06.44 am – Woke up and immediately went hunting for breakfast. Spotted a Beijing rubbish truck along the way.

We figured since 7-Eleven was the nearest to our hotel, we should give it a go for our first Beijing breakfast experience.

Freshly steamed, filled buns on display by the counter.

07.01 am – We just packeted eveything in a plastic bag and took it back to our hotel room.

Delicious porridge.

Ham bun.

Appetizing black soy bean drink.

Really, really delicious Master Kong aka Kang Sifu instant roasted beef noodles.

08.22 am – Began our tour with Kong Lin, our ever trustworthy and kind Chinese tour guide.

The views along the way in Beijing city from Kong Lin’s MPV.

08.55 am – Arrived at Temple of Heaven’s ticket booth.

A ticket costs CNY 35 each.

Beijing6 by the signboard introducing the Temple of Heaven together with a general map of the area.

09.00 am – As we stepped in, we saw lots of old folks engaged in all sorts of activities.

Mass dancing in the park?! How cool!

A middle age man doing acrobatics.

Granny keeping the feather shuttles in the air.

By the corridor to the Temple of Heaven.

Old folks keeping their minds active by playing scrabble in the form of mahjong tiles.

Photo of the year thanks to Kirsty for being at the right place, right time!

Somewhere by the park.

09.28 pm – From a distance, the Temple of Heaven already looked magnificent.

The entrance from the top of the stairs.

Beautifully carved marble works decorating the steps.

After about 5 minutes of walking around, taking in the beauty of the Temple of Heaven, we proceeded to the hall where planning, construction and maintenance is displayed in detail.

10.04 pm – Nicely carved marble by the stair handles.

And then we headed to the Echo Walls and Circular Mound. Echo Walls is a place where you can hear the echo of a clap increase in number as you move towards the center. Circular Mound on the other hand is where you can hear a person far away at the opposite site of the area from the surrounding circular wall.

Proceeded towards the Round Altar aka Circular Mound that, on the solstice, the emperor would present his annual ceremonial report to heaven on the events of the past year.

Beijing6′s feet.

11.17 am – Kong Lin took us to a restaurant nearby Tiananmen Square that sells homemade dishes. When we first arrived, we thought we were going to be in for a wallet busting lunch experience. Little did we know, they were actually reasonably priced and really delicious! Highly recommended!

(Can’t read Chinese. Can you help me with the name?)

12.29 pm – After lunch, Kong Lin picked us up and had his wife drop us off at an intersection close to the Forbidden City.

We wanted to enter this tunnel to Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum but as it turns out, there was some sort of a meeting going on so we had to skip that part.

Zhengyangmen Tower marking the south end of Tiananmen Square.

Monument to the People’s Heroes, a ten-story obelisk that was erected as a national monument of the People’s Republic of China in memory of the martyrs who laid down their lives for the revolutionary struggles of the Chinese people during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The National Museum on the east.

Tiananmen Gate Tower at a distance.

Although the weather was cool, it was real sunny at the same time.

Buying snacks from a vendor in the middle of the square.

Close enough for pikcha time!!!

Walked towards the underground pedestrian crossing towards the gate tower.

So BIG!

The entrance between Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City.

The walkway filled with street vendors and tourists, local and foreign, towards the Meridian Gate, front entrance to the Forbidden City.

Kirsty with her really, really, really sweet candy.

The magnificently huge Meridian Gate of Forbidden City.

By the giant door.

Entering from the Meridian Gate, one encounters a large square, pierced by the meandering Inner Golden Water River, which is crossed by five bridges.

Meant for the Mandarin literate.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony Square. A three-tiered white marble terrace rises from this square. Three halls stand on top of this terrace, the focus of the palace complex.

Listening attentively to Kong Lin explaining his vast knowledge of Forbidden City’s history to us.

Incense pots around the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Taking a rest.

02.39 pm – The Palace of Earthly Tranquility is a double-eaved building, 9 bays wide and 3 bays deep. In the Ming Dynasty, it was the residence of the Empress.

The 600 year old love tree that intertwines in the Imperial Gardens.

Osmanthus tree that smells really familiar as there’s a dessert shop back here in Penang that sells glutinous rice balls in osmanthus tea.

