Anyway, for the past few yrs, I tried to go for a trip at least twice a year, just to relax myself. I found it quite good, I felt happier, less stressful when I got back from my holiday. Of cos, due to financial issue, those places I chose were normally those nearby ones, don’t need to spend so much one. However, this year, due to certain reasons, I did not go anywhere, I didn’t even take much leave. As until now, I feel really tired and feel that I really need a break.

Travel this year is definitely not possible for me, perhaps a short trip beginning of next year? hmmm….

What about you? Have you been to any places this year?

Ok, back to them. FL heard about the I-City from a relative and he decided to bring them to go see see look look. It is highly recommended by the relative, according to him, it’s pretty nice, lot’s of lights, trees, kids love the place and most importantly it’s free. haha, no lar, he said if you don’t go see it now, you might not have the chance to see it if the light bulbs all burn out. You know lar,  our gov, start something but never maintained one mar.. So have to go see it while the lights are still working!!

So we googled a bit and found the location of I-City, and we went on last Sunday, around 8pm+, took the NKVE to I-City.

It took us about 30 to 40 minutes to reach Klang/I-City and paid RM 4 for the toll.

the entrance of I-City

you can see the lights from far.. nice rite?

although it’s a Sunday night and it’s already 9pm+, but there’s still a lot of cars!!

you can actually drive up the hill but then we were afraid that we’ll stuck in the jam, that’s why we took a u turn and parked further.

so here you go, beautiful artificial trees

a lot of ppl, chinese, malays, indians…

nice!!

there are big and small cute trees

i think this is suppose to be a tree with fruits! hehe..

my favorite, the bamboo!!

besides the trees, there are animals like swans…

frogs..

deers…

peacocks.. but i think peacocks not nice lar..

a very nice combination, red and white….

a nice place for kids and couples and families..

nice place to take beautiful pictures too..

a closer look on the leafs

I think it’s worth to go once especially if you have kids. Kids love that place! It is really very nice and it will be a waste if our gov never go maintain it. So better go while the lights are all still working!!

There were supposed to be 8 of us, but then his brother and his wife not able to make it, so 6 of us, here we go.. Hanoi….

I remembered it wasn’t a pleasant flight. The flight was full of Vietnamese, they don’t obey the rules, they talked very very loud, and they kept walking from the front to the end of the plane. It’s like we were the only ones that are not from Vietnam. I can’t sleep because they were too loud. It was the noisiest 3 hours flight experience that I’ve ever encountered.

The Hanoi Airport looks old and it’s not big either. Here’s the place we collect our baggage..it’s a mess, ppl blocking your way (don’t blame them, cos they got no where else to stand or sit), it’s difficult to get your luggage and etc…

their trolley, very hard to push also… hehe… maybe need some oil? hmm…

After we collected our baggage, we proceed to the hall. Because there were elderly and small kid, we decided to book for the hotel transfer instead of taking the public transportation ourselves. The hotel was booked under FL’s name, so we looked around for the hotel ppl with FL’s name then we saw one, hmm, it seems like it’s him, but he spelled FL’s name wrongly. We began to wonder, did he spell wrongly or there’s really another person under this name? hehe… Anyway, we decided to go check with him and this guy doesn’t speak English. hahahahahha, anyway, we showed him the hotel name and he said yes yes yes and so we decided to just follow him. Dangerous hor.. :p

this is the hotel guy that came picked us..

Unser.. a bad looking car but surprisingly comfortable and spacious even for the 6 of us.

On our way to hotel…

their toll…

this guy loves to horn.. he horned all the way from airport to the hotel.. I wonder why…. oh ya, did I mention he drove really really slow? I think approx 40km/h, it took almost 1 hour to reach the hotel. Maybe he wants us to enjoy the view? I don’t know.. I just think it’s way tooooooo slow….

Nice padi field…

don’t you think so?

their buildings are all slim and tall, very different from ours..

walao..see the wires?

