Some stuff that I ate at Taipei

Below are some pictures of the places where I snacked in Taipei. :)

 Danshui 豪大大雞排

 豪大大雞排 and 香菇

Very big Spicy hotdog at Shilin

Hao Jian in a seafood restaurant at Yeliu

Fried Rice in a seafood restaurant at Yeliu

Fried BeeHoon (it's a little spicy) in a seafood restaurant at Yeliu

Taiwan local vegetable dish in a seafood restaurant at Yeliu

 Wufenpu also has a mini night market near the temple.

Jiufen Old Street

After visiting Yeliu Geopark (野柳地质公园) during my short stay in Taipei, I went on to visit the Jiufen Old Street (九分老街). Jiufen is another place with 2 focus, shopping and food, in particular yam! :)

To visit Jiufen, make your way to Keelung (基隆) Station and from the bus stop near the station, go across the bridge to the other side and wait for the bus that goes to JinShan (金山) if I recall correctly, which basically goes to Jin Gua Shi (金瓜石). The bus stop will have this information. Tell the driver that you're going to Jiufen and he will sound out when he reaches. If you've forgotten to tell him, it does not matter because basically most of the people will be dropping off there. :) You will see the scene in the picture below.

Jiufen Old Street starts off near the 7-11. You can see the entrance to the street in the picture below.

Other than food, Jiufen also has quite a few small alleys that cuts across the village. In these small alleys, don't be surprised to find some unique shops. We found a few design shops hidden in these alleys. The picture below is one of such alleys.

They also have a few animals roaming around. I can't resist taking pictures of one of them below. :)

As the Jiufen village is next to the mountain by the sea, the scenery there is quite beautiful and of course, windy.Can you feel the wind in the pictures below? :)

We stayed there for some time as there were some interesting handicraft stalls there and food stalls of course. I believe there is a bus that goes directly back to Taipei at the bus stop opposite the 7-11. However, we just took any bus to the Ruifang (瑞芳) station and took the train back to the Taipei Railway station. We took the express train (自强) back to Taipei.

It was dark when we went back to Taipei. I can't resist trying to take a picture of the train coming in. :)

Reason for the Latest Property Cooling Measures is because ...

Taking a break from posting my photos. :) Straight from the oven, the Government has announced a fourth round of property cooling measures effective tomorrow, to 'maintain a stable and sustainable property market'.

They are:

1. Increasing the holding period for imposition of Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) from the current three years to four years;
   
   
2. Raising the SSD rates to 16 per cent, 12 per cent, 8 per cent and 4 per cent of consideration for residential properties which are bought on or after Friday, and are sold in the first, second, third and fourth year of purchase respectively;
   
   
3. Lower the Loan-To-Value (LTV) limit to 50 per cent on housing loans granted by financial institutions regulated by MAS for property purchasers who are not individuals;
   
   
4. Lower the LTV limit on housing loans granted by financial institutions regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore from 70 per cent to 60 per cent for property purchasers who are individuals with one or more outstanding housing loans at the time of the new housing purchase.

You can refer to the news release here for more information on the reasons behind each point.

Personally though, I think the reason is because just today, China has also announced that it will allow its companies to make overseas investments in yuan. What's the linkage? Chinese love to invest in properties and look at the liquidity slushing around in China now.

Taipei International Flora Exposition 2010

Being someone that likes nature, I would not miss the Taipei International Flora Exposition (台北国际花卉博览会) currently held in Taipei. There are several ways to visit this Expo. I went by the MRT route as usual. :) Just take the Danshui Line (RED line) and stop at Yuanshan station. You can't miss it once you get out of the station. The admission costs about NT$300 per adult, and you can use the EasyCard for payment. For more information, you can visit their website here.

The area is very big and frankly, I think you'll need 1 full day to walk through the whole area. It was quite windy while I was there too. Maybe due to the mountains around the area? The expo site is bound by Yuanshan Park, the Taipei Fine Arts Park, Xinsheng Park and Dajia Riverside Park. Each area has its own unique exhibits. Out of the 4 areas, I think I've only had time to visit 2. One of the reasons is the queuing time to visit the exhibits. You can be waiting in the queue for more than an hour just to get into one of the halls. The other reason was of course, our timetable was packed due to the shortness of the trip. :p

The flora expo not only exhibits flowers and landscaping from the different countries, there is also a green theme and there are companies there exhibiting the green technologies being used in different areas such as construction of buildings. The green technologies are interesting but as usual, I was more interested in the flowers. :) Below are some of the pictures I have taken around the area, which includes the gardens designed by the different countries.

The 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition is being held from November 6th, 2010 to April 25th, 2011 so if you happen to be in Taipei during this period, why not go there and have a look. If you want to take a look at the individual flowers in the expo, refer to my other post here.

Now if you are wondering why Singaporeans are so worked up over the Singapore exhibition in the Flora expo, take a look at the pictures below and you will understand why.

How do you recognise that it's a Singapore exhibition? I didn't even see our iconic Merlion or Orchids. In fact, I don't even think the landscaping represents Singapore at all, if not for the signage.

It is very disappointing.

Flowers around the Taipei International Flora Exposition 2010

I have split this post away from the Taipei International Flora Exposition (台北国际花卉博览会) 2010 post here as it will be too lengthy. Below are some of the photos of individual flowers that I have taken around the area. We didn't have time to finish seeing the whole area though. Pity.