Taiwan 2.0

I have just returned from my 6 Day 5 Night Taiwan trip and sad to say, this trip was not a success.

 

My flight carrier of choice this time around was Scoot and of course, I had to pick the Premium Economy option. The flight itself was originally scheduled for 12.25pm, and the whole idea was for me to reach Taipei at around 5.15pm thereabouts while the Sun was still up, so I can go out and about to actually have my dinner at around 7pm - 8pm once I have settled into my hotel room.

Well, at around 8.00am, I got notified that the flight had been delayed by 2 hours, so the timing got pushed back to to 2.25pm.

I took a Grab over to the Airport at around 11:15am and was able to reach at noon, checked my luggage in, and then headed into the departure hall for a quick bite.

So here is what I got from Paul Cafe, a Berries Mint Tea and an Apricot Tart, the Tea was surprisingly good. As I was slowly having my quick bite, some airport cleaner decided to take a quick break at the table that was directly behind mine, she was having this really heated conversation on her phone with someone and she was really really loud, it was really odd, I mean of all the places you can be having this heated conversation at, you choose to do it in a cafe. 

I left after 20 minutes because it was honestly getting a little bit uncomfortable, and I was also done with my food so no point lingering. Headed over to a nearby duty free perfume store to spray some perfumes and then went to my gate to check myself in.

As with all Scoot flights, this flight was packed. All passengers were given this little snack pack as an apology for the 2 hour delay.

It was a bit of a hassle to carry this around. I didn't consume it at all and eventually just left it in my hotel room on the very last day, unopened.

I also ended up sitting next to a local Singaporean actress on this flight, she was quite nice, awkwardly asked me if I wanted some sweets as she took out a packet of gummies to consume. I politely refused, just thought it would be weird if I said Yes.

The actress is part of the newer generation of local actors in Singapore, so even though she is a public figure, I would assume most Singaporeans probably won't recognize her. The only reason why I know who she is is because my friend and I used to say she looked like a mutual friend of ours, and I may have watched snippets of certain shows she may have acted in before, but that's about it. 

But she was really quite friendly, even though there wasn't any need to be.

Anyways, the flight itself was generally quite smooth, I had my trusty iPad to keep me company, so I was watching some pre-downloaded shows from Netflix and listening to the new Ariana Grande album for a bit. 

We finally landed in Taiwan at about 7.30pm...

... this was the immigration line, it was really long and I guess it should be expected since I was arriving on a Friday, people were probably coming in to enjoy their weekend overseas.

The queue took 30 minutes to clear, the actress and her team were able to skip this queue and go straight to one of those automated immigration counter, so they were at a different counter that was just right beside this mass of travelers and got out rather quickly.

When I was finally through customs, I headed over to the baggage claim and the timing was just right because I managed to get my baggage within 2 minutes. The actress and her team were still there waiting at this point, so I guess the there really was no point clearing customs so quickly when the baggage was still going to take a while to arrive.

I also took part in the Taiwan The Lucky Land draw, where tourist can have a chance to win up to TWD5000 to spend during their time here. I didn't win so fuck that.

After the not so lucky draw, I went to collect my SIM card and Easy Travel Card (because I lost the one I had gotten during my trip here last year) and headed over to my hotel. I thought I would be hit by a wave of nostalgia as I entered the MRT Station and hear that "ding" sound as I tap my card on the machine, but I didn't.  The time between this trip and my last was not long enough for any sense of nostalgia to be formed, so everything just felt very bland to me and that is my general feeling towards this whole trip, it's really forgettable, almost akin to not going.

The last time I came to Taiwan, I took EVA Air, EVA Air lands in Terminal 2, which is the first stop for the Express Train.

Scoot lands in Terminal 1, which is the second stop for the Express Train.

I was not able to get a seat on the Express Train because by the time it came, almost all the seats were  taken up, I did see two empty seats as I entered the train cabin, but as I was making my way towards it, this eldery man rushed up to it and sat on it first, and he was proud about it, he then proceeded to wave over who I am assuming his grandson to seat next to him. 

Nice job getting the seats, but I just found his whole demeanor to be really irksome. I mean this is a pretty common sight in Singapore, this seat snatching culture, especially by the elderly people. If it comes down to who will offer who the seat, I will definitely offer it to the elderly man no questions asked, but it's the way he had to rush up to snatch the seat away from me that annoyed me.

I ended up standing for majority of the train ride, did one transfer to a different train and finally reached my hotel at about 9.45pm. 

Here is a blurry shot that I attempted to take of the Kimpton Da-an. It's a nice hotel. 

The service staff there is top notch, instead of having to stand at the counter and submit all your documents to them, they will direct you to a seat, offer you a drink, get your passport and then do everything for you as you slowly hydrate yourself. I opted for 汽水, or "carbonated drink" thinking it was going to be Sprite, but it was just sparkling water.

So here I am at my little corner, busy taking a video of the place whilst the staff is helping me check in. They have happy hour from 5.30pm-6.30pm everyday as well on this level, so it's free flow of drinks, alcohol and snacks for the guest, I didn't participate in any because I wasn't really in the mood to socialize with anyone from the hotel during this trip.

Also quick room tour. This rooms open to the toilet and then into the bedroom, so that was really interesting.  I will say it is comparable to Hotel Resonance that I had stayed at previously, but if I had to pick, I would probably go back to Hotel Resonance, just because they have better TV, a bathtub, is closer to Taipei Main Station and they have an armchair for me to lounge on and watch TV.  Plus, the hotel was literally walking distance to Fu Huang Soy Milk.

After I settled down, I was contemplating if I should just get a ready-meal from the Family Mart nearby, or follow my original plan and visit Yong He Soy Milk. The original plan was to get settled down in the hotel by about 7.30pm and then head out for my Soy Milk meal at 8.00pm, but the time was already 10pm by the time I took that video.

In the end, I still decided to head out to Yong He.

 

It was just one train stop away from my hotel and a 10 minutes walk, so I got there within 20-ish minutes.

There were 2 different queues that formed up at Yong He Soy Milk, one on the outside and one on the inside, as someone who had never been there before, I was confused and thought I will make my order and payment on the outside queue, and then take my meal from the inside queue once the food was ready for collection.

So here I was standing on the outside queue looking into the store. And then I noticed that the people standing on the internal queue were also ordering and paying, and upon further inspection, I noticed that little red sign in Mandarin that read...

"Dine-In Queue"

... I was standing at the Take Out queue. I just assumed the longer queue was the correct one to join.

I then left my queue and went to join the correct one, and there was no English menu anywhere, everything was in Traditional Chinese without any accompanying picture, so when it came to my turn, I asked the guy ,the one whose back is facing my camera, if there was an English menu, he goes and grab one from the side and hands it over to me, in it was also an order form, since I was already at the front of the line, I figured I would just quickly decide and make my order, so I said in mandarin...

"Ummm, I want..."

... and this guy suddenly cuts me off and replies very impatiently in Mandarin...

"Seat down first! Go find a seat first before you come and order!"

... which got me rather flustered and a bit embarrassed because there were so many people at the Take Out line who were in full view of me getting scolded by this guy. I had no choice, I took the menu and went to find an available seating outside the shop. 

As I was slowly looking through the menu, I was also cursing the guy under my breath and contemplating if I should just leave, because he had ruined my appetite even though I was actually very hungry, but then I thought to myself, "Fuck this guy, I am not going to let him ruin my mood", so I ticked the items I wanted, and then went to submit my order.

Honestly, the whole, "Find a seat first before you make your order" is so fucking stupid. I am one person, I am not going to leave my fucking belongings on the table outside the restaurant to reserve my seat, and then come in to make the order. I ended up taking all my belongings with me to order and luckily the food was prepped quite quickly, so I managed to get back the original table I had sat down at earlier. 

I got hot Soy Milk, Xiao Long Bao and a Rice Roll. A bit of spillage happened because there was this dumbass who wasn't watching where he was going and started to walk backwards, almost bumped into me as I was carrying my tray out, thus the wasted Soya Milk on the tray.

The meal was really not bad, if I hadn't gotten scolded by one of the shopkeepers and didn't almost spilled my entire tray of food on myself because of one idiot customer who literally wasn't looking at where he was going, it would have been the perfect start to to trip. 

I was very happy that I made the effort to go out though, and I guess a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was already very familiar with the train system, so I felt comfortable going out late at night. 

