Taipei -> Kaoshiung -> Pintung -> Kaoshiung -> Tainan -> Nantou -> Tainan -> Kaoshiung -> Taipei

Like a package, my sister and I have been transferred from one relative to another. And that is why this past Chinese New Year’s break, we have been to so many places, and it was fun :)

We took an almost 8-hour train ride form Taipei to Kaoshiung, because my sister wanted to see the seaside view of Taiwan. Taipei to Kaoshiung is literally the north to south of the country. The view? Wouldn’t know, I slept for the most of it.

Did I mention that we brought Stitch along for the ride? (and for his blog? http://stitchtravels.tumblr.com)

The following day was New Year’s eve, and we had a quiet dinner at grandma’s house.

On New Year’s day, we went to our father’s side relatives place in Pintung. Our cousin ordered food from McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut (complete!) :). And afterwards, we went to a park next to a brick factory and train tracks.

Sea of flowers.

Piggie sculptures made out of bricks.

Train tracks.

After that, we went back to our grandmother’s house in Kaoshiung, and our mother’s side relatives are already there. We had dinner, watched movies and around 11:30 at night, we decided to go to a night market (crazy, right?).

The next day, we went to Pier-2 Art Center, because the movie set of “Black and White” is there.

Look a restaurant called Pasadena (FYI my subdivision back in Manila was called Pasadena).

It used to be warehouses, but they converted it into an artsy fartsy place by the pier. It’s very urban and very grunge and I like it.

The bar set of “Black and White” the movie.

Afterwards, we went to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi (it’s a mall) next to the HSR station for some window shopping and dinner. Since it’s quite near grandma’s we decided to walk home. We also get to see Lotus lake and the night market stalls next to it.

The next day, we went to see even more relatives, in Kaoshiung City.

After lunch, we explored the shops around Xin Jue Jiang, which is sort of like Taipei’s Ximending.

We went back to our grandmother’s house, only to be whisked away again to Tainan (our aunt’s house). We bought dinner at one of the night market’s in Tainan. There were so many people there, because it’s New Year’s break and everyone went south.

We went to Sun Moon Lake the next day, it’s in Nantou, which is kind of far, that’s why we woke up really early and was on the road by 5:30am.

It was actually my first time to go to Sun Moon Lake, even if it’s one of Taiwan big tourist spots.

This post is looking pretty long, so am going to continue about Sun Moon Lake in the next post.