Mastering the Craft of Life

The life so short,

 the craft so long to learn.

Geoffrey Chaucer

(c. 1340-1400)

It's 4.51am, studying for the last paper of the semester. Please pray for my success (and my friends' too!). 

Summer in Taiwan: Taipei 101 and Halal Beef Noodles

The Taiwan posts will be posted randomly, in no chronological order. 

So yes! We went to Taipei 101, which is the 2nd tallest building in the world! The ticket costs NT$400, which is about RM40. Just like KLCC, Taipei 101 is also a shopping mall and hosts offices for companies. To get the bird's eye view (so-called) of the city of Taipei, we took the high speed elevator to the top of the bamboo-like tower, The Taipei 101 Observatory. 

Image above is googled 

Taipei 101! 

The spectacular views from above

Sunset! 

And oh, on our last day in Taiwan, we went to the Beef Noodle Halal Restaurant

Beef noodle without spicy sauce (which tastes bland)- not mine :P 

My spicy beef noodle, which doesn't taste SPICY at all (at least to my liking). 

It was quite delicious, and I reckon it tastes better than the one without spicy sauce.

Rasa Halal Astro pernah datang sini. 

I couldn't remember the price of one bowl of beef noodle, but it was quite pricey (more than RM10 per bow), probably because it is halal, and it's difficult to find a Muslim who slaughters the cow, or maybe because the meats are imported from Muslim countries/anywhere with halal meats (okay what's with this sentence).

THE END 

Summer in Taiwan: Of Maokong Gondola Ride and Stinky Tofu

Okay, so Kak Timi, Fatt and Kak Elle had arrived and we stayed together in the same room. End of Day 1.

For Day 2, we checked out from the hostel and took the MRT and later, the taxi to our hotel, Holiday Inn Taipei! :D

After checking in, talking to some of the participants there, we decided to just walk around to see what the place has in store for us.

The Walk-around was in the form of taking a bus to the Maokong Station! :P

 The APPS committees brought us to the base of Maokong Mountain, Taipei, where we had taken a cable car ride to the top of the mountain. 

You could choose between 'Normal Cable Car' or 'Clear Glass Floor Cable Car'!

Being the adventurous sort of people, we naturally opted for the latter. :)

The return fare is about NT$50, which about RM5.00 if I'm not mistaken. 

 Fatt and a cute Taiwanese girl. I-forgot-your-name sorry!!! Dx

And presenting.......

THE STINKY TOFU!!!!!

Atiqah treated us the 'Stinky Tofu'. It's basically Tofu that were fermented for several days, thus giving itself the characteristic putrid scent that is its name 'Stinky'. We doubted the 'halal' status of it at first, but Atiqah was very sure that it was halal so we went ahead to each of us having one piece. I couldn't even stomach one piece of it. So, yeah, one piece it is then. I'm not going to try it another time.

And oh, Fatt googled about 'Stinky Tofu' after we got back to Malaysia. She said that all the ingredients are halal and it basically suits the vegetarians so INSYA ALLAH, it is HALAL. :D But of course, it's up to you whether you wanted to try it or not. If ragu-ragu, tak payah makan lah.

EDIT: Now I'm feeling dubious about its Halal status. I'm not going to eat it next time. :(

How to describe its smell?

You know the smell when the garbage collectors' lorry passed along your house to collect the garbage? It was a bit like that. 

It tasted very sour due to the fermentation process and I had to gulp it down with my bubble tea because I really couldn't bear to chew it... Dx.
Ridzuan said that he couldn't really taste the sourness and the stinky-ness of the tofu as his sweet fragrant jasmine tea kinds of masked the taste and smell of it.

The committee members also treated us to 2 bowls of ice-taufufa.

After the early afternoon snack, we walked along the path leading to the Tea Plantation Factory.

It was quite a long journey by foot, and along the way, we stopped by a very quaint Tea Shop. It's like a coffee shop, but it sells...TEA. Yeah, haha. Maokong Mountain is like Malaysia's 'Cameron Highlands'.

I lost some of the pics in my camera so this is the only one picture that I could get from facebook.

Once we reached there, we were being self-served (LOL) with fresh hot tea.

Different types of Tea 

Tea-leaves machine-sort of.

