travel: Taiwan 2012 Day 12: Taipei: Taipei Zoo, Maokong, Wufenpu

Breakfast at Palais de Chine was a feast of all imaginable food - that will certainly satisfy even the most picky eater. They even had fresh sashimi for breakfast!

christmas deco

reception area

We went to Taipei Zoo today. Fare is TWD 60, which I think is pretty cheap, compared to the exorbitant fee patrons have to pay back in Sydney (I'm looking at you, Taronga Zoo and Wildlife World, you!!). The zoo is massive, but not necessarily chock-a-block full of animals. The size mainly is only land-oriented. It is pretty tiring to walk from one end to another, as all the exhibits are quite wide spread and far away from each other, unlike the usual zoos where animals exhibits almost touch nose to nose.

The butterfly kingdom was quite fun to walk through, I especially like to search for the tiny caterpillars (pre-pupa stage) inside their respective enclosures. It's like playing 'Where is Wally".

Obviously, we skipped the Australian section ... .

Then we went on the Maokong Gondola (TWD 50 one way, and you can use the easycard to pay for it). The crystal cabin does not cost any extra, though you probably have to wait longer as there is only one every 4 regular cabins.

At Maokong, there are a lot of teahouses, it is mind boggling.

We chose Yuan Xu Yuan Teahouse (緣續緣茶坊). You can't really miss the building. Just turn right as soon as you exit the Maokong Gondola station at Maokong.

The uniqueness of the place is, you have to hop on the stepstones over the koi pond to reach your tea cubicle, where every one of them open up to views of tea plantation or city skyline (you can see Taipei 101 from here. Heck, you can see Taipei 101 from almost everywhere, as long as you are quite high up)

Total Damage TWD 1100

Then we took the gondola back to Taipei Zoo Gondola Station, and board the rail to Zhongxiao Fuxing and change the line to reach Houshanpi for some retail therapy. 

We arrived at Wufenpu around 6.30 p.m. and initially planned to hit Raohe night market as well after some shopping.

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Some shopping?? OMFG, I went completely nuts. Most of our spending money, we burnt them there.

We did not take pictures as we were too busy scouring 4 1/2 full hours going up and down the alley, grabbing this and that and try to haggle with our limited mandarin and google translate on iphone (haggling hardly bring the cost down beyond a couple of hundreds TWD). All in all, we spent quite a few moola, but damn, this could easily cost double even triple the price if bought in Australia (not to mention, most of the fashion style in Australia kinda suck).

So we did not have the time (or energy) to go to Raohe night market anymore, but came back to the hotel with full satisfaction.

Our loot for the night: