First Family Trip of 2 + 2 + 2!

2 of us, with our 2 girls and my in laws ^^

Day 1

Strawberry farm

We plucked 100 TWD worth of fresh strawberries by ourselves from the farm...  Sweetest strawberries when it's freshly harvested!

480 TWD worth of Gigangtic "small" size strawberry ice... Nice~*

Lunch with cat fight at 魔法庄园... Lunch was decent, breeze was pleasant, view was fantastic.

Hotpot dinner nearby Little Swiss garden which gave us 3 complimentary tickets to the garden! We headed back to garden the next day and found that there's really nothing much in it...

A wonderful stay at Euro Villa... Beautiful garden wth fabulous view... Absolutely lovely... Oh, and they provided a surprise tea break ^^

Day 2

Cingjing Sheep Farm, my most anticipated place of attraction at Cingjing and also the worst nightmare... Why on earth did we pay to climb the hills when our driver got to see more sheep at his carpark. Very funny!!! It was good actually just that I had no stamina to keep up with the trekking...

Little Swiss garden with really nothing much... I didn't even have pic to share >,<

Fengjia Night Market at Taichung was a really big sector of night market having so many good food... If u love Yam, u gotta love Taiwan. Everywhere u go, u see yam this... Yam that... So I had fried yam balls, the QQ yam balls dessert, freshly blended ice yam milk... Holy heaven of tasty yam ^^

We only visited fengjia night market during our stay at Taichung. That's ok... Traveling had been too exhausting for everyone. Before I forgot, pls allow me to recommend the Lavida Hotel which is really near to the night market... Cool hotel... So GOOD!!!

Day 3

We made a trip to Jiufen and Shifen... Taiwan's places of attractions surely have plenty of old street (老街). This was our second visit to Jiufen but first to Shifen. Beautiful historical railway track, which is still in operation... The interesting thing was watching the others fly the 天灯 and on the other side of the hill, watching those 天灯 caught into fire and fell somewhere...

Soon before dinner, we checked into Ximending CityInn Plus, which was very near to Ximen station. Couldn't fight with Lavida but its at Ximending! So we ended our third day eat, eat and eat! +_+

Day 4

台北地下街, Taipei 101 shopping mall

Day 5

淡水老街, 士林夜市

Day 6

成品书局. Renee fell sick, so we cancelled our zoo trip and stayed in the hotel room to catch some rest ~,~

扶老携幼到台湾来的这几天之旅，我的感觉就是。。。

麻

再来是。。。

喘

最后是。。。

HOLD 住

还好大女儿千里行胜读万卷书；一夜长大，乖巧无比。只要她不是睡的，一般都可以沟通，都在掌控之中。

小女儿，一放下就跑，抱起来就叫，叫完就挣扎，投降不到5秒又出绝招被放下，一放下又跑。

这几天来，抱着10-15公斤到处奔走。手麻了。

楼梯很多，不是上就是下。喘垮了。

哪里都是机车，斑马线不停下。时不时都要把孩子们 HOLD 住。

最怕的是。她们上完厕所就想开门往外奔。。。可是我还在用。 T__T

大女儿的台湾之旅常用词是：

臭、臭、臭。。。

小女儿的常用词是：

不要不要不要。。。

她们每天的动力来自于早晚两次的泡澡时段！两姐妹在澡池里各自拿着杯子不停的盛水，倒水，不断重复。

A trip to Sydney!

Dear and my third trip to Australia but the first overseas trip with Renee!

9 days to Sydney, could you imagine?

Well, it included Blue Mountain and Hunter Valley, luckily ^^

The only setback was our strategy with our  accommodation. The kick start was way too luxurious! World Tower!!! The standard was set too high... We started our first 3 nights with beautiful view of Sydney 's BCD...

Followed by 2 nights stay at Blue Mountain cottage. It was one of the top 2 accommodation which was highly recommended at Leura...

Followed by Harrigan's resort at Hunter Valley. The vineyard was accessible from just our 'backdoor'... a late noon stroll along the side of the plantation was remarkably interesting when we crossed our path with wild wallabies ^^

A quick drop by to the Bondi Beach. Dad managed to comb Google map to find his way to the beach and brought us to uphill areas to have a better view of the beach before we get to the sand... very cool experience!

Last day was Free and Easy for all of us. Sis secretly met a guy friend for brunch... dad and mom went walking around to lots of places... Dear and I got 'cheated' by the train ticketing system at first, then we managed to get even somehow because what goes around comes around. .. muahahahaha!!!

Conclusions?

I couldn't take western food or pies for more than 3 days... 

Trust Google map but always give every 'different' turn it's benefit of doubts...

Service apartment is good... because I can wash and dry clothes conveniently!

Woolsworth and Coles are wonderful places!!!

My first overseas holiday trip without bringing a camera... cool, huh? (So these pics are mostly selfies taken with phone)

Merry Christmas... Ho Ho Ho

Boring title... but this year's Christmas was not too boring with so many gifts for our girls... hee!

We did not go to Orchard Road for the lighting which would be overwhelmed by the crowd. We went there in advance, about a month ago and was turned down by the downpour and crowd... Yes, Singapore is ever crowded, even when you are at home...