Next: Our hotel, the Sunny Hotel

Anyway, the most important thing is that I finally finished writing it, and not about how long I took to finish it, right? hehe, ok let’s get back to my Taiwan trip, hmm, first of all, I’m quite happy with my flight with EVA Airways (長榮航空公司), well, maybe because I compared EVA Airway with Air Asia, hehe that’s y I feel it is nice and comfy.. I’m also quite satisfied with Taipei CityInn Hotel (新驛旅店), the staff there are so polite and helpful. Definitely will stay at that hotel again if I ever visit Taipei again.

We’ve visited quite a lot of places there, museums, night markets, popular tourists spots and my favorite goes to Yeliu Geopark (野柳地质公园)!! I don’t know why, I just LOVE that place. It makes me feel very relax and I really enjoy my visit there..Yeliu is definitely a MUST VISIT place if you ever travel to Taiwan. hehe..

As for the food, I love the A Zhong Mi Sua (阿宗麵線) and Lu Rou Fan (胡须张鲁肉饭). yummy yummy.. miss these two sooo much!!!!!

Taiwan ppl are very friendly and helpful, especially those gals voice (regardless young or old!!), sooo sweet…….Unlike HK, you can really relax and enjoy your trip, you don’t need to rush rush rush like in HK, very hectic lifestyle. Everything is perfect except, things in Taiwan are quite expensive, didn’t get to shop much also. hehehe..

I think I will definitely visit Taiwan again.. not this year.. maybe not next year, maybe next next year? who knows? hehehe…

Prev: JiuFen (九份)

The bus fare from Jinguashi to JiuFen is nt 22 per person (RM 2.60) and it only took us about 10 minutes to reach JiuFen. It was crowded, a lot of tourists and also locals!! The bus stopped in front of a pineapple tart shop （李仪黄梨饼） which till now I still feel so regret for not buying at the first place. They let us try the freshly baked pineapple tarts which was very nice, we wanted to buy but we wanted to wait till we finished exploring jiufen but at the end, we left at a different place and didn’t get to buy. So if you see something you like, don’t wait, buy first, cos you might not able to find the shop again!!

JiuFen is a small town in north Taiwan. Why is it call JiuFen (九份)? Well, apparently during the first years of Qing Dynasty, there were only 9 families in this village. Therefore, the village would request “nine portions” (九份) whenever shipments arrived from town. That is why they called this place JiuFen (九份) which means nine portions in English. It was an isolated village until year 1893, when gold was discovered.

JiuFen Old Street (九份老街)

There are souvenir shops, local snacks, cafe and tea houses here.. We tried the not so stinky Stinky Toufu (臭豆腐) here and also the Ah Lan’s Yu Guo (阿蘭宇粿/草仔粿). Both taste good!!

We also bought a lot of snacks (biscuits and etc) back for our family and friends at this shop, 阿信的店. Oh ya, don’t forget to buy some chinese tea, it’s really nice. We bought a packet of Oo Long Tea (乌龙茶), about nt 300+ (RM 35 +) from JiuFen and it was really nice!! Should have bought more!!

crowded!!

beautiful scenery, don’t you think so?

amazing view!

ahhh..breathtaking view..

here’s the famous long staircase… lot’s of cafes/tea houses along this stair case..

ppl say nv take picture of this stair case means you nv come to JiuFen before.. hehe.. actually I say lar..hehe…

At first, we planned to have a cup of tea at one of these tea houses and enjoy the amazing view but then it was already 4pm+ and it was the last day of our Taiwan trip. I wanna shop before I fly back to Malaysia!! hehe..

We took the bus from JiuFen to Taipei which costs us nt 90 per person (RM 10.60). The bus stop at one of the MRT station and we took the MRT to XiMenTing (西门町) to shop for the very last time. Bye bye Taipei.. I WILL BE BACK!! hehe.. DEFINITELY!!

