the mrt station at 7 was so crowded it almost felt like orchard road on christmas eve. haha yah and the trains were pretty fast. they also had this glass barricade on the platform to ensure people do not cross the safety line...

shilin was such a nice place to shop that i actually hated the idea of slinging my camera over my shoulders! hahah shilin market is actually quite complicated with it's grid-like structure. have to return to the same street to get to the next street.

shilin night market was really crowded when we went there. we really had to squeeze through hoardes of ppl going in the opposite direction. did not really have much snacks there cuz there wasn't even enough time to shop, much less to say time for eating. HAHA

HAHA yah anyway went to this marvelous shoe shop called great taipei shoes. they had lotsa shoes going at very low rates, however the biggest steal were the NT990 onitsuka tigers shoes! hahaha wanted to get a few pairs but they did not have my size! iwent back there like 4 times and also went to look around the night market for other similar stores, but they either do not have the designs or that they did not have my size. ARGH... not very good...melvin was really indecisive at first whether to get the shoes or not so we walked down the street, only to walk back the same street after 15 minutes after he decided that he would need to get two pairs, one for himself and one for his friend. bah i would have bought 10 pairs if they had my sizes. :( shilin is a must go. too bad i only went once. ARGH... anyway bought 2 hoodies plus 2 long-sleeve old navy t-shirts here plus skinny tie.

day four

i would say DAY 4 wasn't as interesting as day 3. yah we went to guanghua 3c plaza at zhongxiao east toad, however it was really small and there is no comparison to our very own sim lim square.so we were out of there after 15 minutes and wanted to walk to taipei 101. :) haha look at daniel trying to do a hunch-back pose.

it wasn't easy getting to zhongxiao east road, had to ask around for directions and kept refering to maps. hehe but at least i think we are all decent map readers.

hahahah bran, mel and yy managed to get business pants at a street hawker down the road. haha so andy, daniel and i were sorta experimenting shots with my cam. hehe

when we reached taipei 101 it was very cloudy and there was actually a very light drizzle. yah so we actually had to rush to taipei 101 from about 500m away.

it was really magnificent and we could almost see it from anywhere in the eastern district. when we reached the bottom of the building we had to really tilt our head like 90 degrees to see the top. oh but we didn't explore much of the building except the basement foodcourt and market, which was actually quite a waste i would say. however the foodcourt had really delicious-looking food in big portions. yah i had yummy pork cutlet with curry for lunch. then we went to new york new york to get mister donut, shinkong mitsukoshi which was really big cuz it had 4 buildings in all, and then we went to eslite, this really massive building selling all sorts of books. too bad i am not a bookworm if not i would have loved this place.

planned for a trip up to the observatory of taipei 101 but the guys did not want to go up there....yah so no choice we went to tonghua night market. oh the night market is sorta sucky, very little selection of food and clothes. yah so we went to wufenpu, which had pretty much the same price as anywhere else. i think the clothes would only be cheaper if we bought in bulk. OH WELL. so in the end yy and i decided to go back to our hotel first since we were really tired while brandon went to raohe night market himself.

back in ximending i had a haircut and i think the hairstylist was really good. ok his cutting style is very different, sorta like a bottom up kinda cut, like cut from the root. he told me he learnt it from toni & guy in singapre. HAHAA. he told me my hair was really thick, yah cuz i haven't cut it in 2 months... hahaha yah had a really good conversation, but he was told by another of his colleague to rush my haircut abit cuz the shop was closing already and they all wanna go home. :P haha oh after the haircut i went to walk around the vicinity of the hotel and discovered this little shop. bought jeans and cargo pants and a belt there...but argh i think i am not very good at slashing prices.

HHAHAHA i then met yy outside our room when i was returning back to the room cuz he was really bored watching tv in the room. we went to walk around ximending and i had corn in soy sauce. it was really salty and quite yucky. yy had mac's fillet-o-fish plus charcoal-burnt milk tea. is that what it's english name is called?....hahahah ok when the other guys came back they kept saying how good raohe night market was...oh well...we then watched xing guang da dao until 3 plus. heehee

day 5 was the free and easy day.

we all went to different places. daniel had to collect his hand-drawn shoes from taipei 101 while melvin, andy and yy went to wufenpu. bran went to guting. i went to my 2nd favourite place to shop - ximending. wanted to go to shilin initially but it opens only at 3....

ok so i went to THAT shoe shop again and wanted to buy some things cuz i still had some cash to spare. in the end asked the shop assistant whether there were any other outlets in the vicinity, and he told me there was one in eslite. so i went there and discovered treasure. heehee the sports store was at the 5th floor and it was like 3 adidas, nike and puma boutique shops fused into one big boutique shop, and the prices there were also quite heavily-discounted. hehehe but oh well did not have much money left after i bought a very nice bukta sling bag at level 3. heehee

heehee. then i went to buy matchsticks with the boxes drawn by local designers. really funky. haha the shop assistant kept telling me stories about the cover characters which were quite funny la. so i decided to buy 2 boxes from her. yah total cost was like what....25 sing bucks? quite crazy i know for some matchsticks.

had duck noodles for lunch. it was really good although there was just one piece of duck meat inside the entire bowl. yah the soup was really delicious! haiya but the thing was i told the boss i wanted ya rou bian, which was actually the shop name!! then he told me in quite a sarcastic manner that ya rou bian cannot be eaten...hahah the other customer who was beside me was giggling away...hahaha so it was quite embarassing that when i was sitting inside the shop i did not dare to look at them cuz i knew that they were laughing at me. HAHA but still, the soup was good. must try again :D

after lunch i had apple dipped in caramel with chopped almond nuts. HEHE also bought dunkin' donuts! heehee there is nothing that is not sweet or salty in taipei. HHAHA

heehee so we went back to the hotel at 1530hrs to catch the bus to the airport. and we had this mountain of luggage. HAHA yes just the six of us! hahaha really bought lotsa stuffs.

the driver was really interesting. asked daniel to buy betel nuts for him and brought us to this pastry shop which he recommended. he also made us watch this silly cartoon on the car. hahahah oh well and so this five-day trip had come to a close and i think we all had lotsa fun in taipei! woohoo where shall we go next?