On the eve of Christmas, Dear brought Renee and I to the River Safari... WuhOO~* I was so excited that we could bring Renee for a boat ride and see the 2 pandas... YipEe~* (Phoebe was too young for a boat ride, so she was left at home... Sorry, baby!)

Then, we realized that the child had to be taller than 1.06m to be eligible for the boat ride. Pui~* Therefore, our shorty girl who was standing at below 90cm should just walk around and so were her parents... That's why kids below 3 yrs old have free admission...

So we took our dry ride like this...

So River Safari is about rivers from all over the world... Mississippi River, Mekong River, Yangtze River, Nile River, etc... ermm, I don't remember seeing Singapore River in the safari, maybe we can easily catch it at Fullerton/ Clarke Quay MRT...

As we entered some air-conditioned sections, it looked so similar to under water world or sea aquarium at Sentosa. Only that there's literally nothing to be watched from the glass tunnel at River Safari.... WHY!??

Nevertheless, no fish to watch meaning no crowd meaning we could take a family pic at our own sweet time... Weet~*

One is not enough... so here's another one... See how much time we had when we were not allowed to take the boat ride... argHHHh~* (See the tunnel at the background, isn't it crystal clear without a single fish in it?)

Dear commented that these Piranha (man eating fish) were so still that they were really good for photo taking. The only subject that would not be blur at such low lighting environment. So we took a shot...

Then at the mini aquarium, we tried to show Renee the Otters...

They were so huge and fat that they were floating at the top (for feeding)... Trying to relate it to something that Renee would be familiar with, I said "Look, Renee! That's like your bolster, right?".... oh shut up!

And there Renee by herself, printing her tiny palm prints onto the glass and watch the empty riverbed.... "哇... 游泳！游泳！"

As we continued the walk... I spotted this Carmen and Carlos board... so I took a pic and sent it to my sis... maybe her missing half has the name Carlos... Hmmz.... She didn't reply my msg.... she probably didn't get the message... Wahhahhaa!

If you asked, where's the pics of the Pandas? I also wondered... One (I think that was Kai Kai), was concussed on the bamboo raft, showing his precious private part to all visitors... The other one (then it must be Jia Jia), was also concussed but in her den, on a long bench, facing down, which we could only view from a small TV captured by their CCTV (see below)... Are these bears still alive actually?

The red Panda was more exciting than the 2 black and white (or yellow) pandas... Renee tried to keep her voice low but a kid being a kid, still say "Hi" and "Bye" loudly to the bears... Muhahhah!

Actually, I do not know the 2 spoilers behind us... we just wanted to take a pic with the 2 pandas...

Merry Christmas! None of these belong to me or dear... 

 

Revisiting Taiwan 2013

Our first visit to Taiwan was in 2009, yup, 4 years ago... and if I hadn't mentioned it on my previous post, it was horrible. We were totally turned off with the delayed flight (Jetstar), followed by the food. Perhaps our expectations were too high for it during the first visit.

Late Oct, early Nov, when Hualien experienced an earthquake of scale 6.3, we were there. Our second trip to Taipei, first to Hualien... We revisited Shilin Night market, Tamsiu Fisherman's Wharf and Eslite Bookstores... Everything was wonderful. The scenery, the weather and even the food...

We took our supper at Mc before setting off... shOoooooOOO~*

Our first time hanging around at the Taipei railway station and the main station underground mall (where our self proclaimed topo king, Mr Tay, actually hollanded). Believed it or not, I was the one who know the way better... UNBELIEVABLE O_O

First thing was to book for Taroko day tour for the next day, followed by cycling along the pacific ocean... Yes, the legendary ride and yet we did it wrongly...

You can miss the train but you CANNOT MISS THESE 公正包 in Hualien! Or your trip would have been wasted... or rather you would be wasted! Yes, seriously these buns had trashed Ding Tai Feng's xiao long baos... No joke! And they were sold in a steam basket of 10 buns at NTD 50!! (That's just SGD2++ for 10 buns, meaning each is less than 30cts?? WuhoOOOoo!!!)

We were so lucky... why would I say that? We stayed in Hualien for 3 days. First day was earthquake, second day was planned for Taroko and last day Taroko was blocked for a marathon. Spot us at the finishing line ^^

Taroko was indeed a beautiful place. For safety reason, we were advised to wear helmets when walking down certain zone of Taroko... Seriously, if a rock of size larger than a fridge fell on us, I didn't believe helmet could do much... so we prayed as we strolled down the lane of falling rocks...

Due to stupidity, we failed to buy return tickets early enough. So we spent our morning scrolling nearby of our hotel (Ocean Hotel. 2 thumbs up!) while waiting for our train to return to Taipei. Good exploration! Most importantly, we managed to get another round of 公正包before we left Hualien. BTW, 七星潭 is beautiful but we think that Gold Coast is even better ^^

Since we got to Taipei in the late noon, we decided to give Jiufen a miss and re-visit to the Fishman's Wharf. Brilliant decision made by Dear... We got to Ximending, Beijing 101, No, Taipei 101, Shilin Night Market, Eslite bookstore and the underground shopping mall.

To summarize all, this was a wonderful, exciting and unforgettable getaway birthday treat from Dear. We had fun gaining weights during those 5 days, while missing our 2 lovely girls who were left at home... BoohOOoooo~*