Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Taiwan Trip! Day One.

Before I proceed with the report of my Taiwan Trip (sorry to keep my friends waiting), I wanna thank JQ for her assistance in providing the information we need and giving such detailed directions.
Thanks Flutterby for doing research on yr end too, especially when there are a lot of flash multimedia websites which I was unable to view.
Thanks Fannie for 施舍~ing yr maps of Taiwan (kaoz, 我竟然写“施舍~ing”。感觉很“台”哦！). The map which shows the places of interest at each Metro station is really a valuable piece!

Now, before this entry turns into a “Thank You Speech”, I will start off with what happened before the trip.


Pre-Trip

I almost thought we won’t be able to make it to Taiwan when Flutterby frantically messaged me over msn just 4 days before our trip.

Flutterby: Hey, what is the “min expiry date” of passport.

Me: At least 6 months validity

Flutterby: Oh shit. My passport gg to expire in 4 months. How?

Me: What???
(I was looking at my calendar and realized that we are just only 4 days away from our trip. Even if she applies for a passport now, she will not be able to get it done it in time.
But then, I recalled that when we boo our tickets, our ticketing agent had asked us to check if our passports have a minimum of 6 months validity. To which, her reply was that her will be expiring in a few years time.)

Me: I thought that time u told our ticketing agent that yr passport valid for a few more years.

Flutterby: I thought so mah. But yesterday I check, only 4 months left. So how?

Me: So when it expires?

Flutterby: 2010

Me: (getting confused liao) What talking you?

(think by then Flutterby realized the blunder she made)

Flutterby: Oh yar hor. 2010-2006 is 4 years, not 4 months.

I was thinking should I type a “CHEY!” or “Heng arh”. Gimme a scare for nothing. Had been looking forward to holidaying in Taiwan for years and now that the trip’s confirmed, I certainly do not wish this trip be postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

So now everything’s settled and we are all set to go.

Taiwan! Here we come!

Na~nu~wa yi ya Na~Nu~Wa

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4 March 2006 (Sat)

Woke up at 6am, had even set 2 alarm clocks for fear that one of them “malfunction”.

Reach the airport at 9+am and this is this 1st pic we took

Check out our flight CX714. Yes it is to Hong Kong, we gotta transit at HK airport.

So after we had checked in our luggage, we went off to take some boh-liao kee-siao pictures before I took Flutterby to a “lesser known eating place”--- staff canteen at Terminal 1.

Fast forward reporting: went to boarding gate early –> watch TV -> surf net & post short blog entry -> board plane -> yeah we got purple seats ! -> took pic of me and purple seats -> plane preparing to take off.

We encountered “Changi Airport Runway Congestion” as our flight was preparing to take off. I dunno what happened prior to that, all we heard from our Captian was that there were 9 more plane ahead of us preparing to taking off. We were getting a bit bored with the waiting and start counting the numbers of planes that had taken off.

Guess what! We are supposed to take off at 11.35 am, ended up flying into the sky at 12.30pm. Shit! Originally, we are supposed to have abt 80 mins of transit at HK airport, now we aren’t sure if we are able to catch out connecting flight.

What make it worse were the irritating ppl we encountered in our flight. Sitting in front of Flutterby was a not-so-tall lady who took up lots of leg room. She simply just lounge her seat backwards without any warning nor giving consideration to Flutterby. Harlow Auntie, this is Economy class leh, What you expect?

The seat beside mines was originally empty. I guessed some fussy 光头老 in his 40s (hahha Flutterby gave him this nic. ) asked for a change of seat and was then arranged to sit beside us. Tarmarder, 破坏我和Flutterby的二人世界. Hahaha.

We both find him irritating. Guess the air stewardess also find him so.

1) When we were all given pack of peanuts to munch on before our lunch was served. Yet he requested for more packets as he’s hungry.

2) On his hands, were lots of copies of the Chinese papers. He simple open them widely, invading my space. ( u know how much space newspapers took up when they are opened to full spread)

3) And his left arm simply rest on my seat’s armrest, which is also the remote control to my in-flight entertainment system. Kaoz. Becos of his inconsideration, I can’t change chanels when I want to. GRRRRHHHH.

4) When Flutterby need t squeeze past him to go to the washroom, he not only did not remove his bag which was blocking the way, he also did not make much way for her to move. Until she repeatedly said “Excuse me”.

5) And when he did, he simply folded his armful of newspapers, causing them to scratch into my eye and did even mutter a “sorry”.

I flared up, cos he know his newspaper had scratch my eyes and I had told him off nicely (which I still controlling myself from shouting at him) . Yet he simply give me a blatant look in the eye, crumpled one part of the newspaper and stuffed it at the space between his and my seat.

6) And u know how thick skinned he was: When our lunches were served, he had the audacity to ask me for my pack of salt and pepper. Me still a nice gal, hahaha, or rather “angel-devil –in one”. I just held out the two packs silently, refuse to speak not look at him.

7) Fussy光头老 saw that I had chocolate flavour for my Hagan Daaz Ice-cream (yes, Cathay provide such sumptuous meal. Will include the pic later) and ask the air-stewardess to change for him. I dunno if she did it on purpose, cos she never return with his ice-cream.

8) 光头老 irritated another air stewardess by tugging at the stack of newspaper she was distributing to the passengers sitting in front of us. He was told off by her in a disgusted tone: “你等一下，好吗？”

9) Thick-skinned光头老 still dare to leave his two glasses of juice and wine on my make-shift table when he left his seat. Flutterby and I were rolling our eyes at each other liao.

10) As times passed, we were getting a bit weary, but suddenly realized that with lights shining on us, it was very difficult to sleep. Then we realized that光头老 had switch on two of the overhead lights. I switch off the one from my control, yet he had the nerve to switch on the light which is supposedly to be in my control. KAOZ. What a man!