On the way back to the hotel, I did stop by Family Mart to get some drinks and a tidbit to munch on before bed, but the Family Mart near my hotel had a really pathetic selection of snacks, so I only ended up getting a Chocolate Koala Biscuit, a Grape Yoghurt drink and a big bottle of water, which I really didn't need to because the hotel does stock my room with 6 new bottles of water every day.

Day 2.

Here is the view of my hotel room in the morning. I paid extra to get a city view, this is not a city view, this is more like a residential view, I was not impressed. The view I had from the hotel in Bangkok, that was a city view.

But disappointing views aside, the hotel does serve up some killer breakfast.

There were free flow of drinks, fruits, yoghurt and baked goods, which you have to order from one of the staff, but the restaurant is never fully packed, so it is never too difficult to get their attention.  I only got the yoghurt once, and then never again because I hate yoghurt.

Decided to try their waffle for my main course. Wasn't a huge fan of it, but this is the least impressive one to me, the breakfast only got better from here. I also didn't want anything too filling because I wanted to keep my stomach as empty as possible for lunch and dinner.

My first proper location to visit during this trip is Dadaocheng / Dihua Street.

I really wasn't sure what I wanted to eat from there, so when I saw there was a long queue forming up at the start of the street, I immediately went to join, not so much to buy what the people were queuing for, but to spend that time queuing to think about where to go next. 

I mean why just stand around and think when you can queue up for something,  think and then get something out of it after. 

This particular store sold Strawberry Daifuku. 

There was only one person manning the front, I think she had some assistants at the back prepping other stuff, but essentially we pay by putting the money in the little wooden basket on the counter, and then help ourselves to the change. 

I got 3 Daifuku, figured since I had to queue quite a while for it, no point only getting 1. 

Walked around abit more and came to this Beancurd store that was a little out of the way from the main street. I did my research prior to visiting this area, so I knew that there was this little store here.

Even though it isn't on the main street, there were still quite a number of customers in there, it being a weekend and all, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

I got myself Beancurd in Maltose Syrup, and chose 3 toppings, Sweet Potato Balls, Peanuts and Red Beans. It was nice, I forgot I got I got the cold option because whenever I see bean curd served in this kind of syrup, it's always warm, so had a bit of a surprise there. It's good, but as someone who really likes bean curd, I feel like even if it is not the best option out there, I would still like it.

After this, I walked around a bit more, found a little park and just sat there to eat the 3 Daifukus I had gotten. It's good, nice thin mochi skin, good ratio of red bean paste and the strawberries were really quite juicy, but I wouldn't queue for as long as I did for it again. I think having 3 at one go was a bit much.

After that,  I needed something savory, I needed a proper lunch, and my goal was to go back to where the Daifuku store was and get some glutinous rice from this building. 

The glutinous rice is really famous and based on videos that I have watched on Youtube as I was doing my research, there will always be a long line formed for the glutinous rice that stretches all the way to the outside of the building.

I saw the line 

I joined the line.

After queuing for 15 minutes, I saw the store on the left.

There were a bunch of people folding boxes, I thought the main kitchen was probably at the back and they are folding the boxes to prep for more to be sold.

Ummm, there wasn't any main kitchen, that store is the kitchen. And it's closed. So what the fuck was I queuing for?  By the time I realized I wasn't queuing for what I thought I was queuing for, I already had a group of people behind me queuing up, and I had already committed to much time that leaving the queue right now just seemed like a bad idea.

There were 2 lines that were formed, the back line and the front line, the front line is where you will be send to once one of the staff ask you how many are in your group.  It was when I saw the staff approach the back line did I realize I was queuing for Japanese food, because he was wearing a Japanese inspired outfit.

 I was brought to the front line and that was when I saw just how popular the store was.

It was packed! I have read about this store during my research as well, but had no interest to even look for it because I really do not care all that much for Sashimi and Sushi, so there was no way I was going to queue up 30 minutes for something I don't even like that much.

But I accidentally did that.

At this point, I was still feeling quite full from Breakfast, the Beancurd dessert and the 3 Daifukus, so my goal was just to order a plate of Sashimi and maybe a small serving of rice roll. I was ushered to my seat which was at the front of the counter, and then the waitress came over, handed me an English menu because I can't read the Traditional Chinese one to save my life, and ordered what I thought was Sashimi along with something called Heart Rolls. 

Nigiri is not Sashimi, Nigiri is Sashimi on Rice, and the Heart Roll was the Rice Roll I was thinking of getting, but it was fucking huge! Luckily the waitress recommended I just get half serving for that.

They had free flow miso soup, but honestly, with all that rice, I didn't need the ingredient loaded miso soup at all.

I did not have have a good time eating this meal. Had it just been the Nigiri, I think I would have enjoyed this meal, but the fucking sushi rolls were what really filled me up.  

Every time I ate the Rice Roll, I have no idea why, but I would just shove the entire thing in my mouth at one go, it was huge, and I would always feel like I was choking, but I kept doing it anyway, I guess I figured it would help me eat it faster, but I was so fucking full! It was really really really bad. And because there were a bunch of people who were literally behind me queuing up, I didn't want to just leave the plate unfinished and get judged by them for wasting food, so I ate everything up and was so bloated. 

I severely overate.

My goal was to finish everything, so I did, and I failed to notice that the Prawn Nigiri was a bit off. I knew upon chewing on it that it was a little off because it was way too mushy, but since this was my first time having raw prawn, I thought maybe that was the texture, I come to regret not spitting that out in the days to come.

I knew I couldn't take anymore food after that, I was full, I was tired, I needed to go back to the hotel for a rest. I went to look at a souvenir store to see if there would be anything interesting to get. There wasn't much, the souvenirs were pretty much the same stuff that every other souvenir shop in Taiwan sells, and I have already gotten what I think were interesting for my family during my last trip, so no point wasting money on them anymore. 

Came across a bubble tea store on my out of Dadoacheng and decided to get a cup. I think it was a Black Tea Latte with Fresh Milk and Pearls, brought it back to the hotel to drink.

It is a pretty cute packaging. Taiwan serves all their bubble teas in paper cups, so I can't see how it looked like on the inside, but I think I am starting to really dislike having pearls in my drink.

That ended my day visit to Dadaocheng/Dihua Street, and honestly speaking, this visit was the only successful one that I did out of the entire trip, every other visit to the other places ended up in failure. 

I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in the hotel, and that was when I started to feel really bloated, it was really really bad and I was just really uncomfortable the entire time. The original plan was to visit Roahe or Shilin later in the evening for dinner because I really wanted to give the Night Market another chance and actually visit them at night this time round when all the stores were opened, but I was feeling so unwell I decided to just go to the nearby mall and look for something to eat there.

I ended up going to SOGO at Zhongxiao Fuxing. I was expecting it to be like the Eslite Departmental store I visited at Zhongshan during my last trip, where there would be nice little restaurant scattered on different levels that I could just visit and have a nice solo meal to myself, and then maybe end the day by buying a dessert to have back in my hotel room. 

It wasn't. 

The only food options were all at B1, very limited options. And everything that was above B1 were luxury brands or places selling home appliances, at the top were high end restaurant  that I was definitely not going to visit because you would need a big group for those and I was one person, plus I wasn't going to splurge on a fancy Chinese meal in a fancy Chinese restaurant. 

It was so disappointing. Honestly, ruined my mood because I thought SOGO would be where I could go and have a good time if I don't feel like going too far out, but it sucked.

Anyway, I ended up getting this from there along with Jumba Juice.

This is foodcourt standard food, it's not good. The noodles were bland and almost dry, the oyster omelet was so starchy and tough, the soup with meatballs were average at best and then there is that vegetable that is vegetable. Jumba Juice was also quite expensive, I think it cost as much as the meal, that's why there wasn't any customers at the stand except for me, people were actually queining up for the fruit juice store next to it, and I actually thought Jumba Juice was closed because of how inactive it was, one of the staff there literally had her head on the table and was scrolling away on her phone.

Probably one of the worst meal for this trip.

I actually ended up finishing everything because my room doesn't have a proper dustbin and I didn't want to have any cooked food item just sitting around in the room the entire night. This only added on to the afternoon bloat, my discomfort was at an all time high at night and relieve came in the form of an explosive diarrhea that only happened much later in the night. I felt feverish right after that diarrhea, so I quickly took some Po Chai Pills and Panadol when I was done and that help alleviate the discomfort and the feverish feeling.