Prev: Jinguashi (金瓜石)
Next: Summary of my 6D5N Taiwan Trip

We used our EasyCard (悠游卡) to pay for the train fare, therefore I don’t remember how much is the ticket fare from Taipei Main Station to Keelung.

here’s our train, arrived pretty fast, we only waited about 5 minutes..

it’s clean and comfortable

About an hour later, we arrived at Keelung. The bus stop (to get bus to Jinguashi/Jiufen) is just opposite the Keelung train station. When we arrived at the bus station, there’s a taxi driver asked us whether we want to take his cab to go to Jinguashi/Jiu Fen or not. We told him we decided to take the bus and luckily he did not bug us further. We were quite surprised to see the taxi driver reminded us when the bus to Jinguashi/Jiu Fen had arrived (and we still blur blur standing there..), he even told us how much was the bus fare (nt 55 each, approx RM 6.50) before we boarded to the bus. What a nice taxi driver!!

The bus was full of passengers, there were no place for us to sit also. After 30 minutes or so, we arrived at Jiufen. We decided to go Jinguashi first then only to Jiu Fen. Seems like 99% of the passengers were to Jiu Fen. Only left me and FL were left in the bus to Jinguashi. Jiufen to Jinguashi took us another 5 or 10 minutes. I wonder why nobody interested to go to Jinguashi? hmmmm….

and here we are…

Taipei County Jinguashi Area Plan
台北县金瓜石地区展览图

the main entrance of Gold Ecological Park （黄金博物院区）

the ticket counter

the ticket price

with the Youth Travel Card (青年旅遊卡) ,
we’re entitled to get the nt 70 (RM 8.20) tickets

it’s drizzling, seems quite empty..

nice place to pak tor hor.. hehe..

Jinguashi was once a booming gold and copper mining town. Although the industries faded, Jinguashi still hold the value and it was named a potential World Heritage site in year 2002. You can see the old mining facilities can be transformed into a recreational destination. A lot of the original buildings had been rebuilt and reused as exhibition space.

guess which one we’re going to visit first?

our first stop, The Residence of Mike Kikujirou (三毛菊次郎宅)

This is the bureau director’s house used by the second but last director of the Jinguashi Mining Bureau in the Japanese era, Mike Kikujirou. We were required to queue up in front of the house to wait for our turns to visit the house. About 8-10 ppl are allowed in the house for each visit and it takes about 15 minutes to finish the tour. There were 8 ppl in our group.

we were first brought into this room to watch a short 5 minutes film about the history of Jinguashi Mining. Then our guide brought us around to visit the house.

the living room

the kitchen

the dining room

the study room

the toilet

someone asked the guide, wah, that time they already got flush toilets ar? So advance!! hahahahaha, then the guide explained said they built this recently one. hehe.. funny lar…

the bedroom

this one i forgot what room, hehe, the wet kitchen? hehe..

this one. err.. yum cha room?

After finished visiting the residence of Mike Kikujirou, we walked further in.

some souvenirs shops

amazing view right?

this is the police station, nice hor…

Remains of the Gold Refining Building (炼金楼)

brief introduction..

Gold!!! I’m rich!! I’m rich!!!!

Next, we proceed to the Environment Education Center (环境馆). You can find exhibits on the natural ecological environment and also information on how the Jinguashi community of Japanese style buildings was contructed to meet the local conditions. Here’s some photos we took in the Environment Education Center.

Environmental Education Center (环境馆)

After the Environmental Education Center, we went to the Crown Prince Chalet (太子宾馆).

Crown Prince Chalet (太子宾馆) main entrance

This was built to welcome a visit by the Japanese crown prince. That’s where the name comes from (although the prince never actually stays there).

Crown Prince Chamber/Master Bedroom

Special Guest room

this was taken from the garden of the Crown Prince Chalet

After visiting the Crown Prince Chalet, I remembered we had up climbed a long long stairs to go to the Benshan Five Tunnels (本山五坑). So tired oh…

I like the view.. nice right?

finally…we’re here!

main entrance of Benshan Five Tunnels (本山五坑)

This is a place where we can experience going into a real mining tunnel to understand the working conditions of miners, how they extracted gold and transported it out of the mine.

we need to buy another ticket to enter

our tickets, nt 50 (RM 5.90) each

each ticket comes with this… a blue helmet. hehe..

A brief introduction was given to us before we enter the tunnel. We were also required to wear a REAL helmet before entering the tunnel. hehe..

here we go.. it’s working time!! let’s go dig some gold!!

in the tunnel…

is this gold? OMG!! I found gold!!! wuahahahhahaa…

some fake miners working… hehe…

it is quite deep ..

it’s time to rest!! hehe.. a resting area..

the exit..we spent about 10 to 15 minutes in the tunnel..

all miners will need to be checked to make sure they nv steal any gold out..

this is to record the working session and it’s used to calculate the pay..

amazing amazing view outside the tunnel…

beside the tunnel is the Gold Ecological Park Museum/Museum of Cold (黄金博物院)

By visiting the museum, you will understand the development of Jinguashi’s mining culture.

miner’s tools

transport cart rail

We also got the chance to see and touch a 220 kg gold brick. Picture of the gold brick were not taken cos too many ppl surrounding it. hehe… Everyone loves gold…

At first we plan to visit the ruins of Gold Zen Temple which was built in 1897 after visiting the museum but the temple was situated above the museum and it was way too high. We still need to go to JiuFen (九份) so we decided to skip that one. I heard the views up there were spectacular!

Look at this picture.. don’t you think this is a MUST visit place?

Prev: Wufenpu & Raohe Street Night Market (五分埔 & 饒河街觀光夜市)
Next: Jiufen (九份)

You can get to Wufenpu by MRT, Houshanpi station (台北捷運藍線後山埤站) or by Train, Songshan station (松山車站). If you take the MRT, you will need to walk about 5 minutes to get to Wufenpu. As for train, Wufenpu is just opposite the Songshan station.

We took the MRT to Wufenpu and before we start shopping, we stopped by 胡须张鲁肉饭 to try out their famous lu rou fan (鲁肉饭). Oh yes, this is also another strongly recommended place to eat by the forumers. hehe.. and yes, I also strongly recommended this place, their lu rou fan is sooooooooooo tasty!!

And here we go…Wufenpu!!!

All food stalls? Where are all the clothes?
Actually we were not very sure which is the main entrance. hehehe..

clothes!! finally we saw clothes as we walked in deeper.. hehe…

I thought I was gonna buy a lot of clothes back at Wufenpu but ended up I bought nothing. Maybe because it was winter and they sold all kinds of jackets, long sleeves clothes which not really suitable to wear in our country. I did ask a few shops and they wanted to sell in bulk. Too bad I haven’t started my JY Shops back then, else I will buy some back to sell at my shop.

There were really a lot of choices, for adults, for women, for men, for kids, for babies, and besides clothes, there are bags too! Although we didn’t buy anything there, but still we make sure ourselves finish walking the whole WuFenPu.

After Wufenpu, we proceed to our next destination, which is the Raohe Street Night Market(饒河街觀光夜市). It was about 15 minutes walk from Wufenpu to Raohe night market.

Raohe Street Night Market(饒河街觀光夜市)

the entrance

this temple is just beside the Raohe night market,
it looks really grand and beautiful right?

lot’s of ppl..
see all queuing up to buy the Pepper Biscuit (福州胡椒饼).
Luckily there’s a stall near our hotel and we’ve tried,
else we will queue up as well lar. hehe..

lot’s of food too..

We only tried the Zhuang Yuan Biscuit (状元饼) from the night market cos we still want to have our dinner later. hehe… So what we ate for dinner? hahahaha, beef noodle again lar, my very last bowl of beef noodle for this Taiwan trip…

Prev: Taipei 101 (台北101)
Next: Jinguashi (金瓜石)

So FL said gonna bring me shopping on the 4th day. So right after we finished our hamburger and egg biscuit breakfast (汉堡和蛋饼) (my favourite!!), we took the MRT to the longest underground street(忠孝东路地下街) to shop. There were quite a lot of shops there and the shop I like most is those cube shops, each cube selling different things. There are so many cute cute stuff but too bad, all very expensive, so I didn’t get to buy anything there.

Next, FL brought me to a shopping centre, sorry, forgot the name of the shopping centre. I wasn’t into high class branded stuff so again, I did not get to buy anything. Since there are nothing nice/affordable to shop, we decided to go Taipei 101(台北101). We took the MRT to Taipei City Hall station (市政府站) and right outside the station, there’s a bus waiting area. We waited for like 5 or 10 minutes at the bus stop and took the free shuttle bus to go to Taipei 101.

