Continuing from the first half day at Sun Moon Lake 日月潭…

After a few hours of walking, we found a cafe and sat down to have a drink.

Ice blended cappuccino.

Milk tea with pearls 珍珠奶茶.

Green tea latte 绿奶茶.

We then headed back to the hotel for a rest as our boat tour was scheduled for 4pm and it was still early. It wasn’t long until 3.30pm came and we had to walk down to Shui She Pier 水社码头.

It was another round of photo shooting as the boat has yet to arrive. It was really beautiful, the scenery at Sun Moon Lake that is.

We boarded the boat for a tour around the lake which lasted about two hours. The boat would ferry us to the small island right in the middle of the lake, a foot hill to visit a local temple and also a township right across the lake.

Us, on the ship.

The island is called Lalu Island 拉鲁岛 and it belongs to the aborigines that live in Sun Moon Lake for ages. There’s no one living on the island nor does it have any buildings, except a smaller pond right in the middle of the island. A pond in a pond, that’s what it is. There are some histories behind it but I barely listened to the tour guide or even read the information board setuped on the island.

As you can see from the picture, the air / environment was “dusty” / misty and I couldn’t get a crisp clear shot.

The tour also dropped us of at a foot hill so that we could climb to the top of the hill to visit Xuan Guang Temple 玄光寺. However, we visited the same temple the next day, hence, I shall write about it in the next post.

By 5pm, Sun Moon Lake eas as dark as our Malaysia’s 7pm and the ship headed back. We had our dinner at a restaurant at the pier that served aboriginal food.

Ginger and leek wild boar pork rice 姜葱山猪肉饭套餐. It has three side dishes, a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, a pudding and a cup of red tea. The amount of meat wasn’t as much as you think as underneath the meat, there was a pile of bean sprouts.

That’s a hotel actually.

The main street of Sun Moon Lake.

Me!

That’s for day 3!

Click on the picture for a full size 3096 * 4023 resolution.

We woke up early as we needed to catch a bus to Sun Moon Lake 日月潭.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest body of fresh water in Taiwan and has one of the island’s loveliest natural landscapes. At an altitude of 762m, the lake is backed by high forested mountains and boasts good weather year round.

Lonely Planet.

While we were walking towards the bus station, a taxi driver came up to us and offered us to fetch us up to Sun Moon Lake for a price. After a lengthy discussion with Ah Yong, we decided to take the cab instead of the bus in order to save time and also, the price difference between the cab and bus was not that big. The taxi was a 7-sitter Toyota Wish and we were definitely amused with our “backpacking” style.

“I thought we are supposed to be backpacking?”
“We are, backpacking with style mah!

The taxi driver dropped us off in front of a hotel.

The good thing about not booking our hotels in advance is that we get to bargain on the spot.

“NT2400 for a room of four.”
“But our friend last time rented a room for only NT1600.”
“Is it? Hmm… Like that, NT1800. Ok?”
“On!”

The NT1600 was real, but it was meant for two, not four. Ha!

Obviously, the room was meant for couples, with the red / warm lighting and hearts all over the room, pillows and blankets. The room was definitely worth every single dollar spent. LCD TV, clean toilet, soft beds and pillows, working and powerful air conditioners and strategic location. What more can you ask for RM180?

We put down our “burdens” and went out for a walk and also to have our lunch.

Off we went to the tourist information center to get some information on what to visit / sight see and do in Sun Moon Lake. A guy there gave us some tips and even suggested a solid plan for our journey to Alishan National Scenic Area 阿里山国家风景区 tomorrow.

Lunch was at a restaurant just opposite our hotel. I had beef stew with rice.

Sarsi 黑松沙士.

Braised egg 卤蛋.

Beef stew with rice 茄汁红酒牛肉饭.

We walked towards Shui She Pier 水社码头 and there was nothing to do except enjoying the cool breeze, beautiful scenery and photo shooting.

After loitering around the port for some time, we walked along the trail and went up hill.