Items around the Imperial Gardens.

The Gate of Divine Might, the northern gate. The lower tablet reads “The Palace Museum”.

Jingshan Park tower from the northern gate.

Bought some snacks and tickets to Jingshan Park which cost 2 yuan.

Flowers around the park.

By this time, were all very, very, very, very tired from all the walking.

By the steps to the peak.

03.29 pm – From the peak of Jingshan Park, we could see the ENTIRE grandiose of the Forbidden City. Such awesome views!

The scam chair. If you took a picture in it, someone from out of nowhere would approach you and ask for a fee.

Went back down to the foot of Jingshan Park and walked around.

04.32 pm – Arrived at Hou Hai lake, an area famous for old residential architecture, cycling around the romantic lake view and the nightlife of bars, restaurants and cafes.

Stopping by for snacks again.

Journeying into the residential neighborhoods behind Houhai’s commercial area.

05.00 pm – Ended our day’s tour at our hotel. Had a nice long nap before continuing with the night part.

08.45 pm – At Zhangzizhonglu subway station.

Vivian with her idol.

Really loooooooooooooooooong escalator.

09.53 pm – Sanlitun Village.

Had dinner at McDonald’s.

10.54 pm – Checked out one of top clubs of Beijing called Club Mix. We left about 15 minutes later when we couldn’t find ourselves a suitable table. =(

11.21 pm – Tried our luck at another top nightclub called Babyface but didn’t enter as the prices were really expensive.

12.07 pm – Anyway, we went back to Sanlitun and popped by one of the many novelty bars around called First Floor.

The street food vendors right in front of the pub.

Had a relaxing time drinking Tsingtao draught beer.

05.27 am – Breakfast from Tune Hotel’s 7-Eleven.

06.32 am – Met up with the rest of Beijing6 and proceeded to check in our luggage at the airport.

07.11 am – Breakfast for those who haven’t at Taste of Asia.

08.05 am – As we reached the boarding gate, we were immediately asked to proceed to our plane.

08.21 am – The view of the morning sun from our seat.

08.50 am – Take off! WooOoo hOOooooOOo!!!! HOliday mood = ON!

09.38 am – As I last ate breakfast at 5.27am, I took the opportunity to have my kung pao chicken and chicken mayo sandwich.

Meanwhile, these fellas were busy whoring.

10.16 am – By this time, almost everyone was sleeping except me as I was still too full.

And so I just sat in silence, taking in the spectacular view of being 38,000 feet in the air.

02.34 pm – Landed in Tianjin Binhai International Airport.

Filled in the mandatory arrival and departure cards.

02.46 pm – Waited for the rest emptying their bowels.

03.07 pm – Took us some time to clear immigration before we got to picking up our luggage from the belt.

03.17 pm – As we got out, we immediately saw the shuttle bus booth that takes us to Tianjin high speed railway station.

It cost us only 10 yuan per person. If you took a taxi, it’ll cost you about 60 yuan instead.

Loved the city views from the shuttle bus.

04.32 pm – As traffic was congested, it took us about an hour to reach the stop for Tianjin railway. We were dropped at the back part of the railway where we had to walk about 300 meters.

As we got nearer, we realized that the railway was pretty massive!

04.46 pm – Electronic timetable right above the ticket counters. Don’t worry if you cannot speak Mandarin as a simple ‘Beijing’ as your turn arrives should do it. And oh, they do need your passport when buying tickets.

A high speed train ticket from Tianjin to Beijing South railway costs only RMB55.

And our tickets came with a bottle of mineral water.

The waiting area by the departure gates was HUGE!

There were many shops selling souvenirs but this bakery that goes by the name of Fresh caught our attention.

Snacks to keep ourselves full till dinner.

Dustbins dividing recyclable wastes from nonrecyclables.

05.14 pm – The gates about to open, 20 minutes before departure and you could see a line waiting to get in. This was where we experienced our first Chinese line cutting adventure. One of the many bad habits of the general Chinese.

05.18 pm – The view of ground floor where all the high speed trains were waiting as I went down the elevator from the first floor waiting area.

05.21 pm – Happily seated by our seats.

Hey, this is the same brand as the mineral water that came with the tickets!

The view as we were about to depart.