Really shitty way to end my second day, both literally and figuratively.

Day 3

A day of disappointment.

The highlight of all my days during this trip was Breakfast served by the hotel.

 Avocado on Toast with Poached Egg.

I love Western style breakfast and the hotel is just serving top notch western style breakfast / cafe food everyday! 

Main attraction to visit for this day was Huashan 1914 Creative Park, this place was on the list of places I wanted to visit when the thought of visiting Taipei again popped into my head, so it had been on my list for a very long time.

The reason why I wanted to visit this place was because I enjoyed visiting Songshan Cultural and Creative Park during my last trip, and it wasn't so much for the exhibitions, but just the general quietness and calmness of that place. 

It was the complete opposite of Songshan Cultural because Creative Park Huashan 1914 was crowded as fuck! I absolutely hated the crowd, it looks empty in the photo because that is just the entrance, but the moment I went in and saw the initial crowd of people just loitering around the bench area, I knew for sure I was not going to have a good time here. 

Huashan 1914 had a lot of exhibitions, all of them had queues and I just had no interest to look at those exhibits alone, especially with that much people around, if it had been a quiet day, I would have, but it wasn't, so after walking around for a while, I left the place.

It felt really shitty to just walk off, I felt like I had failed my itinerary, but I knew if I stayed, I will most likely not have an enjoyable time as well. Being in such a crowded place as a solo traveler just made me feel extremely lonely, and I hated it.

So this was the first big fail of the trip!

I felt so dejected after that, so I decided to just take a long walk to Fu Huang Soy Milk, it was about 1 - 2 train stops away, completely walkable in my opinion. The weather that day wasn't particular cooling, but it wasn't humid like Singapore, so I still had a good walk.

Fu Huang closes at 12.30pm, I reached the place at 12.10pm and there was a long queue forming.

Managed to get into the food court area after 15 minutes and this was the crowd.

Weekend crowd on a busy afternoon before closing, of course it was going to be packed to the brim. I was definitely not going to find any seating here, so I ordered to go.

Salty Soy Milk, Regular Soy Milk and Scallion Pancake with Egg.

In the comforts of my hotel room, away from the weekend crowd. This was a good meal, but I just felt like the day had been wasted because of the crowd.

The crowd completely drained me after that, so I actually stayed in my room for around 4 hours, just to recharge, and by about 4.30pm, I was already starting to feel like I needed to make the effort to go out, so I did.

I decided to go visit Roahe Night Market. 

I had a feeling I was going to regret it because when I visited Roahe during my last trip, it was packed, and that was on a weekday, I am now going on a weekend, it is going to be worst. 

As I was doing a train transfer, I notice that the mall that had a Chun Shui Tang outlet was located just right beside it, so I did contemplate for a second if I should visit Roahe on a weekday instead and head over to the mall for Chun Shui Tang. I didn't.

Raohe was packed! The pepper bun store that is located at the entrance of the night market had a queue that stretched all the way to the outside of the main area, it was nuts.

I had an idea of what I wanted to get, so I walked through the Night Market, but couldn't find any of those items for some reason, so I gave up and then just focused on attempting to have Stinky Tofu at least, but because it was so crowded, I couldn't really stop and just kept moving with the crowd. I did eventually stop to get a watermelon juice because that store barely had a queue. 

Did eventually find a store that had seating available, that was selling Stinky Tofu, so I tried to order the Fried Stinky Tofu, only to be told they weren't serving those today and only had the soup version, which had Duck Blood in it as well.

 

Figured might as well, since I managed to find a comfortable spot to seat, why not just give it a go.

Stinky Tofu with Duck's Blood in Mala Soup.

Nothing about it sounds appealing at all, and it wasn't very good if I were to be honest. It's not that the food is bad, it's just not my type of food. It's not bad, but it's also not very good, I was however happy that I did at least get to eat 1 item there. It was still a big fail though.

After that, I started walking again to see if I could find anything else to eat, and that was when I saw someone I knew from my BMT days. I don't know him very well, we have never spoken before because he was a bit of an oddball and that made him an outcast in BMT, so I had no intention of actually approaching him and just observed him from a distance like a weirdo. He was also alone. How I wished it was someone I know that I actually have some sort of friendly relationship with, would have honestly made this whole Night Market experience different. 

I eventually ended up walking all the way to the main entrance of the market and decided I didn't want to go back in anymore, so I left.

Second Fail of the day.

So what I have learned from this 2 back to back failures in 1 day is, 

Do not solo-visit another country on weekends if you do not like crowds. If I had been with friends, then the experience would have been very different.

Anyways, the single serving of Stinky Tofu with Duck's Blood in Mala Soup was definitely not a substantial meal, so I headed over to Chun Shui Tang in the mall near the MRT for a proper meal.

I was so happy to be seated in a quiet corner of the restaurant having this meal.

Fried Turnip Cake, Tieguanyin Latte and Sesame Thin Noodles.

Could've done without the Noodles, if I just had the Fried Turnip along with the Tieguanyin Latte, I would have been satisfied. The noodle just made this meal a bit too much for me, but I was still a lot happier having this meal here than being in the crowded as fuck night market.

After the meal, I headed back to my hotel, and I realize that there is an underground mall at the Train Station near my hotel, so I took a quick walk to explore the place.

There really wasn't much, but it was a nice exercise after that filling meal. This underground mall is connected to the next station. So it was a nice walk, I didn't walk all the way to the next station.

There was a stall with all this capsule machines, and I really wanted to get something to add to the collection of capsule toys I had gotten from my previous Taiwan trip, but there was nothing interesting to get.

Before returning to the hotel, I decided to get some snacks for supper in the form of...

Mister Donut and Coco Bubble Tea

I don't like Mister Donut, so I had no idea why I got a piece. So that was my 3rd day, it was a big fail. Oh, and I ended up staying awake and watching The Eras Tour on Disney Plus until 3am because of the caffeine overload from the Tieguanyin Latte from Chun Shui Tang and Mango Green Tea from Coco.

Day 4

It was a weekday and I had very high hopes for my 4th day, because the crowd won't be as bad as the last 2 days, however, my body didn't agree with me and this was when the trip took a turn for the worst.

Breakfast for Day 4 was Omelet with Homemade Hashbrown.

Again, breakfast is always on point. I just really love having café food for breakfast and his was actually not too bad.

By this time, I still hadn't gotten any snacks or souvenirs for this trip yet, so I decided to head over to the Carrefour nearby to get some snacks to bring home. I knew about the Carrefour because I had been doing my research the night before when I couldn't fall asleep, I had contemplated about just going there at 2.00am to look for stuff to buy since it was opened for 24 hours, but then decided not to because I didn't feel safe going out so late at night, even though I know Taiwan is generally quite a safe country.

It was also really cold, around 18 degrees, and quite windy as well, which I really liked.

Carrefour was located like a 5 minutes walk away, so it was a nice walk over. Sadly, they didn't have a lot of selection because I guess it is one of the smaller ones, I mean 24 hour supermarkets generally don't carry the full selection of items, so my choices were limited.

My loot for the morning, I also started getting discomfort in my chest, attributed it to heartburn or gastritis, so I got some over the counter medication from the medical store beside Carrefour.

Rested in the hotel for a while after taking the medicine to let the medicine take effect, then headed over to Zhishan to visit a Cat Cafe, which was a cafe I had wanted to visit during my last trip, but didn't end up finding any time to do so.

The signage, it's literally just across the train station, so super convenient to get to.

The store was pretty empty, when I went in, there was only one other customer there having a meal.

 The store's aesthetic is a bit dated, but it also had a very homely vibe, the cats were just chilling on the tables, I thin it may have been too early for them because almost all of them were just laying down and sleeping.

Aside from the cats, the store also had 2 big dogs, they were more friendly and one came up to me to let me pet it. 

My original plan was to have my lunch in this cafe because they do serve pastas and baked rice, but because my stomach was not feeling well, I just didn't have any appetite for anything too heavy, so I got myself a slice of Black Forest Cake and Lavender Latte.

It was alright.

