Monday 27 March 2017

Taiwan trip part 2

Continuing from previous post :D:D

Day 5: Danshui/Tamsui area! Took the red line all the way to the last stop which was Tamsui. Read online that the sakura had already withered :( but we still went to see see. Walking along the old street and went to bai bai at various temples, big and small. Then we took a bus to go Tian Yuan Gong. I fell asleep on the bus and the bf claimed that the stop was not announced. I was woken up at the terminal stop and the kind local commuter 'chided' us about missing our stop and made sure we got down at the right stop after the bus made a loop LOL.

As expected, the trees were bare =/ but it was still a beautiful sight. I can only imagine how stunning the place would look if the sakuras were in bloom, it would be extremely beautiful.
We had a late hotpot lunch and visited Shilin at night. Shilin night market offered different food from Fengchia night market and I ate so much XD most of the food photos are w the bf. Can see fb for more. 

Day6: Rilakuma cafe, Taipei 101 and Shida night market-- chapalan day
We last minute decided to visit the Daan forest park cos the red line train was full of posters about the Azalea festival.


Reached the rilakuma cafe and hour early from our booking and fortunately the cafe had free tables to take us in. Food was good!!

The bf wanted to visit the totoro shop near Taipei 101 so we took a bus down. The shop only sold merchandise, no food. It was fun looking at the studio ghibli things but too exp to buy OTL 

Shida night market was mainly for shopping but I didn't buy anything from there other than this caramel crepe. The shop owner was quite humorous so i'm dedicating this paragraph to him hahaha. Instead the bf and I went to this small supermarket and bought snacks and breakfast for the next day.

Day 7: Free day. As in we had nothing planned, just wanted to keep if free for souvenir shopping and rest our legs. Literally walked till my legs ache everyday, not kidding OTL. For lunch, we took a bus to the nearest ding tai feng cos 2 of my colleagues recommended to eat there. While getting down, the bf got kiapped by the bus door cos the driver was in a rush or sth. He managed to break free but I was stuck in the bus till the next stop HAHAHA we couldn't contact each other cos the wifi device was with me. Luckily the next stop was a straight road down, though quite far away. The driver was also apologetic and said aiya treat it as exercise. We managed to meet up in the end no problem hahaha it's funny though. Waited 20 mins to be seated. The food was delicious, though I don't think it was that much better than the ones in SG. The service was definitely better.

We went to the zhongshan book street and back to ximending after lunch. Settled early dinner at this risotto cafe cos there was a huge doggie inside. The doggie seemed sad :( The bf ordered this mint soda which looks alot like listerin LOL. Food was alright only.

We bought more souvenirs and some random things not found in SG/won't spend money buying in SG


Day 8: To the airport and back to SG.
We took the new airport line which was super convenient since it was at Taipei main station. I slept most of the way. I realised I had booked the wifi device for 7 days only, forgetting that the final day would be included in the cost as well.. So we had to pay $188twd for the 1 extra day of usage //// will be more careful next time haha Spent most of our coins on lunch at the airport food court. Had a final ramen, milk tea and some chicken popcorn and fried food. 

Before boarding the plane.. the bf and I launched the game for some final drawing. He used my phone and I used his. I was trying not to pay attention to what kind of cards he drew and he suddenly announced without not much excitement that I got this:
Me: OMG WTH
Amazing. This is the new SSR which was released maybe 1 or 2 weeks ago. I already know the bf has high SSR luck but this is still amazing XDXD 

So yeaaa my final gift from tw :DDDD trip ended on a good note. We both spent about half the amount we changed, got to visit all the planned places and eat lots of food. I didn't buy much clothes this time cos they were mainly long sleeved but it's ok~~ It was a fulfilling trip!

Taiwan trip part 1

Flew back from TW yesterday night! Back to work tomorrow. Briefly checked my email this morning and it's not too bad.. I still need to meet my big big boss cos he has some questions regarding my presentation. That will take at least an hour ahhhh better clear some work before meeting him.

Taiwan trip recount!!
These were the 2 apartments we stayed in. I was especially looking forward to the hello kitty theme room in Taichung and I love it! It's cosy and had a small selection of movies in addition to the usual channels. The only down side was that it was 50 mins away from the Taichung railway station and HSR, and the room walls are not sound proof and we had to be very careful not to be too loud when talking/moving about.

The Taipei room was bigger and the room walls were thick enough to talk louder hahaha. It's near Taipei main station which is the connecting station for many lines and was super convenient. No complaints about the location. The toilet was a little too damp for my liking near the shower curtains though. Both apartments had a washing machine and it was a life saver.

