Today's itinerary:
猫空 -> 深坑 (豆腐街) -> 十分 -> 台北101 -> 诚品书店 -> 士林夜市

Mr Huang had suggested this day's itinerary to us b4 we parted on the previous cab day. But in the end there were some major changes, which will be unveiled later on. He wanted to bring us to see the guards changing ceremony at 中正纪念堂, but we decided to forego it so that we can have more time for the places after that.

Maokong gondola was initially planned for the night, since HQ said got night view. But had to change it to the day to accommodate the entire day's plans, so that marked our 1st destination of the day.

迂回的路, taken by Yuhui, with Yuhui's cam.


The cabins are so cute with different animals as cabin designs! However, it later became too foggy to even see them.


This is what we called 'nothing-ness'.
No joke. We can't see anything else apart from the 1st few metres of cable lines outside the cabin.

After yesterday's weather, we all decided to wear shorts today. But 我们都是笨的. When we came out of the station, it was freaking cold coz' it was a hilly area, and it was drizzling. Not a single person I saw there was in anything less than long pants and sleeved tops in the least.

Well. Sometimes we just make bad decisions in life, and we gotta learn to live with them.

We wanted to see tea plantations, but we didn't exactly know where. Given our time constraint and weak legs (dammit), we gave up walking and waited for a shuttle bus whose existence we learnt of later. In the end, we took the bus 1 round and went off.

Taipei Zoo was supposedly next, since it was a couple of stations away by gondola. But it was showering, so we decided it wasn't a good idea to visit the animals =( So Mr Huang took us to Shenkeng old street.... to eat 臭豆腐 =p

If you asked me if the street was stinky, well, honestly I can't rmb. The power of being human is the ability to habituate (to the smells). But yes, 90% of the street sell 臭豆腐, so don't go there if you can't stand it.

While we were having another rare full and fulfilling meal (by that, I mean there's rice/noodle and dishes), we were being disappointed by PioneerDive's advice that the weather did not warrant a worthy trip underwater ='( And there I was, so looking forward to snorkeling even b4 the trip, and God answered my prayers by ending my monthly nuisance in time. Only to end up cancelling it *sigh*

With the whole afternoon emptied now, Mr Huang made plans for us to go elsewhere. And tadaa!!
放天灯 at Shifen!!

Woohooo!! Everytime I go Taiwan, I wanted to do this, but I thought it was only available during CNY and their sky lantern festival. Mr Huang was very nice to call one of the shops there (probably his friend's) to check if the weather permitted releasing of the sky lanterns. This had got to be the saving grace of the day, after the failure to snorkel dampened our spirits.

There were different colors representing different categories of wishes, so we got 6 different colored lanterns, and of coz', given our nature, we spent a very long time scribbling our wishes on these 6 colorful wish vessels. And the coolest thing is, we were doing everything beside and on the railway track =D

Our lanterns....


With our new name.


Then we scribbled, released, and watched them disappear into the sky, one by one.


Then the last one -- the one that signifies happiness and joy -- wobbled into the air and... bumped into the electricity cables nearby and thereafter, plunged into dunno-where in a ball of fire O_O

Our 幸福....!!! What a bad omen omg. Not that I'm superstitious anw haha. But it's like, wahh what are the chances man. But well, we earned ourselves another free lantern, and the boss was nice enough to throw in a string of fire crackers foc =D

Mr Huang told us Shifen came to be known as "幸福之乡" coz' majority of the residents in Shifen have the surname "胡"(hu). Taiwanese sometimes pronounce "fu" as "hu", so there's a saying that says Shifen people are very 幸福 (xing fu) coz' they "姓胡"(xing hu). Warped? Perhaps. But kinda cool =) And I wondered at the back of my mind, if the pronunciation of "fu" as "hu" had anything to do with the Japanese. Can't help but be reminded of the similarities in the phonetics for the syllable.


Choochooooo!!

After we bid this quaint little town goodbye, we brought ourselves back to the metropolitan square of Taipei.


Taipei 101: Day & Night.

The whole day was just so misty everywhere. Can't even see the top of 101 in the evening in between the time that these 2 pics were taken.

Those who have been there b4 would know it is the equivalent of our Paragon here, so we only went in to use the washroom and snapped this.

OMG SO 帅!!!
Takeshi would have had Leehom as company on my blog post, but the MRT station had too many people for me to snap the Brand's poster =p

We requested for Mr Huang to bring us to Eslite bookstore for a while, since it was nearby, and probably one of the biggest (chain) bookstores in Taiwan. It actually is somewhat like our PageOne and Kino, but they have proper and ample reading areas for people to browse through the books, like a library. It was a pity the only Jodi Picoult book there didn't have a new copy (the browsing copy was on sale due to the condition), but I found "The Book Thief" there =D I think most of the books there are a few dollars cheaper than in SG.

Books distracted us from our hunger, but not for long. The much anticipated for Shihlin night market!! =D

What we conquered this night.

From left, clockwise: 豪大大鸡排、蛤仔煎、十全排骨汤、青蛙下蛋 (爱玉冰).

And 云吞面、牛肉面 which we were too engrossed in to take a pic of it =p Of coz', not forgetting the 苦瓜汁 that everyone shunned like plague other than YH and I =.=

Hmmm.... How come we ate so little but still so full????

So full that we need some (arm and eye) exercise.


Siao de, where got people so happy when shooting themselves de -.-


This is more like it.


We easily blasted about $20 away at this game stall, coz' the lady was such a good salesperson, and ya lah, she also gave us either more bullets or a couple of free games. But it was fun!! I have to admit I have no childhood to speak of coz' this is my 1st time playing this =\ We won ourselves some toy in the end hahaha.

And guess what. There's PHOTOHUNT!! So cheap some more! $0.40 for 2 plays leh. So it's back to squeezing around one machine trying to fish out all the differences. One of our all-time favs =D

This night, we returned with satisfied mind and body =p