day 1 in taiwan!!!

the sq flight was good as it was spacious. the only thing was there was a delay to go onboard and the brunch menu was not really good. watched 2 movies. blades of glory and korean 200 pounds beauty. both not bad. then we took a freego bus to our motel... the motel was a disaster. smelly old and no way at all i feel safe to leave our luggage there!!! after we left our luggage we went to rainbow hotel but it was fully booked and we walked on further to east dragon i think and we managed to secure rooms for the next few days.
with the hotel settled we headed to ah zhong mien xian for our 1st taiwan meal! filled with people even thou it was raining. as i was told everyone stand around to eat it and it was piping hot! the big intestine was good! chewy one and with Shanice's advice after tasting it original i directed gx to the corner to put some more seasonings. and i remember not too much chili! you said it would burn and a little had power too so can't imagine a whole spoonful!

it was here when helen ordered guotia that i saw pretty transparent umbrella selling for NT100 which cost $5 for a long standing umbrella. i chose a yellow pokka dotted one. so cute. helen got a lime green hearts, pretty!
then we headed to the train station to get to shilin market. we decided not to buy the storage card so we opt for pay for each trip when we travel and were surprise to see tokens dropping out. use as like our ezlink jus tap these tokens to get it but when we wanted to get out we drop it into a slot. the taiwanese are so orderly. they like HK people will stand on the right and leave the left of the escalotor for people to walk up. then while waiting for train they really will line up in a line behing the slated line... it actually was good experience. they will oso really wait till all the passengers come out then they will enter. but of cos there aer still people who will hurry in last minute and push. i gana elbowed and got so mad at his auntie cos my back hurt!

to get to shilin market we got off at Jiantan and not at shilin stop. it was still raining when we arrived

Lucky i decided to take pic with us under the newly bot yellow pokka dotted umbrella... we lost it later when we walked thru the HUGE area. and lucky the next 6 days no rain! the very 1st thing we tried was to q for the famous CHICKEN CHOP! it not only huge but it very hot too! it was really hot couldnt bite into it straight away. the seasoning is definitely nicer 100times than the one in singapore cos singpaore shilin one like jus pepper this had a mixture of powder to season it and the chicken piece not only huge but inside its well seasoned! Yums!

we took this pic while the boys were q'ing. we tried something hong one dun remember full name verdict: not very nice not to my taste. gx was excited when he ordered his 1st stick of chicken bumbum! but he was disappointed cos not bbq to super hot. this was the 1st time Mr & Mrs S and i tried it. haha Mrs S dun like it cos its bumbum. but onwards Mr S and I will ask Gx to get us one each when he ordered. its jus like round almost like a ball, jus nice to bite and tasty.

this is taiwan fried oyster. i dun like it cos the sauce is sweet and have cabbage one. basically i like our singapore one better. i find sweet oyster taste really ... weird? this is where i had my 1st piece of smelly beancurd also known as fermented beancurd... its stinkier than Hk one and i dun fancy it. i did try it, jus haven got to know how to appreciate it yet. but this was Mr & Mrs S favourite cos they will defintely order it! to each is its own.

we walked on to a area where the pushcarts are. Mr s ordered prob his other favourite octupus! it was a huge one! not bad the seasoning was nice. then i wandered off further and found this freshly made fried potato chip! it is peeled in a curly form and we have to start eating it from the bottom. i ordered cheese so they sprinked cheese powder on it taste like cheddar.

then we went into the building to get some aircon and oso to look around and there was an area where it was all pet shop and they had many pups and they are all minitures. we suspect they are all breed specially to keep them small we even suspect they are sort of "muted" u can hardly hear any dogs bark at all! this dog looked like a fake toy dog! it slept with its tongue sticking out! and doesnt this kitten look fake too! its eyes was very yellow! and fur was soooo white and fluffy.
then we moved on to play shooting game! the boys did the long riffle and i chose to play the short gun. it was almost real! heavt pistol and have sort of rebound kinda stuff when shooting.
this is my score! i had so much fun... got super duper excited when i managed to hit a target! this is where i got a free plastic fan. that came into use thruout the trip as i used it to fan gx and myself!in bewteen where there are no other pics taken except when we stop for food is becos the street was filled with people and there were many shops that we stopped at to take alook or started our spree of bargaining and choosing! at shilin first nite i got the kidos in my family some kind of miniture torch but when they press a button there are cartoon pics in full colour! it was so cute. i got my 1st bag here too. think that was about all what i got here... mainly food here. Gx got this konyaku kinda dessert but there is filling in each like black sesame, red bean, yellow bean and yam. okie lah he say its bcos its not cold enough.
we stopped and sat down for a bowl of pigs' blood soup... again not my favourite and 2nd round of FBC. this was like we could smell it a street away! thats how strong the stench was! guess is either u love it or u hate it.
another favourite i found that nite was 3 brothers ice! snow ice with fresh and really sweet mango was GOOD! loved it! it kept us cooled from head to toe!
but not long after we decided to try this crab starcy soup a few shops away! our 1st bowl cos later we had one in KL and one last one in this same shop again on the nite before we depart...
when gx saw this almond dessert he had to had it cos it had a story to go with this dessert. it happen during his army dayz. his 1st taiwan food! this was okie liked the one i had in raohe better cos that had almond milk this was jus ice and the pudding.

with that we walked to the main street and at some point dun remember when gx managed to get himself a nice pair of leather shoe. i chose it for him and he liked it alot! dun remember what else we bot... thats was our 1st day and i had cramps since then. the hotel stinked and couldnt sleep well was jus waiting for dawn and we had decided to moved out!