台北游记12 (Day1)

It has been some time since we last stepped onto the land of Taiwan. My last trip here was in 2008 CNY when I came with my parents. It was a rainy CNY though.  Cosmo Hotel was the choice hotel as it was near to Taipei Train Station.  This time, however, we stayed at YMCA Hotel - it's known as Y Hotel here. (We didn't book Cosmo cos its website was not accessible at that time of booking)

Y hotel was convenient as usual, just like its HK one. There was a 24-hour book store but only its first storey opened 24hr to be exact. Our Day One was for my wife to do her shopping as this journey was primarily focused more to be a "country mouse" type than a "town mouse" type.  I like to use the "mouse" analogy as I only recently got to know about the story through my nephew and wife! There were changes in Taipei even at the Airport. Though there was a delay in transit flight, we were still happy as we were traveling. I love traveling! 

After shopping, we took the train to night market. It was a walk from train station to the night market and we saw a long q for this "pepper bun". We decided to makan other things first including smelly doufu. Initially, we went around, hot and sweaty to find for food. Got a bit "frustrated" as all stalls were full and packed on the Saturday. I came with the mentality of eating a bit of everything and so we went around sampling. I recalled bringing my parents over here. Night markets in Taipei were quite fun and really got good food. Due to hot weather and stuffy environment, we were too lazy to use DSLR.  I rem hearing someone saying that there was a nice bean curd there so we went to try. This time round, forgot or lazy to read Lonely Planet for makan recommendations, so we would look at the Q and then try.

Our last stop was the pepper bun and it was quite spicy and nice. After all the sweating, we were too lazy (ya, lazy) to think of walking the way to train station again. As I recalled passing by the railway station, we decided to pop in to see if we could take a rail ride back to Taipei instead. Bingo! Dear said it was a good decision and cheaper option (by about 10 TWD I think). So, we went into the trains, and hopped onto a train down to Taipei. I have thought that the trains were not so frequent as compared to the MRTs that we used to come Raohe. 

We have to be back early as it was a early bus ride tomorrow for our country mouse journey.