Jocie Lilin: Taiwan Day 6 Taipei Rilakkuma Cafe,The beauty of Gull, Nanya Rock Formations, YinYang Sea, Remains Of The Thirteen Levels, Golden Waterfall,Jiufen Old Street Taipei

Hello readers! Our day 6 in taiwan, times flies so fast and it was our last night in taiwan before we are heading back home, Singapore! So we was at Taichung and the driver had arranged another of his friend to pick us up at the Fengjia minsu to send us to the Taichung speed rail in the morning, we asked him to pick us up at around 9am so that we can board the 10plus timing in order to reach Taipei by 12.

We was rushing because i had made online reservations at Rilakkuma cafe and did my research previously that you will need to make reservations or you may have to wait up till 40mins to get a seat inside. This is their facebook page to find out more info on Rilakkuma cafe, https://www.facebook.com/rctw2015/

They will open their reservation slot every month starting from 20th, thus i remember i set an alarm clock to remind myself to register online.They are not very flexible so if you had reserve for two guests, they won't allow you to add any additional guests dining in their cafe. So be mindful to reserve correctly the total number of pax for your reservations.

The address and operating hours for this Rilakkuma cafe will be as follows, they only have 5 specified time slots so i think we choose the 1.40pm time slot.

台北市大安區忠孝東路四段248巷3號1樓
（忠孝敦化捷運站3號出口步行3分鐘)
營業時間: 上午 11:30 至晚上 22:00
5 different time slot to dine inside.

The five different time slot are 11.30,13.40,15.40,17.50 and 20.00
The dining hour is limited to 2hours and they will only hold your reservation for 10mins.

In order to get there, take Metro Bannan Line (板南線) to Zhongxiao Dunhua (忠孝敦化). You can use your google map from there to guide you to the cafe.

I thought since it was a tuesday, there may be lesser crowd but i was wrong, when we managed to reach there on time, there were already a group of people queuing outside the entrance. I still remember how there were this couple, that female who was staring at me because they thought i cut their queue. rolls eyes* I presume they did not make any reservation so i went ahead to clarify with the staff that we had reservation. Oh well, in the end, they had to wait while we managed to get in first. So, always remember to make your reservations in advance if you are planning to visit Rilakkuma cafe.
The cafe is full of Rilakkuma decor and their dessert, cakes look so cute!

Merchandise for sale.

This was the favorite spot as many customers will pose with this Rilakkuma sofa chair!

I was so tempted to get one of this, but we was going to another place and it would be wasted if i buy those cakes as we won't be returning back to the hotel anytime soon.

After we was seated, we order our food first as they had some time limit for you to finish your lunch and there is a min spending which is standard for all themed cafe in Taiwan. The price is average, not exactly cheap compared to the food you pay outside, but well, you are paying for the experience, and cute Rilakumma dishes!

Our table after we had ordered and was waiting for our food! We was hungry! Since there was a min spending, so i find the need to order something that is instragram-worthy photo.

After that, i went to their restroom to take a peek. Well, i think Hello Kitty cafe restroom is more fanciful compared to Rilakkuma cafe.

Nothing much, just an ordinary restroom.
Finally our food was served to us! Isn't this so cute! Cute Rilakkuma that was covered by the egg as its blanket. The rilakkuma looks so cute but i am eating you up! HAHAHAHA.

You too! HAHAH, nom nom nom. hahahaha.

Happy boy posing with the food.

