Love Letters to Natalie
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Taipei Taipei
Dearest Nat,
It is my family tradition to spend Chinese New Year away since I was a little girl like you. We'll go back to Malaysia every year for our Chinese New Year, staying at my maternal grandma's house by the beach. However since 2001, we spent our new year at places such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia and this year, Taipei. It is only during the Chinese New Year that the factory can be closed for more days, giving us ample time to travel together. We are hoping to invite your 爺爺 and 嫲嫲 to join us for our Chinese New Year trip next year. We plan to go New Zealand.
So we went to Taipei for 5 days 4 nights. We arrived in the late afternoon and were picked up by mommy's friend, Patrice and her hospitable family at the airport. Our first destination is Ta Shee Resort located at 大溪, where Patrice's hometown is. Our reunion dinner for the year of dog was taken at the restaurant in the resort, together with the nice Hsu family. We had international buffet and it was a good meal to end a year and welcome another year.
Much to our delight, we discovered that the resort has a hotspring pool and an indoor heated pool so we woke up really early the next day to go for a dip at the hotspring. However to our disappointment, we were too early for the hotspring so we made a detour to have breakfast first. After breakfast, you had your first dip at the hotspring. That's also 外公，外婆 and 舅舅 first time at the hotspring too. Though we were unsure whether the water is too hot for you, your excited face told us that the temperature is just nice. All of us had a whale of a time at the hotspring and went back to our rooms to prepare for checkout after 30 mins.
At 11 pm, we were greeted at resort lobby by Patrice and her family. We set off to our next destination - 石門水庫。Patrice's parents love to go there daily for their exercise routine and according to them, the reservoir is very scenic. It so happened that it was so foggy on the day that we were there and we came back without the faintest idea of how the reservoir looks like. Our saving grace is in the delicious live fish lunch we had there. The yummy meal lifted our moods again!
After lunch, it was time to go back to Taipei and checked into Rainbow hotel which I had booked us for the remaining nights. We roamed around the bustling 西門盯 area and were very excited to see many street hawkers selling different kind of snacks. 外公 wasted no time buying whatever he could find and we were so full after eating all the snacks that I could hardly eat anything for dinner. Dinner was at 鴨肉扁 which sells delicious goose meat with either bee hoon or noodles. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to bathe you and then nursed you to sleep. You slept alot when you were there, you slept all the way from the reservoir to Taipei city for a record and you slept easily again when I nursed you after dinner. While you were asleep, I sneaked downstairs to buy magazines and souvenirs for a good 30 mins.
The next morning, we decided to change our hotel because your grandparents couldn't stand the bad ventilation in our hotel room. I booked a family suite at rainbow hotel but the ventilation was so bad that smell from the kitchen kept coming into our room from the aircon vents. At East Dragon, we were given adjoining rooms as they do not have family suite available for us.
Our first stop on our third day in Taipei was 九份, which used to be a goldmine. The place hardly has any sunny day due to its geographical location. It is wellknown to be a place of wetness and rain. Interestingly, the rain chose to stay away on the day we were there. It was all bright and sunny and Patrice couldn't believe her eyes, or rather, our luck. 九份 is another place for us to gorge ourselves silly. We had alot of nice food and 外公 and 外婆 went crazy buying lotsa snacks there to bring back to Singapore. 舅舅 bought a 陶笛 for himself which you have learnt how to blow.
As it was the second day of Chinese New Year, the place was badly congested with people when we were leaving. You got intimidated by the crowd and cried all the way down. In the end we were caught in the bad traffic jam for nearly an hour and missed our train back to Taipei. So we hailed a cab from 瑞芳火車站 to 基隆 and from 基隆, we took the 6:30 pm train back to Taipei City to have our dinner at tea restaurant. After dinner we went back to the hotel to bathe you and then head off to 士林夜市 and got totally put off by the substandard food they offered there.
On our fourth day in Taipei, we set off early in the morning at 9 am to catch the MRT to 淡水。We reached 淡水魚人碼頭 at around 10:30 am. Once again, fog began to build up when we reached there and by the time we settled down, it was too foggy for us to see a thing and we didn't manage to take a ferry back to the MRT station as planned. We took a bus to the station instead, for our next journey to 新北投。We had our lunch at 淡水, 外公 chose a lobster and some flower crab for us to try and we didn't quite like the way they cooked the stuffs, just not the taste we are accustomed to. Nevertheless you had great fun at 淡水 because we let you ride on the toy cars there. You went round and round and round and laughed so merrily that we didn't have the heart to tell you "It's the last round!". Your 舅舅 discovered how to start the car without having to slot in the coins so we just indulged you in your fun.
The rest of the day was spent at the hotspring resort (Asia Pacific Resort) at 北投。The place is totally awesome. We walked for almost 30 minutes to reach the resort but it was a very scenic and enjoyable walk. There were cherry blossoms along our wayup and the weather was nice, cool and the sky was clear, unlike our foggy morning at 淡水。We had hotspring fun for 100 minutes at the resort and it was such a relaxation to do nothing but soaked ourselves in the comfort of our private tub and tatami room. We had 2 rooms, 1 for your grandpa and uncle, and other for daddy, me, grandma and you. Again, you were really excited to be in the hot tub of water and kept wanting to stay inside. We had to make you get out of the water a few times because you are still a baby and it is not advisable to stay in the hot water for more than 15 mins. After a while, we let 外婆 take care of you while we continue with our hotspring session.
Our trip to 北投 also marked our first time meeting Patrice's BF - 楊先生。He's a really nice guy and I am very happy to have this chance to meet him in person. I've known Patrice since school days and this is my first time meeting her boyfriend and I am really happy for her. They kept saying how cute you are and that made me a very proud mama! After hotspring, we went down the hill to visit the 地熱谷。Then we left to have dinner with the Hsu family at a Mongolian Steamboat Restaurant. The farewell dinner was yummy and kind 楊先生 paid for the dinner. We went to Taipei 101 after dinner for a quick photo session and headed back to the hotel after that.
Our last day in Taipei was very short as we had to board the bus to the airport at 2 pm, we only had a few hours to venture around after we got ready in the morning. We went to the 中正紀念堂 for a quick visit, bought a few pieces of jade and then head back for a quick lunch and then got on the bus to the airport. We anticipated traffic jam so we took the 2 pm bus giving us ample time for our 6 pm flight! Traffic was as smooth as it can it all the way to the airport and we were too early for our flight. We loitered around at the airport for a couple of hours and finally it was goodbye Taipei!
We will definitely go back to Taipei again in the near future but maybe the next time we are there, we'll avoid the city and stay longer at the suburbs or rural area. We all had a great time enjoying each other's company, spending our Chinese New Year in such a cosy and meaningful way. The happiest person of course got to be me because I finally get to see my friend and her family again. I'm also happy to have you and the rest of the family to share this trip with me! I'm now looking forward to New Zealand next year!
Photos for the trip are too many to be included here. Click to see the Slideshow
Love,
Mom
natnat's mom at 2:22 PM
