YUAN’s Soap

Have you heard about Yuan’s Soap 阿原肥皂? If no, check out their webpage and you will know the history (if you know Chinese)… but in short, due to skin allergy, Yuan (the originator/ owner) started making natural, chemical free soap. At first, it was just for himself, but due to overwhelm response, demand, he has decided to set up Yuan’s soap workshop in year 2005. Now, he plants his own ingredients - herbs @ Yang Ming Shan National Park, and he insists every soaps that he produce are handmade. That’s the value of the soap.

I bought a few when I was travelled to Taiwan, I bought “Miss Mud” 泥小姐 (made of dead sea mud & other herbs) and “Oat” 燕麦 (good for baby). Some are souvenir to my friend’s baby and specially for my dad, because his varicose vein on his legs and has wound when he scratch his legs after shower. So I thought this soap might help.

The saleslady told me one piece can last very long, so, I didn’t bought a lot, now I regret, I should have do that, because in less than 2 months, one soap is gone. I can’t say the soap isn’t working as what it claimed, but I understand natural products takes time to improve the condition. Well, wait till my next trip to Taiwan, will surely bought a dozen.

This is Miss Mud - NT300/bar

The soap is beautiful and smell good!

Taiwan Trip - Where's my money goes?

I must say, I'm not the bigger contributor to Taiwan's economy throughout the trip, no no, actually I didn't buy a lot of things, but things that I bought is quite pricy (pricy doesn't means really expensive here, but comparable to others, the items that I bought fall on higher price range).

For those who know me very well, I'm not a shopaholic and I usually didn't buy things spontaneously (I only shop when I have something in mind, or I just accompany friend doing window shopping) but when you are travelling with a bunch of friends which are so good in bargaining, you will be influenced, agree? So, ended up, I think I buy more things than I usually do in my trip.

Little magnet of the aboriginals

(souvenir for customers)

Hand-made glass stirers
(Initially I thought of give them away as souvenir, but my dad likes them so much, so, I let him keep it)

Porcelain flute
(I keep the owl)

ChiaTe pineapple cake

(I checked the internet, this is the No. 1 must-buy souvenir in Taiwan, I bought 2 boxes and they are very expensive, around RM2.50 per cake. We gave some as souvenir to close friends and neighbour.)

Peaches

(So fresh and yummilicious, we shared 2 out for grandparents.)

The food "collection"

Besides the peaches and pineapple cakes, I bought their biscuits, flower tea, high mountain tea, greenpea cake, roasted black bean and the "iron" egg.

From Eslite
CDs (Jolin Tsai, Jay Chau, YanJ & Lee Hom's latest albums) and 11 minutes by Paulo Coelho

The beauty "collection"
I seriously think that I over-buying those stuffs, 4 boxes of face masks, 1 box of eye mask, 1 moisturizer, 2 bb creams, 3 hand-made soaps, 1 eye-lash serum and an eyeliner. Since my dad took the glass stirers, so, I am also giving out masks to friends as souvenir.

opps, left out one item in beauty "collection", this is black head remover mask. It has 3 bottles of product inside, 1. dead skin softener liquid, 2. charcoal peel off mask and 3. pore minimiser liquid, then there's a free gift and till now, I've no idea what is it for... help, anyone read Japanese?

Cloth "collection"
Those are in cheaper price range, ranging from RM10 to RM30.

Cloth "collection"
These are in higher price range, because I bought these from a local brand boutique and the RL polo I bought it in airport duty free shop, they are doing 50% sales.

Dress

This is not cheap, but since the girls are buying (boss said if we buy 3, then she will gave a special discount to us), so, ok... deal!
The dress was designed by the boss, there are 2 long "scarf-like" ribbon attached, so, you can play around with those ribbon to make different style.

Belts

Shoes "collection"
a pair of pumps, a pair of slippers (fake Birkenstock), a pair of working short heels and a pair of original Nike sport shoes... am I being too much?

other tiny mini items that I bought
wood puzzle and postcards from the Paper Dome, hand lugguge, name card holder, sanitary pad pouches and porcelain flutes

A fashion magazine
I wanted to buy a magazine in Taiwan, because I heard their media industry is doing very good and very advance. So, I walked in to a convinient store, and this magazine was sitting next to the counter, I grapped and asked the cashier, "is this August issue?" (it bought this on 8th Aug), then the cashier replied "no"... "it's Sep issue"

See? so advance

My masterpiece 1

My masterpiece 2

Am I over-spending?

Taiwan Trip - Highlights

There are some other places that we visited, but I am not going to talk about it in details, because most of them can be found easily when you google them up.