05.39 pm – Somewhere along the way.

The temperature was at a comfy 21°C. The range of temperature most comfortable for any human being is between 15°C – 25°C.

The speed of the bullet train reaching 300 kilometers per hour.

06.39 pm – After we arrived at Beijing South Railway, we changed into the city metro station, heading towards our destination.

Damn. We hit rush hour.

I like that there is a display to let you know where you are and where you are heading to at the moment.

Electronic advertisements by the tunnel walls.

Reached the metro station nearest to our hotel and proceeded to find our way to Xinghaiqi Holiday Hotel.

07.53 pm – Checking in was a breeze and Vivian and I were given room 8316. Xinghaiqi is one of the very few clean and convenient hotels that come with a price of under RMB200 per night. We felt it was really value for money when we saw the rooms.

Clean toilets.

08.47 pm – After taking our time to settle down, we went to check out our surrounding for the first time ever in Beijing.

Street vendors that caught our attention.

Steamboat sticks!

Our first ever Beijing street food experience.

09.00 pm – The noodle restaurant that we had dinner in.

Century eggs.

Bean paste noodles.

Yanjing beer.

09.39 pm – Immediately after dinner, we had Chinese KFC.

Bought an ice snack from a convenience store along the way.

10.26 pm – Walked our way back to Nanluoguxiang, a famous street that sells novelty items although we left it till the last day for shopping.

10.53 pm – Popped into Salud, one of the many popular bars in Nanluoguxiang that has lots of foreigners for customers.

September is the golden month for Beijing. I believe this has to do with the weather being perfectly sunny and cool at the same time.

Packing actually started during the weekend before.

Decided to take the 4kg cabin sized luggage for checking in.

The clothes.

Everything compacted and nicely fitted into the bag.

The 1kg Converse bag was the lighter one filled with important and essential junk to be carried with me into the cabin.

Submitted and received my Chinese Visa easily about two weeks ago. Yeah, China is one of the countries that require Malaysians to obtain visa before arriving. If my memory serves me right, it costs about RM90 to have it processed and done for you by any travel company.

Lots and lots of Chinese Yuan (CNY) or Chinese Renminbi (RMB).

By noon of Day 0, the day we fly to KL for the layover from Penang, all the proper documents like email conversations with the hotel and Kong Lin our tour guide, Airasia boarding passes for every trip all the way from Penang to Beijing back to Penang, were printed out. Printed 2 exact copies and handed the other stack to Vivian.

09.37 pm – Checking in our luggage at the AirAsia counter.

09.45 pm – Customary wait in McDonald’s until it’s time for boarding.

10.40 pm – At last, we found ourselves a nice spot at the waiting area by the boarding gate.

At about 12am, we boarded the plane.

I’ve always loved reading AirAsia’s in flight Travel3Sixty magazine.

11.55 pm – The stewardess preparing the plane for take off which happened about 10 minutes later.

01.00 am – Arrived in KLIA-LCCT’s domestic arrival hall.

Waited for our luggage.

01.11 am – Waited by the bus stop for the Tune Hotel LCCT’s shuttle bus to arrive.

Which it did, 10 minutes later.

01.51 am – Bought a bun for hunger suppression.

Checked in and got to our room at 524, one of the cornerest, most silent room where nobody passes by. A corner room by the back, far away from the lift is important as in Tune Hotels LCCT, you can constantly hear people talking as they pass by the corridor and hear the banging of the doors around your room. Bloody noisy.

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09.30 am – Woke up and took a walk around our hotel, looking for food to fill up our stomach for breakfast.

Decided on this particular shoplot nearby Sing Golden Place as there were no other place open at this time.

The vendors hard at work.

From the looks of it, this stall offered duck, chicken and pork meat.

We ordered 2 kinds of soup. Pickled mustard greens and winter melon.

I like that you can generally find lots of raw vegetables in Thai dishes.

Our mixed roasted pork, pork sausages, barbecued pork and duck meat rice.

Sugar cane.

A pretty heavy breakfast before we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the facilities for the last time before checking out.

12.28 pm – Arrived in Hat Yai’s Tesco Lotus where 97% of its goods are sourced from Thailand itself.