Free shuttle bus

the bus is very new and clean

we arrived at Taipei 101 after 5 or 10 minutes ride

it’s like our KLCC, mostly branded stuff

without wasting much time,
we headed right up to 5th floor to get our tickets to the observatory

the ticket counter

the ticket price

out tickets, nt 350 each (RM 41.10)
Again, we flashed our Youth Travel Card (青年旅遊卡) and got a discounted price.

we are not allowed to bring big bags up there

lockers provided for us to keep our bags here, yep, it’s free.

FL and I forgot which locker we put in and we ended up trying one by one. Wuahahahahahaha.. so please remember the locker no, else you will end up like us.

the lift to the observatory

there aren’t many ppl that day, but still we need to queue to get into the lift

It was fast, we were up at 88th floor in 6 seconds. Wow!! I’ve been to KL tower, and another tower in Singapore (long long long time ago lar, not sure now they got upgrade or not..) but none of them can compare to the lift at Taipei 101.

There’s a lady in the elevator giving brief introduction on Taipei 101. She speaks in Mandarin, then English, then Japanese. The minute she finished, we arrived. Geng!!

and here we are, Taipei 101 indoor observatory

day time Taipei 101

night time Taipei 101

Free Audio Tour
give them your passport and you will get a headset

The view should be nicer at night but since we have other plans at night so we came in the afternoon.

the city

i prefer this side..

buildings, buildings and more buildings…

wahseh, cleaning 88th floor window.. damn scary man…

you can send a post card to your family while u’re up here

greetings from the sky
it’s not free, but i remember it’s not very costly too. sorry, forgot the price..:p

we wanted to mail a postcard to FL’s mum but he forgot the postcode. hehe..

no wonder lar, it’s the world’s fastest elevator.
6 seconds from 5th floor to 88th floor. Cool!!

the outdoor observatory is closed, so we proceed to see the wind damper

Damper baby

This damper baby is to protect the Taipei 101 from typhoon or earthquake. It prevent damage to the structure due to strong wind loads.

it’s huge!!!!

out of a sudden, we found ourselves surrounded by corals..

some of these really nice…

and the next minute, they selling coral jewelries…
hehe.. we just walked passed these lar, not interested..

in the lift, on our way down…

Although the entrance ticket is quite expensive, I still think it’s worth it. If possible, try to arrange to visit at night, I think the view will be amazing!

Prev: Keelung, Miaokou (基隆庙口)
Next: Wufenpu & Raohe Street Night Market (五分埔 & 饒河街觀光夜市)

It seems like every 2 months, they will go for a trip, either a short trip to countries nearby, or to some european countries for like a week or two. The first question that popped into my mind.. don’t they need to work? Ok, let’s not talked about the money they need to spend, probably you’ll say they are from a rich family or so. But from their posts, I know both of them are working, so how come they managed to take leave so frequent without getting fired?

Imagined me taking 10 days leave every 2 months, I think my manager will shout at me, or worst, fire me! Not only my manager, I think my family will shout at me also.. My brother always ngee ngee ngam ngam whenever I tell him I’m going to travel. He thinks I’m wasting my time and MY MONEY (see the MY MONEY in capital letters, I’m spending MY OWN MONEY and yet he still unhappy..).. see..unsupportive family members..

Apart from all the questions, I actually VERY ENVY them, yes, both of them. Both of them have good bosses (i assumed lar..), both of them can take leaves anytime they want, both of them got supportive family and both of them likes to travel. That is just sooo great!!

I just hope I can be like them one day.. travel and travel and travel some more.. without worrying about $$$$!! :p

The answer is, NO, NO, and NO. Even If I’m rich enough, can resigned from my work, I think my family will not let me go backpacking for a few months too. They probably will start lecturing me, telling me this is a wrong decision, a wrong thing to do and I’m wasting my time.

I envied people that can leave everything behind and go backpacking and when they returned, they will have a fresh start, looking for a new job and etc. I think I will never have a chance to do that. What about you? Do you think you can leave everything behind and go backpacking, then start all over again when you returned?