Taipei 4.0

 Just came back from my 4th Taipei trip and this time, it wasn't a solo trip.

I had made plans with a friend months back to go on a trip with him to Taipei, since I had been there a few times, I prepared an itinerary and he was all for it. The good thing about going with a friend is I am not as anal about needing to know the exact travel route for the different places I am planning to go to because if I do get lost, at least I am not lost alone, so that was something that soothed my nerves and made this trip feel a lot less overly prepared. (Also helps that I have been to Taipei so many times so I am already pretty familair and confident about taking the Metro lines, but one thing I managed to gain on this trip is the confidence to actually take the public bus as well, so that was a huge win)

1st Day. (Sunday)


I was having  a really bad stomachache 2 day before the flight and I think it had to do with the Sweet Potatoes that I had gotten from Donki, I remember having one for late breakfast and another for dinner hours later and I was just  having liquid diarrhea the entire day on Saturday.

So all I had for breakfast before the flight was a bottle of Po Chai Pills and Citron Tea from Heavenly Wang at the Airport.

For the flight itself, we opted for SIA Economy because I have been spoilt by the experience when I had gone to Seoul, that 6 hour felt like it went by so quickly and it was the same for this flight. I didn't get the front row seat for the extra leg room because I have been tracking my expenses a lot lately and realize that $80 is a bit much for a compataively shorter flight to Taipei.

The flight was suppose to take a little under 5 hours, but we managed to reach Taipei within 4 hours and we landed in Terminal 2 this time around, which was different from what I was used to since I would take Scoot in the past, and Scoot arrives in Terminal 1. 

Terminal 2 is actually a better Terminal if we are taking a train to the city because it is the very first stop for the Express Train, which meant we were able to get seats! 

The only downside was the Sun was just constantly shining into my face like 50% of the ride.

We got to Taipei Main Station in about 40 minutes, then switched over to the regular train and as usual, I got a bit lost in the mainstation for a while, it's also such a pain to have to carry the luggage back and forth in the busy station, but we made it and made our way to Ximen where our hotel was located, the hotel is called Midtown Richardson and it is a 3 Star Hotel. 

The check-in experience was definitely not something I was used to because it was a self check-in, they had staff around to help in case anyone needed it, but it was definitely a very very different experience from the past hotels I had stayed in during my past solo trips.

The hotel had 15 stories in total and we got assigned a room on the 2nd floor. 

I guess it is to be expected, we did get a really good price for the tickets and hotel on trip.com, so I wouldn't imagine the hotel would be so generous to assign us a room on the higher levels, those are probably reserved for customers who are paying full price.

When we got to our room, I was a bit concerend with how small it was, it was a decently designed space, but this was the first time in a long time I had been on a trip with someone whom I will be sharing a room with, so it made the space feel really claustraphobic. (It looks fine in the second photo because the other bed is empty, and I will get to the reason why that is later)

I think knowing how small the room would be and the fact that I will be sharing such a small space with my friend, that thought of how uncomfortable I could potentially be feeling for the entire trip was constantly hanging at the back of my mind. I'm just spoilt by solo travelling and having a room all to myself, I mean I was even given my own room during my company's cruise trip.

But let's focus on the activity for the day (or night as it was already dark when we got to the hotel).

For the first night of the trip, I wanted to keep things simple, I didn't want us to travel too far since we had just landed in Taipei.

I decided we should just stay in Ximending for dinner, this is a spot I would always come to during my previous few trips, so the fact that I am staying so near Ximending, it's probably one of the best thing about the hotel, (it just reminded me of my decision to book a hotel near Myeongdeong during my Seoul trip, the convinience of being able to go to the shopping district in Myeongdeong whenever I am bored is amazing). 

My original plan had been to get Beef Noodles.....

 ....but my travel buddy wanted to try this place called Tian Tian Li.

