:.music for the soul.:

what Holidays are great for... Part Two.

hehe. last post, we finished off with the two sistas setting off on their madcap journey..

anyway after all the terrible frenzy with ticket and hotel booking... packing and planning our own itinerary.. meanwhile trying to settle all the academic stuf before leaving. so, so many anxieties and uncertainties.. all i rem was being really quite burnt out the night before.

so when we finally took off.. i was quite relieved..quite glad that we were finally flying off..despite having only had abt 5 hrs of very not happy nor peaceful sleep haha..

ok thats enuff for pretrip frenzyy.

we were to confront our very first uncertainty the minute we landed.
didnt arrange for airport transfer. only decided we would try our luck at the bus interchange at the airport.. where supposedly a lot of buses can take u to the main areas of the city.. and hopefully near where our hotel was too.

we were super duper fortunate... to have caught ladies shouting from behind a counter.. about a bus that was to leave in approx 15 minutes.. for Ximendinggg! most unexpected thing was our hotel was on the list of places they stopped! in a flash the 2 tickets were shoved in our hands and we were waiting in front of a little signpost that said "51" just outside the airport. our luggages in tow.

:) was just NT135! abt 6.5o... and contrary to what we thought.. the buses here refer to nice comfy tour coaches! super comfortable!



haha on the bus we had our first encounter with local hokkien... 1 whole hour of it... from the tv set! lol.. it was ji gong in hokkien! it was really very funny to watch period drama in hokkien.. haha maybe i'm too accustomed to the kinds of context in which i hear the language. somehow i just couldnt take these actors seriously! :P then was their news in hokkien.. very tabloid-ish.. but somehow adorable and endearing in some ways.. the way they report little miraculous occurences in some ordinary village with great interest and enthusiasm.

our hotel was surprisingly comfortable and clean and just right for the both of us. we've really been very very blessed..with all the last min planning and all..



heehee look who's collapsed on the bed!

dropped off our luggage and headed straight off to XMD!!!!! :):) our room faced the entrance street directly! yet another blessing...





haha and as fate would have it. the very first thing my very hungry sis found.. was the very sausage stall she ate from 2 years ago. :)

am really glad to have had more time to explore xmd this time.. compared to the last time we came on tour and only had like one hour?! the very colourful streets.. very 可爱 shops and places..




one thing i love about many cities outside of singapore is their very big billboards!







hehe its harry potter mania in taipei!! we arrived to find we were just a day ahead of the grand opening! haha and eagerly.. my sister the big fan was hatching a plan....



haha oh dear sum.. this is for you.. guess who i met on the first nite?


hehe he's in quite a number of ads there these days!:)

ahhh our biggest splurge of the day turns out to be at the amazing ROSE Records! :)

we spent quite some time there. trying to rummage thru the dvd pile to see if we cld find any nice classics. i bought my smile pasta soundtrackkkk and a hard to find karaoke compilation... sis bought a movie and a gwenstef dvd... 超级星光帮 is really quite all the rage there now..seeing the compilation by the contestants being swept off the racks! went back to the hotel tt nite and saw yangzongwei on xiao s/big s' new variety show...his 新不了情 is really nice!

hehe yups! quite happening for a first nite alr huh?
haha and so the sisters continue on their adventure...


....stay tuned for more :)

posted by jias tham @ 2:31 AM