Me!

That was our half day tour at Sun Moon Lake village. We later took a boat tour around the lake, but that’s for another post as I don’t want to flood this post with too many pictures.

It was Friday night again, Jian dropped by my place to pick me up for dinner. Not knowing what to eat, we headed out for town in search of some eye-catching spanking new cafes or restaurants.

As we were cruising along the coastal highway, Jian chanced upon this particular eatery, which I later recalled reading about it from a fortnightly local pullout that recommends good food in the historical city of Malacca. We decided to give it a try as we were lazy to scout anymore.

A pretty standard kopitiam interior, but brightly lit and very spacious. The wooden tables and chairs looked pretty cheap for today’s standard. I reckon one could carry it, smash it on one’s head and it did break into two easily. Moreover, it was far from comfortable, especially for the ones fitted against the wall. Ventilation was good even without air conditioners.

The shop branded itself as the place that sells traditional homemade noodles and pan mee. The menu practically consists of only six types of food, fried, curry, soup version, dry version, tomyam and prawn. Then, you have the option to choose from thin noodles, broad noodles, kuey teow, rice vermicelli, pan mee and etc.. That’s about it, no rice-related food. All you can order is noodle, noodle, noodle and more noodles.

To add in some varieties, they have a number of finger foods like fish balls, deep fried seafood tofu and etc. Also, they sell barbecued stuffs like hot dogs, chicken, prawns, pork balls and fish balls at RM1 per stick.

Also, they have really cheap breakfast combos. For less than RM5, you get toast breads, half boiled eggs, hash browns and a cup of coffee / tea. Sweet!

Jian’s mango drink.

I ordered some barbecued chicken to go along with my fried noodles. It was nicely marinated with curry powder and then barbecued. For RM1, it was decent enough although the size of the meat was really small. I later ordered another two sticks of hot dogs as well.

Together with the barbecued stuffs, came the chili sauce. I was grinning from ear to ear because this type of chilli sauce is always my favourite. The chilli sauce that my grandmother used to make whenever we have chicken rice. It’s hot, it’s spicy, it’s a little sour and most importantly, it’s delicious. How I miss my grandmother’s homemade chili.

My fried noodles came rather quickly. Two pork balls, a few strands of vegetable and a spoonful of minced meat. That wee bit of minced meat made the just-another-fried-noodle dish tasted better, or at least, stood out from others. Taste wise, it was average for a simple dish like this. The noodles were springy, probably because it was homemade rather than machine produced.

Jian ordered his dry version of pan mee.

Overall, taste wise, it was mediocre and the portion was quite small, even for small eater like Jian. Due to the untoward incident that left a very bad and sour aftertaste, I am not going to put a picture of the shop’s outlook or even recommend it. Also, I heard from my two sisters who went there for a drink found worms in their herbal drink. All the boss offered was to waive the fee for the drink from the bill, nothing else.

Continuing from Taiwan - 2.2.1 Taichung 台中…

The first stall we came upon was a beverage stall. Taiwanese love their milk so much that they add milk into almost any beverages they can come up with. Papaya milk, mango milk, watermelon milk, kiwi milk, bitter gourd with honey and milk, strawberry milk and so on…

The first food we had at the night market was this really, really, really weird man tou 馒头, which the Taiwanese called Ge Bao 割包. It has probably all four tastes, sweet, salty, sour and a little bit of bitterness. Inside the man tou, it has a slice of braised lean meat, peanuts, sugar, pickled mustard and probably a few more ingredients.

Our first bite left everyone speechless and had a WTF look on the face. I wouldn’t say it tasted badly or heavenly, it was just plain weird. I certainly don’t know how to describe the taste. That being said, we ended up ordering another piece.

Continuing our walk, we saw a lady preparing a huge pot of oyster noodles 蚵仔面线 and some other food.

We sat down, ordered a bowl of oyster noodles, glutinous rice with minced meat and a plate of fried oyster.

Glutinous rice topped with minced meat 米糕.