More people started to come in after, but they all came alone, so it was just 4 customers, all seated at different tables doing our own thing, all 4 loners together with the cats. I didn't manage to play with any of the cats because none of them approached me, well one did at the start but I wasn't sure if I could pet it, so I just looked at it and it walked away. 

A bit of a disappointing experience if I were to be honest, in my mind, I was expecting a cat to jump on my table and let me pet it while I have my drink and cake, but all of them were at the opposite end of the cafes just sleeping, so I left after an hour. I got bored.

Headed over to Ximending righter after this to get more snacks from there, my plan was to get...

Saint Peter Nougat Cracker, which I had previously gotten from Jiufen last time and really enjoyed it.

And Pineapple Tarts and Sun Cake for my Mum from Sugar and Spice. Sugar and Spice specializes in Nougats, but I really like their Pineapple Tarts, so I got those instead.

I don't have any pictures of Ximending because the discomfort that I had been feeling in my chest started to get worst as I was going around there looking for the 2 stores. I was actually breaking out in cold sweat because that's how bad it was getting, so the moment I got what I needed, I didn't even bother to explore Ximending any further, I just wanted to go back to my hotel room, put my stuff down and then make an appointment with a clinic nearby for a check up.

Thankfully, the one near my hotel had a English speaking doctor, so I made the appointment and headed over within 15 minutes. Everyone there was very accommodating, so I felt like I was in very good hands, they took my measurements, ask me about the problem I was having, took my temperature etc, and then I was quickly brought to the waiting area and managed to see the doctor soon after.

Total bill came up to TWD2000, which is about SGD$85, I did buy travel insurance, so hopefully I can claim this from there.

It was already 3pm by the time I was done with the appointment, and I hadn't had my lunch yet, so I got some meat buns and a cup of soya milk from one of the stores in the train station.

This was pretty cheap, not bad for the price.

The pain got slightly better after that, I am not sure if it is because of the medication or because I had time to just rest, but I knew I was in no condition to go explore anywhere too far off, so I just rested in the hotel until about 6pm before heading out to a shopping mall called Breeze Centre that was a good walk away from my hotel.

It was a little further than I thought it would be...

There was a cafe area at the lower level and I got myself a salad combo meal. This mall was definitely a place where families with above average income come to visit because it was actually quite empty, most of the stores on the higher level were luxury branded goods....

... and this salad combo was SGD$18.

The aesthetics of the cafe/foodcourt also screams opulence with the marble floor and marble table. It was alright, I didn't end up eating the bread since I was still a bit full from my late lunch.

The mall didn't have much else to offer after this, so I headed back to the hotel. I notice on Google Map that there was an alley on the way back that offered had some food and drink store, so I took the longer way back and decided to get a cup of Bubble Tea from 50 Lan.

 Cocoa Barry Latte and my pills.

3rd day was bad because I didn't end up doing much on my itinerary, 4th day was bad because I got sick and couldn't do a lot of what had originally been on my itinerary. 

The medication also didn't end up doing much because I just had this dull ache in my lower chest for the entirety of the rest of the trip, it wasn't as bad as how it was like when I was in Ximending, but it definitely affected me.

Day 5.

My last full day in Taipei.

My amazing breakfast again, I found out on this day that I could actually customize my breakfast, so I got scrambled eggs, sourdough toast, crispy bacon, grilled tomato and beans, could've been a bit more generous with the beans, but everything was good

After breakfast and a bit of rest in the hotel room, I decided I wanted to try out this ice cream store that was located in Zhongshan MRT called Cremia, they serve soft serve ice cream.

It was like 11.30am when I reached the place, so it was pretty empty, plus the weather that day was also really cold, so having soft serve was probably not on a lot of people's mind in the morning.

I got myself the Vanilla and Chocolate Combo in a Raspberry cone. It was actually quite nice, but because it was really cold that day, I couldn't fully enjoy the experience. 

There was also a Bookstore in the MRT Station, which was super interesting, so I got around to exploring it a little..

So here I am, walking through the station and also looking for a toilet because I think the coffee I had for breakfast was doing it's job and causing a tummy ache.

I had high expectations for the toilet because I mean everything else looked so nice, but it was just another MRT Station Public toilet, I couldn't get any seat toilet, so I settled for the squat one, it was great for my bowels but my legs were so numb, I wanted to just stand up and stretch, but it wasn't possible because there things were also coming out from my butt, if I stood up to stretch, I will be covered in steaming pile of shit.

Felt a bit better after that, so headed over to Dongmen to explore Yong Kang Street.

Went back so Soyspresso, or Beyond Milk, for beancurd.

Similar to the one I had in Dihua Street, but this time, the syrup is hot, the beancurd however is still cold, it was also good.

After this,  I went to a souvenir shop nearby to take a look and it was packed with Japanese tourist, I think there was a tour group in there, so I left after 5 minutes because it was like navigating through a traffic jam in there.

I then headed over to Jia Vin Bakery , that also sells Nougat Biscuits like the one from Saint Peters to ask if they had any Pineapple Cakes, I wanted to get some for my friend who had requested for Pineapple Cakes with Egg Yolk, but sadly Jia Vin didn't have any Egg Yolk ones, so I just got 2 boxes of their nougat biscuits to try and compare with the Saint Peter's version, the verdict is they both taste exactly the same.

I was still feeling really full from breakfast to have space for anything savory immediately, so I left Yong Kang street after that and decided I wanted to try Ichiran Ramen that was located near Taipei 101. 

I ended up having a stomachache when I got there.

The only thing I did at this area was go to one of the nearby malls to look for a toilet, and I literally had to go up every single level to check every single toilet for an available cubicle, the mall had 8 levels, every toilet from Level 1 - Level 6 had all the cubicles taken up, like what the actual fuck?

It was only at the 7th level did I finally find a toilet with an available cubicle, and I think I was in there for a good 15 - 20 minutes just pushing.

Needless to say, after that, I just didn't have any appetite for Ramen anymore, I was so scared that the stomachache will come back as I am queuing for the ramen, so I just left the place. Literally went to Taiepi 101 area, just to take a shit, and it wasn't even in Taipei 101, it was in one of the malls nearby.

What a fucking failure of a trip.

I didn't have any mood to do any more exploration after that, so I headed back to the station nearest my hotel, I knew there was a Pineapple Cake shop near there, so I headed over to ask if they had any Pineapple Cakes with Egg Yolk, the sales person told me they had sold out on those, but that the stocks will arrive after 4pm, it was about 2.30pm when I was there, so I just told her I will come back later. Wasn't really sure if I would to be honest.

Before walking back to the hotel, I knew I needed to have lunch, so I came across this shop that sells organic food and got myself a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

It's really not too bad now that I think about it, sadly, at that time, my stomach was still not feeling very well so I couldn't properly enjoy the meal.

Headed back to the hotel after, had about a 30 minutes break before heading out again. I wanted to get bubble tea from SOMA, that was located within walking distance from the next station, Zhongxiao Dun Hua, and the next station happened to be linked to the station my hotel was located at through the underground mall, so I decided to just walk to the bubble tea shop.

I did not walk the full stretch previously, I only stopped halfway.....

... but it just kept going on...

And then there was the same bookstore from Zhongshan Station situated right at the end of the mall, so I headed in to take a look and I saw this Alpaca toys again! The same one I saw from my last Taiwan trip...

.. I thought to myself that I will definitely get one this time round as a souvenir for myself, that was until I saw the price.

The keychains that are dangling on the left were SGD$60, the bigger ones in the basket are SGD$105. Crazy, that's the reason why I never got them the first time because what the fuck is with those prices.

*Apparently they handmade in Peru using real Alpaca wool, that's why it's so expensive.

Anyways, after the distraction of the Alpacas, I finally made my way to SOMA.

The store is fucking warm. I had originally wanted to get one of their mocktails, but they didn't have any proper English menu available, they only had the name of the drinks written in English,. but the ingredients all written in traditional Chinese, so I didn't end up getting a mocktail since I had no idea what the fuck was in the different ones they offered.

My final choice was a Roasted Rice Milk Tea with no Sugar. It was such a boring drink.

All that walking for this basic ass milk tea was such a big disappointment. I really should have visited at an earlier time and just got myself a proper milk tea with pearl, but alas, it was almost evening and if I got anything with caffeine in it, I know I won't be able to sleep later that night, so this was the compromise I made.

After that, I had originally wanted to visit this high end furniture store that was a walk away from SOMA.

