Holidays in Taiwan ... Dan Shui (Day 6 and Home Sweet Home!)

We have came to the end of our short holidays in Taiwan ! Taking the 7:00pm flight back to Singapore ! We still have sometime for a last minute shopping. There was not much things to buy back from where we stay. Therefore, we decided to go Dan Shui and see if we can find anything there. Glad we went to Dan Shui, there were plenty of food stuff to buy back for friends and relatives.

A busy place with streets lining with food stuff.

Looks like a lot of food stuff bought from Dan Shui, however, it seems not enough to distribute.

Love their Bian Dan at 7-eleven. Seriously, they were delicious !

That kind of wrapped up our 6 days holidays in Taiwan.

Holidays in Taiwan .... Taipei (Day 5)

After 2 restful days in beautiful Cing Jing, we were back to Taipei.

We checked into Royal Palace Hotel which is very near the Zhong Xiao Fu Xin station.

The rather classy and big lobby. The lobby even have a coffee-making machine served by an attendant for guests who were waiting for their transport or waiting for people. We were served 2 cups of coffee while waiting for our transport.

This surround system rocks !!! The room even has an ipod docking station and a international charger which is quite thoughtful.

A rather dark-coloured furnishing used in the room but still the room is comfortable and clean.

Hello Kitty Sweets is only diagonally opposite our hotel ! In less than a minute's walk, we reached the pinky cafe ! How convenient !

The first floor of Hello Kitty Sweets.

The first floor of Hello Kitty Sweets.

The second floor of Hello Kitty Sweets. We were seated on the second storey.

The second floor of Hello Kitty Sweets. This table is for large group.

The window display ...

Our drinks ... pretty nice.

Such pretty presentation of our desserts ! Can't bear to eat it, really !

Tiramisu ... tasted wonderful too !

The pinky cafe is worth a visit even though we are not a Hello Kitty fan.

Our dinner brought back from a shop nearby to the hotel to eat in leisure.

Our fifth day in Taiwan was spent briefly in Hello Kitty Sweets and shopping around Zhong Xiao Fu Xin.

Holidays in Taiwan ... Cing Jing (Day 4)

After a great breakfast on our second day in Cing Jing, we requested the villa to send us to "Gou Ming Bin Guan". The Little Swiss Garden was just nearby.

The Little Swiss Garden is disappointing. However, if you are here to take some photos, you could spend an hour or two browsing around the man-made pond.

That's how we whiled our time away, taking some photos and making use of the tripod we have brought along.

Nearer to the entrance of the garden.

Some artificial windmills ..

Cute little wooden sheep amongst the flowers

Artificial giant sunflowers

Imitating the Moo moo behind us ...

Giant flower clock at the distance

After the Swiss Garden, we took the 11:20pm bus to Green Green Grassland. The sheep are allowed to roam freely on the grassland. Unfortunately, there was no sheep shearing or other shows on that day. So we just walked around the grassland.

This sheep is quite a character... confident and very sure of itself !

CK with the grazing sheep ..

Sheep dotted the grass slope and eating away !

Taken from the castle-like building.

The greedy but cute little lambs ..

Somehow, it started to drizzle but we were almost done with Green Green Grassland. By the time we exited the farm, the clouds started to cover the grassland. There, we realised that the next bus doesn't come till 3:30pm or so. Without renting a car, it is not very convenient to travel around the mountainous area. The bus is not frequent, therefore, have to do some homework if you have no personal vehicle. We called Florence Villa and requested them to fetch us back to the villa at NT100 per person.

We were quite hungry when reached the villa. Unfortunately, the lunch at the restaurant was closed for the day. Therefore, we settled for a very dainty afternoon tea !

We enjoyed our stay in Cing Jing despite the inconvenience without a car. The mountains and lake has a calming effect. Just enjoy long meals and walk around the villa and other nearby resorts could be enjoyable too.

These were some photos near Florence Villa.

Holidays in Taiwan ...CING JING (Day 3)

Love holidaying in places where I could get to visit the city as well as the countryside !

We checked out of See You Hotel at 6:30am ! Yes, it was that early ! One of the main reasons why we chose to stay near the main station is for convenience. The main station provides services for Taipei Rapid Transit System served by both Tamsui Line and Nangang Line directly. The Taiwan Railway Administration for passengers to board a train to most cities in Taiwan without transferring. We took the Taiwan High Speed Rail to bring us to Tai Chung. It was a very comfortable ride and only took 40 minutes to reach Tai Chung !

The clean and comfortable bullet train !

We reached the spacious Tai Chung Station. To take the bus to Cing Jing, just proceed to the basement where a bus ticket booth was located.

Just tell the staff that you wanted to buy bus tickets to Cing Jing and let them know which resort/villa that you are staying. They will advise you which bus stop to alight in Cing Jing. We stayed in Florence Villa, therefore, we were advised to alight at "Guo Min Bing Guan". (The driver would alert the passengers when he was making a stop-over) You can put your bulky luggage inside the bus compartment. The bus will take about 2 hours to reach Cing Jing.

We alighted at "Guo Min Bing Guan" and try to find our way to Florence Villa. One grave mistake we made, we did not know that we could call the villa to drive us to directly to the villa upon arrival at "Guo Min Bing Guan"! It was like more than 1 km with our luggage on hilly roads to the villa ...

Finally, we reached Florence Villa !!!!

This is the main entrance of Florence Resort Villa. There are 3 resort buildings which provide different accommodation requirements in a relatively big compound.
You can chose to stay either in "Italianate Villa", "Constantinople" or "European Manor".

We have stayed in the "Italianate Villa",威尼斯豪華景觀雙人房. This room is nearest to the lobby ..

The cozy lobby ..

The tiny balcony ...

... the great view from the tiny balcony !

Another view from the balcony ... probably the most "atas" accommodation in Cing Jing, the Old England Manor !

The left building is "Constantinople" and the building with "Starry bar" is ""European Manor". We could moved around these 2 buildings as well.

Taken a photo of "Italianate villa" from "Constantinople" ... Italianate villa is set at the top of the hill and the 2 villas and chocolate shop and restaurant are located down the slope. Therefore, we have to climb up and down getting from places to places.

Florence Resort Villa also has a hand-made chocolate shop. We would pass by this lovely place a couple of times for our meals at the restaurant daily.

The lovely restaurant where we had all our meals during our stay in Cing Jing.

You can also choose to dine in this part of the restaurant ...

The western food they served were terrific ! This plateful of colourful salad was fresh and sweet ! (ok, except the vegetarian pasta ordered for dinner)

The baked chicken is awesome too !

The pork knuckle was cooked to perfection, very much catered to the Asian style of cooking though.

The creamy corn soup with bacon bites and baked bread crumbs was just so fragrant ! Very satisfactory meals indeed ! For dinner, if you order western food, you can help yourself to the salad bar too ! Value for money !

Oh..more photos of the areas around the big resort.

Nina hand-made chocolates

The side entrance of the chocolate shop.

Inside the cozy chocolate shop .. they sell Movenpick ice-cream too ! Yummy !

Looks pretty Christmassy at night !

The swing just outside the chocolate shop.

The Starry Bar ...

Behind us is the the European Manor.

The very tamed golden retriever, Da Xiong ! At that instant, really missed Jojo so much !

The villas' owner private villa.