Taiwan Day 2: Fu Beng Restaurant, Sun Moon Lake

This is one of the restaurant we'd include in our itinerary, after read the good review from other's blog and tripadvisor. It serves local Taiwanese dishes.

It's located about 5 minute walk from our hotel and we reached with the aid of GPS.

This is the entrance of the restaurant, which is kind of weird as it looks like the back kitchen rather than front door.

The restaurant is quite small and crowded when we arrived about 7pm. The staff took some time to come and serve us. Menu is available in English.

We ordered the famous local vegetable. In Malaysia, we called this "Paku pakis". I guess in English, it is called as fern leaf? This taste good. But somehow I still prefer Malaysian cooking style, which usually cook with sambal belacan and taste slightly spicy.

We also tried steam chicken with spring onion. Taste OK and the portion was quite large for both of us.

Dried lily soup. Small. NTD50. A generous amount of meats and dried lily was given. However, the soup tasted too bland and we didn't finished it.

3 dishes as above with 2 bowl of rice comes up with total bill of NTD390, which was reasonable for us.

Taiwan Day 2: Sun Moon Lake (Ropeway/ Syuangang)

Location of our hotel was quite strategic. Right from the front door, walk straight will leads you to the SML Ropeway Station. But, it is an about 15 minutes walk though.

We stop by this Taiwanese sausage stall.

The seller was very friendly and informed us about the event that SML is having on that day, which we are not aware of.

NTD100 for 3. It's the best I'd tried. Very juicy and delicious.

On the day of our visit to SML was also the last day of the operation of the ropeway before it will be closed for one week maintenance. How lucky was that?

The ropeway ride which took about 10 minute will arrive at the entrance of Aboriginal Culture Village. We didn't visit it though. After spend few minutes, we took the ropeway back to Ita Thao.

We then head to the streets, hunting for foods.

Long queue for red tea. We bought a cup NTD40. Nothing special.

Another queue, This time it was fried chicken wing stuffed with rice.

NTD60.

Yums~ 

Guo Bao NTD50.

I wish they gave more meats.

Finally it's 3pm. We checked in to our room and take a short rest before heading out again.

We then took the ferry again and stop at Syuangang Pier to visit the temples there.

There's a stall selling "Ah Po" eggs at the pier.

Good to try.

We then hop back the ferry to head back to Ita Thao.

After our dinner, which I'll write in separate post, we then join the crowds for the event.

Marvelous drum performance. Although there is a lot of people, but luckily the weather was not hot.

The event was held once a year.

The event ended with fireworks.

And that's our SML visit :)

Taiwan Day 2: TaoYuan to Sun Moon Lake

As usual, I'll try to plan our trip to be "back pack"where we can go places on our own without hiring tour guide. Initially hubby doesn't really agree with my idea, but somehow he give in and let me plan the trip. Yeah~ :)

How to go Sun Moon Lake from Taoyuan/ Taipei.

We took taxi from our hotel in Zhong Li to Taoyuan HSR, cost NTD250.

The HSR tickets were booked earlier through online, as there will be up to 30% discount for early birds, where tickets can start to be reserved 28 days from your travel date.

On your travel date, collect the ticket from the counter.

Good Morning Taoyuan~

We bought MOS breakfast set for 2. Greenbag was given :)

NTD236 spent.

Hash brown. Nice.

Seafood rice burger. Yelks~

Beef burger. Not to my liking, as it was too dry.

Inside HSR.

Arriving at Taichung HSR, look for the bus station at 1st Floor, 5th Exit.

Purchase ticket to Sun Moon Lake. There are also package available which is more worthy.

Check out the package and schedule at nantoubus website.

Inside the bus. The journey took 1.5 hours.

The bus will stop at Shuishe Pier. Then we took the 1 day unlimited ferry ride to Ita Thao, where our hotel is located.

The ferry will make its first stop at Syuangang Pier before stopping at Ita Thao. After Ita Thao, the ferry will the go back to Shuishe.

Because we arrive early, we are not allowed to check in to our room. Check in was strictly only after 3pm. So we drop our luggage at the lobby and start our Sun Moon Lake visit.

8D 7N Taiwan

Our honeymoon trip this year is Taiwan.

Since we both had been to Taiwan before, this time we tried to cover places we never went previously.

How we spent our 8 days (to be precise, it is 7 days actually)?

Day 1: KL to Taiwan

Arriving Taoyuan airport at almost midnight, we hailed a cab to our pre-book hotel in Zhong Li. Cab cost NTD560 for an approximately 20 minutes ride. Since we are just going to spend a night here to get some nap, I'd booked a simple hotel called Central Hotel which cost RM180 per night.

 Comfortable bed.

Room was small but it was clean.

Day 2: Tao Yuan to Sun Moon Lake

Day 3: Sun Moon Lake to Cing Jing

Day 4: Cing Jing to Tai Chung (Feng Jia night market)

Day 5: Tai Chung to Taipei - Maokong/ Raohe/ We Fen Pu/ Xi Men Ding

 Maokong

 Raohe St Night Market

Wu Fen Pu

Day 6: Jiu Fen/ Shi Fen

 Jiu Fen

Shi Fen

Day 7: Beitou/ Dan Shui/ Shilin

 Beitou

Dan Shui

Shilin

Day 8: 101 Taipei/ Shopping at underground mall

And there is how our 2016 long vacation goes. As we had agreed to have a more relaxing trip, we took things slowly. We didn't cover a lot of areas but enough for a memorable vacation. And we also took some time to visit 2 out of the Top 10 must try breakfast in Taipei.

 Lo-Co food.

Fong Sheng Hao.

Stay tuned for more information on the trip :)

Hong Xin Dim Sum @ Bercham, Ipoh

Another road trip to Ipoh.

Not wanting to always had the dim sum in Ipoh town, we'd asked for recommendation from friend whom stayed in Ipoh, and he'd suggested this restaurant.

When we arrived, the restaurant was quite crowded, but we manage to spot an empty table immediately. Staff service was slow and it takes us awhile before we understand how the process goes. So some of the items were being served as other usual dim sum restaurant - staff pushing trolleys and asking for your interest. And some items, you'll need to bring your pricing card and approach the counter, to order and collect.

This was introduced by the staff. Fried dumpling. 

Siu Mai. Prawn was big and fresh.

Porridge. Still can't beat the one in Kepong.

Glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf. This is so-so only.

Yam puff. This is good.

Har Mai. Same as the siu mai, the prawns were big and fresh.

The price overall was cheaper than those in Ipoh town. However, varieties of food was lesser and the foods coming out from kitchen was slow. Taste wise.. was acceptable but not so wow.