I have seen this store multiple times before during my past visits, but was always turned off by the long queues, however, since I was with a travel buddy and he wanted to try it, I thought it was the perfect oppurtunity to since the beef noodle place was something I had already tried before in the past, why not get something different this time around.

The crowd situation in the shop, it's packed but people don't stay too long, they leave after they are done with their meal, so the queue does move faster than I had expected.

Great thing about going on a trip with someone is that we can get to try more food. My stomach capacity wasn't huge, so I was actually full after this, that being said, there is always room for dessert and I wanted to get the Crispy Milk Donut that I had from my last trip, so we went there and there was a long queue for this one as well.

We were in line for about 15 minutes when one lady suddenly approached us and told us if we could help her get the donuts because she was afraid if she were to join the queue and waited like everyone else, the store could potentially sell out by the time it's her turn, she offered to pay for our donuts if we helped her, we asked her how many she wanted, expecting maybe 2 -4 pieces just for her and her friend to try.

She requested for us to get her a total of 12 donuts.

I did end up letting her cut the queue, (or to be more exact, gave our spot to her), so she got 12 donuts and gave my friend and I one each, she was a nice lady, but I did feel really bad seeing her almost wipe out the entire batch of frehsly fried donuts from the display.

So dessert was free, but at the expense of my conscience. 

That summed up the first day. 

We went back to the hotel afterwards and called it a day.

Did have some difficulty trying to fall asleep so it wasn't a great first night.

2nd Day. (Monday)

I actually woke up at around 6am because my bodyclock is wired that way ever since I started going for 7am Fitstop classes.

My friend only got up at around 9am, close to 10am, so that was really not great start to the morning for me personally, too much time wasted just sitting in bed doing absolutely nothing.

We headed out for breakfast once he had freshened up, went to ShiJie Soymilk King because this was a spot that served good soymilk but did not come with the crazy queue like Fuhuang. I am someone who really likes soy milk, so I don't mind queing up for soymilk at Fuhuang, my friend isn't exactly a huge fan of it and I didn't want him to queue up for something he could potentially find mid, so Shi Jie it is.

We had a rather late breakfast at 11am and the plan I had in my mind was for us to have a heavy breakfast, and then maybe have a late lunch afterwards, this way we can also avoid any potential peak hour lunch crowd. 

I told my friend I wanted to get some perfume from Songshan Cultural and Creative Park afterwards, and so we headed there right after.

I was actually planning to get a bottle of the perfume I got from my last trip from this brand called Odor Fundr, but then noticed that eyecandle had a full fledge store there!

This was a very pleasant surprise.

eyecandle is the very first Taiwanese fragrance brand that I came during my first solo trip in Taipei, and in the same location at Songshan Cultural Park (but back then they only had a small booth in the souviner store, which is actually still there as well), so it carries a special place in my heart, I had actually wanted to go for their perfume workshop during the second solo trip, but fell sick and couldn't attend it in the end, my third trip was rather short so I also didn't add it into my itinerary, plus the original spot of the main eyecandle store that does the workshop wasn't in a very convineint location then, so I gave it a miss.

Well, this store in Songshan also had the perfume workshop and I asked the staff if I could actually attend it right there and then. She thought for a second and agreed to let me do a class with her, I was really excited about it, but then at the same time, also felt a lot of pressure becuse it was last minute, she was the only sales person in the store at the time, if I take up too much of her time and the store starts to get crowded, it will ultimately make her job really difficult. She was really nice and my friend also patiently told me it was fine to take the class, I had wanted him to join me so he could at least also have something to do, but he gave it a miss.

I spend about an hour there just mixing and matching the different scents they had, I wanted a tea scented fragrance with a touch of creamy tropical, so this perfume is very tea heavy with a hint of coconut, at least that was the olfactory vision I had in mind, sadly, the coconut scent was really pungent on it's own in it's concentrated form, so I was very hesistant to put in too much, I knew I definitely wanted to have that touch of coconut in the scent, so I ended up only putting a tiny drop of it inside the final product, thinking it will be potent enough, but it ended up doing nothing at all, the final scent did not have the coconut note coming through because it was way too little.

