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.