Click here to read from the first post of this travel log!๐
Day 10-11: Dihua St., more KTV & Home-bound
13-14 October 2023, Friday-Saturday
On our last full day in Taiwan, Bi brought me to this rice ball breakfast store - it was near our accommodation and we got there by foot at around 10 A.M. Avoiding the morning office crowd, the queue was short & quick.
้ฃฏ็ณฐ้ธ
Map: No. 2่, Xuchang St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan 100
Originally, I thought ordering a pork floss rice ball would means its just pork floss & rice, but hey, its more than just that. The store has a standard set of ingredients that would be included in the rice ball (fried doughstick, vegetable & filling of choice) so its a pretty hearty & balanced breakfast.
I was blown away at my first bite into the rice ball - the first question I had was, why SG doesn't have such a rice ball for sale (or was there?)? the fried doughstick was crispy coupled with the savory element from the pork floss and I consider it healthy because of the vegetables in there + you have the option of topping up with an egg for protein.
Loved it. ๐ If my memory didn't fail me, I think we got another rice ball (the sweet & salty one) to share. We were so full (its like having 2 bowls of rice in a single meal).
Beautiful sky, and just a random spot where Taipei 101 is in the background.
Dihua Street (่ฟชๅ่ก) - ๆฐ่ๅ ArtYard
Map: No. 67่, Section 1, Dihua St, Datong District, Taipei City, Taiwan 103
Onto our final destination for the trip, it was to Dihua St.!
This place gives me a tea, dry-market kind of vibe - there were a lot of stores specialising in dry goods (such as beans, dried fruits, etc...) as well as traditional tea houses.
And so, we decided to have a tea experience with ArtYard.
First, we had to pick the tea we wanted, and the selection was made through scent of 18 different types of tea leaves and a menu booklet with descriptions of each of the samples.
After making the selection, they would prepare the pot of tea & the complimentary snacks to complete the experience.
By this time of the trip, I think we spent our tea session just reminiscing about the places that were most memorable to us and reflecting. ๐
After the tea experience session, we didn't explore further but rather we decided to go back & do laundry - figured that the afternoon crowd at the coin laundry would likely be lesser than at night (I think we did laundry on the 1st night we were here as well, and there were a lot of people).
Coin Laundry
Map: No. 1่, Lane 106, Section 1, Kaifeng St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan 100
This was at a pretty convenient location (near our accommodation of course) and near a cafe as well. So after parking our laundry in the washing machine, we went off for a quick coffee/tea break.
Settling our laundry (it was more for me, because I don't have a washing machine at home), it was time for our KTV part 2 in Taiwan - Taipei. We found this brand of KTV with pretty good google reviews which was near our vicinity and just went with it.
Holiday KTV (ๅฅฝๆจ่ฟชKTV)
Map: No. 34, Guanqian Rd, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan 100
This was a game changer - the first KTV that I had ever been to (in my life) with a private bathroom in the room. The quality of this KTV is definitely much better than the one we went to in Taichung, highly recommend this chain of KTV (party food was great as well).
3 Hours of singing our fills, and the day was already almost over (we ended the session around 18:45). Headed to Ximending to grab the spring onion pancake (with pork chop & egg) that we found on the first night (loved it), and went back to pack our baggage for the return journey home.
The next morning, we went back to the rice ball store to grab both breakfast & lunch (the queue was much longer than the day before because it was weekend) before we headed to the airport via the Airport Express train.
Really stuffed the last rice ball into my tummy just before our flight, it was far too filling. Sadly, perhaps its really the weekend crowd (or even dependent on luck - e.g., the person who wraps your rice ball), but the rice ball was not as memorable as the 1st one we had.
Just before our flight, we went in search of a bakery within the terminal and we each got some bread to bring back home for our families.
Then there's nothing much to update anymore.
We were homebound and marked the end of a journey.
Thinking back, we were both kind of worried since they always say that travelling together with friends is a test of friendship. Super thankful that despite some of the hiccups along the way (e.g., finding transport just to get to our hotel on the 1st day, or change of plans because of typhoon day, cutting short our Maokong day trip because we were too tired, etc... etc...), just thankful that we were both pretty flexible and open to changing our plans based on our condition each day. ๐
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