my uni friends and i have finally fulfilled/ materialized our long-awaited trip to taiwan!
and oh boy, it is surely not called a shopping haven for nothing.

TAIWAN TRIP WAS SO FUN! but hey, it was also the people who made it fun, here's how:top from left: serene, lola and i
bottom from left: renfeng, dawn and jennifer

alright, we look totally unflattering here but who cares when we had so much fun in taiwan! serene is the slapstick kind of fun, yeah she's a complete rubber face like me! as for lola, she's our daily dose of bimb fun, i kid you not! falsetto and all! renf is the witty chick who has the best lines at the best comic timing. let's not forget how she fell off her chair too! dawn is the exaggerating nonsense! she makes big jokes out of the thin air! sarcasm shapes her. as for dear jen (aka jeffer), she has the big laugh which makes me laugh! and trust me, i mean BIG laugh!
they are all special in their own little ways and i totally adore their company!

the food and shopping was the highlight of the trip. we shopped till we had hobbits' feet (yeah, real black lumps of flesh there!) and ate till we vomited (okay, it was just me who barfed my ass off but eh, it was food poisoning and not gluttony). the famous shopping place, wufenpu was a little disappointing because we were expecting real cheap stuff there but the prices were so jacked up we couldn't find many decent deals there! it's probably the season. the clothes were a little ah-lian and as you can see, we are so not, so our time there was spent holding our bladders and holding thrash all over the place (there isn't a single trashbin or toilets in the whole darned place!)

nothing can beat the taiwan "ji pai". it's good like anything!

O-A-jian; also known as orh luah in sg. the sauce is kind of sweet but the oysters were fresh.

but kind of prefer the sg version. the taiwan version got a little jelat for me.
this has got to be the best shrimp cheong fun i have ever tasted in my entire life.
i was so close to importing the aunty back where she'll just make this for me every single day.

i didn't get to try this because i was down with food poisoning the two days we had mee sua!
a pity though, going to taiwan without trying mee sua is like blasphemy!

don't you dare belittle quail eggs. these little eggs on a stick makes me crazy!

shilin was the best out of all. we were so close to holding lola at gunpoint to get the shiny card out for our massive shopping! it was sheer torture shopping there because you don't just feel like buying, you feel like RANSACKING the entire shilin. and did i tell you about the "ji pai" (big, juicy, succulent chicken)? it is mindblowing. i mean singapore's shilin can just eat gravel, i'm serious.

shilin's night sky; we jolly well had to be in shilin the day "tianmu" has her birthday

(it's a religious tradition, so we met so many processions that we got stuck everywhere!)

raohe night market; this is one place taiwan tourism board did not advertise but it's such a great night market to visit! we had SO MUCH fun there!

the mango/strawberry ice was also the highlight. taiwan has the best rendition of milky and silken shaved ice with generous toppings of fresh, delectable mango/strawberry chunks topped with condensed milk as smooth as johnny depp (lo and behold, have you any idea what honour i have bestowed upon taiwan's mango/strawberry ice?!)

the themed restaurants of taiwan weren't exactly in our itenararies, but we managed to visit some during our 6-day visit!

our breakfasts were always spectacular affairs. even though we kind of ate the same thing (dan bing ham/ dan bing hotdog/ dan bing bacon/ dan bing etc) for like 2 days, we managed to try some other things too!

why do they look great while i just look like i just got up?!!!!

of course, it wasn't just all eat (even though we really just ate all day) and shop, we visited famous taiwan sites (yeah, just evidence that we are not bimbos who only care about shopping)! here are some:

even though this taiwan trip kind of left me with a wrecked bank account (no shopping for the next six months!), as i was uploading the pictures and reminiscing about those 6days my friends and i were there, it all seemed pretty worth it. for one, taipei is a splendid city for some shopping and holidaying after a treacherous season of mugging. and another, spending exclusive and personal time with friends is, i would say, priceless.

but of course, next time i'll make sure i earn enough money to put me on such high-cost friendship building sessions. and like what the true blue masters of the sea would say,

till next time!