Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Taiwan- Shifen + Jiufen + Shilin Night Market

We met up with Louis's friends who happened to be in Taiwan too. We shared a car together & the driver drove us to Shifen & Jiufen. These 2 places are located outside of Taiwan thus, hiring a driver would be much easier. Also because we are a group of 5, it's cheaper when divided amongst all of us. It cost about SGD80/person for 1 whole day. I know to some it may seem bait too much. But i was told if there were lesser people it would have cost way more. 

The very first place we went to was a famous breakfast place. Sorry i can't remember the name of the road so i attached a photo below on the name of the cafe. 








 Our main purpose of visiting Shifen is to release the paper lanterns! Heh. I've been wanting to do this for the longest time! I can now strike it off my to-do list! (: My Chinese may not be that great, but it doesn't mean i can't write. Obviously i can read & write basic Chinese!












 Was told this chicken stuffed with rice is really yummy. We walked all the way to the back of Shifen just to try it. I liked it very much! But i couldn't eat an entire chicken wing. Sigh pieee. I wish i could but my cough wasn't getting any better and i didn't want to worsen it. So i only took 2 bites!
 Shifen water fall.

After roaming around Shifen we made our way to Jiufen. The car rides were pretty long so i fell asleep for abit. It started drizzling by the time we reached Jiufen. Also, it was extremely crowded!! So difficult to walk through the narrow alleys. 















 I've seen reviews about this shaved caramel almond ice cream wrapped in popiah skin. The nuts put me off but when i tried it i really loved it! I would have had another one if again, not for my damned cough! Pfft. 



 Before our Taiwan trip, Louis did mention to me about a famous restaurant called "Formosa Chang" that serves up the best Lu Rou Fan. As we have been on a Lu Rou Fan eating spree since we basically had it every night, we were beyond ecstatic when we came across the restaurant! Needless to say, we each ordered a bowl of Lu Rou Fan!


The verdict?

I LOVED IT! The meat was sooo tender. Though it would have been nicer if they'd give just a little bit more.. In general i loved it (:

 SHI LIN NIGHT MARKET

Shi Lin Night Market is said to be a touristy area. Well, it's true. But i felt that Shi Lin had more to offer as compared to Rao He. Food wise i felt it's not too bad either. Also, there were way more stores at Shi Lin than Rao He. More things to do too. I quite liked Shi Lin tbh. So did Louis. Initially we were planning to skip visiting Shi Lin due to the reviews. We only came here because Louis's friend was craving for Shi Lin fried chicken so the driver brought us there. 

We were there for only about 15mins and no longer. I only saw abit of Shi Lin & told Louis i'd like to come back to check out the rest of the market. And so we did. We came back another day to check it out. 




Hot Star chicken is so famous the queue was really long. I've tried it in Malaysia though. I didn't know they had an outlet in Taiwan. I didn't take much photos of Shi Lin as it was drizzling & i was just too lazy + exhausted. But i would recommend visiting Shi Lin. They have so much things to see, do & feast on!

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