Total damange was $60, which I think is not too bad, I got a cute bottle and the scent actually turned out pretty decent by the end of it. My friend got a room spray from the brand as well called ice tea, which was a scent I had wanted to get previosuly, I ended up giving it a miss this time round since I already had a customized scent, and I also wasn't too keen to get the same scent as him, if I wanted to get something, I wanted it to be different.

After that, I had wanted to bring my friend to the department store nearby to just sit down and have a cup of coffee for us to just chill since we did have a late breakfast and I figured it would be nice to have that Seasame Latte I had during my previous trip from there, but then he told me that it was almost 2pm and he wanted to have lunch, so we ended up heading to the lunch spot.

Another spot I had wanted to visit during my second trip, but then food poisoning got in the way, so here I am this time around with a friend.

I don't know how I feel about this place, I think the food was decent, but the overall feeling I had when I was there wasn't good, the general vibe just felt off.

After this meal was done and we were on the way back to the hotel, I was in the bus and contemplating about getting a seperate hotel room for myself. It was $100 per night, so the total damage would be $400, I weighed my options, I thought about how I was feeling about sharing the room, I thought about the sleep I had last night and everything just pointed me towards getting my own room.

So I did and it was a decision I did not, and do not regret! 

I requested for a higher floor and the hotel did assign me a higher floor, the third floor, view was as garbage as the 2nd level.

It's literally the same view from the shared room with my friend because we are literally facing the same building, but mine is just 1 floor higher. 

But I was satisfied. 

I am lucky that the rooms in that hotel weren't too expensive. It was worth it at the end of the day, my friend felt really bad about it and did offer to split the cost of the new room when the trip ended. I told him it was fine because I didn't feel like it was fair of me to ask him to pay a portion for it since our arrangement prior to this was to share a room to reduce the cost. 

I shifted to my new room and it was great, the room suddenly felt like a decent size space (even though it is still smaller than the rooms of the other hotels I have stayed in Taipei during my past few trips, I will say it is probably the same size as the one I stayed at in Seoul)

I unpacked my luggauge, set up all my things in the toilet, it's like I suddenly have so much counterspace to put all my skincare products, and I just appreicated the serenity of being alone. 

After a much needed rest, I met my friend in his room and we headed to Roahe for our dinner.

No photos of the food because I have been here a few times and gotten the same stuff, so no point taking photos of what I had already eaten and posted before. The only new stuff I tried this time around was the Sweet Potato Balls, which was actually really good, and having 2 stomach meant we could try more items, but it also wasn't a lot because the night market food is quite filling.

1. Sweet Potato Balls

2. He got a cup of Milk Tea and and I had a cup of Mung Bean Slush

3. Fried Stinky Tofu

4. Glutinous Rice with Sauasage 

5. Tang Yuan on Shaved Ice

6. He got some cuttlefish dish which he really liked but I am not a huge fan of.

I think that's all the items we had, I may have missed out a few things but it's not a lot in hindsight.

That's the end of Day 2. We went back to the hotel and I was just really happy I had my own room to go back to.

3rd Day. (Tuesday)

I had to go get Fuhuang on the third day. I woke up early, and I didn't have to feel bad about forsaking my friend because I was alone in my own room and I knew for sure he was still sleeping. I did ask him if he wanted me to wake him up the day before, he initially told me he was fine and I can just wake up him, but then I was getting more of a "since I am here, might as well" kinda feeling from him, I told him I won't disturb him and just let him sleep in, and I will go alone instead.