But apparently, they don't allow peasants in there and they make sure no peasants will be allowed in there with a whole ass metal gate.

If you want to go in, you are gonna have to intercom in, and that means a sales person will probably be attached to you as you walk around the store, I don't want to do that, so I gave this place a miss, went back to the Pineapple Cake shop to get the Pineapple Cake with Egg Yolk(PCEY).

When I went back to the store, I told the cashier I wanted to get the PCEY, this was around 5pm, so I knew the PCEY had just been restocked according to what the other cashier had told me, but then this cashier goes...

"Oh, we are sold out on those already."

... it has only been a little over an hour since the stocks arrived and it's already sold out? That would be believable if the store had a super long queue, but there aren't any customers in the store, much less a queue forming outside, so it didn't make sense that they are out of stock, I then told her I had visited earlier and was informed of the incoming stock, that was when the cashier told me to wait a minute, went to the back of the shop and grabbed 2 boxes for me.

A few seconds later, the cashier who had assisted me originally pops her head out from behind the curtain of their back room and greets me, she then asks me if I wanted to get both or just 1, figured since I could get 2 max, might as well get 2, I will give one to my friend and keep 1 to myself.

I find the whole stock availability a bit suspicious, maybe that's their sales tactic. They tell people they are out of stock and that a new batch will come in later to generate a feeling of FOMO, but in actuality, they have a bunch of stocks at the back.

Well, either way, I got 2 boxes, my verdict is I still prefer the one from Sugar and Spice, but this is much better than Chia Te.

Went back to the hotel right after that for a quick rest and then headed out to look for dinner at around 7.30pm.

I decided to explore the area where I had gotten my 50 Lan bubble tea the previous day, had no idea what would be available and had expected to get some proper Taiwanese food.

This is what I got instead....

A bowl of Salad and a slice of Chocolate Cake, the Soya Milk doesn't count because I got that earlier in the afternoon during my visit to Yong Kang Street.

It was a decent salad bowl, well, it was supposed to be Poke Bowl and I had originally wanted Salmon, but I didn't understand what the girl who was serving me was saying, she told me to pick proteins, so I picked Chicken and Tofu, I hadn't realized that the Salmon was part of the proteins option, so I ended up with what I got.

And also this small slice of cake from SOGO I think, this was in the other SOGO store that also had a food court, and within that food court was a hidden area that had a bunch of cafes...

They have a few selection of cakes from this BAC shop, I later come to learn that BAC started as Awfully Chocolate, but then the owner got into some legal dispute with the Founder of Awfully Chocolate, so she ended up rebranding her store and started to sell her own selection of cakes.

This small slice of cake was TWD170, or SGD$7.18, my hands for comparison. It's very small. Definitely not Awfully Chocolate standard, their chocolate ganache is a lot thicker, whereas Awfully Chocolate's version is more pudding like, cake is also denser for BAC, which I actually do like for a cake this small, it just feels a lot more substantial with every bite. Also a sucker for the strawberry and chocolate combo, so I did enjoy this cake, even though it was very pricey for the size.

So that was the end of my last full day in Taipei. I actually visited quite a few places on the last day, not all of them were successful, but it was fruitful enough compared to the previous few days.

Day 6.

The very last day.

The view from my room on my very last day there.

My breakfast of choice on the last day. The hotel breakfast is what I look forward to the most everyday, they just never disappoint. Opted for a Sunny Side instead of Scramble.

I really don't have much plans on the last day, the main goal is just to get more stuff to buy home, so I headed over to Poya, which is like a Beauty Store, to look for candies and stuff, it was along the same area as the Pineapple Cake shop near my hotel, so extremely walkable

Got a few candies from there, mainly Hi-Chews because I read that the Taiwan version is quite different from the Japanese version, Ovaltine Marshmallows, along with some other random stuff.  Got my last cup of Bubble Tea from Coco, Milk Tea Latte with Pearl.

I don't know why, but it's just so underwhelming. I think picking Fresh Milk over creamer made the Milk Tea taste a lot more bland. This entire trip, all the Milk Tea that I had ordered, they were all prepared with Fresh Milk and not creamer. It's the healthier option, but it just doesn't taste the same. 

Did my packing and was able to shove all the food I had gotten into the luggage, had to do a bit of Tetris to make everything fit, but it all went in no problem. 

Here is my view as I take a final dump in the toilet, this window faces the Al Fresco Dining area of the Hotel. My room is on the 13th Floor, the Restaurant is on the 12th, so I had to keep roller blinds down the entire stay so people who were seated at the outdoor area can't see me. It's such a nice view when the blinds are up though.

I actually had wanted to spend the last hour claiming my free drink at the restaurant because I was actually given 2 coupons to claim 2 free drinks, but I was not able to do that due to my stomach issues, so that was a big fucking waste. The drinks at the restaurant are not cheap drinks, they are cocktails that go for around $20 per glass, huge fucking waste. I am actually so angry that I had to get sick during this trip, really fucked everything up for me.

I finally checked out of the room at 11.45am, and since I only had to be at the airport at 2pm, I still had an hour to spare, so I just went for a 30 minutes walk around the area, headed to the underground Mall again, walked to the next station, came out and just explored the area around Zhongxiao Dunhua, then went walked back again. I also found another SOGO outlet and explored that area, it was completely void of any shoppers, the stores were all open and once again, selling mainly designer goods so nothing for me to see, but there wasn't a single person who wasn't a worker in there except me, it was a super boring mall, so I left after that and then headed back to the hotel.

My stomach started churning again, so I used the Hotel's public toilet, since I couldn't go back to my hotel room anymore, to do my business.

It's gold.

A fancy toilet for a fancy hotel.

Did my business, and waited in the lobby for about 15 minutes until my Uber came to pick me up and send me to the Airport.

On my way to the airport. 

I also ended up having another round of tummy ache in the airport. Check In was really fast though, since I was Scootplus, I was able to get into the Express Lane, they also had Priority Boarding, which was fantastic. 

I did not manage to eat anything in the airport before the flight because my stomach was not feeling well, so when food was finally served in the plane, I devoured it. Was still quite hungry afterwards though.

I had Breakfast at 9.20am.

Had some tapioca pearls in between from the not so great Bubble Tea from Coco.

Had 3 rounds of diarhea, twice in the hotel, once in the airport.

Had Lunch on the plane at 4.30pm

I was actually hungry when I was in the airport, but because of my stomachache, I didn't dare to eat anything. And when I was finally given food, the portion is so small.

I didn't feel the same wave of sadness as I did the last time when my Taipei trip ended. This trip was just so unmemorable and I am mainly remembering the times I felt sick. I had so much post travel blues during my last trip, but I am barely feeling any post travel blues as I am writing out this post for this trip, it almost feels like I never went for the trip at all.

Reasons why this trip was not good.

1. Too many days, too little things to do. 

My original itinerary was so sparse because I didn't have a lot of new places I wanted to visit, all the places that were worth visiting in my opinion had already been done during my first trip, like going to the top of Taipei 101 for example, it's just one of those experience that is done once and then never again, plus I also didn't really want to keep going back to the same places I did the previous trip, even though I did that for this trip a few times.

2. Fell Sick

That affected my already sparse itinerary even more because I just didn't have the energy to want to go out and explore the city as much. The number of places I missed out because I was feeling too unwell to visit is so upsetting. 

- Waku Waku Pasta  (no appetite)

-Aquatic Addiction Development (no appetite) 

-Ichiran Ramen (no appetite)

-eyecandle (wasn't feeling well)

And I only went back to Fu Huang once. 

3. Weekend Crowd

Especially for a solo traveller like me who hates crowded places. If I had visited those places I visited during the weekend on a weekday instead, I am pretty sure I would have stayed at those places a little longer.

I still love Taipei, but next time I do go back, 4 days will be sufficient, 2 full days to revisit all the places I want to go back to and maybe the last day to get all the Pineapple Cakes and Nougats, also, none of those 4 days will fall on a weekend.  

6 days with weekends included should only be with friends and families, and I do hope I can find some travel buddies soon, solo travelling is great and all, but there are just some activities that are much more fun when done with a group of good friends, like visiting the exhibitions and night markets. 

The best parts of this trip were definitely everything about the hotel,  and the cold weather (although I think I may have gotten a bit unwell partly due to the colder weather, I used to always get sick when I visited countries in the winter during my younger days with my family). 

