21 December 2011
This was a day reserved for shopping and eating in Taipei. The plan was to have breakfast at the underground mall below the hotel, then go to Taipei 101, explore the shops around the area near Taipei 101, then Wufenpu and finally Raohe Night Market. Mode of transport would be the MRT.
We went to the underground mall, looking for breakfast. For some strange reason or no reason, we sat down in a Panda Bear Theme shop and ordered coffee and some noodles for breakfast.
There was only one girl manning the shop. In between preparing our coffee, she had to entertain other customers wanting information on the Panda themed products on sale. The coffee took ages to come. We wondered how long it would take for our noodles to be served. Finally, we gave up and cancelled our order. We got our refund for the noodles without any fuss. Quite amusing as we tried to blame each other for going into the Panda Theme shop for breakfast…… of all places!
We decided to forgo breakfast and have an early lunch at the Taipei 101 instead. To get to the Taipei 101, we took the MRT from the Taipei Main Station to the Taipei City Hall Station. Taipei 101 is some distance away from the Taipei City Hall MRT station. There is a free shuttle bus from the MRT to Taipei 101. Alternatively, it is a 15 minutes walk. Directions to the bus stop to board the shuttle bus was not clear but we managed to find it with the help of some local folks. It was drizzling again while we waited for the free shuttle.
The shopping mall at the lower floors of Taipei 101 are mostly selling branded, luxury goods. After the street food that we had for the last few days in Taipei, the boys wanted a nice meal, at a nice restaurant.
So we had Teppanyaki on the 4th floor of the Taipei 101. Food, ambience and service was excellent. It may be expensive by Taipei’s standard, but cheap and reasonable when compared to the price of similar Teppanyaki restaurants back home.
It was cloudy and drizzling, so there was no point going up to the top of the Taipei 101 tower. Actually, this was more an excuse so that we have more time for shopping.
From Taipei 101, there is an elevated, covered walkway that links several shopping malls and will finally lead to the Taipei City Hall MRT station. But first, we had to get onto the walkway and finding the entrance was not so easy!
Our next destination was Wufenpu (五分铺), a wholesale market selling clothing in Taipei but it also sold retail. We took the MRT and alighted 2 stops away at the Houshanpi station. Then it was a 5 minutes walk to the shopping streets of Wufenpu.
Shopping, shopping, shopping. This place would be hot and uncomfortable in summer but quite nice to shop here in winter, although we felt a bit warm later on and have to strip off our jackets. As it was winter, this was the best time and place to buy warm clothes. There were greater varieties of designs compared to hot sunny Singapore. We spent all the cash that we had as no credit cards were accepted here.
With the loads of shopping bags, we decided to skip Raohe Night Market (which is actually close by) and head back to our hotel to dump our stuff and reload our wallets with Taiwanese currency before going out again. That’s the best part of staying in Caesar Park Hotel – Taipei Main Station is just beneath the hotel! How convenient.
After recharging ourselves at the hotel, we went to Ximending, for the second time in this trip. The first food we had at Ximending was Ah Zhong Mee Suah, again. It was that good!
We were looking for the Havaianas sandals shop and came across the Modern Toilet Restaurant by chance.
This is an unusual restaurant that is based on a toilet-theme. The seats are toilet bowls and food is served in bowls that looked likewise.
We ordered some fries and ice cream, just for the fun of it.
We did not finished our ice-cream. We finally sat down and had a proper dinner at a hotpot restaurant.
It was closed to midnight when we took the MRT back to the hotel. Then it was packing, packing, packing, trying to squeeze everything we bought into our luggage bags. We would be going home tomorrow.
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