And we went back to the Maokong Station and once again took the Gondola to the base of the mountain. :)

We went back to the hotel, Holiday Inn Taipei by bus. The hotel is awesome of course. Two people per room. Atiqah was my roommate throughout the entire stay. We had great time together, cracking weird jokes, laughing our heads off every night. :D

I do not know the exact rates of the rooms of this hotel, as the rate has been included in our registration fees.

My oh-so-comfortable BED! :D

Can't believe I actually jumped into the bandwagon by posting pictures of bathrooms! 

THE END. 

Summer in Taiwan: Taipei Main Station and EZ Stay Main Taipei

I know, it's already 2014!! Dx

The seven of us Pharmacy students of IIUM went to Taipei, Taiwan in July 2012 for the Asia Pacific Pharmaceutical Symposium (APPS) 2012, which is basically an international gathering of Pharmacy students across the Asia Pacific Region. The pharmacy students/societies are very active. We have National Gathering of Pharmacy Students (NoGaps) for Malaysian students,  APPS for Asia Pacific Region and World Congress for ahem...pharmacy students all around the world, organised by International Pharmacy Students Federation (IPSF). So far, I had joined the NoGaps and APPS. World Congress? Oh, takde rezeki lagi...And I'm in my final year now. *sobs*

It was summertime back then in Taiwan. We had to wake up at 3 in the morning to perform our subuh prayer. The weather was very hot and dry, unlike Malaysia (hot and humid). 

Anyway, 

The 'Taiwan' posts will be posted randomly, in no specific chronological order. 

Nothing much happened on the first day. Tiqah and I, together with Ridzuan and Nash took the same flight to Taipei Taiwan from LCCT, Malaysia and we arrived there in the afternoon. Fatt, Kak Elle and Kak Timi took a night flight to Taipei, Taiwan. 

 I am in LOVE with this sandwich! It costs RM10 though. T__T

After 5 hours of journey, we finally arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport 

They have this system to detect the thermal readings aka temperature of people by just looking at the screen which shows people's temperature colour in the body (explaining in layman's terms). If it's orange or red, it means that your body temperature is high. I guess they wanted to prevent any H1N1 or influenza outbreak from spreading to their country. I was feeling a bit feverish at that time but hey, I escaped the 'temperature check!', :P 

 From the Airport, we bought a bus ticket to Taipei Main Station. It costs NT$125, which is about RM12.50! It was about 1-2 hours journey there. 

And oh, also bought the prepaid there. NT$350 which was approximately RM35.00. Tak habis pakai pun.... But it was quite handy to purchase Taiwan's number there. We travelled a lot, so we tend to contact each other frequently ( In case we got lost). 

 Street views from the bus. I couldn't take nice pictures from a moving vehicle. :P 

Taipei Main Station, yaay! It's a combination of Bus Station and MRT station. 

 We crossed the road to get to our hostel, which is located in that red/terracotta building with the billboard. 

Elevator is freaking slow like KOP's elevator. >__<

Views from the floor of our hostel. HOSTEL. Not hotel. :P 

 After quite a long hunt for this hostel, and asking many people of its location in this building we finally found the EZ Taipei Main Station Backpackers' Hostel. 

 The owner is a Japanese guy. He couldn't really understand English. Tiqah made a reservation for all 7 of us. It costs about not more than RM100 for a person, if I'm not mistaken, which is expensive la jugak. PER PERSON. Check out the website/blog: EZ Stay Main Taipei 

 I occupied the top bunk! :D 

All 5 of us girls stayed in the same room. 

Shampoo and Bath Gel provided . 

Fatt, Kak Elina and Kak Timi were bound to arrive around midnight. So, the four of us set upon a food hunt, and we found out that the halal restaurant we wanted to go was closed! Feeling really hungry, we just decided to eat Fillet o-Fish at McDonald's there, coz we didn't have any choice. We had chosen to eat Fillet-o-Fish because it is made of fish, and that Tiqah said that they used different oil to fry the fish, tawakkal je lahh...haha.

I'll be posting about my Taiwan 2012 trip everyday starting from today, because I was in a hurry, I'll be going to Beijing next week. 

So, stay tuned! xD