It's going to be a relaxing day as we do not need to follow any train schedule today! We got to sleep in abit late and ruby suggested that we have glutinous rice roll for breakfast. As taipei shops doesn't open early, we plan to visit the 龍山峙 temple after breakfast. In Ximending, there's a small take-away stall “西門町豆漿” which has been around for over 30 years run by an old granny. The stall sells a variety of 飯糰，蛋餅，燒餅 + 豆漿, traditional taiwanese breakfast. We ordered a 燻雞蛋飯糰 (NT45) + 溫豆漿 ~ a tasty rice roll wrapped wif seaweed, fillings consist of egg, meat & dough fritters (油條).
After filling our tummies, we took the MRT one-stop away to 龍山峙 station. It turn out to be 立春, official start of Spring day... hence the temple was flooded wif visitors. Due to the Lantern Festival in 2 days' time, the temple was also decorated wif various designs of lanterns. As Ruby went ahead wif her prayers, I went around shooting & utilised my zoom to capture the intricate dragons on the roof-top. When we were done, we saw a 85 Degrees bakery nearby & decided to buy a slice of the layered cheescake... It's nicely packed in a box wif forks for us too! Finally, I got to try the cheesecake as ruby always rave about it! :p
Moving on, we followed the Monga area map & went Bo-Pi-Liao Historic Street (剝皮寮老街). In recent years, this alley has become famous partly due to a taiwanese movie ~ Monga. Over here, besides perserverance of the movie's filming set, the rest of the street is filled wif a tinge of nostalgic...The alley has some colourful graffiti... It's like a walk down memory lane as different galleries display stuff from the 60s and so on... There's also games set up to educate us about history of our surnames etc... We continued to roam around Monga area looking at 2 other temples & break for lunch.
After a late lunch at 3+pm, we boarded the MRT toward the Taipei Zoo Station. We headed to the Maokong Gondola (貓空) Station Q... Wow! It's a long Q indeed... If you have the Easycard, then no need to purchase separate tickets as one can tap the card to board the Gondola. It's an exciting ride up the mountain & the view was fantastic! Sharing the cabin wif us were a young couple & an elderly couple from HK. The elderly couple even chatted wif us & we managed to take some shots on the Gondola too... 30mins past & we arrived at the final stop. Abit unsure where to go & randomly boarded a shuttle bus towards 杏花林. We were late as the sun was setting soon... We managed to catch a nice clear view of the taipei's skyline wif Taipei 101!
As it's rather dark to further explore the area, we boarded the shuttle heading back to Maokong Station... Along the way, the bus driver said it's rare to get a clear view & asked if we wanna alight to take some photos... hence, most of the bus' passengers alighted & we tried hard to snap the night-view (without tripod)! After a few tries, I realised it's impossible to capture sharp shots & upon getting downhill, we decided to go to one of the tea-houses... This whole mountain area is littered wif tea-houses. Wif its refreshing air & cool weather, it's a nice place to sip hot tea while admiring the scenic view! There's also a comprehensive menu if you wish to have dinner there too...
When we were done wif our tea session, we headed back to taipei city for dinner at one of the mall's foodcourt... Upon reaching was past 9.30pm already & I almost didn't get to buy my dinner! Juz aftering ordering my Pork Chop wif Spaghetti, they announced last order for the night! It took a long time for my dinner to arrive but it's really scrumptious! Upon re-charging our energy, we walked to 囯父紀念館台北燈會 ~ Tapei City's Lantern Festival in conjunction wif the Yuan Xiao Festival. We have never seen so many pretty lanterns before! There were a huge crowd thronging the place & this made photography very challenging! One gotta be fast & accurate when shooting! The lanterns were really nice & creative, mostly reflecting the Dragon Year theme... ranging from fairy tales dragons to mystical ones!
At the end of the night, we were really tired as we needed to chase the last train before mid-night!
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