So I  went alone, queued up for maybe 20 minutes and managed to get a seat at a corner that faces the main road. It was nice just being alone for a while, I think I have gotten so used to solo travelling that I just need time alone to myself sometimes, to just chill and take things slow, to be able to make plans on the go without having to worry about how it could potentially inconvinient the other person, because I am someone who worries way too much about how the other person would think if I suddenly made last minute changes, even if they don't really mind.

Anyways, once I was done, I walked around Ximending again until my friend called and then we went to Chiate together to get snacks to bring back home. 

I had thought to myself that if the queue was going to be long, then I might end up buying a few boxes of Pineapple tarts, just for the sake of getting them even though I do not like the ones from Chia Te, thankfully I didn't feel obligated to because the queue wasn't bad.

This was the queue situation at 11.30am, we went quite late so I think the early crowd had already gotten their stuff and left.

My main goal was to get the Peanut Nougat, I now regret only getting a single big pack because I devoured it back home.

After we put our stuff down in our hotel rooms, we headed out again and the main highlight for the day was a visit to Jiufen.

Jiufen was meant to be visited the next day, this day was suppose to be a visit to an Alpacca cafe, which is also an hours' ride away, but since it was going to rain the next day and my friend wanted to visit Jiufen more than the Alpacca cafe, I decided to move the Alpacca cafe to another day, but then ended up scrapping it off completely later on because I was too lazy to want to travel an hour by bus for it, the hour trip to Jiufen is enough long distance travelling for this Taipei trip.

Not much pictures from Jiufen because it was as boring as I remembered, the place was crowded and just being in that the Old Street and be so close to everyone, I was actually getting a mild anxiety attack and really wanted to get the fuck out of there quickly. 

At one point, I had to use the toilet because my stomach was acting up and I remember being so turned off by how run down the toilet in the Old Street was. It was a squat toilet and there was like this puddle of what is likely urine next to me as I was squatting down to try and squeeze whatever needs to come out, it's so fucking gross. To have to take a poop in Jiufen Old Street is a nightmare because the toilet flush isn't actually strong enough to flush the toilet paper down, so I didn't take a poop in the end. I cannot imagine how the vendors there deal with their number twos.

We honestly didn't do much there, got a few items to eat, he took a few pictures and got some souviniers, I didn't bother to get anything because I know everything I would be interested to get from there, I could just get from Taipei. 

A visit to Ah Mei Teahouse just for the whole tea drinking while looking at the mountains is an experience one should have at Jiufen, it's a very chill, take things slow and enjoy the nature kind of  activity, but because I am aware of how much of a tourist trap it was, I didn't bring that idea up to him.

Took the ride back to Taipei after our short visit there and I was glad that part of the trip was finally over.

Rest up at the hotel for a while, and I brought my friend over to Dongmen to visit Yong Kang Street. Compared to Jiufen, the vibes at Yong Kang is such a nice welcome, he got his 50 Lan bubble tea and my main goal for that evening was to take a look at perfumes from this brand called P-Seven.

 

They specialize in Tea Scents. 

First Impression of the store wasn't great, it looked more like a pop-up than an actual store. The staff however was really helpful and friendly, but that is to be expected in Taipei I suppose, people there are just very friendly in general.

So the perfumes themselves weren't really what I had expected, a lot of them smelled quite medicinal, and they were not cheap as well, it was a cool experience though and I did end up leaving with a 30ml bottle of room spray that cost about $30 because the staff was nice and I wanted to get something, plus this particuar scent had rice notes in it, which is something I have been interested in ever since I got my bottle of Le Papier from Diptyque.

Came across this beancurd store after a bit more walking and this was a spot I had really wanted to try after seeing it on TikTok and YouTube, apparently it has quite a bit of queue in the daytime, but on this particular evening, there was no queue at all. 

My friend wasn't too interested to have it and the store required every dine-in customer to order a bowl for themselves, so he had to wait outside while I quickly finished this bowl, it was really nice. Shave candied peanuts on beancurd with shaved ice is probably my new favorite find during this trip. 

