(Sad to say though, this was also the day that 200 precious photos from Ling Yang's camera mysteriously disappeared at the end of the day. Sighhhhh. Most of them were taken in the themepark, but the silver lining in our dark cloud was that Ronnie and Eve also took a lot of photos that day coz' LY's camera was on low batt. Thank goodness for that!)
Our plan was to take public transport (train, bus) to our first destination - Leo Foo Chun Themepark. But upon double-checking with our hotel reception about the directions, the frontdesk staff actually gave us a fantastic suggestion - they offered to call up a contact so that we could get to the themepark via a private bus, because it would take too long to travel there on our own.
And guess what? The bus driver was free for the day! The cost of hiring the private minibus (including the themepark tickets) was only slightly more than what it would cost for us to take public transport and get into the themepark, so we decided to take up the offer! It was definitely a great decision, because we saved a lot of travelling time and ENERGY that day! Wahahaha. And best of all, our driver was such an entertaining uncle who gave us good advice and brought us to several places after that.
We headed out of the hotel to grab some breakfast at the nearby bakery, before rushing back to board our private minibus. =)
It was a pretty long journey, but we were so comfortable in the brand-new bus (according to the driver, whom we called Shi Fu, we were the first customers in the vehicle!)...
The weather was pretty good!
And the scenery was nice too!
And of course, we weren't bored because our Shi Fu had so many things onboard to entertain us!
Ermmmm... not all the things were completely child-friendly though.
Look at this piece of paper that he asked us to fold. Upon folding it into half, a picture appears... Definitely not PG material. :P
About 1.5 hours later, we were at Leo Foo Chun Themepark!!! Yippeee!!!
Our Shi Fu's minibus
The entrance to the themepark.
Leo Foo Chun/Leo Foo Village Theme Park
Shi Fu even provided us with ponchos just in case we wanted to sit on the water rides in the themepark (so considerate!), and he even directed us to a must-watch show within the compound. But of course we had to take about a million photos before we even entered the themepark! Hurhur. These were the ones that we lost from Ling Yang's camera lor... Sigh. All the group photos gone :(
Anyway, the show that Shi Fu recommended was called 鸟飞飞 (errrrr... Bird Fly Fly?). It's self-explanatory right?
The show venue... You can see Shi Fu talking to us at the right side of the photo!
All the photos we took during the show were lost too! But thank goodness Ronnie was recording the whole show using Eve's videocamera. So here are two videos showing Ling Yang and Guanwei volunteering to be part of the bird show... One was a willing volunteer while the other was rather reluctant. Guess who? Hyak hyak hyak.
Ling Yang and the cash-grabbing bird:
Watch as Ling Yang readily volunteers a note which he already had ready in his hands coz' Shi Fu had prepared us in advance! Haha. After the bird grabs the note from his hands, the show presenter asked if they could keep the money and LY had no choice but to say yes.... then, she asked if he could give another NT$1000!!! Haha. But it was all in good fun, of course!
Guanwei and the cute lil' birds:
You can see that he was very unwilling to volunteer... but when LY nudged him, his hand went up automatically!!! Wahahaha this always makes us laugh...
When we got out into the open half an hour later, it was time for more photos!!!
The girls trapped behind bars?!?
The guys too?!?
Heh it was just part of the themepark's Halloween decorations.
Help us!
The only thing missing from this photo is Prince Charming (or rather, THREE Prince Charmings. :P )
Alamak the princess can't get up her horse!
In the mood for Christmas though it was still one month away at that point of time...
Don't tell the guys they look kinda... gay here. :P
The girls' turn!
We then went for our first two rollercoaster rides! Took some photos too, but as you should know by now, all are gone!!! :(
Justina refused to sit on the first ride with us, coz' she isn't free from mental problems. Muahahahaha.
We walked around and camwhored some more, before finally reaching THE rollercoaster that the guys had wanted to take the moment they saw it. And they did! Eve wanted to join them at first, but her enthusiasm and guts fizzled out when she saw the sheer height of the rollercoaster.
The 3 brave musketeers!
Eve was thinking, "Should I go? Should I not?"
Look at that constipated look on her face!
She was practically screaming "NOOOOOoooooooo don't force me!!!"
Eve couldn't muster the courage in the end, and chose instead to stay behind to capture the guys in action!
Guanwei sitting on his own.
With Ron and Ling Yang behind...
Feeling scared, guys???