Sun Moon Lake 日月潭 The must-do activity will be taking a lake cruise, the cruise will depart from Shuieshe 水社码头, then Yidashao 伊达邵码头 and Syuanguang 玄光码头 and finally back to Shuieshe.
It a beautiful lake, the water is greenish and the sky is high and blue with white cloud 碧海蓝天白云... I was holding a Taiwanese beer in hand while enjoying the lake breeze... :)

This cable car station @ Yidashao 伊达邵码头 is new, now we can take the cable to the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village.


Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village

We watched perfomance by the 9 different aboriginals @ Naluwan Theather 娜鲁湾剧场, I find it quite close to the aboriginals in Malaysia, colourful costume, passionate dancing, tanned skin... Btw, we learned Naluwan, means "I love you" in their language. In the cultural village, there is also a theme park where you can play roller coaster, exciting water games... and some of us even got a very special treatment by the insect in the village, because most of us were wearing shorts and I think our blood is "sweeter" to them, we got insect bikes all over our legs... and even now, some scars still haven't subside.




Yehliu Geopark

This place is very special because all the land sculpture is formed by the influence of wind, wave and land movement. For more infomation, click on the link below:

http://www.ylgeopark.org.tw/ENG/info/YlIntroduction_en.aspx

We didn't stay in the park for very long, it is due to the unbearable hot weather (I can stand very hot weather/ environment, if I complain hot, mean really hot, probably you can melt in that weather already), so, what we did were... QUEUED to take picture with "Queen head" stone and ciao. Of course we know there are many special sculptures, but this is not a good place to visit in summer.

Coastal highway

It's not a tourist spot, but the driver was asking if we would like to travel to Yilan through the normal highway or coastal highway... of course we chose the later, at least more to see, even if there isn't anything to see, we can enjoy the sea breeze too.

The driver stopped at 2 spots for photography sessions, one of it has a natural pond where the the local people make it a abalone farm. I walked down, and saw a worker in the pond, so, I asked if he could sell 2 fresh abalone to me... then he just ignore my request... later I realised, the Taiwanese abalone is the mini type, so, of course when I say I want 2, the worker will probably think I was fooling him.

National Traditional Art Centre, Yilan

Throughout the trip, I love this place the most... I guess this place is supported by the government and it's a brilliant set-up to encourage their people to love art. There are probably 2 row of shoplots, then each lot they are not only selling art stuff, but they have guru to teach you to learn their art. There are shops selling hand-made soup, clay/ porcelain item, paper art, glasses, jewelry, charcoal, leather stuff... I signed a clay learning lesson for only NT$150, and I learned and made myself a bowl in 10 minutes! I also learned paper art, using the paper box material to make a frog doll. There are also stages for traditional Chinese opera, story telling classes, performance theaters... Frankly speaking, if you were throwing there for 2 days, I definitely will not be bored.


Eslite Bookstore

This bookstore is also in my top favourite places list. Unfortunately, I only got only 2 hours there, but I got few books in mind. This Eslite has 6 floors, when I entered, it's like a book ocean, stuffs that they are selling are very very good in quality, books are so cheap and there are so much to see. I was trying my very best to cover all floors and "jog" around (walking is not fast enough). I spent most of my time in the CD section, because my friend actually give me her wish-list, she wanted to get Jolin Tsai's latest album for her husband and my best friend asking me to get her Jay Chau's lastest album in Taiwan for her, then I bought myself 2 CDs too - YanJ's and LeeHom's lastest album.
Then I quickly rushed back to international book section and got myself a translated noval, 11 Minutes by one of my favourite author - Paulo Coelho. It's a 18sx rated noval in Malaysia, so, it's kind of difficult to find in the bookstore here. But hey, don't get me wrong, it's a meaningful noval. Paulo Coelho's books are always very inspirational... First book that I read from him was 'The Alchemist"... I've finished reading 11 minutes, it's nice, but a little bit difficult for me to understand what is he trying to tell us.
At first I couldn't find this book, I found other Paulo Coelho's book, but not this, due to time contraint, I got the customer service personel to help me locate the book. In just 5 minutes, the guy brought the book to me at the counter, so fast and efficient, bravo bravo...
Then the time's up, I had to leave to my next destination. So, I have decided, if I have a chance to go back to Taipei, I will spend a night there, save cost for a night of accomodation and I can explore the place at my preferable pace. Opps, I've left out a very important point, this flagship Eslite bookstore @ Xinyi is open 24 hours.


Jianguo Holiday Flower Market
It was our last day in Taiwan and we have a few hours in the morning before going to catch our flight back to KL. So, we went to this weekend flower market where they sell a lot of flowers and fruits. And it's because of Chinese Valentine's day, they has a lot of roses too. But this place is just good to kill time, or if you were like me, have a habit to buy fruits back to the country, you can try to see what fruit is in that season.
I bought a box of peach back (8 peaches in a box), they were all very fresh and sweet.

