Taipei: Taipei 101

Taipei 101 is Taiwan's highest building and was actually the World's tallest building until 2010 (before Burj Khalifa in Dubai). It is a couple of minutes walk from the train station. The building is so tall, you'll need to find a spot few blocks away if you want to snap a whole picture of it. 

On our quest to find the best spot, we passed by some cool decorative balls which were great for wide angle mirror pics. 😉

Sakura Festival 2017 : Video

Hi All!

Here is the edited video of our Sakura Festival Trip at Auburn Botanic Garden last spring.

Enjoy! 😁

Max Brenner : Sydney

After staring at the Cherry Blossoms and spending the whole day in the garden, we decided to have our afternoon tea at Max Brenner Parramatta. Thanks Cyrl, for the afternoon tea treat! 😘

Max Brenner is one of my favorite Chocolate Cafe. I won't tell the ranking because that will be too biased. 

For this tea break, we ordered hot chocolate, a mixed chocolate fondue, and waffles!

Sugar rush anyone?! Lol and that's exactly what happened. I think we had too much sugar!  😊

AN: I had to drink camomile tea before I went to sleep. Need to burn all that sugar. 

Auburn Botanic Garden : Sakura Matsuri 2017

It's another Sakura Festival in Sydney! Yay! 😁

I really love seeing Sakura in full bloom. That is why I always make sure to go to Auburn Botanic Garden every year during their annual Sakura Festival. It doesn't matter if there are a lot of people. I enjoy looking at the flowers and staring at them for hours. I feel relax and happy to see them.

There is an entrance fee of $5 per person. The festival lasts for two weeks but the program/performance are only on the weekends. The program includes Japanese Art Class, Flower Arrangement Class, and Sumo Exhibition.

Polka and Checkered

Auburn Botanic Garden : Sakura Matsuri 2017 OOTD

Beanie from The Landmark Store

Coat from Zara

Dress from Uniqlo

Ankle boots from Forever 21

Taipei : Jiufen

After our hike in Shifen, we continued our journey to Jiufen Old Street. From Shifen, we took the train to "Rui Fang" station. Then take the bus to Jiufen Old Street. 

This location is included on the list of places to visit for first-time traveler to Taiwan. 

In my opinion, Jiufen is more suitable for Food Trip. Most of the establishment are selling snacks and native delicacies. You can also find stores selling souvenirs and local products. The streets are bustling with people, mostly tourists. 

However, our main reason for going to Jiufen is to see the inspiration behind a set in "Spirited Away" Movie. It's supposed to be a Tea House looking over the ocean and Jiufen view. It took us a while before we actually found the Tea House. There is no signage to show you the way. But, because this view is very popular there are a lot of people going. 

Tip: Follow the crowd and they will lead you to the Tea House. That's what we did! LOL. The struggle of not being able to understand/speak Chinese... 😤 

Warning: There are a lot of people going in the area, master your Ninja Moves to get a good spot and take instagram-worthy pictures. 😅

Home Thai Kitchen : Sydney

What's for Din-din? It's THAI FOOD! ^_^

Since I've finished watching 2 Moons the series, I've been wanting to try "Thai Pink Milk" (Nom-Yen). Hey! It looks yummy (and it's Pink)!

Luckily, my friend Nadine was in the mood to eat out. I searched the net for all Thai Restaurant's in Sydney who has Nom-yen in their Menu. That's hard work I tell you. Not all Thai restaurants have it. I think I've actually only seen two restaurants and one of them is a little far from the city proper.

And the restaurant of choice? Home Thai Kitchen near Townhall Station. 😁

There was already a queue by the time we arrived (around 6 pm). We waited around 20 minutes before we were actually seated. 

Of course, I ordered nom-yen! Along with stir-fry pork belly, bbq ribs and steamed rice.We also had mango sticky-rice and durian with sticky-rice for desserts. BTW: It was my first time tasting Durian. It tastes weird. emoji

Rating (out of 5)

Price: 4

Medium range. It costs us about $70 (P2,800) for 2 people.

Ambiance: 3

Food is Instagram worthy 😉. However, they used dim lights around the restaurant with spotlights around major places (kitchen, stairs, and rails). Hence, we cannot get a good picture with us on it.

Service: 4

Service was great. The staff is very attentive and they were able to cook and serve our order within a reasonable time. The only thing negative about it was that we had to wait a while before we were seated.

Food: 5

Love it! Especially my Thai Pink Milk! My friend said it's too sweet though. I think it's fine because Thai-food is a little spicy. The sweetness of the nom-yen negates/lessens the spiciness. AN: Well, at least that's how I see it. (sweat drop). 

Taipei: Shifen

Shifen Old Street is one of Taipei's most popular tourist destination. Tourist flock the streets for their wish lanterns! The old railway is still operational. The shops do know the daily schedule so they will advise their customers when they need to leave the railway. 

After lighting/flying your lantern, you can take a walk to Shifen Waterfalls. It took us around 45 minutes -1 hour to the falls. We did stop for short breaks and picture taking in between. If you are not keen on going for an hour walk but still want to see the waterfalls, you can take a taxi. It will take you to the closes drop point and from there you just have to walk for about 15-20 minutes. The Taxi cost around 100 NTD each. We walked from old street to the waterfalls and took the taxi going back. We were too tired to walk the whole way back to the station. 😂

   

Kaname Performance : Cosmania Philippines

I used to attend cosplay conventions when I was still in the Philippines. Through this conventions, I  met (fangirl, not personally 😚) some of the well-known cosplayers in the world. One of my idols is Kaname (official fbpage) from Japan. Guess what? Not only is he a great cosplayer, but he can SING as well! OMG! I was so jealous when I received this video from my sister. 😆

Video credit to my sister: Clare

Enjoy fan-mates! 😘

Lego Land: Malaysia

During our trip to Singapore, we included a day trip to Legoland in our itinerary. Lego land is located in Johor Baruh Malaysia, which is around 1-hour bus ride away from SG. 

Here is the route that we took to get to Legoland

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Guide from (https://m.justgola.com/blog/how-to-travel-to-legoland-from-singapore-233)

At Jurong East Bus Exchange:

• Get on CW3 or CW4 bus (S$ 4) to get through the Tuas Checkpoint. Then, get off at the CIQ interlink. Operating hours: 7:10 am – 11:45 pm (Mon-Fri), and 7:30 am – 11:45 pm on weekends.

When you reach CIQ Interlink, get to another bus: 

• Bus JP02 (RM6 / S$ 2.50) for weekdays. Operating our: every three hours only at 8:30 am, 11:30 am, 2:30 pm, and 5:30 pm.

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We didn’t bother to pre purchase our tickets online because we expected that there won’t be a lot of people in the park. It’s a Tuesday around the month of October. So we anticipated that most of the children are still in school. 😉

Upon arrival, we purchase our tickets. As you can see, no people around! We even thought that it’s closed. We did check their website before leaving SG and there is nothing indicated about the park being closed that day. 

So, we were able to visit the park, get to all the rides and take tons of pictures without photobombers. 😁