Day 1: We arrived at Taoyuan airport at 6am. Immigration took abit of time cos the officer didn't want to accept the address we filled in. I couldn't find the exact address on airbnb and finally the 2nd officer allowed us to write down the contact number of the apartment owner before letting us through. We collected our wifi device and bought a bus ticket to taichung. Because of the delay though, we had to rush within 5 mins to visit the toilet and buy breakfast to eat on the bus. 

Reached the Fengjia area around mid morning and stumbled around looking for the busstop to take a bus to the apartment. Saw our first sakura tree while stopping by a park. The weather was cooling but I was still sweating inside my jacket T_T  3pm was the official check in time which was a long way off but thankfully the owner allowed us to put our luggage at the room before noon. The previous person had just checked out and the room was not tidied yet. We continued walking around but by 2pm our legs were aching so much that we just thicken our face and went back to the apartment to rest ahaha. 

Went to Fengjia night market from evening on and ate lots of good stuff. 

Day 2: Alishan day! We woke up at 6am to take a bus to catch our pre-booked HSR train to chiayi. This was where we found out that taichung railway station =/= taichung HSR station which was at Xin Wuri railway station (2 stations away from taichung railway station) anyways managed to reach the HSR station and secure our seats to Chiayi.


Alishan was breathtaking. Not all the sakura trees were in bloom but still really beautiful.The public bus ride from Chiayi HSR up to the mountain took so long we only reached at noon. Alishan was quite crowded and a lot of climbing to do. No food to buy once you leave the visitor center area and the bf got moody cos we only had the donuts and pastries -_- he wanted to buy more food before walking around but I said no cos I felt that those were sufficient -__- if not enough then you tell me and go buy lah.. I'm not the one who needs more food so of course I said no need.

The public bus back was sold out when we tried to make a purchase around 2+pm...... No choice but to take the next available group taxi at 430pm at a slightly higher price of $300twd/pax to the railway station. Next time should buy the return bus ticket the moment we reach. 

We had another small argument cos we wanted to check the train timings but had no idea if the Chiayi railway station was at the Chiayi HSR station, and the internet gave no clues, neither did the 7-11 staff. And the bf just couldn't understand what I was getting at urgh. It sucks to be too detailed in my planning sometimes. In the end bo bian got to go with the flow and see how. Our taxi driver drove fast and furiously and we reached Chiayi railway station at 6+pm. Infact, if we had taken the public bus we might have reached around the same time or even later. Might even miss the last HSR train back to taichung if that was the case. Blessing in disguise ohoho. The railway staff confirmed my suspicion that the chiayi HSR station was not at the railway station and we took a free 20 min shuttle there. Bought a railway bento and enjoyed it on the HSR ride back to Taichung ^__^ 

Another hour's bus ride from Taichung station to our apartment. Reached home super tired that night OTL way too much travelling, I would suggest staying at Chiayi or Alishan itself if visiting Alishan

Day3: Onward to Taipei! It was noticeably colder in Taipei and windier. The apartment owner was even more power and was able to tidy the room for our check in the moment we reached. Spent the rest of the day walking around the underground mall and ximending at night. The bf got slightly moody again cos ximending obviously was not a night market and didn't have alot of xiao chi 

Day 4: Jiufen Shifen Pingxi area. Took the mrt to zhongxiao fuxing to take the bus up to Jiufen. Took some walking to find the bus stop and there was already a queue. There was no indication of when the bus would arrive so in the end we got convinced by a taxi uncle to join another group of japanese tourists in his car, at $350twd for 2 pax (I bargained from $400) ahaha he was quite chatty and though the view might not be as scenic as the public bus route, we did drive through the market in the town near Jiufen. The japanese tourists were exclaiming at the beautiful cherry tomatoes (me too, but it was a silent exclamation in my heart) and to our delight, the taxi uncle stopped the car, signaled to his friend tending the shop to bring a big bag of cherry tomatoes. He gave us a bag of the tomatoes!!! omg they tasted super good and looked amazing. So happy we decided to take the taxi ahahaha

We reached Jiufen in good time and it just was as I remembered, damp narrow and winding street with stalls on both sides. I enjoyed the food and view!

Took a public bus to ruifang station and stopped by hou tong which was the famous cat village. Everything was cat theme and the decorations were so cute XDXD


Really alot of cats and some of them may come up to you to manja. Look at this cute paw XDXD 

We took the same train to shifen next and when there of course must buy a tian deng right hahaha we didn't know we could write on all 4 sides and were struggling to think of what to write by the 3rd side. One side was even dedicated to our game-- wishing to draw for SSR and we drew some pictorial representations of each of the SSRs LOL the drawing was done using a calligraphy brush and I felt like I was wearing the ny hongzi and doing hui chun again HAHA anyways we wrote really silly stuff and drew alot, totally not the usual tian deng you'll see with pretty chinese characters. 

