Taipei was rush, frenzy and excitement all rolled into one. Upon arrival, we headed straight for , braving the chilly winds and messy traffic. The square was a dizzy mix of neon signboards of myriad colours, a showcase of food, apparel, accessories and everyday needs all cramped into one dingy little walkway. Many shops had sales and offers due to the changing of seasons but prudence was the order of the day as the best was yet to be. My focus was, of course, on the many street bites that i had missed the last time round i was in taipei. At 2300, wanting to make full use of the time there, i suggested going to huaxi night market where there really wasnt much. i can only remember the melt-in-your-mouth yoghurt mochis (why arent they available here!?!?), the rather special watch that brandon bought and some itinerant hawkers peddling secondhand phones at ridiculously low prices, which made me doubt the quality of the goods. That made one whole night of solid walking.

Day two was early. too early. despite walking to taipei main station after breakfast, NONE of the shops in the underground mall was open at 1000 hrs. so after walking further down, we stumbled upon a cake shop that had great curry biscuits but i didnt buy those, preferring to wait till the last day at some out of the way shop in nanking east rd sec 5 :( and a tw version of poh kim / laser flair / wadhaveyou a few shops down. on to shinkong mitsukoshi and to this obscure shop with really tacky designs going on sale and back down to the station before deciding that we shld visit yuanling shoe st via beautiful 228 peace park (must have been the weather), where we overstayed and hence did not visit Guting and dintaifung & kaoji. re-supp at the hotel and on to shida night market, where we broke contact at the mrt station... better to read the LED signs outside the carriage doors... more streetfood and more shopping but it wasnt really the best of the many night markets we visited. would say that most of the vendors are student-entrepreneurs...but its not as bad as wad teddy said about nothing there. the XuJi SHengJianBaos were fantastic!!! and having tried many variations of those during the whole trip, i shld say that those were the best. unfortunately Gongguan was closed on wednesdays, to our horror and finding out only upon arriving, marking an early end to day 2.

Having learnt our lesson in day 2, we started later to Danshui on thursday, taking the train then walking towards YuRenMaTou to do a brief recce of the shops selling fish crackers and iron eggs, amidst others. only halfway through the traipse along the river did we realise that it wasnt a effective use of time walking so we bussed there. :) Lover's bridge and the surrounding area was picturesque but that was it. The cool weather helped of course but there really didnt seem to be alot of ppl there. probably cos it was a wkday. but Ah-ge WAS delicious (bean vermicelli wrapped in tofu skin and topped with a fishcake and bathed in sweet braised sauce). i wonder why some things were never brought to singapore like the bubble tea craze. and on the way back we decided to walk through the shops again to get the fish crackers and iron eggs and various other items that my friends got save me, who was really more interested in the food and quaint offerings native to the region. after walking for the day, it was a wise decision to deposit the stuff back at the hotel before training to Shilin. God forbid us trying to squeeze through the crowd carrying bags of crackers and eggs and whathaveyou. from 7 till 11, we split up and ploughed the streets of shilin night market. for some parts i felt like a zombie, too exhausted to think and choose. Just trudged on whereas jianhao really seemed to be in his element. eyes simply lit up at many of the wares on display. haha and i thought i bought too much for my own good. turned out that i had some of the least to check in coming back, haha. but the food centre was where i had some of my best meals. every other meal was eat-as-you-walk, one of the few things that i didnt really like, come to think of it.

Day 4 saw us getting conned by daniel's recommendation. after walking from zhongxiaoshinsheng to fuxing and going up to this shoe store, we realised that it was a predominantly ladies' ware kind of place. mega bummer. but at least we got to see the not-so-touristy streets of taipei :D taipet 101 (yi-ling-yi, not yao-ling-yao as jianhao likes to say) was really not for us. too many armanis - the paragon of taipei, whereas NYNY had nothing... shinkong mitsukoshi was where we got this wonderful ice-cream mochi. and ESLITE book store was like the candy house of bookstores. bring it to singapore and i guess borders and kino would have to buck up really really hard. pity i couldnt really explore all levels of that place. :( linjiang st night market was really far from eslite but we braved the especially chilly winds that night and walked there, relying on the ground topo which i had not done in ages, but thanks to the map and my limited knowledge of chinese, we found our way there. :D linjiang was really cramped and dingy and was really nothing much, just more well-lit than shida. and we didnt get to see mr baozi, which brandon did - a brillant innovation of east-meets-west: baos disguised as donuts. haha really pretty. wonder how they taste. raohe on the other hand, was much more organised (unlike shilin), spacious (unlike linjiang) and had a good range of wares (unlike shida) AND delicious salad prawn fritters. mmm :P and there was this really friendly vendor who chased us all the way out of the night market for fear that his instructions were unclear and we'd loose our way. deeply regret not getting the red jacket from him that i really liked. oh well.

after 4 days of solid walking, i was beginning to feel the aches all over my feet,knees and thighs. so on the last day of last-minute shopping to get what-we-liked-but-did-not-before or see what-we-want-but-did-not-before, i took a bus back to nanking east rd sec 5 and got those highly recommended, award winning pineapple tarts from this out of the way shop (paid a hefty price too) then bussed to song shan rd to get to houshanpi station after taking directions from this really friendly obasan. haha. bussing alone in a foreign land was fun. toured wufenpu but most shops were closed till much later, when we were about to leave. no luck with the jacket and hence, back to ximen to get yy's shoes, which he didnt get in the end since he didnt like those on display. risotto set for lunch costing less than SGD10 (only had that once here and it was on the verge of $20...) not too bad :D last few hrs leading to the airport transfer was frantic but i guess we still made it. thanks to the driver we got to this cake shop that sold the elusive green bean cakes that brandon's mum really likes - the best i tasted during the trip: soft and chilled, melt-in-your-mouths and adequately sweet so that it did not overpower the flavour of the green bean paste. :D but ironically it was known more for its President's Cakes haha. wadever.

Despite the long boring plane rides, taipei was great with many things to see,eat and buy, not unlike bangkok. of course the wares were different and taipei was much more costly (guess i could go to bangkok twice for a trip to taipei) but we enjoyed taipei immensely, looking at the mortifying amount of stuff that we were lugging at the hotel lobby and at the check-in counter, the only other really embarrassing times being the cam-whoring episodes, especially with jianhao and his D-SLR, which was slung across his neck to announce the arrival of tourists :S i almost didnt dare look the check-in staff in the eye. haha and we were mistaken for starlight troopers but they decided against it in the end as troopers checked in more stuff! haha. dont delude yourself guys, we did check in alot of stuff and i doubt other passengers checked in much more. but isnt that what makes us uniquely singapore? but somehow some vendors mistook us for taiwanese at times hehe like how one assumed i was a student there and most probably owned one of many scooters that were parked along the many walkways of taipei. i'd probably want to visit again, this time to see yangmingshan, take a ferry ride on danshui river, go to a hot spring, visit the night markets, spend more time at eslite, spend time having proper meals and not just trashy stuff along the streets AND go to keelung. for now, it's back to the limbo between ORD and uni, and try to move on with life...