Taiwan May 2008 Part 4

Last part of Taiwan! After Hualian, we returned to Taipei, which I had already introduced a little in the first part. We saw all the touristy stuff, did all the touristy things, but managed to fit in a few other things slightly off the beated path.

Scenery along the railway between Hualian and Taipei. Beautiful coastlines

Audrey enjoying a bowl of beef noodles from a stall we found in the local wet market. We had no idea when we went in, but a couple of chatty customers [who were surprised we could speak Chinese and wanted to find out more] told us that the stall was supposed to be really famous. Note the giant bowl of salted vegetables beside Audrey!

The famous, or infamous, Toilet Restaurant. As I suspected, food is definitely not a top priority in a theme restaurant.

Can you believe these things are dustbins?

JK harassing a pigeon in the Zhong Zheng Guang Chang/Zi You Guang Chang

A drink Audrey was absolutely obsessed over in Taiwan. And I mean OBSESSED. She drank like around 4 bottles a day, and then went around buying out every bottle she could find and brought back to Singapore around 15 bottles. Its essentially a plum flavoured drinkable-jelly drink.

Danshui, which we went with Claire and Sandy, 2 other Taiwanese we met through couchsurfing. Thank you for showing us such a great time! Danshui is basically the Taiwanese version of the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, and I love that place!

We went there on a Sunday, and the place is packed, which I think is the best way to see the place, people milling around, band playing, atmosphere festive.

The street food selection is mind boggling, rivalling any night market. I'll show only a fraction of what we saw and maybe half of what we ate =P. This is grilled fresh squid, juicy and smoky, very very nice.

Passionfruit snow cups. There were like a zillion flavours available.

Chips on a stick.

And the next day, our last day in Taiwan, guess what we did? We met up with all our friends in Taiwan [minus Kimble], and we went to KTV!

All who know me knows how crazy I am for KTV, so it was a perfect end to the trip!

Back to the hotel for some last minute packing

While Pippin sat watched and laughed

All our Taiwanese friends sent us to the airport! Soooooo nice of them =)

Rice box we got from the train station on the way to the airport. BEST rice box EVER. It was soooo good, I devoured it in minutes. Doesn't look like much, but its divine, and deserves a whole photo and a glowing mention.

And thus we ended our trip, the last thing we saw of Taiwan not of some dingy airport, but of friends who made the trip what it was. So go to Taiwan, and make friends! Cause the people in Taiwan are truly the best thing Taiwan has to offer =D