Hurhur look at their cute expressions!
It took about 10 minutes before the rollercoaster set off, but when it FINALLY did, it sure left in record speed!
Squint your eyes and you might see the rollercoaster zooming off!
Justina and Zhen were waiting outside to capture the rollercoaster while it was moving...
Look at how high it is!
The guys were somewhere in the middle.
And finally, at the end of the hair-raising (literally) ride, the guys emerged pale-faced and jelly-legged. Wahahahahaha.
But they survived the ride!
Watch the whole process of the guys' rollercoaster adventure that Eve captured on video cam!
Teehee you can see that the guys were pretty traumatised by the ride, though they later insisted that it wasn't that bad. The rollercoaster was moving way too fast for them to feel anything! :P
We were all starving by then, so it was time for lunch at a fast-food restaurant nearby.
The girls must be darn happy that their faces seem smaller in this photo. Teeheehee.
It was getting late by then and Shi Fu was returning at about 4pm to pick us up. But there was still plenty we could do with two hours!
Look at how windy it was... Eve's hair so messy!
Some random waterfall.
Another snap-as-we-walk photo, thanks to Zhen!
Can you guess what Eve and Zhen were doing in this photo?
Answer: Pretending to dance. Wahahahaha they're crazy!
Zhen and the cartoon white tiger that she was smitten with.
Monkey! :P
Elephant!
An amazing thing about the LeoFooChun themepark is that it's sooooooo HUGE! So huge that there's even a zoo within the compound! And the zoo itself is also pretty big! Other than the areas that can be accessed by foot, there is a safari themed section which is slightly more exciting - the herbivorous animals area which can be accessed with a fun train ride, and the carnivorous animals area which can only be explored with a bus to bring you in.
Of course we had to try them out! First up was the train ride which brought us around the habitats of the herbivores.
Sleepy Ling Yang and Perky Huizhen.
Cheerful Justina and Handsome Guanwei!
Cool Ronnie and Chubby Eve! (Can you believe they were actually partners sitting beside each other in Primary 3?!? Friends for 16 years already - since Primary 1!)
The dudes.
The ladies.
Choo choo!!!
Emo Ling Yang and his namesake animal - this species of goat is also called Ling Yang! We were all laughing away when we heard that... :D
No photos of animals to show you, coz' they were... just animals lor. Nothing interesting! It was the whole experience of being on a train that was much more exciting for everyone.
Look at the beautiful structures in the Arabian Kingdom themed area. That's just one part of the themepark!
Eve and Zhen got up their usual nonsense again... by piggy-backing each other!
Zhen carrying Eve...
And vice versa. Haha aren't they mad?
Next up was the carnivorous animals!!!
We had to sit in a bus for better protection against the dangerous animals... Here's Ling Yang and Guanwei.
Ron, Zhen and Justina.
The besties!
The fierce baboons! There were so many of them around us!
ROAR!!! Look at how close we were to the lion! The camera wasn't zoomed in at all!
The lioness must have felt threatened coz' the bus lingered on for a little longer than usual due to requests from the people sitting in front... she started to circle us! So scary!
We headed to the Arabian part next. Ronnie bought a Turkish ice-cream! Heheh I'm sure you've seen this in Singapore before...
The girls saw something they just had to try... The carousel!
Zhen and Eve sitting together,
and Justina sitting in front.
Heheh we're all little girls at heart.
On the pretty carousel!
The guys opted out, of course. The carousel was too gu-niang for them! Haha.
When we girls got down, we saw Ling Yang taking a photo for Ron...
We girls thought Ron did a lousy job of posing so we insisted on taking a similar photo!
The first attempt was a total failure, which explains the look on our faces. Hurhur.
Second attempt: This photo is really very very funny! Look at the girls' poses - Eve and Zhen trying to imitate Ron's pose, and Justina... OMG DAMN FUNNY!!!
Some photos taken while we were exploring further, just before leaving the themepark.
At the South Pacific area.
We came across this cave and mountain, which just meant... photo opportunity!!!
Can you spot Justina and Eve??? :D (Zhen was hiding in the cave behind...)
The guys refused to climb up, after seeing how troublesome it was for us girls.
Last two group photos at the flume ride!
Yeah!!!
Shi Fu came to pick us up at about 4.30pm, and drove us to two shops selling local produce. The more popular one was one called Vigor Kobo or something like that. We bought many boxes of Tai Yang Bing and Huang Li Su (pineapple tarts) from there!
