Taiwan - Taichung (Lavender Cottage)

Day 2 Part 3 - (18 May 2012)

We continue our journey from Taipei (Jiu Fen) to Taichung (Lavender Cottage).

The journey took roughly about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Yes it is quite far indeed. But that place is worth to visit!

Here is some of the background history.

Lavender Cottage was formed back in 9 November 2001 by Tiffany Lin and Grace Zhan.

Their theme was to create a place that is romantic enough for couples to enjoy and have their private moments without any disturbance in this so called 'Lavender Cottage' hideout.

Their business was later on being expanded. For more background history on this, please click the link below.

Lavender Cottage News

Before we arrived, it was raining heavily.

Luckily the rain subsided when we arrived there.

However it was still drizzling.

The scenery was superb!
I seriously love the surroundings and the concept as well.
I would really love to have a house like this in the future.

Ain't it lovely?

The place is very big and spacious.
First we headed to their shop where they sell soaps and fragrances item.


As for the entrance fee, I'm not really sure how much it was.
You can rent a room there and they even have their own cafe inside.
Prices are unknown to me since I can't read chinese. I'll provide their link at the end of this post.
I'm so sad that it is all in chinese. Therefore a banana like me would not be able to dig any info and provide it to my banana readers. hehe.


PS: All I knew was that, you need to pay entrance fee but I'm not sure how much it was.


You'll just have to find any of your friends who can read chinese and translate it to you.
Good luck for that.
Plus lucky for those who are able to read chinese.

The Toilet 

Super big teddy bear! 

Some decorations

Then, the young lady took us to their Cafe for our D.I.Y handmade soap activity.

OMG! How can one does not get hysteria at such place?

I almost gone crazy by just looking at the surrounding.

That's the view when we were on our way to the Cafeteria.

Here's what we need in order to make the soap.
1) soap
2) coloring
3) no freaking idea what that was
4) plastic cup or anything that you think is appropriate.
5) lavender


Besides that we also need a pan with hot waters in it, a knife to cut the soap into tiny pieces, and also a cylinder in order to put all your tiny bits of soap to melt it up.

Then you stirred the soap until it was totally dissolved into liquids.
Pour the liquids into your plastic cup and then put few drops of coloring (as much or as little as you wish, according to your own preferences).

So serious in dripping the coloring. hahaha!

Awww why you so cute?

I want to slap your face can? *shy*

After you get your desired colour, then you put item number 3 into the cylinder and stir it well by using the ice cream stick given. Once it was all done, then pour it into your plastic cup and leave it to cold.

My D.I.Y soap <3

It smells so good!

How the Cafeteria looks like :-

Once we were done with the soaps, we were told to leave them aside and the staffs took us out for some photo taking sessions.

This is one of my favorite place throughout the entire trip to Taiwan.

Panorama shot of the place which was located by the lake.

This place is seriously awesome. Words can't merely describe the real feelings I had there.

You need to see it to believe it. LOL!

You need to go there in order to FEEL what I felt.

They even have cute looking mail boxes!

You can post your letters or postcards through them.

They provide such services to their customers.

Aww how lovely is that.

I am unable to post every single shots taken into this small tiny blog of mine.

So if you are curious to know more about this place, feel free to visit their website or even better, GO VISIT THEM!

Lavender Cottage Taiwan

There are more pictures in their website.

I spend about 1 and a half hour in Lavender Cottage and then we departed to Fengjia night market.

My next post shall be about Fengjia.

Stay tune peeps :)

Till then.

Good night.

Taiwan - Taipei (Jiu Fen Old Street)

Day 2 Part 2 - (18 May 2012)

This is a continuation from Part 1

It takes roughly about an hour to arrive in Jiu Fen from Yehliu.

Basically the whole Taiwan consist of mountains and hills.

The view was filled with green scenery which is actually good and healthy for your eye sight.

The weather there was pretty cold but not as cold as Genting.

This village is known as Jiu Fen which means Nine Portions because previously there were nine families who lived in this area and as you all know, some history going on here and there. Just go google it up to read the history only if you're interested. Which I bet most of you wouldn't even bother to do so unless you are one of those people who plan to visit this place for your next trip.

Basically the place was filled with shops selling food, souvenirs and pork sausages and also pork sausages and more pork sausages. The smell was too strong that I really felt like puking.

Never in my life, smelt such strong 'fragrance'.

Boleh mati wei bau!

T________T

I think that is what you get when all the pork sausages store reunite - indefeasible power!

Long live porky!

hahahahahaha.

Jiu Fen is located by the mountains. Hence the shops were located uphill.
I love how they decorated their shops. It really looks so amazing. Just like one of those ancient era.
It makes me feel like I'm a traveller. Oh wait. I am a traveller indeed.

The road not taken stairs not taken 

Lunch was not covered by the tour agency on that particular day.
So we had a free and easy lunch option. Which means - need to spend more money.
However it was great to spend more money as we can eat anything we want and later on cry for being broke. What a lovely experience no? Hah!

