Tai-I-Wan Trip! Day 5

Okay, I gave it my best shot. We really did. But it's hard to stay up the entire night after walking for a whole 12 hours on the previous day, and the combination of a heavy dinner, an hour's massage and a hot shower was too much for us. We called it quits at 4am and crawled back into our own beds. We woke up just a couple of hours later, because I wanted to eat Jian Hong Beef Noodles one more time before we go. Walking to the beef noodles stall was challenging for us sleep-deprived zombies. I can't walk, keep my eyes open and reply messages on my phone at the same time. Choose two out of three, matey. 

It was too early and I only managed to finish half the noodles, but I made sure to hunt down every last piece of beef. And polished off the Century Egg and Tofu side dish. But that was my limit. Should have followed everybody else, and just get the Beef Noodles sans noodles (top). 

We passed by a 7-11 on the way back to the hotel, and I seized the opportunity to buy several bottles of the delicious Mandheling coffee the lady cab-driver treated us to. When the driver from yesterday dropped us off at the airport a few hours later, we waved goodbye effusively. In the 3 days that we booked them, I met two of their drivers and I couldn't recommend this company enough. 

J's stash of coffee.

We reached the airport early, and we spent an hour pleasantly in Hanlin Tea Room - the same one from Jiufen which I didn't manage to try. I enjoyed the relaxed posh atmosphere of Hanlin here in the airport, which the branch at Jiufen lacked. It was a good place to fritter time away in the airport.  I had an exotic Pu'er Milk Tea (TWD175), but it didn't taste as nice as I expected.

Rawr

The clock struck 11, and we vacated our table, and the most perfect of holiday ended.
   

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Taiwan is a place of contradictions, where anything goes. It has a traditional conservative Asian culture in so many familiar aspects, but billboards with racy content or advertisements for abortion pills are common enough. Lane dividers and traffic directions are a suggestion, and people treat the highways' road shoulders as another lane. Crossing the road is a game of chicken, and drivers take both hands off the steering wheel to reach for their phones. And yet, people queue up orderly at MRT barriers, and priority seats are kept empty for the people who need them.

Strawberry chocolate candy.

Singapore's slogan is The Land of Four Million Smiles, but yet people seem much more aloof in Singapore than in most other countries. We met a sullen-looking woman in the seafood restaurant in Jinshan, which I suspected from her familiar-looking scowl (and later confirmed by her accent) that yes, she is from Singapore. So Taiwan show producers, please stop making horrible shows like Ai and Ye Shi Ren Shen with disgusting characters that only sully the name of all Taiwanese. Taiwan is one of the most friendly countries I have been to, and it's one of the most fun vacations I had in a long time.  

Many of these photos here are courtesy of EJ Yeo, R Wang and J Lee.


Check out the rest of my Taiwan trip here
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