I wish I could have taken my time to savor this, but alas, I didn't want my friend to be standing outside and waiting for too long, he did express surprise when I finished my bowl faster than he had anticipated.

Dinner for the night was at this place called Moon Moon, which is a Michellin Guide spot, as recommended by my friend. The outlet we had originally wanted to visit was near Dongmen, which was part of the reaason why we went to Yong Kang street today, but after checking Google Maps, I realized it was quite a walk away and decided it would make more sense for us to take a train to a different outlet that was a bit more accessible from the station, so we had the one near Shandao Temple instead.

It was objectively good, but not really my style.

Can't remember if we actually finish the meal, this was a Singaporean combo set, so I had to show the staff my passport before they actually let me order this set.

After we were done, I suggested getting Matcha and was able to find a cafe nearby because we did not do any cafe visits yet and when I am with a friend overseas, I think to be able to chill with them in a cafe is a really comforting thought, (I knew I had a great time cafe hopping with Drew in Korea).

I was able to find one cafe that was serving Matcha that was within walking distance distance away.

Honestly cannot remember the name in English, but it's a cute little store.

They were closing in an hour, so it was relatively empty.

We both got Matcha Lattes, I opted to have Oat Milk for mine and it was a decent cup. I hadn't had Matcha for a while now so this was nice.  

We ordered 2 pastries to share and I really enjoyed our stay in the cafe, it's just such a nice way to end the day, with a latte and dessert.

Left before the shop closed, made our way back to Ximen where we bought decided to get bathbombs from Lush, now that we have our own rooms and both room came with a bathtub, we have to take advantage of it. I also came across the perfume called American Cream in LUSH that is not available in Singapore. That perfume stayed at the back of my mind the entire trip after.

The day ended with a 30 minute soak in the bath because the bathbombs are not cheap! It felt like a very fruitful day, at least the latter part because I really did not enjoy the Jiufen part of it.

4th Day. (Wednesday)

We had breakfast in the hotel and we were not impressed. Even though our stay includes breakfast, this was the first and last time we had breakfast food.

Headed over to Zhongshan afterwards because I like Zhongshan as well and figured if my friend like Yong Kang Street, he would probably be able to appreicate this area.

I also got my very first cup of bubble tea at 50 Lan and I couldn't actually finish it. We ended up also just waiting around the area because a lot of the stores there only opened after 11am, and we were there at like 10.30am.

We just waited in front of the eslite department store until it eventually opened and then explored the different stores there, to my surprise, eyecandle had a small space in there so I was able to help my other friend get a perfume from them, saving me the trouble of having to go all the way back to Songshan to get it.

Lunch is at Waku Waku Pasta

Another spot I had wanted to visit but then got sick, so I am marking it off my checklist this time around.

My stomach wasn't feeling too well, I think it was from the Milk Tea I had from 50 Lan, so I requsted we get a pasta that was not cream based to be safe.

The last time I had pasta at a cafe in Seoul, I also had stomach issues, it was very upsetting because I couldn't fully enjoy the food. 

Can't give a fair assesment because of that, would be so much more enjoyable if I didn't have the urge to go to the toilet everytime I took a bite of the pasta. 

Next stop was to try out this Cola place that made, well, Cola.

It's quite an interesting experinece, again, this was something I saw on YouTube and I figured we could give it a try.

It's essentially coke syrup in soda water, sprinkled with some herbs and peppercorn and garnished with slice of lemon.

I do really like the presentation of it all, the drink itself was a very muted coke with the slightest hint of pepper, it reminded me of those cola candies.

After this, I can't remember what we did, but our visit to Zhongshan was the last time we hung out together for the day. My travel buddy had another group of friends who were in Taipei as well, and he did invite me to join them for dinner, but I wasn't really interested in meeting new people that I probably won't see again anymore after. That and also the fact that I was itching to do a bit of "solo travelling" during the trip.

