky I didnt bring mine) and reason three is that we can actually have hot spring water in our hotel room so we can still enjoy the hot spring in our room...nude.
But it is so smelly lo. I nearly couldnt sleep because it is too smelly... This hotel is not bad actually. It has wifi all over the hotel. I felt so connected to the world that night.

Taiwan Trip - Day 1

Slept a bit in the 3 hours flight and arrive at Taiwan!! The weather is cooling...and then it gets a bit too cold due to the wind. But my excitement keeps me feeling warm. Hehehe...

Our bus is some sort of double decker. The luggage compartment is huge. As soon as all the luggages are palced in the bus, we headed to our first destination. The tour guide is a lady... I find myself not knowing where I am going this time. Probably because the itinerary I have is in chinese. It makes me confused remembering all the chinese names. From the tour lady's explanation, we are basically going to go one big round around Taiwan and it will involves a lot of bus journeys.
First stop - Lunch! That's basically what we will be having every day. A few variation but essentially the same things. It was raining when we arrived at our restaurant and so, our tour lady decided to get us all a raincoat each.
After lunch and donning on our yellow raincoats, we walked to Yeh Liu GeoPark. Erm... Din manage really go see the rock formations because it was raining and winds blewing and the location is looking out to the sea and it is a bit scary actually.

After a short bus ride, we reached another sea port where we went to visit the Ma Zhou's Temple..And it wasn't raining there.
We did a bit of shopping and sightseeing (looked at the fishermen's boats)..then we headed to the train station ... ditched our bus driver and used the train to go to Xin Cheng. Our poor bus driver has to drive, if I recall correctly, 3 hours to reach Xin Cheng. We? about 40 minutes only.

By the time we arrived at Xin Cheng, we are ready for dinner.Again, 9 dishes.... plus a fruit platter. Then, off to watch Taiwan culture show. Err...

Sorry la... I find it a bit boring. :p Not my interest la. By the time we finished watching the show, our bus driver has arrived and we were brought to our first hotel in Taiwan.

We get to change hotel every night due to the nature of our itinerary - every night at different places.

Later that night, Mum and I went to hang out at the tour leader's room. Drinking. Chatting. That's the only night Mum and I joined them. After that, we rejected the invitation. :p

Pre-Departure to Taiwan

Ahh.. the update... A lot of pics to sort out.. too many useless pics that I cant show ppl but it helps me to remember what happened.

Anyways.. Mrs Goh and I left Miri on a not so early Sunday morning. We shall be spending two nights in KK before departing for Taiwan. We have relatives at KK whom we spent the afternoon with.

Cousin treated us seafood dinner... Yummyness.... Now then I realised that there was only one green veggie. Hehe.. After that, Elaine arrived back in KK and we I went with her for a second dinner...
Yes, you are reading it correctly. I went for second dinner. My initial plan was not to dine with my cousin but out of courtesy, I must eat with the cousin and family. My stomach was filled with seafood but my brain is craving for pizza. The pizza was fab..the mushrooms very juicy... hehe...

Anyways... Mum and I spent the night at the hotel with Elaine. The next morning, we went out for breakfast and the shopping begins..ok, not really...more like we walked around looking at fruits..veggie...then somehow we ended walking all the way to Suria.

I bought an Esprit sling bag... oh! I finally can use the adjective that I have been wanting to use. Cough... my Esprit sling bag is made of buttery soft leather. Hehehe....

We spent the afternoon resting in the hotel doing manicure and pedicure using the nail polish Elaine and I bought from Faceshop the night before. Then off to foot massage. Mum super enjoyed her body and foot massage. She was loving it.

Time flies and by the time we finished our massage, it was time for dinner.
Ok la... It's not overly fantastic. I think I am spoiled by Excapade.

Mum spent the night with aunt while I spent the night with Elaine... Very early next morning (22nd March 2011), I sneaked out of the hotel room to go to airport.