Dainty Diva
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Yoz peeps... I'm back! Got miss me not? If not, then no souvenir... wahaha...
My trip was great! Had nice uncles driving us to and fro airport - hotel, as well as an interesting tour guide on our city tour on Day 3. Ooh... the tour guide said i look like Korean girl, don't have the typical S'porean look... i take it as a compliment.. wahaha... and he knows a bit of fortune-telling and fengshui thingy... said i'm the 'Xiao Mi Hu' - blur blur kind... i can't reveal too much, in case you all take advantage of my weaknesses... =X
Taipei is the place for food & shopping, definitely not for sight-seeing! However, shopping is not as shiok as in Bangkok... things are not exactly cheap, most are around the same price as in Singapore... food is a little cheaper over there, i would say... but we didn't really dare to risk by eating from roadside stalls... settled lunch mostly at food courts and restaurants, and dinner at the night markets...
I will just give a brief overview of my experience there... kinda tired after the flight, so will update more in time to come...
1st thing i realized was that Taiwanese drive on the left side of their vehicles. Streets and alleys are all cluttered with motorbikes (i think the ratio of people: bikes is 2:1) and the traffic there is horrendous! Vehicles are 'bigger' than the predestrians, must be super cautious when crossing the roads, even when it is green light for predestrians... and i don't remember seeing any overhead bridges there! Thank goodness there's a wonderful traffic system back home! *phew*
One weird habit of the Taiwanese is that they don't flush used toilet paper into the toilet bowl... afraid of sewage blockage... so they have a bin in each toilet for you to throw the used toilet paper... i think it is a little disgusting... what if a person does BIG business??
Another thing is they don't practise packing stuff in plastic bags... we were carrying quite a lot of things when we went to 7-11 to buy drinks but the cashier didn't give us a bag for our drinks so we asked for it... she told us it costs NTD $1 for a bag... *culture shock* ... Nevertheless, i think it is a good practice as it is environmental-friendly... but even when we went to shop at one of the supermarkets and bought many things, the cashier asked if we need a bag... if not, where to place our purchases?! After returning to the hotel, i realized we were charged NTD $2 for the bag... *sweatz*
Oh yah, we saw NoNo at 7-11 in Xi Men Ding on our 1st night there!
There is also this funny thing which i just can't understand... the 'dian ti xiao jie' (ladies working in lifts of shopping malls) thingy... they will press the lift buttons for you, announce each level (eg. when lift stops at level 4, she will announce 'level 4 - kids' department') and then step out of the lift and announce that the lift is heading upstairs and see if anyone wants to come into the lift... so weird lor! Why can't shoppers just press the lift buttons on their own, like what we do? More job opportunities?
But all in all, i really like the customer service there... the people are extremely polite and courteous! Whenever we step into a store, be it at a high-end shopping mall, stores in Xi Men Ding or tiny shops at night markets, we feel very welcome with their 'Huan Ying Guang Lin' greeting... and when we look at the merchandise, they will ask us to try it on etc... so unlike in Spore, some sales associate think that we cant afford the stuff and will not entertain us... the staff at the hotel are all very helpful too... we ought to learn from the Taiwanese in this aspect!
Anyway, i have uploaded part of the photos liao... the rest are with XX so i will upload again after i get hold of them... Taiwan Photos If password is requested for, it is 'taipeitrip' ... enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~