Miaoli, Hsinchu, Taoyuan, Taipei (again XD)

To celebrate the end of week 11, we planned a long trip to the Northern part of Taiwan! Miaoli, Hsinchu and Taoyuan done in 2D1N (包车 princess life) and Taipei for 1D1N (free and easy!)

Miaoli- flying cow ranch

220NT per pax

We initially wanted to give this a miss after seeing so many animals/farms already! But after hearing from our friends that we can get to milk cows there, we were excited to try it out for ourselves!! It was a fun (albeit short) experience squeezing out fresh milk from a mother cow, but what was more epic was that the cow proceeded to laosai green shit in the middle of the milking session, while everyone fled to a safe distance and watched in shock.

Took a steep climb up a flight of stairs to see the butterfly garden. Even though it was quite limited with only 2 species of butterflies (white and black), we had fun passing a tame butterfly around on our hands for photos. The butterfly was so obliging!! Disclaimer: no butterflies were hurt in the process.

Free milk for every ticket! The malt milk (brown packaging) tasted like coco crunch and it was awesome. Fresh milk (pictured above) is quite normal haha

Miaoli- Chun Hsiang Strawberry Farm/Dahu Wineland Resort

We only managed to see the first batch of strawberries as they were not in full bloom yet! The fields are supposed to turn red (instead of green) when the season comes! It's more expensive to pick strawberries at this time so we decided to skip that. Still tried a cup of strawberries with chocolate but they were too soft ><

 

Miaoli- Nanzhuang old street

The food at this street is really mediocre except for the squid stall pictured above! The squid is freshly deep fried and sprinkled with chill and pepper. Super shiok and a must-try!

Hsinchu- Xiangshan wetlands

Our nice driver rushed to the wetlands just in time for the sunset! Which is a good thing because the wetlands is just a bare muddy land with sparse grass. The sunset made it look so awesome! The sky was lightened up in a rainbow coloured gradient as the sun set. Stayed for around 10 mins only as the winds were so strong!!

Hsinchu- City god Temple Night Market

This was a pretty unique night market as it was quite "food court" styled. We sat down and tried their beehoon, meatball soup and oyster omelet. The soup was really nice in the weather but it overall, this night market wasn't exceptional ><

Taoyuan- 富田花園農場

120NT per pax

Visited the flower gardens the next morning! I thought there'd only be flowers but there were quite a lot of animals- ponies, goats, pigs, ducks, dogs, doves and alpacas! As always, selfie time with the cute alpacas. 

Finally got a shot while it was stoning lol.

Many of their sculptures were love themed in this garden!

Taoyuan- 大溪老街

Yes finally. This is the most legit Lao3 Jie1 we have been to. After crossing a nice bridge with good scenery, the old street awaits with a large variety of food! Must tries are the chicken-on-stick and quail eggs at the start of the street and beancurd that my roomies raved about but I didn't get to try! Also, lots of sampling and everyone loves sampling so <3

Taoyuan- 鶯歌陶瓷老街

Pottery street that sells many porcelain items (cups, plates, teasets). Even had a DIY section to create your own items from scratch! 

TAIPEI FOOD TRAIL

Finally, the moment I have been waiting for... Trip to Taipei for food trail!! I kid you not, it was non stop eating the whole time.

First, our driver brought us to check in at the accommodation we booked and it was so spacious!!

Me and Jiahui happily snap chatting haha. The place had a living area, super spacious bed area and and area sectioned out as toilet. So comfy!! Next, we set off to cover Raohe and Shilin night markets.

 

Must try: 

Raohe: chicken sausage, beef cubes, cranberry juice

Shilin: Haodada jipai, ahzong meesua

All the best food we had from Taipei collaged (too taxing to post one by one)

The next day, split into 2 teams (lol) to queue for fuxing doujiangyoutiao (1hr) and haidilao (2-3hrs)

In between those 2 queues, we had dingtaifung!! (1hr+ queue)

My first time at HaiDiLao was so awesome! The Mala soup was so uber shiok and meat was so fresh! Every first timer should definitely order the noodle dish. They send a noodle man over and he dances with the noodles to lengthen it! And he occasionally tries to scare the watchers by flicking it into their face!! SEE, that yellow strip thing is the noodle!

Haha look at the gleeful noodle man. 

The most epic momont came when our noodle man accidentally hit something and the noodle broke!! He gave it to us and started to do another noodle, this time, perfectly. We had a good laugh dancing and playing with the destroyed noodle and pretending to be the noodle man lol. 

After Haodilao, our stomachs were exploding and so we decide to do some cardio by...... shopping at Wufenpu lol. Although I had  no buys because of weird looking clothes =.= We ended the day at Shida Night Market. Their Lu3wei4 (yongtaofoo lookalike) is a must try!!

Huge plate for 2 at 100NT. Ask for 小辣 for spice level of not the lady boss will spam her chilli sauce lol. But this dish is the bomb <3

Ended our food trail and stay at Taipei as very satisfied return visitors, and back to Kaohsiung now on the railway. Finally done updating, time to sleep!