More travelling this year before it comes to an end. My last destination brought me to Taiwan, from the 4th to the 8th of November 2010.
As with affordable holidays, comes affordable fun, through affordable tour agencies. This trip was organized by none other than my lovely Dear. It was actually for her Dad’s company trip, and I was invited along with a total of 29 people(Many thanks to everyone, especially my Dear who made this trip possible).
Day 1
Flight on AirAsia with web-checkin was a good way to get nice back row seats on the plane. Landed in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport around 3.30pm.
Looks like a much nicer shape of a sweet potato compared to Malaysia. From the looks of the map, it seems as though Hong Kong is just so near as well.
Touched down at the airport, with extremely efficient immigration, our entire group got through rather quickly and met up with the Dao Yiu (aka Tour Guide). After meeting up with the Dao Yiu, he informed us that there is a slight change in plans. Originally, we were to suppose to have free and easy on the first day but instead there will be a swap. We will taking the bus to YiLan County to the Shangrila Leisure Farm for our first night.
Dao Yiu said it was going to be a 3 hour bus ride, in my mind ‘Ok… we just took a 5 hour flight and now a 3 hour bus ride’. Fortunately Dao Yiu was kind enough to give a pit stop along the way to freshen up ourselves. This was my first taste of Taiwan food.
Vroom Vroom Vroom~~~Bus Took us to our Hotel for the first night in Taiwan. Shangrila Leisure Farming Hotel in Yilan County. It has a nice mix of slight European styling in the Rural Farming villages. Unfortunately, bad photo skills with poor usage of external flash, photos of the Hotel will leave it for the website. Haha.
This is where we took our 2nd pit stop to have our dinner. I assume the food was already cooking when we were on our way. Barely 5 minutes after we settle down at the tables, food kept coming and coming. Tasted like those home-cooked food though still can’t compete with my mum’s cooking.
The rice they use was slightly different than the ones I normally eat back in Malaysia, these rice were thicker and tougher in texture, not sure if that was due to the cooking style or perhaps the rice itself differs. Anyway, no pictures of food for this one, too hungry. I did however notice that the Taiwanese have these salted minced pork dish which they usually top with the rice and goes well with it.
After dinner, we went to our rooms to unload. As the hotel was designed in a village style, Rooms are usually single floored and some goes up to 2 storey and that's it. So our room was towards the back end of the hotel. With the drizzling weather, we braved our luggage and bags ‘hiking’ through the slippery pathways to the room. Kinda enjoyed the weather, my kind of weather. Hehe.
Pics were courtesy of my Dear who still had time to take food pictures. Hehe.
Next up was the ‘Tong Yuen’ making. For those who are unfamiliar, it is commonly known as the Winter Solstice Festival and is usually celebrated 3 days before Christmas. Perhaps to cater for the tourist groups and what not. The hotel also organized a Top spinning competition for games and laughter. Wont dwell into that, Google them if interested.
