Leon's Boulevard of Unspoken Dreams

Day 90 (Sat) *Taipei Day 1*

At 5.35am...CI 007 landed and taxied into one of the arrival gates at Chang Kai Shiek International Airport...with it also carries the hopes, aspirations and dreams of 3 hopeful Singaporean Chinese guys in their early twenties...working as a lifeguard cum ride operator had tortured them beyond recognition in US...for months of the cruel scorching wildwood sun had tanned them into a mixture of half Thai half Fillipino complexion...for half-filled lunches consisting of juz modest homemade sandwiches and a bare apple at times had pared their waistlines substantially...for weeks of travelling across the vast US continent with a 20kg backpack had exhausted them somewhat...and last but not least...for weeks of unhealthy and detrimental fastfood had sicken their appetite considerably...in their minds now are the food, the night markets, the hot springs, the shopping and of coz the zhen mei that Taipei city is about to offer for the next 6 days or so...

hahaha...sorry ah such a lame and crapping starting...muz be my Lions of Lucerne at work...too engrossed with the novel den now blog also muz start off with some grandfather story first...haha

well...we reached Taipei on schedule aft an excruciatingly long flight...got to the customs den realise we haven fill in the immigration card yet...muz be all 3 of us sleeping while the air stewardess was giving out the card...got thru the customs (if there was any) smoothly and waited fo Kerrine outside the arrival hall who is due to join us frm JFK for this upcoming Taipei leg...

she finally came aft 30minutes...and with her was our last paychecks...dammn Morey's didn't give us our bonus in this paycheck...tot they suppose to give together...wah kaoz...at least they never deduct the last week of rent...still got a respectable amount for my last check though pon ten for 1.5 days...haha...went to take the evergreen express bus which would take us to our hostel...our hostel with a quite funny name called World Scholars Hostel...haha...dun play ok...only scholars can stay one hor...heh

ahhh finally arriving at CKS International Airport...Taipei!!

hey hey! welcome to Taiwan! *looking jet lagged in this pic*

after a one hour journey frm the airport finally gotta to the stop where our hostel is located...asked the bus stop auntie for directions and followed it duly...manage to find our hostel without much effort...first impression unlike the hostels we stayed in US...this hostel is located in a residential cum commercial building...with the landlady of the hostel owning one the apartment and subletting it to be a hostel...so feels quite homely actually...our hostel is located on 8th floor...and we were greeted by a densely decorated living room when we entered with the walls painted a spooky shade of red...ok lah feels like a home...the manager is a petite chinese lady in her late 30s and who speaks fluent english...directed us to our room which is actually quite pathetically small lah for 4 people...and also the bed seems to be worse den the one at LA...i dunno to call it mattress or what coz it's too thin to qualify as one...at least there's is aircon!! it's summer here in Taipei and it can get quite hot according to the manager...

settled the admin stuff and paying of rent (quite cheap lah juz NT1800 for 5 nites...andden went to take a shower and we decide we need to rest first and recover frm our jet lag before going out again...slept till close to noon and by the time all got ready to move out it's already 1plus...damn freakin hungry so settled our lunch at a nearby xiao chi shop...food was delicious haha...of coz lah almost 3 months never eat this type of food liao...but pity their xiao chi really is xiao...so small serving...i seriously could have finished it all by myself...haha

eagerly anticipating our lunch over peppermint flavoured chin chow drink

our lunch!! LtR yu yuan dang...zha zhu pa...kong xing chai...san chen rou...tian bu la...and pi dan to fu

went to Xi meng ding next to soak in the Saturday mood...and i muz say whoever made the decision to arrive here on Saturday really deserves a pat on his back lah...super happening here at Xi meng ding on Saturday...really reminds me of hometown orchard...haha...and for the first time in 3 months...i am suddenly surrounded by so many chinks...haha...whole day see ang moh see until sian really...now so many chinese here suddenly on the trains den at xi meng ding...wah feel very much at home...while the gal went to shop...the guys went off for some roadside food...haha...wah kaoz...really eat until song...fried sotong balls...chow tofu...the all-time famous ah zhong mian xian...zhen zhu nai cha...chicken kebab bun...jin chi lemonade...wah lau shiok ah really...haha...and the crowd i muz say really is eye-dazzling...wah kaoz ying is really rite...taipei really a lot of mei nui...heh... immersed ourselves with the food and the crowd and went to try out the craze of Taipei...basketball shooting literally...wah lau really addictive this game...s'pore also got but also not so fun...and it juz make pple wanna better his or her score...played a few rounds before it's about time to meet kerrine...aftwhich decided to continue exploring xi meng ding for the rest of the day...and guess wad...so coincidence met pam and emily and the ntu pple...so coincidence taipei so big also can meet...feels like some sort of morey's pier reunion right in xi meng ding...

explored ard the district until abt 8plus before we decided to head back to rest...still haven really completely recover from our jet lag...so that's about it...our 1st day in Taipei...rest, relax and recuperate...perhaps a good decision to stopover here also before we go back...to slowly accustom our bio clock and the culture...in many aspects similar to our beloved island home s'pore...