Final IPPT

 Applied for a half day leave today to attend the very last IPPT I will ever have to take in my life.

Still headed for work in the morning and from now till tomorrow, my goal is just to do as much work as I possibly can, so I can go enjoy my Taipei trip in as much peace as possible without having to think about the mountain of work I will have to get back to once it is over.

My IPPT session was at 5.00pm today, so I left the office at 2.30pm, reached home at about 3.30pm and the afternoon heat was intense, I am just very grateful my job is an office bound job because I don't think I can brave the afternoon heat like I did in the past as a Project Manager when it was a norm for my shirt to be completely drenched in sweat. Thinking back about how bad it was now, it's ridiculous how I managed to find that type of lifestyle acceptable.  

Anyways, I got home, was able to chillax for an hour, changed into my exercise attire and then headed out for Maju Camp.

Again, insane weather, just the fucking heat is nuts, doesn't help that the bus stop is directly facing the Sun, so anyone waiting at the stop was at the full mercy of the heat. 

Managed to reach the camp on time, placed all my stuff in the locker, went to grab a number tag and I was assigned the number 666 , which was really ominous. Once again, I forgot to bring a bottle of water, and because it's a post Covid world right now, we are not allowed to drink directly from the watercoolers, so those without water bottles, like myself, were given a disposable plastic cup by the PTs for us to fill up with water from the watercoolers and drink from, it was really quite a pain to carry the cup around, whenever we were doing our static stations, we had to leave the cup outside the station zone and I was just constantly worrying about a gust of wind potentially blowing it away, but I can't complain I guess, that's the price I need to pay for not bringing my own water bottle.

I scored decently for my Sit Ups and Push Ups, I don't train my Sit Ups at home, so I only managed to get about 34 reps, I have seen a bunch of guys who were before me just going ham, their body just slamming the ground and then bouncing right back up like they are using their spines to cause massive damage to the machine, those guys did around 45 reps, I couldn't do that.

I do regular Push Ups at home, so I did manage to score 47 reps, didn't have any "no counts" for all 47 reps, so that was great.    

For the 2.4km run, I scored my usual 13.30 mins timing, which is fine considering the fact that I have never trained for my 2.4km, the last time I ran 2.4km was for my last IPPT, which was probably more than a year back. I'm just impressed that I didn't stop running and start walking at anytime during the run, I just powered through and maintained a steady pace. I am usually the last runner at the start of the run because I am just pacing myself, the ones who are at the front are either the ones who have trained for their 2.4km or the untrained ones who think it is a great idea to just sprint at the start to cover more distance, but then end up reverting to a walking pace by their 2nd lap. We have 6 laps to cover, if you are already walking by your 2nd lap, then you are as good as screwed. 

In the end, I managed to score a Pass with Incentive, so I was immediately transferred $200 after returning my tag. It's a nice bonus for me, like a final gift from SAF. It will either go towards extra shopping money for my Taipei trip, or a new bottle of perfume from MFK.

I decided to take a shower after the test because I want to be considerate to the commuters on the bus and not be a walking human stench, so I did that and when I came out of the toilet, I actually ran into an ex-colleague of mine who is currently still working at the furniture store, honestly, the odds were so low because he happened to have collected his tag and decided to store his belongings in a locker that was directly facing the toilet entrance, and I just so happened to have completed showering and had stepped out. He saw me first so it was a very pleasant surprise. 

We had a quick catch up and not surprisingly, he is planning to submit his resignation soon as well. He shared with me how much worst the company is becoming, how my ex-boss has really ramped up on the micromanaging and just how unfulfilled he feels working there. This is honestly a shared experience that everyone has working there and it is really a reflection of the competency of the boss is. He isn't a toxic boss, he is just an incompetent one. 

Anyways, after that, I wished him all the best and proceeded to head back home, the final weight of my National Service duties finally lifted off my shoulder, now I can officially, and very properly, MR on 1st April. 

MR Ceremony and work stuff...

 Attended my MR Ceremony today and it turns out, I am still not officially done with my National Service duties. 

I had assumed that after today's ceremony, I will officially join the Mindef Reserve and no longer have any National Service related obligations, which was mainly my IPPT in this case. 

My IPPT window for the year closes on 14th March, a day before my birthday, today is the 8th, I had initially thought to myself, how lucky I was for the dates to align so nicely, to be able to skip my IPPT window because it will close just a week after I MR, but nope, turns out my MR status will only kick in on 1st April, which means if I don't complete my IPPT by next week, I will get charged and have to take leave to go to CMPB for disciplinary action in my smart 4 uniform,  and I think if I don't attend the Summary Trial for it, it will affect my MR status. It's honestly not worth all the hassle, so I decided to apply for a half day leave for Wednesday, report to the FCC camp that is the nearest to my home in my sports attire and attempt my IPPT, beats having to report to Depot Road wearing my No.4. 

Hopefully I can pass with incentive and get myself the $200 incentive to add that to my Taiwan shopping expenses, I think I only got a pass during my last IPPT so we will see how it goes, oh, and I will be going to Taiwan again next week for 6 days! Exciting, will be spamming my Instagram again soon.  

Anyways, back to the MR Ceremony today. 

I decided to rent a car to attend the event today and had made an advance booking for a Suzuki Swift from GetGo earlier this week, I was honestly a bit undecided if I wanted to go through with the rental the week leading up to today or not because taking a Grab back and forth would be about the same price and I am just not a huge fan of driving in general unless absolutely necessary, but then by the time I was exploring the option to actually go ahead and cancel the booking, a last minute cancellation fee had already been implemented, so I just went ahead with it. It would be good to refresh my driving skills every once in a while too.

The car is located about 3 bus stops away from my house, so I booked it from 7am - 1.30pm, which was a bit of an overkill because my MR Ceremony was scheduled to last from 8.30am - 12.00pm, I was allocating a lot of buffer just in case. The great thing about the Army is that even though their reporting time may always be a lot earlier than the actual starting time, they will always end earlier than their stipulated timing, or at least that's my experience as a Reservist personnel.

I left home at 7am today and reached the car at about 7.30am, was a bit later than I had anticipated because I dropped off one bus stop earlier thanks to the misguidance provided by Google Maps. The Suzuki Swift was one of the smaller cars available for rent within my area, the others were bigger SUV type vehicles, so it was a no brainer for me to travel just a bit more for a car that I was comfortable driving. 

Compared to the Kia Picanto, the Suzuki Swift drives really smoothly, it's on par with the Mazda 2 I had rented for my last Reservist. The quality of the GetGo cars are generally quite good, so I should not be expecting anything less, which goes to show also how shit horrible the Kia Picanto that I had previously rented was, and the older Mazda 2 model that I had originally rented and returned after less than a day of use because of how shit it was.

The drive to the airbase was about 30 minutes long, traffic was alright, there were a lot of cars but thankfully no traffic jam of any sorts and because I had already been studying the route on Google Maps for the past week, I was already somewhat familiar with how to get there, by the time I reached the public carpark located outside the airbase, my reservist buddy was already there. Realistically speaking, I believe this will be the very last time I will be seeing him because we rarely ever meet up for non-army related stuff, unless it is work related, which has only happened twice in the 12 years we have known each other. He is a very good "army" friend, but we don't do much together outside of the our army commitments. 

We had a quick catch up and then headed into the camp together, registered our names and headed off to the cookhouse/canteen to just chill until the ceremony started 45 minutes later. He had a quick meal, I had a Teh Ping, once we were done, we headed back to the registration area and a lot of us were just standing around outside because once we headed into the auditorium, we would all be split up and seated according to the order of our award taking.

When I entered the Auditorium, it felt like such a full circle moment because the auditorium is really similar to the one in Tekong when I first enlisted 13 years ago, back then, regimentation was at it's peak and everyone had to sit really straight and keep really quiet, you had to be vocal and respond to every rhetorical question from the commander who was giving the speech with "Yes Sir", but today, it was the complete opposite, most of us were slouching in our seats, playing our phones, and we were just waiting for something to happen.

My friend and I headed in at 9am.... the ceremony only started at 9.40am, and I remember the timing because the Commander who was giving us the opening speech started his speech with...

"Punctuality is important and I think it is important to start on time..." 