Went back to the hotel again, and I think I probably took a long soak in the bath before heading out to walk around Ximending for a bit since it is literally right across the street.

Came back to the hotel, not sure if I drew another bath or not, but I vaguely remember there was a day I actually took a bath 3 times because I could.

Headed over to the area near Taipei 101 in the evening on my own and decided it was time to actually give Ichiran Ramen a try.

It's not at Taipei 101 but in the mall area nearby, I actually like how the malls are arranged, it wasn't one big mall but a cluster of regualr sized ones connected by bridges, so I wasn't actively getting lost like how I was when I went to Starfield in Korea, which was not a good mall at all, because it's so big, so empty and so confusing to navigate despite how empty it was.

This was the queue situation at 7pm.

I managed to enter the resturant itself at aroun 7.20pm

...and had my meal at 7.35pm. 

The restaurant is very solo traveller friendly because you are literally given a personal booth to have you meal in, this just makes me want to solo travel to Japan now because I just love that solititude it provides. 

The ramen itself was alright, as someone who doesn't eat ramen much, I can''t really make a fair judgement, someone I know who loves ramen did say this was the best ramen he has ever eaten, but to me, it's a good bowl of ramen, but not really anything mindblowing.  

Would I queue up again for this ramen? I mean if the queue is only 30 minutes long like this evening, I honestly wouldn't mind.

Walked around the mall a bit once I was done with my meal, there wasn't really much I was interested to get, so I went back to Ximending after and decided to get a snack for the night.

I got their Banana Chocolate Pancake, it was good, but a bit too much. Also bought a Cucumber Lemonade from another store which I did not take any photos of.

Everytime I solo travel, I will always get a snack at the end of the day to enjoy in my hotel room, it just brings me a lot of comfort knowing I have something sweet to end the day and then I can just go to bed right after. 

5th Day. (Thursday)

The last full day.

Got up early yet again and decided to get coffee from Louisa Coffee, which was one of the few places that was opened at 7.30am, had myself a Coconut Latte.

Then walked around Ximending area and decided to have...

Spring Onion Pancakes.

Turrns out there is a pretty good one at Ximending as well, not just the one at Yong Kang street, but one thing I did notice is that the customer here were mainly tourist whereas the one at Yong Kang had more locals.

This was my first breakfast, because I did make plans with my travel buddy to have breakfast together at Shi Jie Soymilk again, the plan today was actually to OTOT, so I was going to just have breakfast together and then figured we will just fuck off from each other afterwards.

But we ended up having lunch together because plans changed, so I brought him to Huashan Creative Park for some Chun Shui Tang, this is my second cup of bubble tea for the trip.

The food was alright, I'm still sad that they decided to remove the Fried Turnip Cake from their menu.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel together and that was also when we went our seperate ways for the rest of the day. 

I knew I wanted to go back to Yong Kang street to a room spray for a friend who had expressed interest in it when I posted on Insta-story about how the scent smelled like TCM.

This is the scent that was giving TCM vibes, it's actually an award winning fragrance and one of their best sellers. I wasn't vibing with it, it's also almost $200

When I told that friend that the perfume was $200, he immediately lost interest, but then told me he would still be interested in getting a room spray, so I managed to find one that smells like Po Chai Pills.

I'm kinda excited for him to smell it and for him to spray it at his new place.

Once the goods were gotten, I found my way to Yong Kang Beef Noodles for dinner, this was completely impromptu, I had wanted to try another stall but I failed to realize that place was located in Zhongshan and not Dongmen, so beef noodle it is.

I wasn't very excited when I saw how red the broth was, but thankfully, it wasn't as spicy as it looked and I did managed to finish it. I will say that it was alright, there wasn't any queue but the food preparation was a bit on the slower side compared to the one at Lao Shandong Beef Noodle in Ximending.

Ended my day at Yong Kang Street with Venchi Ice Cream.

