Day 6 - 2nd June 2012 - Hualien - Taipei

After the tiring activities done the day before, we woke up early this day to catch our train back to Taipei. Allocated seats train are difficult to book in advance so sometimes timing may not be that favourable to us if we don't manage to get the seats for the most ideal timing train (Train company Ying Kwang or Zhi Qiang is on allocated seats system).

One of our last few photos with the minsu before we bid farewell to Hualien..

The boys favorite hang out area in the minsu - the pond

Our minsu driver sent us back to the station in the morning, which only took him about 10mins car ride. We got to know that he used to be an air steward when he was young and decided to set up the minsu after flying around for a few years.

At Hualien train station

playing chess to pass time while waiting for the train

The ride back to Taipei is approximately 3 hours.

Turning cheeky to pass time...



As Cosmo hotel is close to Taipei train station, it only took us a short while to lag all the luggages to the hotel. After we finished our check-in at Cosmo Hotel, we decided to head out for lunch at Ding Tai Fung - since this is originated from Taiwan. So we dropped the outlet at Sogo Zhongxiao Fuxing since I wanted to do some shopping in this district. The queue in TW is equally long (if not worse) since locals, tourists are there to try out the food in DTF. Eventhough we reached the restuarant at about 130pm, we were told to wait for an hour for our table (perhaps being a saturday).

Hungry boys..

To fill the boys stomach while waiting for a table, we bought some sushi from SuperCity (supermarket) and ah lou had the papa cream puff. I wondered off to explore the cosmetics dept and bought myself some products which I don't get in SG (my greatest find in this trip).

Finally we got a table after about 1hr and 20mins and managed to place our order quickly. The service is pretty fast, staff were courteous and food quality has been done at a level which is close to what we have in SG (in certain outlets). So we concluded that the SG franchise in orchard area did quite a good job to keep the quality level the same as Taiwan.

This is the kids cutlery set - imprinted with their brand.. it was only much later that I realised SG started to have something similar when we dine at DTF after our return back from TW.

Our usual order - Xiao Long Bao (2 trays), Egg Fried rice and Zha Jiang Mian

Somehow, I think this is nicer in TW

After lunch, the boys (including fathers) returned back to hotel for an afternoon nap while mummies continue to explore the shopping district. The crowd level in Zhongxiao Fuxing is quite high, comparable to orchard area in SG during weekends. So I find it quite safe to move around alone. 

We regrouped at Ximenting during evening time and had our dinner and shopping there. Personally I think XMD is a place that is frequent by younger group so naturally I don't fancy any stuff in that area. There were many interesting souvenirs though (like TW made pouches, cartoonised keychains and iphone covers).

It was drizzling the whole day and night in Taipei so our caps come in handy again..