TAIWAN Day 2! More fun! More Food! More Shopping!

Day 2 of Taiwan. More food, more fun, more shopping.

Woke up early in the morning to visit the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial hall. He was one of the founding fathers in Taiwan, I think, and he was one of the person who fought for democracy and also the person responsible for wide spreading science in Taiwan. I think... Anyway, the place was magnificent...

This place behind us is also part of the memorial, but now has been converted into the cultural and arts centre...
Well, you see the daunting steps ahead of us that we had to take before we could reach the top? I was already developing a phobia of steps. Everywhere...and I mean EVERYWHERE in Taiwan, you would see steps. No matter where you go. Be it the MRT station, or anything. Steps, steps, steps....
Finally we got to the top.. The view from the top looks quite magnificent too..
ENtrance to the hall.

The three main philosophies of Chiang Kai Shiek
Democracy

Science
The ceiling of the hall.. really nice...
so, what's your problem? =)
Pretty flowers outside the place...
Alll over the place, they had these concrete slabs which they allowed the literature to be written upon. I think it's quite a good idea... looks quite nice too..

After that, we moved on back towards our hotel for breakfast... hungry... In the end, we found a japanese restaurant at the building just beside Shinkong Mitsukoshi for breakfast. I think Taiwanese dig Japanese food. They are like everywhere!

This one is quite nice...as you can see..

The have like the shabu shabu beef set,...comes with the hot pot and everything..about $9...

Da ordered the pork cutlet curry rice. Looks nice, tastes nice too...
I ordered the pork loin cutlet and praw tempura set..
Cheryl ordered some unagi soup set...
And Maveric ordered the chicken katsu set...
Then we found a Gundam base in Taiwan! It was simply extraordinary.. the whole shop was just like a museum of Gundam! They had all the various generations of Gundam that have been in production... amazing.. .

I realised that in Taipei, they really like to let people have some memory of the place. Quite a few places that we went had these souvenir stamps, which you could just stamp on any pieces of paper and take home a piece of Taiwan with you. This stamp shows the shopping centre Shinkong Mitsukoshi (which we will talk about in further details in the next entry)... Cute yah?
We were back at the MRT station underground mall. Everyday... whenever we have to take the train, we would pass by the shops, and da would go in to hang some soft toys. They were really irresistably cute...look!


At the underground mall, they really have many many shops.. Cheryl even bought cigarettes...which were so prettily packaged, even I was tempted to buy a packet just for keeping. The whole thing, with the cigarette and lighter, cost less than $5!

The famous Shilin night market. Finally, after hearing so much about it, we are here!
Hmm.. Interesting food.. black sausage, made from squid ink... no one had the courage to try it, so we gave it a pass. ..

There was this stall of barbecued prawns... oh my god.. it was amazing... and it was so cheap... we had serving after serving, after serving. In the days there, we made 3 trips back to the same place, just to eat the same things.. over and over again... you just imagine how good it tastes...
This is lemon flavoured... the spice, plus the juiciness of the fresh prawns... hhmmm.. have you ever tasted heavn on earth? I think this is quite close..
Then they also had the huge prawns..
Look at Cheryl's greedy and amazed face...

satisfied....

This is the thing that Cheryl keeps talking about when she came back. She calls it "BOMB". You know the takopachi that we have here? The small balls that sell for $2.20 for 3 in Taka? Well, this is the same thing, except that it is HUGE, and tastes many times better, with much more ingredients...also selling for $2.

It comes in a cute box like this...
And here it is... it's delicious!
The ingredients that make up it...

Shilin Night market itself also has a mini food street by the side, where they sell quite a lot of food..
This is a very interesting snack. Seriously, with the amount of snacks that they have here, I wonder how it is the Taiwanese girls manage to stay so freaking small...

Anyway, that is beside the point. This is made from one whole potato, sliced in such a way it opend up into a spiral thingee... very nice! It's just like potato chips, flavoured with different flavours...

Baked potato with fillings. Yummy! This one is Texas something...there is broccoli, bacon, pineapple and ham... nice... with melted cheese...

Shoot the Balloon and win prizes..
I am Bond. James Bond.. NOT! Hahah..
There were all these games at the side of the road.. quite cool..
They had this thing called the "White bittergourd". According to da's brother, he said it's a must try...They blend it with honey into white bittergourd juice.

Let's just say it's a must try...for how terrible it tastes... YUCK! Da and Cheryl seemed to love it though... I guess it's an acquired taste... bleah.. =P
The famous Shilin is made up of 2 parts primarily: The Shilin Night Market, which is the shopping part, and the Shilin Food Street, which is, as the name suggests, the food street lah... =)

Talk about HUGE. This place really was large. There were just so many stalls to choose from...but...they were mostly selling pretty much the same things. Fried oysters, smelly beancurd..fried oysters, smelly beancurd.. snow ice with fruits, tempura...blah blah blah.. you get the idea.
Haha.. They call this shop "coffin". It's basically the thick toast, cut open in the middle, emptied out, and filled with thick stew of different flavours.. yummy!
I have no idea what this is, but apparently really famous. We were too full to try by then..
Haha.. Believe it or not.. People say the Chinese eat everything. This is roasted Chicken's ass... called the seven mile aroma. I wonder why.. Even the famous Jay Chou has a song about this.. Hmm.. food for thought yah? haha..

Here's the delicious "Oh Ah Jian" - fried oyster with egg...It's quite different from that in SIngapore. Ther had this gravy on top of it..quite nice..and not to mention, generous with the oysters...really generous.
The must-have in Taiwan. Even if you can't stand the pungent smell of it, you still have to try. Only then can you claim to have been to Taiwan. Just pinch your nose and try it.

The smelly beancurd. God knows why they would invent such terrible stuff anyway. It seriously smells bad. Surprisingly though, it does not taste half as bad. However, by the end of out trip in Taiwan, we would gag whenever we smell it, because it was EVERYWHERE. Talk about National Food. EVERYWHERE!!! ARRRGH!!!
Hee hee...There were so many stalls to choose from, but believe it or not, the shop that we chose at random happened to be the stall where Luo Zhi Xiang (a really famous Taiwanese actor and singer and celebrity host) learnt how to cook for one of his Taiwanese serial. Boy were we honoured!