They colloborated with Fuhuang and had 2 flavors, Classic Soy Milk and Rich Peanut Rice Milk, of course I had to try both! 

This particular Venchi had seating avaialble, so I just enjoyed my ice cream while I stared at their chocolates.

Verdict on the ice cream - Good to try once, but I would just go back to Fuhuang for the Soymilk fix, the flavour wasn't very strong and I think going for one of Venchi's original creation would be better, especially at the price point, my mini cup I believe was about $12.

My final walk through Yong Kang street for this trip! It was raining so the weather stayed pretty cooling throughout the rest of the evening.

I got myself a Blindbox from PopMart at Ximending on the way back to the hotel because I always get a PopMart blindbox for every trip. This time it was a Labubu keychain and I was lucky enough to get one that matches my water bottle!

As well as a visit to LUSH to get that small bottle of the American Cream fragrance. 

All the fragrances I got for myself.

 

I thought I got too many perfumes for this trip and needed to stop, but then when I displayed them out like this, I realize it's really not a lot, I honestly could've gotten maybe 1 more bottle.

6th Day. (Friday)

The last full day.

Breakfast is alone again because I had actually assumed my travel buddy was still asleep, so I didn't check if he wanted to have breakfast with me, it was only later did I find out that he actually got up earlier than usual on the last day.

I saw this Breakfast place called Fong Da Coffee on TikTok that was located walking distance from my hotel, so I decided to give it a try.

Had their Fong Da Signature Iced Coffee. 

Along with their Ham and Egg Sandwich.

I like it, it was a nice breakfast. Coffee was good, the meal was simple and filling, would come again next time.

Went back to the hotel and just chilled until my friend was ready, we checked out of our rooms together, left our luggage in the hotel and then headed back to Zhongshan to spend the remainding hours of our trip there because our final meal for the trip was...

Yoshikawa

Seafood Rice Bowl

We were early, so I think we were the first 2 customer of the day, I had intially thought that the store was probably not as popular as I thought it would be, espeically because it also happened to be a holiday that day, but I was wrong, because not even half an hour later, the store was completely packed and a small line had started to form outside.

The food was good, I enjoyed it a lot, my frined also really liked it, I think he was a lot more impressive with Yoshikawa than he was with Aquatic Addiction.

Once we were done with the food, we took a walk for a bit, I needed to use the Toilet so we ended up walking to eslite department store, the place where I had gotten the eyecandle for my friend, I figured since we are there, I will see if I can get one for myself as well, did not end up getting any because I just didn't really vibe with any of the scents on offer.

My friend decided to go look at clothes and intially, I told him I will just go back and check the perfumes again, did a second round of whiffing, came back to look for him and he was stil at the same store looking at the clothes, I followed him for a bit, but then got a bit impatient and told him I will just go look for dessert while he shopped.

I ended up at Ron's Museum for more beancurd, again, another spot I had wanted to visit previously but then got cockblocked by food poisoning.

This one was good as well! It's beancurd buried under shaved ice, pearls, shaved candied peanuts, roasted peanuts and mushy peanuts. The weather was quite cold that day, people were wearing sweaters and I was having this at the al fresco section of the store, braving the cold on the verge of a shiver, but I did enjoy this final bowl of beancurd for this trip.

When I was done with my dessert, my friend finally texted me and told me he was on his way to the final buble tea store that we were going to.

SOMA.

I had this before, it was alright, but decided to give it another try because I felt like I had ordered the wrong drink last time.

Bubble Tea just doesn't hit the same when you opt for fresh milk, and I have been going with Fresh Milk only for a while now because my skin acts up if I opt for the creamer option. I miss having regualr bubble tea, this particualr one was not great because it's with Fresh Milk.

This was my final food item from Taipei for this trip, my friend had Cremia I believe and that was the end of our trip together, we went back to the hotel to collect our luggage, the Uber I had called in advnace arrived slightly earlier than exepcted and we left for the Airport.