I shall attempt to finish this day and the next, because I will have no Internet connection tomorrow night, because there is still no wireless connection at home and I've been hogging the modem and so my brother is giving me an order not to use Internet tomorrow night so that he can use.

Anyway...

Under 綠茶's mum's 強力推薦, we headed for 台中大甲鎮瀾宮 to see the 台幣15億金媽祖. I was quite excited about this because I remembered watching this 媽祖起駕晚會 on TV. Before going to 鎮瀾宮, we first went to buy egg tarts 爆漿卡士達蛋塔 from KFC, followed by breakfast at the food market beside the temple. Each of us had a plate of 蚵仔煎. It's the first time I ate a plate of this on my own. Anyway, it's the Taiwanese version of our oyster omelette 蚝煎. I find their version less oily than ours, although Jessie thought otherwise. There's a lot of vegetable and it comes with a pink sweetish sauce. The texture of 蚵仔煎 is more chewy, whereas our 蚝煎 is more crispy and fragrant. After brunch (we woke up quite late), we went for dessert. 綠茶 recommended this 鳳梨冰 and 杏仁露, and when we went over to the shop, we found her family eating there!

After brunch, we went to 鎮瀾宮. Although I'm not very appreciative of general or religious art, I have to admit the 金媽祖 is very pretty. It's a statue of 媽祖 made of solid gold, not a very huge grand statue, rather miniature. There's also a pure white 觀音娘娘, I think, but I'm not very sure what it's made of. Anyway, the gold that the 媽祖 is made of is all donated by the 信徒. I'm not very sure if Singaporeans worship 媽祖, maybe at 天福宮, which was established by early Hokkiens who depended on the sea to make a living and 媽祖 is believed to protect them during their sea expeditions.

We went to buy 鹹蛋糕 for afternoon tea! It's a local snack recommended by 綠茶. It's basically sponge cake with salty filling in between. The filling is made of radish I think, not very sure if there's any meat. It tastes like the topping for our chwee kueh! You can try making this 鹹蛋糕 on your own!

After that, we went to buy 伴手禮 at 裕珍馨 which is famous for their 奶油酥餅. I learnt my lesson and bought just enough for myself. Hahah! I give up trying to buy food for everyone because I cannot bring enough for everyone and even in my own family, I end up as the only one eating what I buy. So, Sie Yen and I shared a box of assorted flavours 奶油酥餅. The flavours are really Japanese－北海道鮮奶、焦糖瑪奇朵、焦糖牛奶、沖繩黑糖. Oh ok, actually only two are Japanese-influenced. Somehow I was under the impression that it's very Japanese. Anyway, 奶油酥餅 is similar to 太陽餅, and it's nice to have a change of taste. We bought two boxes of 鳳梨餅 and 鳳凰餅, which is 鳳梨餅 with 鹹蛋黃 I think. My father doesn't like Taiwanese 鳳梨餅; he very much prefers our local version of 黃梨塔. Actually I prefer our pineapple filling, but I like the Taiwanese version's 餅皮. We also tried 芭樂 with 養樂多 before heading back home! It's basically guava with Yakult flavoured powder. You cannot really taste the Yakult, because it's just a faint yogurt taste, but it's nice! I love guava!

We were wondering whether to stay in Taichung for another night, or to return to Taipei then. Eventually, we decided to go 東海大學, with our luggage packed in 綠茶's mum's car. Why are we randomly going to some university? Because they have this church which looks really funny! The roof slopes all the way to the ground, and Jessie thought it looks like an attap hut. Actually it does, a little. Too bad it was too dark (Taiwan turns dark really early) to take clear photos of the church.

Finally, we headed back to Taipei. We took a 公車 to this place to collect our luggage from 綠茶's mum and take 客運 back to Taipei. Vivi stayed back to wait for her boyfriend to go back to Taipei together, while 凱樂 parted with us when we reached Taipei, and the rest of us headed for 士林夜市 for dinner and shopping!

I finally tried some authentic 炸雞排 in Taiwan! Believe it or not, I never tried any famous 炸雞排 during my last two trips. Anyway there are so many stall claiming to be the best, it's hard to know which is really good unless someone who have tried recommends. The four of us then bought a thick cotton pullover each! Can you believe each one only cost NTD150, which is less than SGD8? That's after a little bargaining, but the original price was already quite low. I bought leggings too, because the only pair I have is too thin. My legs have quite a large surface area, you see (and no, you don't usually see my legs because I try to avoid exposing them), so the leggings tend to be stretched until rather translucent. These new ones I got were thicker, but I realized they are a little glossy so there might be some 膨脹效果. I cannot remember what else I bought.

Let's end the day here!

未完。待續。

。尋找中@01:16