Guanwei posing with all the varieties of food they sell...
The guys, and a photo of the shop owner with the Taiwan president.
Girls' turn... isn't the shop decor lovely?
Decisions, decisions... We were trying to buy as much as we could with our limited budget.
After making our orders and payment (the shop provides free delivery to your hotel on the day of your check-out!), Shi Fu drove us to our next destination...
Grand Hotel!!!
We had actually included that as part of our itinerary for Day 2, but didn't have the time to carry it out. You must be wondering why we wanted so much to visit that hotel that when Shi Fu suggested it to us, we pounced on the idea!!!
As he shared with us while bringing us round the premises, Grand Hotel has a rich history. You can read more here, but all I can say is that the grandour and story behind the construction of the hotel is truly amazing. And the structures found within are... spectacular.
Since the hotel is built atop a hill that offers a panaromic view of the city, we had a bird's eye view of the night scenery.
This is just half of the hotel. It was impossible to capture the whole building from where we were standing!
The grand entrance.
The site where Grand Hotel is based used to be a Japanese shrine, and that somehow makes it a little creepy... But once inside, we were all in awe of the intricate designs. There were dragons everywhere!
Shi Fu is very familiar with the hotel and the good spots to take photos, so he would just direct us to sit or stand somewhere, point and shoot!
First photo in Grand Hotel.
The significance of this dragon is that it has three claws, whereas other dragons featured in Chinese myths have four.
Every little part in the hotel has significance, just like this window above the three-clawed dragon. (can't remember the story though...)
Another must-take-photo-here spot!
The mystical dragon...
This photo just has the palace feel right?
Another group photo at the staircase, which is made of marble!
Aren't we just too cool for words?!?!?!? :P
What's the odd thing out (aka Spoiler) in this photo?
Then, we took individual shots at the staircase, next to the peach pillar.
Zhen,
Eve,
Justina,
Ling Yang,
Ronnie, (with the C pose coz' Shi Fu would always say "A, B, C!" instead of "1,2,3" when he took photos for us. hurhur)
and Guanwei!
Pretty flowers!
We then exited Grand Hotel and walked down a long flight of stairs before we finally managed to get a good shot of the whole hotel!
Self-timed shot... turned out dark but the feel is there. :P
We were glad to have visited the Hotel and learned so much about the culture and history. More photos before leaving...
Look at how huge it is!
Even the stone lions guarding the hotel have a story! Apparently, the male and female lions are in opposite positions (we never even knew the stone lions had genders!) as a form of protest from the person who was forced to give them to the founders of the hotel.
Even the security guard gave us advice on where to take photos! We really cracked up at his comments coz' he looked so serious and we thought he was going to tell us off for obstructing traffic or something. But who knows, he was actually telling us where to pose for photos!
Shi Fu then drove us back to our Paradise Hotel to dump the food stuff that we had bought, before driving us to nearby Ximending!
Our parting shot with Shi Fu. We'll never forget him!!!
And finally, it was time for dinner! We ate as planned at Toilet Restaurant.
Eve with her constipated look again... Hurhur. There's an actual toilet bowl there for her this time to complete the look! :P
There wasn't a queue so we got a table without having to wait.
Toilet break was of top priority! And in the Toilet Restaurant, of course the toilet has to be somewhat special...
This isn't for peeing/pooing purposes! It's actually a sink!
The toiletbowl you see above actually became a laughing point among us... thanks to Guanwei lah!!! He thought it was a real toilet bowl, and almost... wahahahahahahahaha. OPEN-CONCEPT eh?!?!?
Eve and Justina - the camwhoring besties.
The guys seriously contemplating what to eat.
Why so serious?
The girlies with the bathrobes hanging above them...
Another novelty in the Toilet Restaurant! The drinks came in a urinal (if you pay a little extra).
Our Resident Nurse Missy Huizhen commented that it really looked like the actual urinal she uses in the hospital... heheh.
That's not urine, don't worry.
Nope, not urine too.
And then came our food! All of us had various types of hotpot except for Ling Yang, who opted for baked rice.
Zhen and her seafood hotpot,
Justina and her Japanese hotpot,
Eve and her chicken hotpot, (the rest of them were commenting that hers resembles the actual toilet bowl most coz' it's white!)
Ron and his 'smelly' Japanese hotpot.
Guanwei crinkling his nose in disdain at his food... which wasn't as bad as he made it out to be, actually!
