Taiwan - Taipei

Spent three days at Taipei and here are some of the highlights of our city tour, with the exception of Wulai and Ximending which I shall share in another entry :)

TAIPEI 101

Visited the iconic Taipei 101! To our disappointment, we weren't going up to the observation area due to the long queues and waiting time. Was looking forward to it actually :(





So we only visited the shopping area!


And took photos of the view from 5th storey.


The mall reminds me of our Marina Bay Sands!

SHILIN NIGHT MARKET

Excited about Shilin Night Market because it's one of the popular places for tourists visiting Taipei. Although other people say it's not as good as it's raved to be, but still a must-visit at least once!



We did try the Hot Star chicken later at night, although it's also available in Singapore.


Went down to the air-conditioned underground area where there are many food stalls selling the typical Taiwanese street food.







Outdoor area was more crowded!


Wah, also have carnival games! It's like a big scale pasar malam.



Bought a drink from this shop~



And grilled squid from here!




Another cup of drink before we leave the area.



After a long queue, finally got our chicken cutlet from Hot Starr! Quite big!

PINEAPPLE TARTS DIY

Earlier that day we also attended a pineapple tarts workshop here!


It was quite easy because everything prepared nicely for us already.



My creation! It was the cube filling type.


Also bought other souvenirs from this shop since they sell quite alot of local snacks.



Tea-tasting at this place~ The tea leaves sold were quite expensive though.... Not for casual drinkers.

WU JIAO CHUAN BAN

Went to this interesting and well known restaurant for lunch. The architecture and interior is very artistic and unique, it felt like we were dining in a cave in some tribal village. Read online that the entire place is built out of driftwood. We were told there that the female owner built this entirely herself, so we were quite amazed at how one person can do this alone. But I tried to google about this story and couldn't find anything. I think they actually meant that she designed it entirely herself, and not really build it physically using her own hands on her own.

THE GRAND HOTEL

Part of our itinerary was visiting The Grand Hotel, and the background story of its fengshui was particularly interesting.



It's a hotel built to host foreign dignitaries who visited Taipei (It has secret passages! How exciting!). To my surprise, it is also open for booking to normal tourists too! I feel that staying here would be an unique experience for sure. It felt like a palace, especially because of its dragon motifs, wall paintings/carvings, and traditional Chinese decor.



Took the chance to take a group photo infront of it!


When reaching the front entrance, a sudden gush of strong wind blew in our direction. According to our guide, the wind is there 24/7 throughout the year no matter the weather.


The lobby... Definitely garnered alot of "wow...." from us.





My grey top is from www.earthdoll.co! Dressed quite casually during this trip~

YANG MING SHAN

Didn't know that nature also exist in the big city of Taipei! Went up to Yang Ming Shan to check out Xiaoyoukeng and the Flower Clock.


The Xiaoyoukeng recreation area is quite well known in Yangmingshan National Park for its volcanically-created fumaroles. The scenery was breathtaking, but it was especially stinky due to the sulfur released. It was quite an eye-opening nature visit for us though.









There were a bunch of vendors selling these squash balls that were connected to the racket, so that you can play squash without an opponent, plus if the ball goes to far, don't have to chase after it... Just pull the string attached. Quite fun!!




Taiwan is really full of 山山水水 (mountains and rivers). Am not a big fan of nature though..... Don't mind some countryside activities but not too much. Haha.

Check out my other Taiwan blog entries below, or other travel stories:http://www.estherxie.com/p/wander.html

CNY Bakes: Cashew Nut Cookies

Spent the whole afternoon yesterday baking cashew nut cookies for my family and bf! Shall share the recipe here!

Ingredients:

200g plain flour

200g icing sugar (can use fine sugar or castor sugar but I chose icing sugar because I use a manual whisk and icing was easier to mix)

150g butter (I didn't use real butter. Chose buttercup spread cos cheaper haha)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Half teaspoon salt

Half teaspoon baking powder

300g roasted cashew nuts

2 eggs (one for dough, one for brushing)



First, mix the butter and sugar.



Afterwards add the vanilla essence, egg, salt. Mix, then add flour and baking powder.




Next, sort the nuts!

First 150g: split into halves. Do this first, if there are any that is difficult to split, just throw them to the other pile for chopping.

Rest 150g: crushed into fine pieces.

Actually should do this step first but I made the mistake of not preparing this in advance. So my dough was left out for awhile because chopping the nuts took longer than I thought.

At first I tried to use a knife to chop the nuts but it was difficult. So I tried looking for something heavy in the house to break them. Found a spanner and used it to hit the nuts inside the original packaging (luckily I chose these packet ones instead of those in containers. How to hit nuts in containers? Lol.) Took awhile before they managed to disintegrate to fine pieces.

Not sure if there are pre-crushed cashew nuts sold outside?



Mix it into the dough mixture.

Afterwards, coat the baking tray with butter and then take a roll of dough and slightly flatten it on the tray. Size should be around 50 cent coins? I was lazy so I made it bigger.

Some people use cookie cutter but the beauty of baking cookies is that shape doesn't matter. Hehe.



Lay a cashew nut on top of each and brush with beaten egg yolk. Then bake at around 150-200 degrees till golden brown. Check frequently because mine got burnt quite easily.



Final outcome! Everybody say nice! Some got two cashew nuts because I ended up with excess nuts (cos I didn't make the cookies small enough, which would lead to more pieces and just nice for my 150g of nuts)



Perfect for the upcoming Chinese New Year!!

Happy Occasions

Yay! Another one of those random entries!

Plenty of photos ahead, compiled over the recent months~ I always find it a hassle to upload blog photos, so sometimes I delay and delay until I have more than a hundred backdated photos. All not in sequence because there are too many to move around!