Somehow, the stuff in Tesco Lotus of Thailand is much cheaper than Tesco Malaysia. I bought singlets and a box of instant tom yam noodles at a price not obtainable in Malaysia.

Had lunch at the huge food court near the hypermarket entrance.

Bought 200 baht worth of exchangeable credit.

Egg wrapped pad thai! ~fuh~ good stuff!

So was the pork leg rice!

01.51 pm – Had Dairy Queen for dessert for the first time.

The menu.

In the end, we settled for a cup of green tea and oreo blizzards.

As it was a Sunday, the place was really crowded.

02.20 pm – It started to rain as we left.

03.22 pm – Arrived at the Thai immigration complex.

Somehow, the immigration procedure was pretty funny as we had to pass the checkpoints, park our car be the side of the road,

and walk back to get our

documents stamped and verified.

03.40 pm – Passed by no man’s land 20 minutes later.

The queue of cars took 30 minutes to clear before it was our turn. And it was a really hot day.

04.10 pm – On Malaysia’s North South highway again.

04.27 pm – Toll after toll, we passed. I was actually going above speed limits all the time but took the chance since I guessed it was a non public holiday, hot as hell, Sunday. The likelihood of someone sitting under the hot sun manning the speed trap device is pretty slim.

05.33 pm – Passing by Penang Bridge.

06.34 pm – The end of a short holiday in Hat Yai.

06.16 am – Woke up.

Had a simple breakfast.

07.40 am – Went to Maybank to get

my Touch N Go card refilled.

07.48 pm – Crossing the Penang bridge towards mainland Malaysia! The excitement of holiday is in the air! The same kind of excitement when you are being driven to the airport. Actually, you will feel it even more if you are the one dropping the holiday goers, and you yourself driving back home alone. Yeah, THAT holiday feeling!

I would not have survived driving around Hat Yai without this Garmin Nuvi 255w. A satellite GPS device is so damn useful!

09.23 am – Arrived in Naluri Aman, one of the many stops along the way to Hat Yai, about 10 minutes from the Malaysia border in Bukit Kayu Hitam.

The reason was to obtain the mandatory immigration card for RM1 each. It is something you must do before you arrive at the Thai Immigration complex as it is really difficult to find these cards.

Got ourselves a Thai car insurance at RM14 for 7 days.

There is actually a duty free store and food and beverage here.

As breakfast was already digested by now, I went ahead

and bought myself a piece of pau to suppress the hunger for a little while longer until I get some REAL Thai food! Can’t wait! X)

09.37 am – Filled in a full tank before heading over as the petrol in Thailand is twice the price here.

09.40 am – Reached Malaysia’s Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration Complex. The procedure was quick as there were literally no cars in line.

4 minutes later, we arrived at the Thai Immigration Complex. Parked the car at the car park beyond the gate on the left.

A look at the empty counters early in the morning.

Had our passports stamped in passport control.

Had our car documents checked out and passed.

10.10 am – The scene of the border town as we left.

11.19 am – 1 hour later, we arrived at our hotel, Sing Golden Place. We got it for RM90 per night through Hatyai Link. Our first choice was Mayflower actually, but at the time of booking, which was 1 month ago, it was already full!

Check in was a breeze as KC, the man behind Hatyai Link, just sent me a voucher to print out to present to the receptionist.

Our room, 518, was located at the end of the walkway, something which I like because if you got a room in the middle of the walkway, you may have to put up with kids running all over screaming.

A cupboard to hang your clothes, extra pillows and a mini room safe. Nice!

Sing Golden Place’s clean, white bed.

The clean shower area.

There is even a bathtub!

Feature packed and so totally worth RM90! Only thing is, distance between Sing Golden Place and the center of town is 15 minutes worth of walking.

11.33 am – After settling down at the hotel, we went out on our first walkabout in Hat Yai.

11.40 pm – Walking towards the direction of Lee Gardens Plaza & Hotel, we stumbled upon this corner coffeeshop

nearby BP Grand Tower Hotel.

The beef noodles stall.

The interior.

I noticed that the straws that come with our drinks in Hat Yai were all generally pretty short compared to what you normally see in Malaysia.

Delicious beef noodles!

12.03 pm – Passed by Lee Gardens Plaza.

Arrived in Kim Yong market.