Taiwan Trip - Puli's Paper Dome

This was actually not in our initial itinerary, we were recommended to do a day trip to Sun Moon Lake (SML) by the driver and he stopped us by this place - Paper Dome while we were on the way to SML

We have nothing in mind what is this place about and has no expectation to it. Then we were told the entrance fees is NT$100, so at first we were quite hesitate, but since we were there, NT$100 can be rebated when we purchase souvenir inside, so, we went in.

At the entrance

Walking to Paper Dome

The cafe & lotus farm

Beautiful lotus... blossom-ing

Another cafe & souvenir shop

Before we know the story behind the building, it seems simple; after studying the history, the dome is "big". For those who can read Chinese, you can click on the link below. If not, I try to do a simple introduction.

http://paperdome.homeland.org.tw/pd/about/about.htm

The dome was built during Kobe's (Japan) earthquake in 1995, it was served as a place for the victim to do their prayer as well as serving as a place for them to gather, pacified each other's broken hearts. So, when Taiwan experienced 921 earthquake, the restoration committees brought the dome to Taiwan and continue it's mission in pacifying broken hearts.

The interior

The beautiful exterior

The doors and the shadow

Holding hand in hand (between the Japanese & Taiwanese) in post-diaster recontruction

Dragonfly in pink!

Beautiful flowers by the dome

It's really a place worth visiting... If I ever have a chance to go there again, I want to pray in the dome, pray for a stronger me and regain my faith in love and life.

Taiwan Trip - Fashion Streets

Besides food, clothes is another "thing" of attraction in Taiwan.... varieties, cheap, fashionable... you name it, they have it. Place you can never miss are Wu Fen Pu 五分埔 & Xi Men Ding 西门町. The former is a wholesaler market, but it doesn't mean you can't buy thing in a piece or two, just that you have to have your objective, or else, you will end up over buying a lot of beautiful/ nice fashion items which you don't actually need/ wear. Later is also a place where you can shop for fashion items, but the items are mostly for youngsters.

Wu Fen Pu
A place with hundreds of wholesalers but there is no repetition on fashion items that they sell.

Xi Men Ding

Long queue at one of the entrace to Xi Men Ding, initially we thought they were queue for food, but when we walked close, they were queueing to tailor made their school uniforms... We were wondering, is there only this shop tailor-making school uniform? Isn't there any ready-made uniform selling in school or mall?

Taiwan Trip - Old Streets

Old street (老街) I would say is another culture in Taiwan. It's similar to night market, eat and shop till you drop, the only difference is, one is during the day and later is at night.

1. ShenKeng 深坑

ShengKeng is famous for its bean curd, ma la style, fermentated (stink) and bean curd ice-cream. I'm sorry, I can't put something smell like "shit" in mouth, although I really wanted to try, but I tried the bean curd ice-cream, very very nice, especially the one with black sesame taste... strongly recommended!!


The street is under renovation, the project started from the end of the street and gradually moving to the entrance. So, we are able to see the old and new building along the old street. At first I thought the seller might not like the idea because the renovation will interupt their business, but, after interviewing them, some actually quite positive about it, they like the government idea of standardization, the street will become cleaner and tidier. From a tourist point of view, I like the old buildings, unique, classic with a glimse of culture. What do you think?

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2. RiYueTan Old Street 日月潭老街

We were rushing there for an early dinner after Aboriginal Cultural Village and rushing back to jetty to catch our last boat back to the lake cruise starting point. What I can remember is, we eat everything that we came along, my stomach was like a big bowl of rojak, dumping everything in... ice-cream, duck pancake, chinese burger, sausage, herbal eggs, fries... I don't even have a time to take a proper picture of the street too.

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3. JiLong MiaoKou 基隆庙口

We only stopped by this place for lunch before heading to Jiufen. This is a short street with a lot of nice food. I even tried their BBQ octupus leg. And the crazy part is, along the street, there's a shop selling underwear, I bought a dozen of panties there... because the one that I use to wear was doing very good promotion, so, I grapped all.

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4. JiuFen Old Street 九分老街

This is an old street up on a hill. Famous snacks @ JiuFen will be the yam ball and the vege kuih. For me, they tasted so so. But it is a very very beautiful street, especially the part where all the cafes situated along the stairs.






From Jiufen, we are able to see the coastal line down the hill too. Very breathtaking. The only scary part is, the roads up and down the hill are all very very narrow, I would say, with my driving skill, I doubt if I am able to drive the car up and down again and yet the car can still remain in one piece.

Jiufen is a place good for sightseeing and resting, if you were someone shopaholic or like happening places, you will be bored to death there.