Greetings from Taiwan!
I had wished to update my blog earlier but we were experiencing A LOT of problems with our WiFi, hence the late post. Without further ado, here you are - Our travelogue for Day One in beloved Taipei!
Note: Low-quality photos await! We simply did not have the luxury of time to shoot with perfect focus - otherwise blame it on the camera.


DAY ONE
Formosa Zhang 鬍鬚張  --> Coco 都可 --> 大勇麵線之家

Blurry selfie at Immigration :'(

Departure From: Changi Airport, Singapore
Arrival At: Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei

The flight departed at about 1320, so by the time we reached the airport, it was already dusk. Fortunately, we had booked a private driver in advance to take us to our apartment in Danshui so we weren't as highly-strung as we might usually be on the first day of any holiday abroad. Furthermore, with our godparents as hosts, who is going to complain?

Our lovely godmother and godsister waited for us at the gate for our arrival and greeted us with a variety of local Taiwanese snacks - yum!

Various street snacks

We were famished after a long ride on the plane, and these snacks were like heaven to us. 干妈 announced that the other siblings and 干爸 would be coming over too, so we decided to drive out to grab some more snacks.

Formosa Zhang 胡须张 [link here]
No. 54號, Fuguo Rd, Shilin District, Taipei City, 111



Formosa Zhang is said to be one of the most well-known stores in Taipei for their Braised Pork Rice 卤肉饭. I'm not an avid fan of pork, but when it comes to Taiwanese braised pork, I never fail to relish every shred of meat.
We got 3 large servings of their famous Braised Pork Rice 卤肉饭 and a small serving of their Shredded Chicken Rice 鸡丝饭, to share amongst what would be 8 people.







As expected, the food was great, though I would not suggest travelling all the way just to buy from Formosa Zhang. If I had to be nit-picky, I would say that the store loses to others in terms of price and maybe even taste, if you were to weigh its value. The small box of Shredded Chicken Rice was 35 NTD, which is rather costly if you consider its market price. For a serving of that size, I'd say the average hovers around to 25-30 NTD region. People can pay extra if they feel that it is worth it, and I might agree after sampling from more stores, but to me the difference in quality is rather negligible.

Coco
Various outlets across Taipei



A must-try beverage in Taiwan is their bubble-tea, most definitely, but out of the numerous brands of bubble-tea, you must leave space to sample some Coco drinks! Despite it being a branded bubble-tea, most of the time you will find that the prices of their drinks are comparable if not cheaper than drinks sold in night markets! Given the available variety and its delectable taste, I'd say Coco is much more worth than other shops like 50岚 a,k,a Koi in Sunny Singapore.

Iced tea.. for only 30 NTD?

Many drinks for cheap!

We ordered cold and warm milk tea, the latter of which was a special Roasted Milk Tea flavour. My sister said it tasted really good, and she's an ardent fan (and almost gourmet) of milk tea, so I am guessing it must have been of quite some standard!





Note how many pearls are left when I was almost done with my drink - Truly, it is a skill to be able to finish your drink and pearls at the same time!

大勇蚵仔面线
No. 120之4, Section 1, Zhongshan N Rd, Tamsui District, New Taipei City, 251









I'm not too sure if 大勇 is known for any of its food, but the queue was relatively long and there were even customers calling in to pre-order their food, so I'll give it the benefit of doubt and say that this stall seems well-loved by its old customers; I noticed the cashier smiling and chatting incessantly with almost any other customer who walked in, so they should be frequent customers!

We ordered Oyster Mee Sua, Oyster Omelette 蚝煎 , as well as our all-time favourite Smelly Beancurd 臭豆腐.







The Oyster Omelette was palatable, but I'm not a fair judge because I'm not a big fan of it to start with. The Mee Sua on the other hand was satisfying, and I found myself scooping more and more while we conversed in the living room afterwards. The Smelly Beancurd however was quite disappointing, because the sauce did not complement the fragrant 'stink' of the beancurd, and the side pickled vegetables were merely mediocre.


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干爸 arrived after work and bought even more snacks for us, which were so, so good - much better than the ones 干妈 got for us. I guess men are naturally better at 'scavenging' !










I really liked the fried pig's blood rice cake 炸米雪糕 - for those new to Taipei street snacks, Pig's Blood is a delicacy that you definitely have to try. It comes in three main forms - Pig's Blood Soup 猪血汤, Pig's Blood Rice Cake 米血糕, and the normal Pig's Blood 猪血糕. My personal favourite is the original coagulated form of Pig's Blood (mind me, I'm Dracula) but I always find myself pining for the rice cake version as it is easier to find. The rice cake version is simply pearl rice moulded into a rectangular shape like a popsicle, dipped into pig's blood and cooked. The result is the iconic crimson rice cubes as seen from the photos above.

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7-11
Countless of outlets worldwide





Later we went down to the 7-11 a stone throw away from the apartment building to stock up on snacks and drinks for other days, and boy were we glad to revisit it! If there's one thing that Taiwan beats Singapore hands-down in other than Night Markets, it's their 7-11s.



關東煮 is braised foodstuff, most commonly available in clear and spicy broth. With Singaporeans' palates though, I think the spicy broth is nowhere spicy at all. It's more of more umami...



7-11 drinks are simply the bomb. I step into 7-11 about once or twice in a year in Singapore, but in Taiwan I do so DAILY because everything there is so cheap!









400ml of milk tea for less than a dollar... You can't find this even in a hawker centre!



Seeing single-digits make me happy :)



I bought the Passion Fruits Yoghurt Green Tea, which tasted really good! It's nice to know that in Taiwan cheap does not translate to inferior quality.
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We returned back to the apartment soon after to wash up because it was really late by the time we were done snacking and catching up with our god-family. It was about 0200 by the time we fell asleep! I am excited to find out what Taipei has in store for us for the rest of the two weeks that we will be here for. But for now, goodnight from Danshui!

Here are the links for the other days (click on the days!):


DAY TWO
DAY THREE
DAY FOUR