Taiwan Day 11: Last full day in Taiwan, Ningxia night market

This is it. It's almost over :'( I'm currently feeling depressed and suffering from the post-holiday syndrome already though the holiday's technically not over yet. And the thought of having to face training, exams and all that shit that comes with life very soon is not appealing in the least to me. I've been looking forward to this 10 day vacation all year and for it to end so quickly is just....hard :( 

Sigh away from the heavy stuff and on to today's activities (which as usual involves mostly food)

Woke up rather late today and after dilly-dallying about we finally left the hotel at an extremely late time (for us) of 10am, in search of breakfast/brunch. 

After wandering around a few streets with growling tummies (ok at least for me), we managed to find a store with seats that sold a decent Taiwanese bfast.

Got cold doujiang!

And yes!!! Danbing :)) (or egg pancake) I'd been craving for this Taiwanese breakfast speciality since full house inn when the owner cooked up an awesome tasting one one morning so I was glad to find it again!!! The one above is original.

Not sure what flavour this is....

Corn flavour! Normal danbing wrapped in corn. Yummms.

Cheese!!! 

The danbing was quite ok, but the sauce was a tad too salty and I still prefer the sweeter version of the full sweet inn one. Mehhs, I'll try making my own back in Singapore ;)

This lady expertly multi-tasking and making both noodles and frying eggs at the same time!

Not entirely satisfied, we headed opposite to eat at the 甜不辣 stall!

Glutinous rice. Perfectly tube shaped and doused in a sweet sauce which seemed to also be the tianbula sauce??? It was really tasty, anyway. Not too greasy :)

Dad also ordered a small plate of cold noodles at the side!! These noodles were great, and so flavourful! The sauce was slightly peppery, and went well with the noodles and cold cucumber.

And of course, tianbula!! Still preferred yesterday's as there was a larger variety of ingredients and today's somehow paled in comparison....

Mandatory front stall shot.

Back in Hualien, our tour guide told us this stall had over 300 branches in Tiawan so we decided to try a cup so see what was so good about it.

Green tea! Tasted ok, nothing too great.

Then we passed by a bakery and of course I was attracted to the pretty breads!!!

Sigh such a love-hate relationship with breads.... They look so pretty and taste so good but most are chockful of processed flour which aren't very healthy. Well but I'm on holiday soooooo....

(Don't the breads above look so good???? They are apparently quite healthy and all are stuffed generously w cubes of cheese)

These chocolate buns (which are MASSIVE) don't be fooled by the pic were freshly baked so we had to get one!!! Such intense chocolatey flavour and studded all over w chocolate chips and creamy cheese in the middle. Dang goooood.

Found this store selling buns so we got one as they looked so tantalising.

Mehhs. Not very hot and filled w vermicelli and chives I think.

Then dad got this rolled up thingy which is rice stuffed with various ingredients and a fried crueller. It was so frigging huge and for less than S$2!!! Why Singapore no such awesome cheap eats :((

(Eaten back in the comfort in the hotel when it was not as hot, unfortunately)

Oh and dad was super eager for me to take this photo; the process went something like this:

*snaps a shot*

-dad takes a big bite-

Dad: (holds the thing under the light) eh take this shot, so many ingredients!!!

*snaps another shot*

-Dad takes another bite-

Dad: eh take again this one shows so much ingredients!!! 

*snaps yet another shot*

Hahaha or something like that. 

It was so good!!!!! At first it tasted rather tasteless cos the ingredients inside weren't 'uncovered' yet, but when you get to the middle it's just a mixture of so many yummy stuff, the salted veg and mayo complemented each other so well, and the fried youtiao in the middle added much textural crunch. Thumbs up!!! And it's a perfectly balanced meal in the sense that's there's fats, proteins and carbs ( o lots of carbs) in that fatass thing.

Slacked around in the hotel for (most) of the rest of the afternoon, mom and dad reading books and me researching on night markets nyeheheh.

At 4.45 we set off again to meet dad's friend's family at Zhongshan station!

This is me before I became unrecognisable after all da eating.

Walked about 10 mins to Ningxia night market, which is apparently a popular night market among the locals!

Last night experiencing the #nightmarketlyfe (bursts into sobssssss)

Found this oyster omelette which is supposedly famous! It was super yummy but rather pricey too :( (plus it didn't seem that crowded so....)

Pigs kidney in sesame oil soup! Ok, the soup had a very strong ginger flavour.

Outside the shop.

And then a few stalls further down.....

I found my 猪血糕!!!!!! YAY!

This one was good too, comparable to the one at Dansui which was when I first fell in love with it. Everyone who goes to Taiwan should try this!!!

臭豆腐. The 臭 flavour was really evident in this one!!! But I still like it :)

And Mee sua at the side. Tasted as good as ever.

Bought papaya milk from the adjacent stall!

And because we never tried it before.... Dad got some fried pork fillets! The chunks were huge, but was quite greasy and tough (compared to the tender chicken ones we are previously). Still prefer chicken!!!

SPRING ROLLS!

Bought one to try. The one at luodong was so much better!!!

Got treated to this!!! Fried chicken wing stuffed with rice :) it was damn greasy, so I only took a bite. 

And the highly recommended muah chee stall!!! Apparently a must try at this market.

So we got a hot and cold one. 

The cold one was wonderful....initially. There was way too little muachee for a large bowl of shaved ice and while the chewy mochi slathered generously in peanut powder went well with the cold sweetened ice shavings, after a whole all the muachee were finished and you're just left with....shaved ice :(

The hot one! It was huge and uncut up. I shared one with the bro. Forgot to tell them to mix with black sesame so peanut-allergic mom could eat!!! Hot one was good but not spectacular.

and the last taste of frog's eggs jelly. This one seemed to have especially a lot of frog's eggs (or tapioca pearls for the squeamish hehe)

We walked back to Taipei station and then split up with the rest!