Lots of food and clothes all over the place.

Came across this stall selling my most favourite Thai pancakes.

If you haven’t yet, you should! There is only 1 place I know of in Penang that you can get them but even so, they are quite irregular. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not. The ONLY time and place is on Fridays at the Perak Road night market.

01.08 pm – Went to the infamous Pink Hotel to check out the aquarium girls.

02.13 pm – What is a holiday in Thailand without a Thai massage right?

Went to the highly recommended, clean massage in New Season hotel.

I think it’s officially called Season Massage.

The rates as of June 2011. Loved the Thai massage at only 240 baht for 1.45 hours.

04.18 pm – Arrived in Lee Garden Plaza’s food court.

The stalls which we ordered from.

Awesome pork leg rice.

Delicous pad thai.

04.44 – Came across this lady selling original Thai coconut ice cream by the roadside.

We’re loving it!

05.00 pm – Arrived at our hotel feeling really tired, so we just changed into our jammies and watched some tv.

07.41 pm – And the night part of our Hat Yai trip begins.

Sunset skies at 7.44pm.

Crossed by this little shop nearby Sing Golden Place Hotel.

From the looks of it, you could tell they sold noodles.

Waiting for our orders inside. It was smokey.

Sugar cane with a surprisingly normal length straw.

My fried noodles.

Her fried flat noodles.

08.20 pm – From there, we took a motorcycle taxi to our next destination. Yeah, both of us sat with the driver for 500 baht.

The popular, clean live band bar of Hat Yai called West Side Saloon.

Picture of us with the waitress who served us.

02.33 am – Arrived back at our hotel with my very favourite instant basil pork fried rice from 7-Eleven.

I miss it so much!!!!!

If you landed on this page, you most probably are going to fly off soon from Malaysia, whether if it is for vacation or work. In Malaysia, there are only 2 options when it comes to renewal length. 2 years or 5 years. Normally, countries require you to have at least 6 months of validity in your passport before you are allowed to enter. But if you drive over the border to Thailand or Singapore, you are allowed to enter even if you have only a week left in your passport, as long as you don’t hop off to another country from there. Common sense says that 2 years for RM100 is more worth it than 5 years for RM300.

Below is a well documented procedure which I recently did. I renewed my passport online. It’s damn convenient and it saved me so much time. Usually, there are 2 queues when you go to any Malaysian Immigration branches. First, you’ll have to queue to fill in the forms and make your payment. If you do it online, you skip the first queue and jump straight to the 2nd queue where you collect your passport. The second queue is always shorter and the wait can be as fast as 5 minutes!

Step 1 : Go to the Immigration Department of Malaysia’s website and look for the link “Application for Renewal of Passport (MyOnline Passport)” at http://www.imi.gov.my/

Step 2 : The link will then bring you to this page where you should read through the procedures before continuing.

Step 3 : Clicking “Agree” at the bottom of Step 2 brings you to this page below where you fill in the particulars and click “Search” so that the system can look for your old passport particulars.

Step 4 : Fill in your details.

Step 5 : Click “Upload Image” from the page in Step 4 so that you can proceed to upload a digital image of yourself. Most photo studios will give you a CD together with your physical photos.

Step 6 : After you are done uploading look for the small rectangle over your photo.

Step 7 : Drag the edges of the rectangle and try to get a nice crop of the original. Click “Crop” when done.

Step 8 : Believe me, no matter what you do, it will never be a perfect crop. Don’t worry. Just leave it. 10 out of 10 people will get a call from the Immigration Department informing online applicants that their photo is unusable and to bring 2 passport size photos when collecting the passport.

Step 9 : Make sure all your details are correct. Make sure that you choose the branch closest to you. After that, click “Update” and proceed to Step 10.

Step 10 : You should get a notice saying “PERMOHONAN ANDA TELAH DITERIMA” before clicking “Teruskan”.

Step 11 : Select your credit/debit card payment method by clicking on the VISA or MasterCard logo.

Step 12 : Fill in the details of your credit card and click on “Pay”.

Step 13 : You should see this processing sign. I waited for less than a minute.

Step 14 : After the payment has been received, you will see your application number at the bottom of the details. Click “Cetak Resit”.

