Day 2 - The Sea of Flowers

Well, after a fitful sleep, the hotel we were staying at provided breakfast in bed... For whatever it's worth. Heh.

 

 The nice boss from BVLGARI gave us a lift to the studio to change and do our make up and whatnot. Let's skip all that and go to the Sea of Flowers! About 30-45 minutes drive from Taichung...

 It really was a sea of flowers. From what I gathered, there is a fee to be paid if you wanted to take pre-wedding photos at the venue but it ain't that expensive... About 200-300 yuan per person. Ain't that bad.

Once we were done, we headed over to the old railway station to take more shots. As much as I love the shots there, I'll save them for myself...


Right after that, we were shipped back to the photo studio for a brief lunch (more economy rice and bubble tea XD) and then we were told we would be taken to the night market in Taichung later at abour 6/7 p.m. So when we headed back to the hotel, we got ready anyways because we were exhausted from the photoshoot. Funnily once we just got done, the hotel called to tell us the boss was downstairs with his Merc again waiting to bring us out.

Good timing, I say. So off we went to this Taichung night market.

But not before he went to treat us another Taiwan specialty: Pork rib rice. To be honest we weren't really hungry nor interested in these sit down meal food. We just wanted STREET FOOD! So let's skip this tosh and move on!

Food was immensely impressive. Loads of it we've only seen, maybe even tried in Malaysia but nothing comes close to the explosive taste of proper, proper street food in the heart of motherfucking Taiwan!

MORE PHOTOS!

Truly a spectacular place and a must visit!

So that pretty much wraps up our Day 2 in Taiwan, which, was pretty much visiting the Sea of Flowers and the biggest night market in Taiwan because we totally couldn't finish it whereas the ones in Taipei were easy to finish walking around in

Stay tuned for Day 3 in Taiwan where we take a short trip to Sun Moon Lake and did... very little as most of the time was just traveling.

Peace out y'all!

Day 1 - Takeoff to TAIWAN!

I'd like to clarify some back story before we go into the details of the next first few days.

1. This is a pre-wedding photoshoot travel package by a Taiwanese company that approached us in Jusco Ipoh
2. We had already booked a pre-wedding photoshoot package with a local studio (My Story Photography)
3. This was our honeymoon trip ;)
4. The general itinerary (geographically) was Taichung (Day 1+2), Sun Moon Lake (Day 3), Ching Jing Mountain (Day 4), Taipei (Day 5,6 and 7) and we left Taipei on Day 8 (29/12/2013)
5. I'm a toy collector for those who don't know, so we visit a lot of these places whenever we're in a city =D

This, is more of a personal diary to remember the shit we did and what we ate and did and whatnot, not for entertaining people or whatever. Also I personally wanted to write something for those who are interested in going to Taiwan since me and my wife mostly consulted other people's blogs for recommendations and previews of places we were likely to encounter. So yeah... This' about sharing information and giving some back to the net. Let's get the ball rolling!

So right off the bat, we set off from Malaysia in an MAS 737, a small 3 - 3 seat per row plane slightly before 10 and reach before 4 at Taoyuan International Airport. There's no need for visa for Malaysians so we don't need any prior paperwork.

However, we didn't fill in the address of the place we were staying at in the landing card and we didn't think we needed to fill in that part so we didn't ask BVLGARI (no relation), the aforementioned Taiwanese wedding photography studio, for any details on this. Immigration pointed us to the side counter for Diplomats/Crew/Whatever people. Dude called up a BVLGARI representative and sorted this issue in a jiff. And off we were to baggage claim. No fuss there.

My advice here is to try to get a SIM card as soon as possible if you have a contact in Taiwan or if you're travelling in a group, get enough SIMs so you can contact each other. What we did was we put that off until we reached Taichung since we were just interested in establishing contact with BVLGARI in Taichung and we both had international roaming on anyways.

So, since we were heading to Taichung off the bat, we had five choices of transport:

1. High speed railtrain (estimated travel time >1 hour)
2. Coach (KNOWN travel time >2 hours - DON'T FUCKING BOTHER)
3. Walk (estimated travel time >7 days)
4. Taxi (estimated travel time <2 br="" hours="">5. Teleportation (estimated travel time <1 p="" second="">
Since taxi was guaranteed an expensive trip seeing as Taichung was pretty much 100++ kms away from Taoyuan (I guess, by experience), we didn't even bother. We asked a bus ticket counter and they advised us to take the bus because apparently travelling via train is a bit messy due to a station change whereas a bus is straight journey.

The thought of us lugging luggage was nighmarish during the station change so a straight journey was a smashing idea in our exhaustion and excitement. So yeah, we took the bus. Foolishly.



It was a 2 hour plus journey by bus while they screened Fast 6 in the bus. Ironic in an old coach but whatevs, man.

We reached Taichung at like 7-8 p.m and were dropped off near Taiching station. Honestly, I have no idea what station it was specifically. MRT? LRT? High speed rail? Doubt it. We waited a bit and soaked in the sights at the station... A vibrant city, and the station introduced us to the 7-11 of Taiwan. A far shout from its Malaysian counterpart.... This one had so much different drinks, and served so much microwave meals and ODEN. Fuck. Yes.

Whatever it is, we waited quite a bit and then the BVLGARI driver took us to the shop to select our clothes for tomorrow's shoot and the venue and also treated us to their local fare: their Taiwanese bento (M'sian economy rice) and classic Pearl Milk Tea.

Had to laugh out due to the irony that I'm served their local specialty while I'm selling it back in Ipoh!

Whatever it is, after we chose our attire and venue for the next day of photoshooting, we were sent to our hotel room for the next two nights. To be honest, I can't be of much help in this department because most names were in Mandarin lettering and I can't read it.

 Once we were dropped off, we went out straight to explore the night markets of Taichung. It was a 10-15 minute walk to the night market. We were quite impressed with the food we had there as the locals told us that Taichung's night markets were better than Taipei's due to that fact that Taipei, being a popular tourist destination, Taipei's night market's have evolved  (or devolved) to accommodate foreign tastes and sensibilities, which I think is a crime.

Whatever it is, we spent most of the time sampling local favorites like their sausages, fried squid, drinks and whatnot.

Topped off the night with some Japanese kebab... thingies. Grilled mushrooms, tofu and meat. Not a bad fare and miso soup for that cold winter night is just awesome.

So that's pretty much it for Day 1! Stay tuned for Day 2... Our photoshoot in the "Sea of Flowers" and in an old railway station and after that, the boss of BVLGARI takes us out to dinner and sets us loose on the largest (no exaggeration) night market in Taichung!

Thanks for reading and safe travels.

Peace out y'all!