Taipei Spring 2012 DAY 06 : 苗栗．Back to 台北

Woke up at 8am to have breakfast and checked out, our driver for the day, Mr Tsai was already waiting for us outside our minsu ready to load our luggages for us and start our roadtrip woohoooo!

I liased with the driver Mr Tsai via email and he quoted us 3000twd for the day, if you need a driver you can contact him at  x21115650@yahoo.com.tw  

Super exciting day cos the itinearary for the day is leaving 日月潭。　About two hours road trip to 苗栗。　天空之城 for lunch。　草莓农园to pluck strawberries! :D

Craaaaazy misty day, it wasn't super cold that day but it was really really misty. Bah the mist is really quite annoying, everything also cannot see, you feel like you're in the clouds and all  you see is the mist. zZz


I have teeeeeeerrible motion sickness all the time and as usual i forgot to take my motion sickness meds again before we started the journey. 0.0 Damn jialat one i still made sure twice that i packed it in my luggage but in the end keep forgetting to take so always have motion sickness and like half dead only.  Boyfriend! Next time remind me ok! :P

Had a short stopover cos i was feeling too dizzy and wanna puke, lol the driver drive damn smooth no bumps or anything also i will have motion sickness. Errrrr saw the 弹珠汽水and i was like omg i want i want i wannnnnnnt~


Hahahha ok leon popped it for me and i took two sips and i was like whoops i obviously made the wrong choice?! Was already feeling oozing in my belly and wanna puke still drink gasy drink *face palm*

So boyfriend got me ginger tea! Lol 我真麻烦！
Oh oh oh oh!!! After another 15 minute journey we finally reached our 1st destination -

✪ 天空之城 / chateau in the air

Fully redeemable entry tickets at 100twd, redeemable for food etc!


This place is soooo damn cool, Furry gave me this link when i was researching on where and what to do in taiwan, and after i saw the link i was like OMG I HAVE TO GO THERE?!
★http://viablog.okmall.tw/blogview.php?blogid=337
★http://www.chateau-in-the-air.com.tw/

 

I wish i live in Taiwan! If i do i would totally hold my wedding here, such a magical place really.

Wished it was a clear day, but with the mist i guess it's not too bad either, the mist makes it all feel
 so dreamy & beautiful.

 

There are two restaurants in 天空之城 - 鸟vs人　＆　天空古堡

You HAVE to dine at 天空古堡 when you're there, the food is REALLY good, i would totally rate this as one of my first few best meals i've had heh.

Very cool, rustic decor, love the place. It's a pity it was such a misty day, although the mist does give the place a more mysterious, castle fantasy-ish feel but it'll be so awesome if it's a clear sunny day! Saw a set of pics online of this place when there was no mist and it was SO beautiful.


We were even saying that if we live in taiwan we would totally have our wedding there lol.

We ordered the set meal, totally recommendable. Everything that came with the set was SO delicious and totally worth it. One set is probably around 30SGD if i remembered correctly.

Salad with strawberry dressing because strawberries was in season at the time! (in late february)

Sooooo delicious that i totally wiped off everything even though i was gonna explode!

Dessert! Because leon has to avoid strawberries due to some health thingy, we mentioned to the staff but didnt expect them to take any action but they were such sweeties that brought him some other dessert within minutes! Good service, A star for the effort! (:

Lol got some passerby to snap a photo at the entrance of  天空古堡 for us but zZz wanted to get a shot with the whole "castle". Note to self: rmb to ask boyfriend to bring the tripod on our trips to picturesque places like these next time!

Took a walk around cos we were sooooo stuffed with the goodies, awwww this lab came pouncing down the stairs while we were checking out the area, think he/she's the owners dog, so nice or what! Having some a huge area to rome about and chase the butterflies or whatever doggies get to do when they have the freedom to do that. 

Front view of the restaurant, i'll totally come back here again for the food when i visit taiwan again!

Heheh awww so cute the sign reads "Bamboo baby, please refrain from breaking it and give it love and care."

This is the other restaurant, 鸟vs人. It's more casual and the price range is cheaper than 天空古堡 so it's more crowded with like families and the younger crowd here.

There's a 天空小铺 just beside 鸟vs人 as well selling lots of pretty spa bath items and little knick knacks. Wish we could stay longer and take long walks and take more photos but it doesnt seem like the mist is gonna clear up anyway so we left for our next stop! 


✪ 天空之城

地址：苗栗縣大湖鄉新開村十份33號
Opening Hours：◎鳥 VS .人餐廳：六～日  09:00～19:00
◎天堂古堡餐廳：一～日  10:00～19:00

 http://www.chateau-in-the-air.com.tw/

Our next stop is also in 苗栗Miaoli county, it was about a 30 mins car ride over.. 
 Extremely excited about what we were gonna do next!!!