Step 15 : Print 2 copies of the receipt, one for yourself and one to hand over to the officer at the collection counter.

Now all you have to do is wait for a call from the officer in charge of online applications to ask you to bring 2 copies of your passport sized photos when collecting the day after. If you can’t wait (like me), I immediately looked up my Immigration branch’s phone number and called them to verify my application. You can find the details of every Immigration branch here.

Step 16 : Go to your selected Malaysian Immigration office the next day.

Step 17 : Proceed straight to the collection counter and hand over 1 printed receipt, 2 passport size photos and your old passport. Please remember to bring these 3 important items.

Step 18 : Wait and collect your passports. Your old passport should have a section cut out to invalidate it.

Step 19 : Everything inside the new passport is more or less the same. Enjoy your trip!

09.17 am – Woke up and took a loooooooong walk by myself around the hotel’s surrounding. Although I’m still physically here, I’ve already started missing Taipei so much!

Passed by the fresh brunch stall by the hotel.

Checked out the menu. Didn’t seem to find anything that interested me.

~aah~ the nearby Ximending on a Tuesday morning. Empty.

Ximending police station.

A huge billboard of Eason Chan by the entrance of Ximending.

Breakfast at McDonald’s crossed my mind as no fast food was consumed during the entire trip.

The streets being cleaned.

KFC occupying the upper floors.

One of the very few breakfast shops opened.

I had all the intention of the world to give this auntie some business but there were 2 problems. One, I cannot read Mandarin. Two, I cannot speak Mandarin. =(

It just didn’t cross my mind to check out Japanese food in Taiwan. Didn’t feel right I suppose.

Walk walk walk.

A free newspaper stand.

However, it is unlike theSun back in Malaysia as it was choke full of advertisements!

09.32 – And so after about 15 minutes of walking around Ximending, I finally settled on McDonald’s.

The counter.

The dining area.

Hot pancakes, egg mcmuffin, hash brown and a cup of coffee for breakfast.

Actually, I didn’t notice this throw away area until I saw people taking their trays here after eating. I think that’s why we found the dining area of the 7 Eleven near our hotel barricaded from the 4th night onwards. (for not clearing up after ourselves)

Ximen station, the starting point of many of our journeys night and day.

10.14 am – Started packing. So sad!!!

Unused voucher during our trip up Taipei 101. Taiwan beer float didn’t sound that inviting.

Targeted places missed during this trip. Ningxia road night market.

Jinquashi gold mine that was closed when we arrived on Day 2.

Missed shopping for clothes in Wufenpu and Raohe night market.

Missed Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall.

Missed Beitou Hot Springs + Hell Valley. Mannnn.. 6 days just ain’t enough!

Missed Primo night club. =(

Didn’t get the chance to experience Spark or Twiice too. Actually, we missed so much that when we come back for the 2nd time , it’ll still be like a totally new experience!

Souveniers, souveniers. The glutinous rice balls and pineapple tarts were so good!!!!!! Totally heavenly!!

11.59 am – Went to Ximending for the second time after everyone woke up.

12.13 pm – Last minute souvenir shopping.

The complete collection of Angry Birds.

If you notice carefully, Geoffrey and Gabriel, both who are sitting down, are getting conned to buy super expensive pens to support the “so called girls who need the money for studying”. hehehehehehehe

12.16 pm – I just couldn’t help it.

Just had to have a bowl of Ay Chung flour rice noodles before leaving.

It’s just sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good!

Love it!

12.35 pm – At this point, we all splitted up to do our own exploring and last minute shopping.

Passed by an aiyu jelly shop.

Just couldn’t help it.

Zoomed in and out the mini lanes of Ximending, checking the products on display on both sides of the street.

A rather famous Taiwanese beef noodles shop.

Didn’t eat any as I was so damn full from ay chung. So damn.

11.01 am – Woke up with ‘roomie’ and went out to JSP burger for breakfast. ‘Roomie’ because we are the only 2 fellas with in single rooms.

Fried yam cakes in honey. ~yum~

Pork burger. ~yum~

11.16 am – As the portions were not enough, we carried on in search of more authentic Taiwanese goodies.

Came across a really old school shoplot in one of the alleys nearby our hotel.