... the guy who was seated directly in front of me, and myself, looked at our watch to check what time it was. It wasn't 9.00am that's for sure.

The commander then continued his speech and explained that he wanted to start the ceremony on time, but couldn't because a bunch of us went to the wrong Airbase and he didn't want those guys to miss out. The ceremony was being held at Paya Lebar, but they went back to Changi, and my friend would have been one of them had he not double confirm the location with me yesterday.  

So the ceremony officially started at 9.40am, my teh ping was already making it's way to my bladder at that point, so I really needed to pee, but I couldn't because it was really hard to get out of my seat,  my legs were literally pressing itself against the chair infront of me because that's how close the seats were to each other, and I was sited right in the middle of the middle row, the row seats about 12 people, if I wanted to get up, half the row would have to stand up just for me to make my way out, so I just held it in for as long as I could.

The speech that the Commander was giving felt so long winded because I had to pee and I needed him to get on with the ceremony so I can go to the toilet asap. When he was finally done, they started handing out the plaques and I guess it was actually going relatively quickly, but when you need to pee, everything just feels really slow, I was so worried that when I have to stand up and wait for my turn to get up on stage to get the plaque, I would start shaking from the pee trying to burst it's way out, but thankfully, everything stayed in place, I walked up on stage, shook the commanders' hand, we took our photo and I headed to the back of the auditorium to get the photo (I  looked really horrible in the photo), I noticed there were exit doors at the back as well, so I told the person who was giving out the photo I needed to use the toilet and if there was a toilet outside the backdoor, and there was, so I was able to relieve myself, which was a really great feeling.

Time suddenly felt like it was back to normal after that number 1,

I headed back into the auditorium and I think after about 15- 20 minutes, all the plaques were finally given out and we were done. The whole ceremony ended at 10.30am.

There was actually a buffet spread for everyone after the ceremony, but my friend and I honestly couldn't be bothered, so we just left after that. I think majority of us skipped out on the buffet, which is a little sad since it had been specially prepared for us, but alas, no one had any mood to stay when the alternative is to be able to leave and go home. We said our goodbyes, I told him I will see him when I see him, he jokingly responds back with..

"Very unlikely."

... and that was it. I got into my car and drove back home. Probably the last time I will ever see my reservist buddy in person.

When I reached home, it was only 11am, I still had 2.5 hours left for the rental car, so I left all the MR stuff at home, took a quick shower, changed out from my uniform and decided to do a site visit for one of my ongoing projects that was near my place.

It has honestly been a while since I went to do a site visit on my own, the last few times, it was  either with my boss or the Project Manager in charge of the project. I ended up spotting a few carpentry mistake and had to alert the carpenter about it, he couldn't do anything because everything had already been installed and it was too late to do any changes, so I had to alert the homeowner, who happened to be our company's accountant.

Our company account has certain expectations for her renovation, so I was honestly a bit peeved when I was talking to her. As a customer, she doesn't ask you to do something for her, she tells you to do something for her.

Asking to do something would be...

"Can you help me check what is the height of the shelving?"

Telling to do something would be...

"What is the height of the shelving?"

"This configuration is wrong."

... and even though it might just seem like a non-issue, to me, it was a bit triggering because site visits and checking up on the progress of the renovation are not within my job scope as the designer, this is the role of the Project Manager. I am doing an extra service for you, and she is very aware of that.

Anyways, once I left the site, I was already feeling really aggravated by her questions, and when I was returning the car, the app had some issues, so it couldn't connect to the car, which added on to my frustrations, so I ended up snapping at my accountant in the chat because when I was asking her if the drawings that I had done for her was correct, and she kept telling me to follow the 3D. The drawings were based on the 3D, but she just kept insisting to follow the 3D, so I replied to her with... 

"Yes! But the changes are the same as the 3D correct?"

... to which she agreed. 

After that, I apologized for my aggressive response, but she told me not to worry because she didn't sense any aggression in my text.

It's a good thing my tone couldn't be captured in that reply, because if I were to accurately type out how that reply sounded in my mind, it was more like...

"YES! But the changes are the same as the 3D, CORRECT?

I ended up just standing at the bus stop near the car rental return point for 15 minutes, messaging her and my carpenter to find a solution to the problem, it was not great because again, not my job, this is the PM's job, and also this fuck up was caused by my carpenter, so I was essentially helping my PM deal with the client to clear up my Carpenter's mistake. And I am suppose to be on leave today!

It was frustrating.

When all that was settled, I could finally focus on getting on a bus and headed to Westmall for lunch, on the way back, booked my IPPT for Wednesday and also applied for a half day leave with my accountant in order to attend the IPPT. 

It's going to be a busy week, I also have to meet Terrence and his wife next week, so fuck my life.  Nothing like meeting a shitty customer before your overseas trip to really sour the mood. 

Friday Meetings

I had 2 meetings to attend to yesterday at work, one was at 5.30pm and another was at 8.00pm. My work ends at 6.30pm, so the 8pm was really a meeting timing that everyone had to go out of their way to commit to.

The 5.30pm meeting went well, I met up with the customer on my own without my boss, and I feel like we really hit it off, the customer was receptive to my ideas, she came prepared with mood images she found online, so overall, it was a really productive session and I send her off with a few samples for her to mull over at home. Like most pleasant meetings, it's not really anything worth blogging about and that is a good thing.

The 8.00pm one on the other hand wasn't and is the reason why this post exist.

Just a bit of background, the customer for the 8.00pm meeting, let's called him Cee, had originally scheduled to meet my boss and I last Saturday at 10.30am in our office. I don't work on Saturdays, so this was considered OT for me, and my OT is only claimable for the time I have spend in the office, so travelling time is excluded.

On Saturday, I left the home at about 9.00am, my goal was to reach the office 30 minutes before the appointment so I will have time to print out whatever floorplans or documents that we needed for the meeting and also just chill for a while before we started.

When I was on the train halfway to my destination, my boss forwarded me the message that Cee had send him, requesting to push the meeting back to 11am, it was maybe 9.30am when I got that message, so I just send my boss a thumbs up to acknowledge it.

I didn't mind meeting at 11am, it just means I have more time to chill in the office. I decided to stop by the mall near my office to get a cup of coffee before going in. It was about 10.00am when I was at the cafe, I ordered my coffee and my boss forwarded me another message by Cee again, this time he requested to push back the meeting to 11.30am. 

 A bit annoyed at how last minute this changes were, but figured since I was there already, I will just watch a few YouTube videos in the office to kill time until the meeting starts.

As I was making my way to the office with my coffee in hand, from the mall, which would be a 10 minute journey, my boss forwarded me another message, this time, I was already stepping into the office building, and it was from Cee again, requesting to postpone the meeting to another day. He was being held up by a medical appointment and could no longer make it.

Now that was frustrating because that means I can't claim any hours since I technically didn't end up doing any work. I could only send my boss multiple facepalm emojis and he was very apologetic about it, allowing me to take a Grab home if I wanted to. I headed into the office anyways and ended up just sitting at my desk, sipping my coffee with the air-condition on for the next 2 hours because I had to wait for the coffee to kick in, clear my stomach before I leave. I did manage to get some work done as well, but again, these are unclaimable hours. So that was how last Saturday went, time completely wasted. You would think that if you had a medical appointment in the morning to attend to, scheduling another meeting at 10.30am would probably be a bit tight...RIGHT? This whole waste of my time could have been avoided had Cee exercised better time management, but alas, he didn't, and this wasn't only the only management problem he had.

  So let's forward to yesterday's meeting.

8pm finally rolls around and Cee finally arrived, I had anticipated for him and his wife to attend, but he also brought along his parents, so there were a total of 4 of them and 2 of us, my boss and I. First impression of Cee is he is a friendly guy, and so were his parents, but his wife on the other hand did not look friendly, her expression was quite sullen and I don't know if she was in a bad mood or if that's just her default facial expression from her resting bitch face.

So before the meeting, Cee had already shared with us videos and photos of his new place that he had gotten, it's a resale flat with existing carpentry that he wanted to make amendments to and projects like this are projects that I really hate doing because it's very contractor style, you aren't really doing much design work, you are just fixing issues with the existing cabinetries, and this usually end up becoming more complicated, and when there are design works to be done, you have to think about how to design around existing features, which could end up severely limiting what I can do, leading to the need for a lot of compromises. 