Our tian deng-- flying up and away :)))))
We left while the day was still bright and went back to zhongxiao dunhua to check out the one piece cafe. The food was so-so nia hahaha the bf says it's cos I was biased and didn't like one piece -shrug-

Super long post... to be continued!

Saturday 18 March 2017

Flying to taiwan later

Long overdue post which was saved as draft for more than a week ahaha

I bought it! Finally... was expecting this as my bday present last year but the bf claimed that he couldn't find it in stock anywhere. I couldn't wait for him to give it to me anymore. went ahead and bought it XD I love it so far. The stories are concise and not too long winded, the art is beautiful and the cast is amazing. I specially included the back part of the game cos it shows all 9 guys hehe

Though I've had my eyes on Itsuki (bottom row 2nd from right) for the longest time, I went along with the game recommendation and chose Kakeru for the first guy ^_^ Along the way, Heishi really caught my eye and just nice he was the recommended guy for the next heroine so I chose him hapilly.

Look at this cutie.. Heishi is such a pure and honest guy, I shed a drop of tear during his route (like really 1 drop only).. He had confessed to the heroine but due to circumstances, the heroine had to erase his memory of that day. Even after knowing that she erased his memory but not remembering that he had already confessed once, he confessed again, using pretty much the same words T________T Sounds lame hor but I was very touched by his sincerity and love

It has been a busy week at work.. Everything was alright before friday lunch. I had anticipated the heavier work load and managed to clear them in good time. Some little shit happened and then more shit followed but it was all alright. My boss even bought me a small cake to show her appreciation (it got squashed T_T) Then a time bomb got set off again.. That particular system project just has to come back and haunt me.. I thought I was done with it but now there's a problem with the payment urghhhhh it's not even the technical part lolllllll I had to ask a colleague from the IT side whom I barely know and has nothing to do with it to help liaise cos I won't be in office the coming week. 100% my incompetency. Left office on friday close to 7pm and felt like shit even though I was already in holiday mood during lunch after my presentation.. I still feel lousy now but I think i'll be better when I reach the airport later.

Cosplay seems so far away now, the group photo finally materialised! We look amazing~~~~ Please ask for my permission before reposting. Edits by hoshiki.
Met the YYYs for dinner on thursday and had a good laugh planning the gate crash games and a potential hen's night. 

Thursday 2 March 2017

:)

Work has been tiring the past week strangely I'm not feeling too relieved that it's Friday tomorrow cos time is just passing too quickly.. Quite scary, and there's many things to do.

The highlight for today is this:
                          

4 months minus 5 days after my 1st SSR summon, I drew my 2nd one. Long story short, I was already super drained from work and opened facebook to see a ton of ppl posting about summoning SSR. Felt super shitty cos I really wanted one... and I just wasn't getting it. Kept seeing their posts -_-

Was complaining to the bf who has high SSR luck cos he manages summons them all the time. He told me about his newly discovered pattern from looking at the summoning announcements (the system announces every summon which is SR and above) At first I was confused and used quite a number of tickets only to get R and SR summons-heart pain- these tickets are super precious.. I happened to have so many tickets to spend like this cos the game gives consolation money after every 100 summons with no SSR. And I had just received the big consolation prize which gives money for 33 tickets. Maktub. The normal me wouldn't have had enough tickets even to try. Maktub must post the screenshot again.

                           
So after studying the announcements and trying a few more times, I summoned it. I do think it's still based on luck and numerous other factors cos there are so many players summoning at the same time. I am satisfied for now and extremely thankful to the bf cos my wish actually came true, and having no SSR was the reason for my shitty mood after work today. 

Anyways was supposed to meet the bf last sat to go travel fair but he had stomach flu again (???) because of that I didn't get to go Etude house for the 20% discount which ended last sunday and failed to use my gongcha voucher that my colleague gave me.

I went with my mum on sunday instead and bought the fragrance. I've been meaning to buy it, just waiting for the discount only. Super love that smell, already finished one bottle. Though my friend told me that's the bottle she puts in her toilet HAHA nvm I still like it. 
Took the chance to become a member finally cos only needed to spend $50 vs the usual $80. Bought skincare and an eyebrow kit in addition to the fragrance. Didn't spend on anything unnecessary :D

Browsed Etude house again on wed and saw that a new series has launched! I purely wanted to swatch the gloss tints only but I saw this particular one ahahaha $9.90 and the bf paid for it. I promise the colour and texture looks 100X more lovely in real life. It has this shimmer glitter thing where the rest were just solid colours. They also had 2 colour changing glitter ones but I thought the light one was too light and the darker shade didn't change colour well. So I opted for this.

Taiwan trip is coming in 3 weeks. I finally got down to looking at the nitty gritty details about the transport and booked the 4G wifi rental. If the website is good, i'll get the train tickets from there too. Trying to prepare and purchase more things now so we have more twd to spend on food and play.