5D4N Taipei

Day 3: Miramar, Wu Fen Pu, Shida, Lava

First destination was Miramar. Nope. not the ferris wheel, we are both afraid of heights. lol.

Some afternoon halloween event.

The main reason we were there was for this:

Famous hundred year old shop - 金春發牛肉麵. The shop is located opposite Miramar.

The shop is apparently famous for the last item, fried curry noodles. Didnt order that :/

Got a curry beef with rice.
some mixed beef soup & a small plate of stir fried beef organs.

Not a fan of fancy beef parts, but what impressed me was the curry beef & beef soup. the soup was very light and sweet, yums,

Its worth a try, but not fantastic imo. Will consider if i will go back to it the next time.

As the beef didnt satisfy us, we decided to eat something more before we start our shopping spree.

We headed to Saboten instead. lol. i noe, i noe, i noe theres a saboten in singapore as well. but at that point we were craving for tonkatsu very much.

And we wanted to see if it will be on par with katsukura, the tonkatsu place which was so unforgetable.

Of cos, we are half full from the beef place, so we just ordered a set to share.

Its good! But katsukura is still the best. =D

After a heavy lunch, we headed to Wu Fen Pu, wholesale market for some shopping to work off our lunch.

Took the train and alighted at Hou Shan Pi, its about 5 mins walk to the market.

If u are a fan of Braised pork rice, en route you will see the famous, 胡须张鲁肉饭。

B n I went seperate ways, as WFP is really big, we tot its more efficient to cover our own things and set a place to meet.

But WFP was sucha disappointment. The clothes there are really expensive if you don buy more than 2 pieces? And the quality of the merchandise is really inferior. :(

Forced myself to buy 2 belts and a necklace for B and decided to call it a day at WFP.

If you are like me, disappointed with WFP, i recommend you the following place,which have really nice and cheap clothes & yummy food altogether.

Shida night market.

It was my first time to Shida market even though this is my 3rd trip to Taipei, cant believe i missed it the first 2 times! I have always imagine Shida to be small & un-interesting. Boy, i was wrong.

Things here are nicer and cheaper than WFP, makes us regret e time we wasted at WFP :(

But beware, it can get really really crowded during weekend!

Tips: If you wan really good bargains, do go to XMD after 10 PM when all the shops are closed, there will be illegal street vendors selling clothings and acccessories. I bought most of my loots there, no need to squeeze w pple and can bargain for a good price!

10NTD sesame pancake! famous 卤味 stall. very long q.

settled for this stall selling 甜不辣，which has much lesser q. the wait was about 10 mins.

mixed 甜不辣
阿鑫面线！very addictive!
After dinner, we then took a cab back to hotel to rest for part 2 program.

buzzling Xi men ding on a saturday night.

It was the halloween weekend! decided to check out the halloween party scene in taipei.

got some alcohol from the convenience stall, its really CHEAP.

Some cheap alcohol and rest got us all ready for the halloween night at Lava!

We took a cab to NEO19 at abt 12+ am, tinking there may be a really long q, but nope, the Q was all right for a halloween night.

dressed up for halloween.

impressed with the efficient crew who got us into the club in no time.

Cover was 1000 NT that night, with 2 drinks.


camwhoring buddha!bartenders.
music was not bad, and we met 2 fellow singaporeans at the bar. but i tot it was a tad empty for a halloween party, maybe there were more happening party out there. o well..

it was a really unforgettable, long night.

Day 8: Takashimaya, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Kabukicho

Today is a rest and relax day!

We woke up slightly later to catch up w some rest after watching tv late e night before.

it was raining by the time we leave the hotel, luckily i brought a brolly w me. It costs 100Yen to rent the umbrella from hotel.

Lucky for us there is an underpass near our hotel that leads us straight to Takashimaya Timesquare, Shinjuku.

Greeted by Kinokuniya when we enter from basement
tea leaves
some yummy looking food.
as you may know, theres plenty of food options in their basement supermarkets. if you want to have a variety, this will be a good place. Prices are not cheap though, but alot of stalls offer samples for trying. awesome isnt it :)

best thing is, even if you dont buy, they will still politely say thank you, please come again. :)

kaiseki ryōri bento costs 30SGD~

miscellaneous tempura!
how abt a tempura bento then? 10+SGD

fresh fruits everywhere that looks like plastic.

melon tt cost as much as the kaiseki bento
samples! lol

Snapper @@
so hard to resist the temptation of the food~we almost got stuck there and missed the primary purpose of coming to takashimaya.

finally we made our way up to Katsukura.

