Taiwan Day 1

22/5/2014

Finally the day we have been counting down to has arrived - The day of our flight to Taipei, Taiwan. 

My family sent the both of us to the airport, had supper with us, and watched us walked through the departure gate at like 5-7am in the morning. Super grateful for a family like this :)

Getting ready for takeoff!

After a grueling 4 plus hours of flight with uncomfortable sleeping positions and painfully blocked ears, we arrived in TaoYuan Airport!!

Supper shagged face with no makeup on. 

Took a cab to our hotel in Xi Men but it wasn't time to check in yet. Left our luggage with the hotel and went to grab lunch. 

Walked past this pasta shop that had dogs at the door and decided to just quickly settle lunch here. 

Walked around Xi Men Ding for a bit and it's time to check in! 

We were staying at InHouse Hotel (薆悅酒店 in Chinese) and it cost about TWD1,000 to take a cab there from Taoyuan Airport. 

I was stunned when I set foot into our room for the next 6 days. 

Are you freaking kidding me?!

Even the toilet is super pretty! Everything is so sleek and cheek and I just wanted to stay in that place forever. The bathroom does not only has a tub, it has an overhead shower AND a normal shower too (the kind where you can use your hand to hold).  

And the best part...

A freaking heated toilet bowl with washing functions!!! 

Told JP we definitely need this in our future home. We would just sit on it every time we feel cold even though there was no "urgent" calls. Super shiok maximum. 

Perfect lighting in the room for selfies. 

Washed up, changed and decided to spend the rest of the day in Xi Men Ding area because we were pretty tired from the flight, and it would take quite a bit of time to travel to other places and it was already like 4pm. 

I kind of forgot what series were the shoes on the super cool display. Was it all Air Jordan white series? 

Hahaha, this shows that I'm not an avid basketball shoes fan. I mean I see something that is nice, that's it. I don't know how people know every single model across like a hundred series for like ten brands. It's crazy. 

Capturing dance-y slogans.  >.<

Stumbled upon this street with lots of graffiti and street wear shops and decided to take an OOTD shot here. Efforts to make the whole picture look artistic fail terribly. Lol. It was raining and I couldn't touch a single surface, and half the time I was actually worrying if someone would suddenly appear in the windows because the insides are actually accessible. 

I was getting a little lethargic from all that walking because Xi Men Ding is really huge and it was getting late, so quite a few shops are closing and we would have to come back again eventually so I was getting restless at the idea of more shopping. 

Until I found this....

Can you see Going Merry? Omg I miss her so much. 

I think it's supposed to be Going Merry anyway, or maybe it's Mini Merry. 

Entire shop modeled after Thousand Sunny! How I wish I could enter those doors and go into Sanji's kitchen. 

And my wish sorta came true. 

Cutie Chopper that took away all my tiredness!

It'd be really cool if I can meet Luffy for real. Have always admired his willpower and optimism. 

Was pretty disappointed they don't have a life-size model of Zorro tho. My next favorite besides Chopper and Luffy. 

Which reminds me, I have yet to catch the recent episodes of One Piece. 

I was totally recharged after walking through the 2-level store. Hahaha. Started skipping down the street being really hyper and bouncing around JP after we exited the store. 

Damn cool please. Why don't we have something like this in SG?  T.T

Went back to the hotel to rest for awhile before heading out again to get late dinner. 

More dance-related slogans that sometimes do not refer to dance. (It was for a spa lol) 

IP Dance Skool that we wanted to visit but we presumed it was closed already. 

Dabao-ed food back to the hotel to enjoy while watching Taiwan shows on TV :)

Bought back 大肠包小肠, 卤肉饭 & 葱油饼 (which is actually different ingredients wrapped with prata). It was my first time trying 大肠包小肠 and I was so surprised and how well the 2 different sausages go together. It's damn nice ohgodsavemenowIwannagoback. 

Loots for Day 1. 

Immediately opened this product to use and it was really good. It's super effective in removing impurities and oil control! 

It's an exfoliating gel so I used it with my moisturizer before I sleep and I woke up to brighter, smoother and softer skin! It was crazy. JP used it too and he was super happy when he woke up. He had felt 2 pimples emerging beneath his skin the night before and just after a good night's sleep, the bumps were gone! 

I was actually "tricked" into the sales pitch by accepting the free sample on an eye mask but after the demo, I was pretty convinced and now I'm really glad I bought 3 of them. Gave one to my Mum so she can have beautiful skin too! :)

Wanted to get this cap so much but I don't know whether SG has the same design. Well hopefully SG does because I gave it up in the end :/ 

Taiwan Beers I've contemplated trying but didn't. 

After just 1 day, I fell in love with Taipei. Everyone, and I really mean EVERYONE, is just so friendly and no matter how we know it's a sales trick, we just can't seem to be able to outright reject them. I don't understand why they are not the "Land of Smiles". Everywhere we go we are greeted by people with wide smiles on their faces. It's a really nice place to be in and the people restore my faith in humanity. 

It was only Day 1 but we wished we could stay there longer already. 

X