Here we are!! Super excited was drizzling abit and it was hella cold out there but even the rain couldn't dampen my excited heh!!! :D

Can you guess what we're doing?! Heh

YES WE'RE HANDPICKING STRAWBERRIES!!!! Hehehehe OMG THE STRAWBERRIES WERE SO CUTE BUT I WAS FREEZING MY BUTT OF COS IT WAS SOOOO COLD  I FELT LIKE MY FINGERS WERE GONNA FALL OFF. Need to buy thicker gloves!

Baby Strawbies!!!! My friend Furry recommended me to go to this strawberry farm because they plant the strawberries on high racks, saw that the other strawberry farms around the area are all planted like on the ground so you might get a backache if you went to one of those!


 

So mad happy! Hahahahah i wanted to go pick strawberries since my first trip to taiwan in like '08 or '09 but i was in taiwan in june then and strawberries weren't in season so we couldn't do it so i finally got to do it, 3 years later! 


Hahahah i'm pretty bo liao one, strawberries pack properly in supermarkets I wouldn't take a 2nd look at them and here i am going crazy plucking strawberries. I just like to do the messy unconventional way of things :x 

Anyway the strawberries smells FANTASTIC, even when it's in the paper box you can smell the sweet strawberry smell and it's sooooo yummy and sweet!


So after you're done plucking as many strawberries as you want, bring your basket to the counter and you pay by weight, can't remember how much but it's definitely not expensive at all!

✪ 京采高架草莓農園 strawberry farm

(via http://www.dahu.com.tw/pretty/ )987‧0933-

地址:苗栗縣大湖鄉台三線129、7公里‧經過大湖酒莊往前500公尺

Haahhah don't think you can see it but i was posing while snacking on a candied stick of strawberries! Hehe we're in Strawbie land! 


Was planning on going to Lavender Cottage but the sky was pretty overcast and we didnt really wanna make the trip all the way there and get rained on and all so we decided to go to the nearby strawberry markets to check it out.

It's really strawberry heaven!!!! Hahaah strawberry eggtart, strawberry meatballs, strawberry fried ice-cream, strawberry sausages, you name it, you got it! Heaven for me but hell for boyfriend since he's kinda on a ban for strawberries, poor baby! ):

Luckily he got himself a box of nutty stuff which was pretty delish and it seemed to cheer him up a little.



Well we wanted to take the Kuo Guang bus (find more info here: http://www.kingbus.com.tw/) to get back to Taipei, it takes about 2-2.5hour to get back to Taipei and we could alight at 西门捷运 Ximending MRT which i made reservations for our lodging back at itrip inn the same place we stayed in our first couple days in taipei.


But our driver warned us there might be a jam if we want to go by bus because it seem to be some holiday or some sorts that day, so he recommended that we take the train - 自强号 at 苗栗station. Anyway the train only takes about 1 hour 40 mins to reach taipei, we didn't see a reason why not!


Got to the train station, couldnt check the train schedule on our phones somehow but lucky there was a train leaving for taipei from 苗栗station within like 30 mins so yay!

So cooooooold, we were standing out in the cold because the train platform area had no shelters etc, luckily boyfriend is like my mobile space heater. hahahah he's like also my mobile air conditioner when i'm hot and going nuts. Not bad this boyfriend got multi function one. hahahah


Train ride was very comfy, seats were adjustable and totally spacious, as you could see we were luggage around one full-sized luggage and one medium sized luggage, a very full handcarry luggage + a box of strawberries + a box of strawberry tarts and we were able to fit the two smaller luggages on the overhead luggage rack and held on to the full sized luggage on the aisle and still very comfy.

Finally got back to Taipei & took a cabby back to ximending from taipei main station!
Checked in, chill for awhile, styled by extremely flat hair and headed out to pak tor at xi men ding.

Hahahaha saw this online before and i thought it was so cheeky and funny! It's 鸡蛋糕 with cheese sausage in the middle.. in the shape of a DICK!

Hahahahah so cheeky or what! The naughty owners came up with this idea and explained that girls can come and chomp on some dick shaped waffles when they are mad with their boyfriend/boyfriends being unfaithful or just plain horrible and they can come and "snap some dicks" LOL!!!

Muahahaha hello 阿宗！


Had an early night cos we were sooooo drained from all the travelling that day but we had an awesome day! Last day of Taipei coming up and we went to a pretty interesting cafe and had quite the unusal encounter! :D






Loves, TheLuckiestChick.