It sold soy bean drinks,

onion flat breads (much like roti bawang back in Malaysia) and

doughnuts.

After that we went back to our hotel, cleaned up, woke up the rest and continued with the day’s activities.

01.13 pm – Arrived in Shilin station. Thanks to this notice stuck to the ticket counter of the station, we knew which bus to take to the National Palace Museum.

And also this big poster of the National Museum, which wrote which bus to take, right outside Exit 1.

And so we waited by the bus stand.

Sign boards to help us.

The tour guide hired by the National Palace Museum to instruct tourists.

The snack shop right by the bus stand.

Easycard is a MUST HAVE when in Taiwan. Almost ALL modes of public transportation uses it. So damn convenient.

Boarded the bus.

The steps that lead to the outer gates of the National Palace Museum. We split up again, and Anthony was my partner. As we already had our breakfast, we continued on ahead first while the others went in search of something for their tummy.

By the gates.

The lion guardians.

The female lion is the one with a mini lion at it’s feet and the male is the one with a ball.

This mustache is actually the number 8 in Chinese character. Akibat ketagih mahjong.

“When I grow up, I want to bathe in it.”

The 2nd building full of Chinese artifacts.

The main building.

The view from the top.

Queued up to pay for admission.

Audio tours which we happily rented.

Notice the many headphones in the background.

Paid for my ticket.

Notice before receiving the audio equipments.

Sadly, I couldn’t find the ‘radio’ button to listen to songs n stuff.

Dynasties divided into years.

How everyone in the National Palace Museum with an audio guide looks like.

First up, the orientation gallery.

The last picture taken before being warned by security.

03.57 pm – It took us 2 hours to complete the main exhibition hall. As time was limited, we had to leave National Palace Museum and miss the second hall’s exhibition. =(

04.50 pm – Passed by Meet Fresh, a Taiwanese dessert place, while walking from the bus stand to Shilin MRT station.

Couldn’t help but stop by for food.

The choices and price. I totally have no idea what is written. Itulah akibat 100% Malaysian, 0% Chinese.

Looks a lot like dorayaki.

Doraemon’s favourite snack.

My Italian mince meat flavoured snack.

Drink that consist of glutinous rice flour products.

Famous Taiwanese glutinous rice flour dessert.

04.51 pm – Being cheeky, we all quickly left the shop when this fella was still in the toilet.

Passed by a smart dog by the roadside.

05.33 pm – After a few MRT stops, we arrived at the bus stand right in front of Taipei City Hall MRT station and waited for Taipei 101′s feeder bus.

11.53 am – Wandered around the streets of Taipei with my ‘roommate’ (out of 8 of us Anthony and I were the only 2 having rooms of our own while the others were 2 in a room) and found an authentic looking Taiwanese shop.

From the conversation we had, I think they served wan than mee.

Hi roomie!

The wan than mee that I didn’t like. Tasted so bland.

Meatballs and lu rou fan for my roomie.

Stumbled across one of the many bubble milk tea stalls and bought myself a cup.

~yum~

12.17 pm – Walked around for awhile before returning to our hotel.

01.30 pm – Took a shit, washed up and went down to do a little bit of research by the computer in the lobby.

02.09 pm – The guys had lunch.

So did I.

Broccoli and

some meat soup for lunch.

~yum~

Super delicious latte from 7 Eleven. No idea what the brand is though. Can’t read Mandarin. =(

02.37 pm – In Ximen MRT.

Waited for the train from the dark green line.

02.44 pm – Clean and bright. Oh how I miss Taipei. =(

The very big CKS Memorial Hall MRT station.

02.54 pm – Ta da! Arrived at the National Concert Hall in Liberty Square.

The National Theater, directly opposite the National Concert Hall, in the distance.

The very big west gate directly facing CKS Memorial Hall.

Cheerleading practice. Makes sense to do it here as there is so much space.

Cheang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

Walked through the souvenir stalls.

Had fun by the entrance.

The view from the top.

The bronze statue of CKS gracing the entrance.

The grand ceiling.

The soldier by the entrance.

Little did we know, the exhibition halls were actually underground!

Chinese calligraphy. Did you know the Chinese invented paper and ink? By the way, I Chinese roots but culturally I’m 100% Malaysian. ^.^