Taipei Day 7,8,9 | Ximending, Cityhall, Bitou Cape

September 04, 2013

Sadly, I have come to final post of my Taiwan Holiday Trip. So the last few days were spent with boyfriend's friend, WM and his girlfriend, PY, whom coincidentally were in Taiwan 2 days after we arrived, and left 2 days after we departed, so we spent time together in Taipei the remaining days of our trip. We visited Ximending (XMD), finally, which was also when we wanted to get our haircut, but eventually didn't. 

XMD has the mid-range priced clothes, which wasn't something I went for as well, because I was starting to shop for more working-class clothes, reality SUCKS. Although I managed to get myself a pair of Sperry, $140 SGD, not available in Singapore (I checked). That was all the shopping done in XMD! 

Group photo at the Toilet Theme Restaurant!
That was us before we had the food.

In all honesty, THE FOOD SUCKS, not to forget mentioning, it's expensive and the customer service was really bad. There's nothing much to elaborate on the toilet theme restaurant, aside from the fact that, I've tried it, and I'll never return to eat food from there, neither would I recommend anyone to go there. The nuggets that we ordered were definitely heated up finger food that was way too expensive. And the ice cream we had, tastes worse than magnolia ice cream. The chocolate balls and other stuff that was on the ice cream tasted expired, TOTALLY HORRIBLE. Trust me when I say that street food deserves much more than food served at this restaurant.


The next day, we met up with WM and PY and their Taiwan friends who brought us around Taipei shopping area. In fact, we walked around Taipei 101, had awesome XLB (xiao long bao) from Din Tai Fung, and visited all the nice malls around the area. This DAZZLING Cafe we met them at served the nicest deserts and the pasta was great too. I know they have a couple of outlets, maybe you could google and check them out, this place is definitely worth visiting if you're a fan of deserts and coffee.

What we did when we saw a sculpture, take a cute photo under their umbrellas! It was a rainy day as well in Taipei. Walked around like true blue tourist, felt really good because although it wasn't in our plan, we just went with the flow! It was at the end of this day that we took a bus to Zhongshan and had our haircut, followed by the best meal I've ever had, Japanese Charcoal BBQ.

More about our Haircut in Taiwan HERE!

And lastly, our final Tourist days in Taipei.

My initial plan was for us to visit Yehliu where they had the most fantastic rock formations (the information I gathered), but after a tiring day the day before, we didn't want to wake up early. We skipped the morning plan and headed straight towards Bitou. Took the afternoon TRA from Taipei Main station to Ruifang, paid NT$50 and hopped on a bus called 台湾好行. It brings you to a couple of destinations near the coastal areas, then again, the bus frequency is about an hour or half an hour a bus. I would suggest that you leave Taipei Main Station early to visit more places.

So we climbed a mountain because we didn't get to the the capehouse at Bitou, we didn't know it was closed and being there already, we didn't want to turn back. Pressed on and hiked a mountain. KILL ME, it's the 2nd time I've hiked a mountain and I almost died, was panting like mad even when I haven't reached the top. But all those for a view like that, it was worth it.


After the hike up and down the mountain, we rushed to take the bus up to Jiufen, the same bus. Whilst walking towards the bus stop, we saw the bus, we ran with all our might, and frantically waved at the bus, but it drove off without us. And... We were left there looking like fools. Waited there under the scorching sun for a good 30 minutes.

Met his WM and PY in Jiufen, walked from one end to the other not buying anything at all, except for 盐酥鸡 (fried spices chicken), and decided to cab down to Keelung's night market, Miaokou. Cab shared between 4 people is so worth it, if we had the whole trip together, I would've probably suggested hiring a cab for the day trips that were further out of Taipei. Anyway, KL's night market was not bad, it was BIG, way bigger than Ningxia Night Market, and they also had way more variety of food.

Although that night we settled for dinner at 原燒, a japanese charcoal BBQ once again, we spent a total of NT$1650 for 4 people, roughly $66SGD. TOTALLY WORTH IT, we had all the wagyu beef in the world, other yummy beef and scallop, everything tasted just perfect, a great way to end our Taiwan Trip. We did return to miaokou to try some of their local delights, the CHUA BING (shaved iced), which was practically syrup in shaved ice, nothing fantastic, and their fried healthy bread, which was awesome.

Goodbye Taiwan, I'll be back some day. WhenI go back, I would like to visit other parts of Taiwan, like 花蓮 (Hualien), 高雄 (Kaohsiung) and 台中 (Taichung). Would love if I could get a sponsored trip instead.

For more on my Taipei posts:

Taipei Holiday Planning
Taipei Day 1: Taipei Zoo
Taipei Day 2: Yangmingshan , Beitou, Tamsui
Taipei Day 3: Hakka Cultural Park, CKS Memorial Hall
Taipei Day 4: Miniature Museum of Taipei, Suho Paper Museum
Taipei Day 6: Pingxi Railway Tour

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3 comments

  1. Hi Madeline,
    I found ur blog by google, since I want to visit Bitou Cape end of this month :)
    Would u tell me how to get there from Jiufen? which bus? thx for your help since I cant speak and read chinese :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello!
      There's this bus called Taiwan Hao Xing (direct translated: Taiwan Good Travel). According to my memory, the name of the bus is in chinese.. Also, when you get on the bus, it's helpful if you tell the bus driver to tell you when to stop, because they don't stop at every stop, only stops when someone presses the bell, and if you miss a stop, it's too far to walk. If you can't speak or read chinese, I think it would help if you have a picture or map of the place you want to go, and you can ask around.. People there are helpful. If they don't understand english, it might be easier to get help from other tourists.. Hope you have fun!!

      Delete
  2. Love all the photos taken. What camera you're using?https://shortyminimad.blogspot.com/logout?d=https://www.blogger.com/logout-redirect.g?blogID%3D1529231333866672268%26postID%3D4218855864381597324

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