Taiwan trip was great!! I stayed at a 民宿 located at Tao yuan, about 20 minutes away from the Tao Yuan international airport. Blown away by the facilities and the warm hospitality of the owner of the apartment
he treated us to papaya milk lolol! The owner of the building which the apartment is in, Uncle Liao, is a friend of Kyou's mum and he really took great care of us during our stay.
Spent the afternoon after touching down in the room eating beijing duck and some fried duck meat which was very filling and delicious. Then Kyou and I fine tuned our itinerary. Had smelly toufu. It stinks.. and personally I feel that the stink remains in your mouth but Kyou and her mum reassured me that people can't smell it when they talk to you so I guess it's alright. Went to the night market at Tao Yuan and looked around, didn't buy anything :)
That's me in my pajamas eating a duck wing, chicken wings have more meat!
Every day we had to take the tai tie (similar to train which is different from MRT) to Taipei to either shop there or change to the mrt to go other places.
Visited Daiso twice or thrice over the 5 days It's a wonderland!!! The things there are 39 twd which makes it even cheaper than the $2 singapore daiso. They also carry more cosmetic products and is way larger than the daiso at Ion. I managed to get lip gloss with beautiful packaging, a black tie for my Felicita cosplay and some other random stuff here and there.
While we're on Felicita, I also managed to get a short black pencil skirt, and it's really short... which is good i guess haha. I spotted a very suitable belt for Felicita but the shop owner said it wasn't for sale individually and pulled out a hideous black dress which cost twd390. Mannnn if the dress looked nicer I would have bought them... but decided against it =X instead I bought another black belt and am planning to diy a bit. Hope it turns out fine.
The Book street at zhongshan station which is underground was a big disappointment because many stores were not open and the books were not manga =X
For all anime and manga lovers, Taipei underground mall, as stated in many online reviews, is a MUST GO. It's a long long underground street with at least 3 sides of stores along the whole stretch-- in short a lot of shops. Unfortunately, we started shopping at the fashion side and the entire time I was like.. where are my anime and manga shops? Where is the meido cafe? Spotted a japanese magazine shop and went in. Got my Starry Sky fanbook 1 and 2 (later found vol 1 selling for S$5 cheaper at Animate but nvm lah) but all that gachapon machines were still nowhere to be found. In the end I found a measly 5 of them and left the place thinking that was all.
Spied a pair of boots suitable for Felicita (albeit covering only up to below the knee instead of the thigh) for only S$20+ but I chose not to get it because I was sure I would be able to get a cheaper one at wufenpu the next day. Which was a big mistake because wufenpu, which was supposed be this shopping district selling really cheap clothes did not offer very cheap clothings.... We were too accustomed to seeing the twd100 clothes and those at wufenpu did not go below that. In fact, most of the clothes there were more expensive.
So we went back to Taipei underground mall at night because I wanted to get the shoes no matter what. ALAS THE SHOES WERE SOLD OUT. Only the brown version was left. I was super disappointed D: settled for another pair which doesn't have the shoe lace thingy, but has suitable length, for around S$40 and appeased myself haha
It was also during this second trip to Taipei underground mall that I finally discovered the anime and manga shops. They were along another section of the underground street which we completely and accidentally skipped during the 1st visit. I checked out all the gachapons and got what I wanted. The shops there are selling mainly figurines, manga and games. There was one which sells second hand manga I think.... might have reaped a lot of stuff there if I had the time to go in.... Still, I had already bought my fill of manga at the manga shops at xi men ding area so it wasn't so bad. But I would loved to have more time to browse every single shop. What really made me hit myself was not having time to visit the butler cafe and meido cafe D:
Do not make the same mistake please walk the entire street and keep searching until you find the stretch of shops T__T it's towards the left section of the street.
On the topic of make up and cosplay, there are random wig shops popping up here and there, but the wigs they sell are more towards casual wigs ie brown, black, generic curls or extensions. I didn't bother asking for the price. There is one shop selling colored wigs more suited for cosplay at xi men ding beside KT dong man. Didn't get much make up in taipei. They have the usual watson, sasa and cosmed but nothing exceptionally cheap. Fake lashes are common though, I bought a box of 10 pairs for less than S$5 XD
Moving on to xi men ding, we were greeted by this huge signboard the moment we stepped out of the station. Visited a manga renting shop and then started to find our way to the list of anime manga shops on the list. First up was Animate. This is another must go, because the manga collection is huge, and it even has a section dedicated to drama CDs. I didn't dare to spend too much time in that section because I didn't want to accidentally see strange stuff and corrupt Kyou....... I mean it's good to widen my knowledge regarding drama cds but right now i'd like my knowledge to remain at BLCDs as the most disturbing interesting one. The underground floor is heaven~~ Lots of anime merchandise which are pretty updated. I went straight to the Starry Sky section was was placed right in the middle and started my hunt. Too bad most of the things were a little pricey and Kazuki was missing (my husbando is sold out!) from most of items. So all I got was a Homare strap. The small clocks are pretty cute though, but I held back, a lot. T ^T Very few hxh stuff.
Next on the list was KT Dong Man which is quite ulu, but Kyou asked the staff at Animate so we were able to find it pretty easily XD KT dong man sells a lot of merchandise too, but the stuff there are more from the older series. Let me rephrase that... the stock there seems quite dated, I don't remember seeing anything from the newer seasons at all. That aside, I scooped a lot of Durarara merchandise XD They also sell manga but by then I had already grabbed all the manga I wanted from Animate and the load, together with my starry sky fan books was getting seriously heavy so I decided not to get any more books unless necessary.
Visited a few other manga shops but didn't get anything else. I believe Animate has all the manga these shops sell and even offers more (: One thing I'd like to rant about is the lack of merchandise from the newer series. in general (excluding Animate) I kept seeing the same few series -- One piece, Kuroshitsuji and even Prince of tennis every where.
Ohh don't forget to visit any book stores you come across. I visited 3 in total (not including cheng ping aka eslite) and always bought something. Some of them sell very cute anime key chains and this particular one at Tai mao shopping mall in Tao Yuan actually has a pretty neat stash of anime stuff. They had some handphone sticker thingy of almost all the major Hetalia characters. I had a hard time choosing and finally settled for France (giving it to Mel! XD) While I was paying for France, the nice girl at the counter directed my attention to a reasonably priced gift pack containing many many Italy character stuff like pouch, notebooks and dunno what. Hnnnnggg so tempting again but I resisted because I..... wouldn't know what to do with them. Too cute to be used! They were also selling Ouran gift packs. I begged Kyou to drag me out of the shop before I did anything rash lol T____T
So in conclusion, Taipei underground mall, and Animate at xi men ding are the must must visits. Animate has the best selection of manga in terms of variety and they have the newest stuff while not neglecting the otome sector. I mean Starry Sky and Hakuouki aside, I saw the Arcana Famiglia book and files for sale, Brothers Conflict too (hnnnnggg had to resist temptation) and a series called "Are you alice?" which i've never heard before (ok it's a manga from a few years ago hahaha but still.. bishies!)
In case you think all I did was shopping for anime stuff, I had lots of good food too =DDD picture spam! Check out more on fb haha. Totally walked like mad for 5 days, my legs are very very muscular now.
