TAIWANderful 2012 (Day 3)

Beautiful sunrise at our room's balcony. MW and I woke up at 5.30a.m for it.

Our family room at TWD$2800 weekday. It is consider reasonable as some minsu charges sky high price of TWD$5000 and above!

This friendly grandma is the owner's wife. She sells their home-grown fruits at a shop infront of the minsu. DY loves the sweet crunchy apples that the grandma gave him yesterday so we brought a packet of the apples at TWD$100 from her before we check-out.

While I'm packing, ZY and DY got friendly with a bunch of girls staying at the room next door. Their mums are twins and they are from Kaoshiung. They are here for the birthday celebration of one of the girls.

Photo taken with the nice and really hardworking minsu helpers.

The owner's son drove us to Taichung. We stayed at the Galerie Hotel which is just 10 mins walk to the famous Feng Jia Night Market.

Lunch for the day. Braised pork knuckles that melt in my mouth. How I wish I can "da bao" this home for my mum!

 Next stop - The National Museum of Natural Sciences.

Life size machine opreated dinosaurs.

Taichung is quite a well-organised city with many parks and waterways spotted. Singapore should learn from them.

Our first night market experience and unfortunately happened on a busy Saturday! We went there early at about 4 plus as advised by the local and luckily avoided the peak of the crowd.

ZY and DY favourite! Fresh strawberries coated with sugar syrup at TWD$70.

And many other local snacks..

We ended the day early as I've unfortunately hurt my toe in the afternoon and the long walk had made the pain excruciating. Though I'm in pain, I still managed to buy some clothes for the kids and a pair of comfy shoe at only TWD$199!!

Back to the hotel for some laundry done.

P.S. MW and I had a hair raising experience in the hotel eerie laundry room!

TAIWANderful 2012 (Day 2)

Rise and Shine! After a sumptuous breakfast, we were ready to go 青青草原!

Nice sunny weather, a great place to spend the day petting and feeding sheep...at least that's what I've planned...

in the end, both ZY and DY were so afraid of the totally friendly sheep that they refused to go near them and will scream and asked to be carried whenever the sheep approaches!...Hiaz

So we ended the outing early and went for shopping for sheep-related products and of course, ice-cream!

We had our lunch at the Paper King restaurant, everything in the restaurant including tables, chairs, plates, cups, curtains and decorations are made of paper.

even DY's babychair is made of paper!

I took this photo at the back of the restaurant as we did not go into the Little Swiss Garden. Our driver, Mr Chen told us that it's not worth visiting as the place is old and out dated.

After lunch, we went back to our minsu for some rest and relaxation. The kids had great fun at the swing and slide. It's so good to see our kids running about in the outdoor breathing in clean fresh air!

There are many 7-11 in Taiwan and this one which is only a 5-mins walk from my minsu is the tallest in Cing Jing!

Our dinner tonight is DIY steamboat that I've ordered in advance with the owner at TWD$300. Its a simple affair but it's so nice to have some hot soup in the super cold night. ^_^ Plus there are unlimited supply of the owner-grown cabbage that are supper sweet!

The stock was made from the leftover chicken of last night dinner (smart idea from MW) hence we did not need to add the chicken stock cube that the minsu provides. The soup was so fragrant, the cabbages so sweet and most importantly together with the homemade chili sauce that the helper kindly offered to me = Satisfying Meal!!

Since it is a DIY affair, we were required to wash all the plates and pots after used. Of course the one who ate the most got the job lah~ hahahaha!!!