Katsukura
Takashimaya Times Square
14th floor, 5-24-2 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

this is famous tonkotsu (fried pork cutlet) place in japan.

it was pass lunch time already. but there is still a short q. we waited for about 15 mins to be seated.

Theres english wording below the japanese menu. nice.

but they also have a full English menu

B took a Katsu Zen set , while i wanted to try something special and ordered a crab cream croquette w pork fillet (1820Yen)
free refill of barley rice, soup & veggie~
appetizer.
sauce
u are supposed to pour in the sauce from the pot and grind it together with the sesame. very fragrant and its not too salty, goes really well w the cutlet.

super crispy cutlet but not oily. oishiiiii...bread crumbs are not thick. meat is tender, not dry.

they are v generous with their cabbage servings.
fillet & crab cream croquette.
juicy & tender meat....

the taste of the crab cream croquetter nv leaves my mind again. it is so so orgasmic. omg. i m so glad i order this. so creamy~

the meal was so good honestly i think the price is justifiable, i think we paid 50 - 60SGD for this meal altogether. and its one of the best meal i have in japan and so unforgettable till 7 months later (today).

=/ i m hungry now

and so after a good meal we went shopping at Tokyu hands first, before heading to basement to get dessert!

facial blotters. lol. bought this as souvenir for a gf.

colorful cakey~

in the end we settled for the melon flavor donut in green (bottom, centre) & the Baumkuchen below.
Its a kind of multi layer cake. quite yummy.

Headed to Shibuya for shopping after that, it was STILL raining. roar.

Note to all, the stuff here are so so so freaking expensive! Every pair of shoes i saw easily cost 100SGD. i wonder how do the girls can afford!

In the end i bought a pair of fringe bootie for 35bucks, cos its on sale & it says made in china. -_-

o well, so for those on a tight budget, here is not a recommended shopping spot for u! i recommend to go Harajuku, not tt much cheaper either, but alot of things are on sale!

Disney store in Shibuya
Halloween stitch. lol. and then we eat again to fill up our disappointment from shopping.
and we went to Pepperlunch! haha. indeed, their pepperlunch is v different from ours.

everytime i have pepper lunch at wheelock, e sizzle will die off when its served so i cannot cook it the way i want to.

the meat is awesome, tasted like so high quality meat.

we shared ONE. haha. and the waiter didnt give us a weird look but continue serving us w his best attitude. again, i m bowled over by their good service.

Finally, we decided to dedicate some time to Shinjuku on our final stay in Japan :(((

We headed back to Shinjuku station, spend sometime shopping and just as we were about to go back to hotel to rest, this shop caught our attention:

i remember theres a shop in 313 selling something similiar but i have never tried before, so we decided to try.

bought the macha with red bean flavour, i m a sucker for macha flava. hahaha.

makes a very good dessert!

and so with that, we went back to hotel for some rest & packing before we continue the night.

a few hours later, we went to explore kabukicho, in search for some dinner. IT WAS STILL RAINING.

we decided to give Tsukiji Gindaco a try because we have been seeing the branches all ard tokyo, shdnt be too bad rite?

we were drenched and cold and not sure if its because of the same reason, we tot the okonomiyaki & takopachi tasted v good!

my favourite mentaiko takopachi!
warm & fluffy. for a lack of a better way to describe it.

the meal was very comforting, cost us about SGD 10 for both. I will take some time to try the stall at Ion orchard soon :)

sorry to disappoint you, but that was hardly our dinner!

we found this restaurant along the main street of kabukicho selling burnt ramen. :)

what? of cos we shared one. :P

dont ask me why is it call Painful ramen, we find it quite amusing too.

free toppings!

look at the mountain of beansprouts~ the bowl of noodles is GINORMOUS!

the noodles is abit different from what i usually eat, its much thicker, like our yellow noodles used to cook prawn noodles in singapore. imagine mee rebus in pork broth.

its nice, but nothing to shout about, i still prefer the traditional kinda ramen.

ended our last night w something... not so japanese :P