I started getting worrisome and depressed so dessert #2 was in order.

Mountain of shaved ice hiding some taro and sweet potato balls, red beans and barley. This was ok. Certainly not the best.

And what I was craving for; hot red bean soup with tang yuan!!! This hit the spot :)

Dad ordered some more choudoufu. 

Following this whole eatfest we headed back to our hotel, and thus ended the last full day of our Taiwan holiday. 

PS. I'm so damn sad now. I want to be anywhere but home to be honest. I don't miss Singapore in the the least (or at least not currently) and the thought of going back to the boring monotonous life disgusts me. Looking at all the photos of my friends just starting their holidays in exotic places while I'm about to end mine makes me feel even worse :C sorry for this rant but that's really how I feel right now. And I'm extremely worried for O's results and I feel like I'm gonna fail everything and I think I need a beer or drugs or whatever grown ups take to erase their sorrows sobs

Taipei Day 10: Back to Taipei, Taipei 101, Tonghua Night Market

Back to Taipei today! Woke up rather late compared to other days (about 8 am) and found the rest of the fam snoring away. Well nonetheless they woke up in due time and we were down for breakfast at 9am! 

Salad + black sesame bun(which was rather mehhs and tasteless) and a coffee milk tea drink :)

Sweet potato fillings with a LOT of side dishes (and a fried egg) Topped up my coffee with soya milk after this to make coffee soya milk which was actually pretty yummy :)

Headed back to the hotel and slacked around for 2 hours before heading downstairs at 11.30 am to be fetched to the train station in time for our 12.15 train ride back to Taipei! 

It was a pretty long train ride and we were due to be back at Taipei at 2.20 pl so there was quite a fair bit of snacking involved!

Prawn crackerz bought the other day in Jiufen. Still crispy but were all broken up inside heh.

25 yuan onigiris bought from 7eleven! The bro managed to fold a perfect onigri!!!

This mung bean drink again. As good as ever.

And some wasabi fish strips!

Also had some kiam kiam. Did lots of sleeping and towards the end I REALLY felt like puking plus my ass hurt like hell from the prolonged hours of sitting. Uncomfortable, to say the least :C

We re-checked in to Cosmos hotel!! Boy was I glad to be off the train. #uglyshamelessselfie

//SHIT I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE REST OF THIS BLOGPOST WHICH I HAVE SO PAINSTAKINGLY TYPED DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT//

After slacking a while more in the hotel, we set off to Taipei 101!

Taipei 101 train station 

The tower itself as seen from the ground. It was drizzling slightly and horribly cloudy so we decided not to go up the tower as there will be nothing to see anyway (plus there were all the tour group people waiting for their turn urghhhhh)

The mall downstairs was full of posh shops and reminded me of ion orchard! So we stayed less than half an hour before heading off to the nearby Tonghua night market.

Night view! Nothing too impressive.

After 10 mins or so of walking in the rain, we reached the night market!!

One of the first few stalls I spotted was the 甜不辣 store (which was one of the Taiwanese food I'd been wanting to try)

There was a wide array of ingredients to choose from: fishballs and cakes. And vegetables of all shapes and sizes.

We got: pumpkin(loveeee), cabbage roll, beancurd roll, taukwa, cuttlefish, Taiwanese radish, some fishcakes thing (the criss cross shaped thing) and two bowls of noodles recommended by the stall owner!

Le spread. The ingredients came in a large bowl of soup (much like yongtaufoo) and the mandatory sweet sauce at the side instead of poured all over the ingredients like the regular tianbula. The soup was not too saltish and the ingredients complemented the sweet sauce SO WELL. The noodles were also damn good.

A kind of pancake known as 'wheel cake' which I've read in reviews so we got one to try!!!

It looks like the mr bean one but is nothing like it. The skin is so thin and crispy and the fillings were so generous!!! The red bean paste was obviously homemade as it was chunky from the whole beans and not too sweet. Thumbs up!!!

BBQ corn that costs S$3. Gasps. But it was awesome.....

Roasted sweet potato! Yayyyyy!!!

Saw this shop selling some sort of white kueh that looked like tutu kueh.....

So we bought a box of 8 to try! 4 black sesame and 4 peanut.

I expected it to be sweeter so this was just ok for me. The white portion is made up of some cut up glutinous rice and was chewy (and rather tasteless tbh) and the black sesame and peanut powder which filled the inside and were sprinkled over the top were unsweetened.

Dad finally found the guabao he's been wanting us to try!

We got the 瘦肉 one.

A white fluffy bao stuffed with braised thin pork and salted veggies and then sprinkled generously with peanut powder. The ingredients went so well together!!! Yumm :)

And then we tried this taro ball desser store strongly recommended by daddy!

Look at the array of ingredients you could choose for your dessert!!! 

We got a hot and cold one, as usual. The cold one was AMAZING. It was chock full of mini tang yuan and there were huge chunks of taro and sweet potato glutinous rice balls. There was also sweetened red beans and chickpeas(!!!!) that went so well with the other ingredients and added much texture. I think I could've eaten another bowl of this.

The hot one was awesome as well. The broth was hot 仙草 and the ingredients were pretty much the same as the cold one. Hard to say which one I preferred. To me this is nicer than the supposedly more famous 九份 one!!!

Yay for pig's blood cake!!! (Spicy flavour)  this one tasted more chewy but more or less authentic (still can't forget the taste of the damsui one though sigh. My first love)

Some white kueh thingy that was fluffy and good! (And came in a huge portion as well)

And to cap off the night: some aiyu jelly w basil seeds! Refreshing and lemony :) 

Sigh last full day in Taipei tomorrow. may it be a great one!!!!