Ling Yang and his baked rice in a bathtub!
Then came dessert! Some substandard ice-cream.
Looking at our photos though, you can see that we were more interested in taking photos with the ice-cream than in eating it :P
Check out our different expressions:
Ronnie was shocked,
Guanwei was forced to eat the 'poo',
Ling Yang was more than happy to give it a lick,
Eve couldn't stand the 'smell',
Zhen couldn't wait to devour the pile of shit,
and Justina was trying to sexify it. Works everytime!
We made a move after eating our ice-cream (or at least trying to), coz' we still had a long night ahead!
But Zhen and Justina wanted a shot on the 'throne' before leaving...
Who can look so happy while doing BIG business?
Yes!!! It's finally out!
The guys were equally disgusting... look at what they were doing with the urinals!
Yay to the experience and hotpot, nay to the ice-cream!
We walked back to our hotel to rest for a while, freshen up and change, before leaving again for our final destination of the fourth day.
Taken in the hotel lift when we left at 11.30pm... can you guess where we were heading to?
Taking the escalator down to the train platform...
Our multi-shots madness started again in the train! See how the girls and guys measure up...
Girls:
Guys:
And after alighting at Zhong Xiao Dun Hua station and walking a very short distance, we finally reached...
LUXY!!!
Luxy is actually a club, or what they call 夜店 over there... Since we were already in Taipei, we thought we might as well check out the clubbing scene!!! :)
The toilet was lavishly decorated...
With sofas!
The girls obviously loved it!
Even the interior of the toilet door was different from the usual boring ones...
The girls spent quite some time in the toilet, doing you-know-what.
All freshly made up!
The mirrors were great for photo-taking!
Zhen in her standard clubbing gear...
Eve wore more than usual coz' she was afraid that it would be cold... but it turned out to be hot inside!
Justina and her favourite mini-skirt!
Their favourite mirror shot!
After all that photo-taking, the girls went back out again to look for the guys, and the six of them hit the dancefloor!
Eve and Zhen grooving to the beats.
Our bros Guanwei and Ling Yang don't like clubbing, but they were such good sports lah!!!
Don't we look so happy here?
:D
Eve's face kena cut off. Only Zhen can take such a photo! Hahaha...
Bleah
The atmosphere was so vibrant! The music was good (R&B and pop), the dancefloor was cool (it could vibrate!), and the girls were hot! Waahahahahaha...
We SG girls pale in comparison to the petite and sexy Taiwan girls in the club...
More random shots:
And what makes Luxy different from the clubs we've been to in SG is that they actually have performances at different times of the night... not just any performance, but dance segments by 4 slim, pretty and sexy babes! Eye candy for the guys lor... :P
Look at tikopek Ling Yang recording them dancing! Muahahahahaha
And THAT was the reason why his memory card crashed and we lost 200 photos taken earlier in the day lor. Coz' after he stopped recording and wanted to replay the video, he realised that everything was gone!!! Wah lau damn spoiler... Haha. Decent guy's equally-decent camera was corrupted!!!
The girls weren't really interested in the dancing, and opted to rest their tired feet instead...
There's this area outside Luxy that was so beautiful we couldn't resist taking individual photos there!
We like how majestic the photos turned out :)
Princess Zhen.
Princess Justina.
Princess Eve.
Prince Holy.
Prince Guanwei.
Prince Ronnie (JJ??? Haha private joke!).
And we even got special VIP passes! Sadly, we didn't get to use them... But still, must pose with them!
Eve and Justina.
GW and Zhen.
LY and Ron.
It was past 2am by the time we finally made our way out of Luxy, and we milled around while thinking of where to wait for cabs.
Parting shots of the girls at Luxy:
Justina was saying, "Let's take from there!"
Eve was obviously tired...
We were hoping to get a bigger cab so all 6 of us could sit together, but the maximum they allow in a cab is 5 people, so we had to split into two groups of three. For safety reasons, the 3 girls had to separated...
Ling Yang, Eve and Zhen in one cab!
The cab fare was reasonable for a late-night trip, and we were glad to be back in our hotel for a well-deserved rest after such a long day!!! But it was definitely a fun day =)
Last photo of 26th November: Our Luxy chops!
(Click here to read Day 5's entry, which features picturesque photos we took at Danshui, Yu Ren Ma Tou (Fisherman's Wharf) and Xinbeitou hot spring! :D )
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