Oyster noodles 蚵仔面线.

Fried oyster 蚵仔煎. The Taiwanese’s version of fried oyster is very soggy, wet and slimy. Also, they top it with loads of peppermint leaves, which make the dish tastes even weirder for us Malaysians.

We had mua chee 麻芝, featured in the travel guide book that we used and also by many local magazines. You can have your mua chee stuffed with red bean paste, black sesame pastes, finely crushed peanuts or have it plain.

Walking further down the street, we saw another stall which was featured in the book we used as a guide. It’s Big Sister Xu’s deep fried stall. There were a number of people queuing up to buy whatever the stall was serving.

You can choose whatever you want to eat, ranging from chicken chops, sausages, tempura, tofu, eggs to vegetables and many more. Select your stuffs and hand it over to the guy, they will deep fry it and spread it with their home made special sauce.

That was the end of our first visit to Taiwanese’s night market. However, our food tasting journey didn’t end there as while we were walking back to our hotel, we saw a shop that sells nothing but milk jellies and puddings.

We bought one for each flavour.

Clockwise from top left, mango, aloe vera, black sesame, original / milk, red bean and lotus seed.

The shop claimed that not even a single drop of water was added during the process of making the jellies and puddings, which I think is highly believable as the taste was strong and full flavoured.

My favourite, black sesame pudding.

That was day 2 of our Taiwan trip as we got ourselves ready to go Sun Moon Lake 日月潭.

Click on the picture for a full size 3096 * 4023 resolution.

We boarded the train from Hsinchu 新竹 and then headed for Taichung 台中.

Taichung, the third largest city in Taiwan, is hardly a must see for the short term visitor, though many lo0ng term expats do enjoy it as a weekend getaway. The city has several pleasant tea and restaurant streets, an excellent science museum and a very good art museum, which includes a top-of-the-line storybook fantasy land library for children. Taichung is also a bright ray of sunshine (literally) on a dreary winter day for those living in the capital. Taipei and Taichung have very similar average temperatures but Taichung is much drier, receiving around 1700mm of rain a year compared with Taipei’s 2170mm.

Lonely Planet.

The train moved across various terrains, paddy fields, rivers, mountains, jungles, villages and cities. Eye pleasing indeed, if you ask me.

If you look closely at the picture below, you will see that the river’s water is actually grey in colour, far from being blue or crystal clear. I shall elaborate in details in future postings.

We arrived Taichung shortly and proceeded to find our hotel. The hotel, 瑞君商务旅馆, was recommended by a travel guide book that my mum borrowed for us. It is located just behind the train station, very convenient for us and most importantly, it has free broadband service.

That’s me, blogging.

The street in front of our hotel. On the left is our hotel and on the right is the train station.

We had our late lunch / tea at a cafe and restaurant opposite our hotel. Again, we ordered milk tea 奶茶.

After quenching our thirst, we walked to the next door’s restaurant to eat.

Braised minced meat with noodles 肉燥面.

Braised minced meat with rice 肉燥饭.

Pork rice with bamboo shoots 扣肉饭.

Beef dumplings 牛肉饺子.

Beef dumplings with soup 牛肉饺子汤.

After the heavy lunch / tea, we went back to our room for a good rest before heading out for dinner at a nearby night market 夜市, the Zhong Xiao Lu Ye Shi 忠孝路夜市. We had to walk the underground tunnel to go to the other side of the train station and then walk for another 500m or more to reach the night market.

Probably the busiest crossroad in Taichung.

While walking towards the night market, we made a stop at this particular bakery which is famous for its sunflower biscuits 太阳饼. Taiwan is actually famous for its sunflower biscuits and this particular bakery has been around for ages. We ended up buying almost five big boxes of the biscuits as souvenirs for friends and family in its Taipei branch.

We arrived at another big crossroad which is where the Zhong Xiao Road Night Market 忠孝路夜市 is located.

Now, that will be another post as there are quite a lot of food pictures.