Day 1: An early flight to Taiwan
Our first local food... 小籠包
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Went to this pretty cafe. If I were travelling alone with Daddy, we could have spent a nice afternoon just lounging in this cosy cafe...alas...
The kamquat museum and tasting - the very first of our multiple tasting stops
Dessert factory - The children became really bold and went for many samples
Monster Village - Bought a packet of crackers for mei which she ate throughout the journey and we even brought it home
東門夜市
The attendants were rather fierce and snappy. Tong and Jun were yelled at for tinkering with the machine handles while we were waiting for the rest to come. Kaysen was also bellowed at for stepping into an area which was supposedly out of bounds.
It was a good thing that we went with Da Biao Gu as she would document the happenings every single day and post on FB.
Day 2....another fun filled day
🔸 Farm🔸 Kili Bay Pearl Milk Tea Cultural Center
🔸 Charcoal Grilled Chicken in a jar
🔸 Crayon Factory
🔸 OX Tail Biscuit Factory
The kids always enjoyed feeing the animals...
It was a little rainy but we enjoyed our time together, rain or shine.
Ah, how lovely it was to drink the bubble tea we made ourselves!
Ha, the three people who were born in the year of the Rooster posed for a picture with the golden rooster statue outside the restaurant. Just look at the photo of Mama with the many bowls of rice. hahaha....Uncle Edward graciously deboned the chicken...time to tuck in.
This was a fun place. There were several stations and we learnt to make crayons, filled the markers with ink, did face painting and patterned paintings.
Some of the older ones took this amazing long rainbow slide. definitely the highlight of the day.
Day 3....the rain didn’t dampen our spirits 😬
🔸 莎贝莉娜手工印章
🔸 幾米公園
Even though Papa did not like spring onions, he thought this tasted really good.
The dough was really crispy. We made one portion without spring onions for the kids and one portion with spring onions for the adults. Some of them added copious amounts of spring onions...gosh...
A stamp museum. Another good recommendation from Aunt A (who also gushed about the crayon factory).
Choose the kits to work on and we started stamping our kits...
You could even date a letter and send it to anybody all over the world!
The children were asked to be videoed for their promotional videos and each gained a stamp template!
The renowned place where you could see many structures modelled after the iconic scenes in a famous Taiwanese comic book.
A pity it was drizzling so we could not spend a leisurely time there to admire all the structures.
Ha, and Papa and Mama decided to imitate the famous scene "Turn Right, Turn Left" about a couple who never met though they were neighbours as they always chose a particular direction to walk in. Finally, they met one day when their paths ended in a circular walkabout. Romantic. Ha
Day 4...rainy & coldddd Taipingshan at 5-6 Degree.
🔸 Bong Bong Train🔸Hot Spring
🔸 Steamboat
You would not believe it, we were totally unprepared to go up the mountains. Back in Singapore, we had agreed that we would skip this spot as it might be too cold and rainy. Yet, after some discussion, we decided we would head up the scenic spot anyway. Cue: a mad scramble to the supermarket to buy winter wear. It was a good thing that down jackets were pretty affordable (s$40) though they were way too big but heh, we made it!
Mama wore this huge orange winter jacket I borrowed from the driver and zipped mei mei up in it.
A sleep-inducing ride. It was cold and rainy so we could not hike. We took the train to the other station and took the next train back. Ha, we ate instant noodles at the station ravenously. Never had instant noodles tasted so heavenly.
Went to the hot spring area
Had corns and boiled eggs. gosh...the corns were amazingly sweet. Uncle Edward asked the attendant to sell him the corns so that we could eat them for steamboat but the attendant explained that they were just normal corns. It was the hot spring water that made them so delicious. Ha so he declined his request to buy them. hahaha
Took a relaxing jaunt...a breathtaking site with lush terrains with smoking hot springs dispered in the midst...
Steamboat at night...yummy
Day 5...
🔸 菓風糖果工廠🔸 大風吹
🔸 國立傳統藝術中心
🔸 羅東夜市
Candy store. ha...
This was a delightful DIY workshop.
Some of them pasted decals on their mugs
Some of them assembled a wooden aeroplane launcher..
Spent the afternoon at the cultural village which had even more DIY activities...Slightly pricier here.. and we were pressed for time so we did not allow the children to do any activity here
But they had fun...like finding out their fortune at this shop
tinkering with all the products on display. Jun was playing with the top, he loved anything that could spin.
Running around at the misty green
Finding a picturesque alley to take some shots
Day 6...
🔸 from Yilan to Taipei🔸 西門町 + 阿宗麵線
🔸 ABC cooking studio
🔸 Global Mall shopping
🔸 五份埔
🔸 饒河夜市
Saying by to our lovely host who had fed us with yummy breakfast every morning
To our comely air bnb in Taipei!
We went our separate ways...
Day 7...
🔸 Taipei Children’s Amusement Park🔸 Shilin Night Market
It was a small amusement park yet we were there till it closed.
Having bought the unlimited rides band, the children were taking some of the rides multiple times..
Day 8
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Random photos which were not arranged in order as the iPhone always messed up the sequence.
Lan shu shu was really sweet. He sent boxes of fruit and nougats to our air bnb host. It was the first time whereby I got to eat fruit every single day while on a tour! The children loved the apples, they devoured them like locusts every time a plate of apples was brought out.
Ah, it was a rainy day so it was a hassle walking around this area. It would have been fun if it was balmy. There were nice photo spots. Recalled reading the book many years ago...
Jun enjoyed this savory biscuit.
Cut our hair at this salon and I regretted it as the hair stylist was kind of curt and did not seem to be very experienced. oh well...we were all looking forward to cutting our hair in Taiwan because of the pleasant experience we had 2 years ago. It seemed like the people in Yilan were not exactly that friendly.
The boys posed with the aeroplane launchers that they assembled.
Ah...bubble tea factory. The pearls were not fantastic though.
Seemed like the crayon factory was one of their favourite DIY workshops. We almost did not want to come here as we thought that it would be too childish for the kids. However, it was raining so we had to look for indoor activities and Aunt A recommended it. Nice.
View on Tai Ping Shan. It was frosty up there. I wore a huge winter jacket which i borrowed from the driver and mei was zipped snugly in it. She had a tiny cold before she went but her nose cleared up when we were there. The sniffy nose came back after our trip up Tai Ping Shan.
Max and Jun were always hanging out together and this caring big brother took care of Jun.
Mei was munching all the time
Jun was very sleepy on the day we went up Tai Ping Shan. He was sooooo deeply asleep and resisted all attempts to wake him up. In fact, he could even sleep while standing up. We were amazed by his talent to sleep through all the din.
Met up with Lan Shu Shu and his family. They were expecting a new baby. Hurray!
Tong posed with this bear with a big belly.
Mei was grinding her teeth.
So unladylike.
The sleepyheads.
Ha I was the only adult up on the ferris wheel with this bunch of wacky kids
Yes, the others were waiting below
Always fun to play at the slot machines. cheap to play here and one was always guaranteed a prize.
Spotted Jun Plaza. ha
Saw some acting crew at Ximending
On the last day, we went our separate ways again and ended up in the natural museum.
Our cup of tea as we loved to go to museums.
There were interactive panels...
Then a walk to the park which had a sand pit and playground...
10 Dec 19
The legendary can-sleep-anywhere Jun
Saw Joseph Schooling and the SG team who just came back from the SEA games. Sadly, he declined Xun's request for a photo together.
So a wonderful holiday with the cousins once again...I wondered where would we go in two years' time? Writing this on the first day of 2020...I prayed that the year ahead would be filled with exciting opportunities, many occasions for celebration, peace and bliss.
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