11) And when光头老 left his seat again, he simple dump his newspaper. Flutterby suggested we should take a pic to prove that how inconsiderate he was. See:




As for my face, I purposely posed a sulky face, but the overhead lighting make me look like a ghost, hence I did this “touch up”. Anyway the focus is on the mess!

Enuff of the光头老. Flutterby and I were crossing our fingers , hoping that he won’t be taking the same flight as us at HK airport.

No, we are on the topic of transit. Due to the stupid congestion at Changi, we landed late at HK Airport. We just had enuff time to walk to the boarding gate of our CX400 flight to Taipei. On the other hand, we were glad that Cathay had arranged a ground service attendant to guide us from our gate to the departure hall. We were practically half-running on the travelator!

I dunno why, I start to worry if our luggage were able to transfer to our connecting flight in time…..


The flight to Taipei was less then 90 mins. It was stated in our itinerary that “refreshments” would be served. And I expected just drinks and at most, fruits to be served. Imagine my surprise when the air steward presented us our sandwiches, fruits and orange juice!

Here’s a pic of our meals for both flights.

Music: Deng Deng deng deng………

Yes, something dramatic happened. As we were abt to collect our luggage, we saw a notice board with some passengers' names scribbled on it. These”lucky ones” were to report to the information counter. And Flutterby’s name was on the list. The ground service stuff told us that one of our luggages was not sent together with the luggage on our flight but was found HK airport and it was on the way to Taipei on the next cathay flight. Our two luggages were checked in under Flutterby’s name, s we dunno who is the suay one. So off we went to belt and wait for the dreadful results…

1st round….. no sign of any of our luggage…
2nd round … still no sign
3rd round …. Feeling tense liao…… Then Flutterby spotted one luggage with pink pink tape plastered on the handle and shouted “There! My luggage!”.


So off I went to the information counter. Since the next flight is landing in less than an hour, we decided to wait at the airport instead. The ground service staff then handed us two cans of soft drinks.

“用两罐汽水来打发我们走！” Flutterby joked.
Nothing much to do at the airport. So we just sit there, and happily place the two cans of soft drinks on Flutterby’s luggage ， without realizing the reason we can placed the two cans was because her luggage’s lock had fallen off! (We only realized it later).

Then Flutterby went scanning around the airport, and found their rubbish bin interesting.



一般垃圾。难道有“非一般垃圾”？？？？。


Then she found this big fake suitcase on the conveyor belt.



Which she presumed that there had been many incidents where ppl took wrong luggage.




Then we took more posed pic of me looking sadly at the conveyor belt, looking sad. But I was um-chioing. Aiyoh why I dun feel sad one har???


But coming to think of it, it may be a blessing in disguise. We meet a nice lady who happened to lived in Sg for two years. And she asked where we will be visiting and provide us some recommendations of the local dishes at those places. Hehe, ppl actually though we are students leh. YEAH!.


Bought tickets for the shuttle service (or what they call 接驳车) from airport to TaiPei Mrt station. We were rather confused by their terms : “全票” 和”半票”. So I just presume that “全票” means a full single trip. And “半票” means, u alight halfway.
BUT THIS IS NOT THIS CASE. Hahaha. Shall explain this in the post regarding my 3rd day of the trip.


Can feel the cool breeze while waiting for the bus. Quite enjoy it. The journey took abt an hr and we took another 20 minutes traveling in a cab from Taipei Mrt Station to our Hotel.

Reached the hotel ard 9pm. We checked-in, checked out the room and then went off wandering ard XiMenDing,

As it was a weekend, it was rather “happening”. Think we can simply spend out time people-watching. 路过的男女都穿得好炫哦！So many different styles spotted.

Went to Cheng Pin 116 to get Fannie’s lipbalm. Think because of the way we spoke Mandarin in a different way from their, the salesgal thought we are from Mainland China and her attitude was rather snobbish. Fannie had actually ask me to “deh” like them, but I think I will die from goose pimple popping 1st. Hahaha. So Flutterby and I came up with a plan. We would converse in English between ourselves within the salesperson’s earshot. At least we won’t be mistaken as Mainland Chinese. And it seems to have worked, as we did not encounter with any salesperson’s poor attitude towards us after that.


We walked down the streets of Xi Men ding , armed with our cameras, practically taking pics every minute. Not long after, realized that ppl are giving us curious glances, and I notice that beside us, none of these teenagers were spotted holding camera, even though they were dressed like catwalk models.

Nowadays u just walk down Orchard Rd, u can see groups of students, teenagers whipping out their camera and taking pics for no reason. Hahaha.


We managed to find the famous 阿宗面线 stall and of cos, posed with the bowl of mee suah.




Think ppl though we must be crazy.


Anyway, I had checked with JQ when I returned from my trip and it seems that Taiwanese dun tend to take pics unless they are traveling overseas. Hmmmm. No wonder ppl kept looking at us then.


Saw this poster and I was thinking Mrs Wang would have gone crazy and will climb the walls just to touch this poster :


Then Flutterby , aka Mrs Wu Yue Tian also saw her Hubbies:




Now , where’s mine?

I only manage to spot a pic… his album at 玫瑰唱片行 …..
Duh!


Capture the temperature of that nite. What a cool 20 degree Celsius environment.

Saw this “木吉他” signage as we were abt to walk back to our hotel. Reminds me of Muchuan, and saw that they even have a time table similar to our own Muchuan’s .







But hor, I can’t comment on their singers’skills. Ahem Ahem.We din went in at all, and you would’ve guessed why.



That’s all for Day One. (This is already the 7th page on MS Word doc!)

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