Back to work?

After Taipei, after my birthday celebrations, after the Christmas "countdown party" at Trader's Hotel, it's back to work.. 830 am on a Thursday morning, in sch now, waiting for staff meeting to begin.. time to get started again, though I guess it's gonna be real hard for the first week or so, what with getting used to sleeping at 5/5+ am and waking up at 1/2 pm.. sounds like a complete reversal of waking and sleeping times..
oh well, back to work, back to work.. Let's all wish for a good year ahead.. for J2s, work hard, J1s, enjoy JC life, for the rest, eh.. best wishes? yupz.. (=

Taipei?

hmm.. been back for about a week or so already.. in between then and now, I celebrated my birthday, well, sort of, and the rest of the time was spent vegetating in front of my comp/tv/bed.. very constructive..

so well.. what did I do in Taipei? hmm.. day 1 - touched down late becoz of some delay, checked in abt 3+ or 4.. after which went ard Xi Men Ding area to look for food, settled at some noodle store.. spent a little more time there before going on the Shilin Night Market for food and shopping.. didn't get much stuff but food was pretty alright..

day 2 - happened to be election day for mayor in Taipei and Kaoshiung, so we popped by to the nearest polling station (some primary school) to take a look.. ended up at the wrong entrance, but we found this small museum (if you can even call it one) which basically traced the history of that very primary school and the development of education in Taiwan.. turned out that it was rather a gem of a place, and not forgetting that it was good for photo-taking.. haha.. went to the polling station after that.. nothing much to note there.. so we went on the another museum.. the National Taiwan Museum if I'm not wrong.. and that was pretty cool too.. went hunting for lunch after that, and found this place that really does take-aways but had a seating area upstairs.. so we went in and I must say it was good.. and worth the money.. we then took the mtr to Wu Fen Pu Wholesale Centre and spent some time shopping there.. loads and loads of clothes and shoes, all at rather attractive prices.. following that, went over to Rao He Night Market, which was good too.. went for dinner/supper at some shop in XMD before settling at this small "pub" near the hotel for some drinks before going back to zzz...

day 3 - headed to Jiufen, so took a 1hr+ bus ride up the mountains.. was raining when we got there, so got a little chilly, but still fine.. walked through the winding alley and took in the sights and sounds of the streets.. only thing was the puddles on the ground and the umbrellas poking my head as we squeezed through.. lots of food available, but we never really sat down at any to eat.. bought Tai Yang Bing (sun biscuit?) and Feng Li Su (pineapple tarts?) there and ended up with many big bags of stuff.. oh.. and David ended up with nearly 1kg of tea leaves.. haha.. and I think we all drank too much tea at the shop as well.. so we headed to Miao Kou Night Market at Keelung.. took a bus and got off at the wrong stop.. was supposed to get off at Keelung train station, but we got off way earlier than that, and eventually, we took a cab to where we wanted to go.. spent some time there, and also had dinner before we took a train back to Taipei main station and transferred to the mtr to go back to our hotel.. came out again later looking for supper, and ended up at another one of the shops in XMD area.. went back to the same pub before heading back to hotel..

day 4 - took the mtr to Beitou station and transferred to a mini-bus which took us to a hot spring resort.. being a Monday, there was a discount, so we paid $50 for a private room for two for an hour.. and it also came with two free hours in the public bath or use of the resting area.. so off we went into the private bath, and woohoo.. water was like 41 degrees? so I can imagine the poor fishball and why it bounced around in boiling water.. it took a while to get accustomed to the water and it was rather relaxing.. but it was like too hot that day to really enjoy coz the sun was shining really brightly as well.. so headed back to Beitou station and had Macs there before going to Danshui and making our way to Fisherman's Wharf via public bus.. managed to catch the sunset there, which was really quite beautiful.. we then made our way back to Danshui via ferry.. headed to Shilin to do some last minute shopping.. the girls managed to get their nails painted there too.. david and i played touch master.. haha.. dropped our stuff off in the hotel and went for dinner/supper at about 1am.. found this place which sells balls.. fish balls, sotong balls, meat balls.. whateva balls.. and it was quite good.. went back to do packing after that..

day 5 - last day.. sigh.. time flies.. confirmed our bus to the airport, checked out abt 11, headed for Taipei 101.. super super high class man.. walk on the floor with my Birks also the floor squeak.. haha.. so we went out and searched for david's comics.. ended up at a Eslite bookstore in one of the shopping centres and asked for directions to the high Eslite there.. looked more like a library than a book store to me man.. so we spent some time there before cabbing back to hotel.. boarded the bus and was stuck in the mother of all jams on the way to airport man.. I thought we were not gonna make it, but damn.. we did.. but realised we were at terminal 1 instead of 2.. so took a shuttle bus.. finally boarded the plane and got back to Sg at abt 11? yeah.. and that was that..

and so that ended my taipei trip.. which was quite enjoyable I must say.. and well, looking forward to next june/dec for the next one.. hmm.. where to next?