This is a must try hot stuff when you're in Jiu Fen.
It is known as the Popiah Ice Cream.
2 tiny scoops of ice cream wrapped with some peanut fillings in it.
Delicious!
It cost 35 NT$ only (about RM 3.50+)

Then we went to the Niu Rou Mien ( Beef Noodles) shop for some heavy meal.
Make sure that you order the one cost NT$ 90 instead of the NT$ 45 because the difference is that, the expensive one contains beef while the latter one does not have any beef at all despite the chinese name that sounds like as if there's a beef in it. LOL!

According to the tour guide, this dish is quite popular here.
So the 2 poor lost soul (Mark and I) listened to the tour guide's advice and we ordered the NT$ 90 per bowl each.
BAM!
-___________-
The beef was so thick and I was having a super hard time to chew and digest the food.
Regret for ordering 2 bowls. Pffft!
Both of us couldn't finish that 'thing'.

We bought few Taiwan key chains there. Oh boy! Their cheapest key chain cost roughly about RM7+ there.
O__________O
Why lah so expensive? T___T
I was looking high and low for key chains that cost NT$ 100 for 3 but to no avail.
*disappointed*


Next tip is that, you MUST NOT MISS this drink when you're in Taiwan.
It is the combination of Vitagen and Yakult!
Super nice!
I can't remember the price per bottle but I think it cost roughly about RM4 each.

Dolls that I bought. Super kawaii max right?

I should have bought more. Now I regretted :(
Noooooooo~



We spend almost 2 hours there. Around 1pm we proceed to our third destination which was The Lavender Cottage.
That place was super awesome and indescribable. Shall blog about it soon.
Stay tune folks.




xoxo

Taiwan - Taipei (Yehliu Geopark)

Day 2 Part 1 - (18 May 2012)


The next day, I woke up at 5am. How could this be possible? If I'm in Malaysia, I will usually be awake only when it is after 12pm. Yes I am known as the pig queen. haha!

As you all know, if you travel by tour, you will need to sacrifice your sleeping time as they have organised a super fully pack activities for you. And I'm sure that, if you travel by yourself, you're going to waste most of your time sleeping like a pig (because that was what I did before).

I get about 4-5 hours worth of sleep only. EVERYDAY!
But then I slept in the bus since our journey normally takes about couple of hours to reach the next destination.

It was only 5.30am when I took this picture. I was shocked to see how bright it was. 

Sakai much? Yes indeed!

Our breakfast was at 6am which was located in the Hotel's restaurant.
Here are some shots taken inside of the Hotel.

The Hotel is quite pretty.

Our breakfast :)

The dining hall

Here's a tip given by our tour guide.
If there's a China tourist in your hotel, make sure that you arrived in the restaurant as soon as possible and grab as many food as you can. Or else you're going to be left out and die in hunger!

hahahahaha!

Plus China people won't even bother to line up to get their food. They will just cut que and take it like a boss. Besides that, they are quite loud and kinda dirty.
._______.

I'm not being rude or trying to defame them. I'm just stating the facts.
Even the Taiwanese don't really like China tourists there. (will tell further stories about China Men in my upcoming post)


However, throughout the entire journey, China man was everywhere in Taiwan.
T_____________T
No lengzai at all. Aih sad wei.
All old folks. Double the sadness!



After breakfast, we departed to Taipei at 7am.
It took roughly about an hour to reach in the capital city of Taiwan from Taoyuan - Chuto Plaza Hotel.

Look at their watermelons. Humongous to the max!

Taipei 101 tower spotted!

Our first activity was to visit stones and rocks - Yehliu
I don't really like to see rocks and stones lor.. But what can I do since that is part of the plan/activities.
No choice but to obey and follow and pretend that I enjoyed it very much. LOL. Okay I do enjoy it lah. Just that the weather is killing me. The smart me, wearing jacket there made it even worst.

You'll passed by this beautiful fishermen area before arriving in Yehliu.

 Arrived!

The entrance fee cost NT$ 50 per person.
It's quite cheap. Roughly RM5+ after conversion.

The only stone that I think it is worth posing with and posting it in my blog. The other rocks/stones is not worth my time. HAHAHA!

Okay I lied. The true reason for not posting others were because we looked super shitty in it.
The wind was so strong that it made my hair looks like 'perempuan gila' (crazy girl) in every shots.

The view is lovely! The weather was super hot but the wind was so breezy! The smell of the sea was not that strong either.

The boy with his annoying red flashing bag <3

We spend roughly about 1 and a half hours in Yehliu.
Around 10am we departed to our next destination which was - Jiu Fen.
Shall blog about that in my next post.




Here's a guide for you to get to Yehliu.

The wordings are not that clear.
So for further information, click the link below.

Yehliu Geopark