The main revamp that Cee and his wife had wanted to do were the 2 toilets, it was to hack and redo from scratch, which would have been fine, had it not been for the fact that they are so adamant on exploring layouts that simply were not viable for a toilet of their size. 

The meeting yesterday started with my boss essentially telling them what they wanted to do for their toilet was not possible due to space constraint, like doing a wall hung toilet and an oversized basin when you literally have no space to do those, and they also kept insisting on erecting walls in their toilets to do niches for their body wash and shampoo bottles. It's ridiculous, we were stuck on their toilet layout for at lest 30 minutes and as the minutes went by, I could see the wife's expression just getting darker and darker because we were essentially crushing their dream of building their dream toilet.

BUT THEY KEPT INSISTING ON DOING A WALL NICHE FOR THEIR TOILET.

In order to do a wall niche, we have to erect a new wall in order to create those niches, the walls are about 20cm thick, based on their layout, their shower area is already small, like only 70cm wide, if I did a niche, they would only have 50cm left. When my boss and I suggested to build the wall up at other locations, they were against the idea because it was either out of reach for them or there were design compromises that had to be made due to the location of the shower drain.

The new wall niche is one issue, the other issue they had was the placement of their vanity cabinet, which they wanted to install right beside their door, 

This is how their common toilet layout is like, and with any HDB toilet layout for the new flats, the position of where your sink and shower are is pretty much fixed due to the space constraint. Cee and his wife really wanted a larger shower area, but when I told them it's pretty much fixed, Cee came up this layout...

Sink location in Red.

Shower location in Blue

Palm location on my face.

So the the moment you open the door, you are greeted by the side of the basin cabinet, walkway into the toilet is significantly reduced due to the sink location, and how the fuck are you suppose to use the sink properly when the shower is literally behind you, and that hard to reach corner beside the sink and the shower screen, like what the fuck. The layout is so fucking horrible, but the husband kept insisting on doing this layout whenever my boss and I tried to talk him out of it... oh, and the wife is also throwing her wall niche idea in as well.

I was Speechless! It's like they took a bad layout, and decided to make it even worst. Speechless.

I just wanted the meeting to end because it was like talking to walls at that point, plus the wife's furrowed brows during the entire discussion about their toilet was not helping. She was confused because my boss kept talking in circles about why we couldn't do what they wanted, and she was also upset that all their ideas kept getting shot down, but for very valid reasons.  We did eventually move on the other areas of the house, those were more straightforward, I mean after this mess of a toilet layout that they had thought out, literally anything else would be more smooth sailing. 

The meeting finally ends at 9.30pm. Fucking nuts that we had to OT so late, after they already wasted my time on Saturday. My boss also created a group chat for everyone and the husband dropped us a few photos when he got home of his current toilet at his current home with that stupid layout, the door literally opens to the side of the toilet vanity sink and they actually have a smaller than average walking space, the flow of the toilet is fucking horrible. 

At this stage, I am thinking of just taking on a more main-con approach and do whatever the customer wants to do, you want to do a layout that will not be efficient for moving around, we will do it for you. Of course  I will need to very strongly disclaimer to them that advise had been given and if they do end up regretting their layout decision, it's on them. If they don't and they actually love it, don't say it's done by me because one man's beauty is everyone else's garbage.

Oh, and the husband and wife didn't catch my name during the meeting, so the husband literally wrote...

"Thanks D(my boss's name) and (Sorry, forgot to catch your name) for meeting us earlier!"

... I literally laughed out loud when I saw the message at home because I was not expecting to be referred to as (Sorry, forgot to catch your name), it was a nice way to end a painful meeting I guess. 

I am hoping they end up looking for a few other Interior Design companies and decide to go with some newbie designer who will make the rookie mistake of just agreeing to whatever Cee and his wife wants to do to their toilet, and leave my boss and I alone so that we can actually work on Interior Design projects and not this Contractor scope shit. I fucking hate projects like this.

Back from CNY

 First day back to work after the CNY break and I hardly did any work.

The day started off normally, but this time, with my ex-colleague from my last job joining us as the new Project Manager. She was busy doing her onboarding by my boss when I arrived, so I greeted them both and went on with my regular routine of turning on the laptop and then just sitting there and wondering what I am suppose to be doing.

I don't really have any outstanding projects that I had to work on, had already rushed out most of them before the CNY break, so I am currently in a "waiting for feedback from the customer" phase.

Decided that since I didn't have much to do, I would just open my CNY hamper that I had left in the office and distribute it to anyone who wanted anything from it, no one did except for my friend, after her briefing with my boss was over. She took a box of White Fungus and a bottle of Bird's Nest, we then started chatting and about 30 minutes later, all of us gathered for a meeting to discuss about all our on-gong projects, that meeting lasted about an hour. I always found these meetings to be quite boring but it is what it is.

Once the meeting was over, we headed out to have our "Start Work again" Lunch or whatever is is called in english at Kallang Wave. My boss likes to go there because it's a pretty large and quiet mall, so that's where we went and had our meal. Not bad for my friend's first day at work.

After lunch, we had Karaoke, everyone sang some songs including myself. I have been listening to quite a bit of Miley Cyrus recently, so I decided to sing Midnight Sky, but then I completely forgot that the MV is quite raunchy, which was really uncomfortable because majority of my colleagues are in their 50s to 60s, the MV is probably like softcore porn to people of their generation. I still sang the song anyway because it has been my jam for the past month. I have really started to grow fond of Miley Cyrus's voice, was not a fan of hers during her Hannah Montana era because she had such a nasal sound as a kid, but that nasal quality has now grown into a huskier as she got older, so I do find myself listening to her a lot more of her recent offerings nowadays.

The karaoke session was much better than the one I had last year , felt like I was in a better condition to sing, although hearing myself on the speaker was still a very humbling experience. 

Our day ended at 3.30pm and my friend and I headed over to Orchard, she went to take a bus from there and I went to smell some perfumes at Escentials, but not before heading over to the furniture store to just say hi to my ex-colleague. 

Whilst we were on the train towards Orchard, we got to talking about her new job and the initial concerns I had about her future with the company. She was quite motivated to do her best for the company, which was comforting to hear and then we started to talk about our old company a little because that is kind of inevitable.

It's mainly the same old rants that I would have with any of my ex-colleagues from there, but then she shared with me how much our ex-boss draws for his monthly salary and that was completely eye opening. I guess it is normal considering his position as the director in the company, but to draw a salary of $50,000 every month is still nuts to me. I barely have half that amount in my bank account right now after years of working, and that is his 1 month salary. 

Before I left, our monthly sales in the store averages about $500,000 every month.

-$300,000 is set aside for furniture orders. (Since the mark up is about 40% give or take)

-$160,000 for rental (This was the amount my ex-boss shared with us during one of our training sessions)

-$30,000 for staff salary (This is already being very generous)

Profit Margin $10,000

My ex-boss did say that in order for the company to breakeven, the store needs to be generating at least $600,000 in sales, and after doing the calculations, I came up to a $50,000 profit after subtracting all the overhead cost. 

That's how much he draws every month for his own salary. The figure had been there the entire time for us to calculate. 

The company is really just barely hanging on.

Anyways, when I finally reach the Showroom, the state of it is very much same same but not really, no major changes were made, the new items that they have introduced since I left aren't a lot, there were still a lot of repeated sofas and armchairs designs scattered all over the different zones. The company really doesn't see the point in investing money and introducing more varieties, so even though the layout had some changes, the overall feel of the space is still the same. I do like that it's not as cluttered anymore, there are a lot more walking space, which is also a problem I guess because that means there isn't enough items to properly to fill up the showroom. 

Headed over to Escentials after I had a quick catch up with my ex-colleague, mainly wanted to smell one fragrance, which is Creed Aventus, a $320 perfume, I am glad I didn't buy the decants from Shopee because it smells just like MontBlanc Explorer, that was what I wore whilst I was in Bangkok last year, so it brings back memories of my 3 days there.

The dry down for both scent is suppose to be different, but the general scent profile is MontBlanc Explorer, which makes sense since Explorer is supposed to be a dupe of Aventus. I do like the smell, but I wouldn't pay $320 for it.  

Didn't really know what else I wanted to smell, so I left the store and got myself a large Cinnabon before heading home. 

Overall, it was a pretty fun day with very minimal work.