After our lunch, we decided to change some money as we were worried that we may have not enough to spend considering we still have one more day to go in Taiwan and we are taking a night flight. Our total expenses this time round was the same as our first trip, but it seems we spend lesser on shopping but more on transport, accommodation as previously we change 2k but that was not covered for hotel, transport expense. yay to spending less but still being able to enjoy our holiday! Previously, we have tried to locate a money changer, but there were none, so if you do visit Taiwan, remember to change more money or you may have to change it at the DBS bank as its one of the few banks that allow you to change singapore dollar. When we change it at the bank, thankfully the rate was still 1 to 23.65. Similar to what we change it at the arcade Raffles place. We don't really have any planned itinerary for the day since we have visited most of the places in Taipei area,so we wanted to go up to Jiufen as i wanted to go back to that railway station to retake a photo of me releasing the sky lantern because i was so goddam fat when i was in Taiwain back in 2013! This later part of this itinerary really ruined our mood because we was being ripped off. Previously, we used to buy the train ticket at Taipei Main station to Ruifang station as it will be the nearest station before we hail a cab and took up their package. I took this below image from another blogger that blog on travelcoconut.com which i think it provide a better illustration so that you don't get cheated like how we were.

It still make me feeling so mad when i recall again this incident. that fuck up driver. Of cos, i don't blame him entirely as we were probably too gullible, BUT NOT ANYMORE after this incident. So i would like to warn anyone that are going to Jiufen aka Jinguashi to be alert and beware such driver!

We decided to take the bus instead of taking the train to Ruifang as i have googled previously that you can also take a bus if you want to reach Ruifang, i thought it would be convenient since they actually dropped you off outside Jiufen old street compared to if you take the train, you might still need to walk up or get a cab to bring you up. We alight at the nearest station before we find the correct exit, i don't bother explaining the route to taking the bus as i don't really recommend anyone taking the bus now as i believe there would be quite a few drivers that will be camping around that bus queue, waiting for their next prey. just like us. Only for this particular case, i still believe there are many nice drivers out there, and it will be better to book with those cab driver in advance if you are going on a tour. So when we exit out from the station, we saw him approaching us, asking us if we wanted to go to Jiufen, so they began to show us their package, the best way i think if you really want to take a bus to go up, is to ignore them, don't even look at their package and walk further ahead to wait for your bus, even if they tell you the bus had just went off and the next bus will come in 40min. Just wait or get rip off. Just ignore them! I guess we were stucked because we was told the bus went off already and it will only come in 40min. I hate to wait so i thought of checking out their package. That fucker driver quoted us NT4000. I kept that photo that i had upload above and i know NT4000 is too expensive, and its only a few attraction spot, it doesn't even bring me to shifen street to release the sky lanterns! So i went to question him, trying to bargain with him, telling him that the other drivers only quoted NT3000 while he is charging me NT4000. He provide me with some reasons that i thought it makes sense because the price that was quoted started from Ruifang station, which means its already very near compared to now if he were to drive us up as we are going up from taipei. and i heard he mentioned that this is also inclusive of return trip back to Taipei. So i was hesistant, i wasn't sure whether to take or not take. I didn't want to take, but bf was like giving me the impression that he rather take than wait for 40min for the bus. From my bf perspective later on when we communicate, he wanted to drag me away, but when i stopped to look at the package, he thought i was interested to book the cab, that make him having the wrong idea that i want to take the cab too. So overall its just a 'I thought you wanted it, so i give in' kind of logic. And both of us got cheated eventually of NT5000. Which got me so fucking angry later on but on a positive side, both of us was thinking for each other thinking the other party wanted to take the cab for easy travelling so we are still very thoughtful towards each other uh. Haha

Even though halfway when he was driving us, i already get so frustrated because he is goddam annoying, and rude in a sense that he is so far the worst driver of all that had bring us around. My instinct can never go wrong, i thought i was being sensitive, but apparently i was right. He was bragging how he has become a tour guide for duno how many fucking years, super experienced. i guess super experienced to tok people. And how we can never go wrong or regret for booking his cab today and it was fated that we took his cab. all this bloody nonsense shit. 有缘或没有缘不是你讲得算！ If fated, you don't charge me la, talk so much. i hate bullshit people. I can totally tell the moment they speak right off their mouth. Keep repeating all this shit at each stop we go, it makes me feel that he is trying to cover up his fucking sin of cheating tourists.

Please note if the driver try to tell you that, we can discuss again while driving in the car, please don't heed this kind of bullshit crap advice, make sure that you and him has come to the mutual agreement what he promised to you before boarding his car. I would never heard wrongly when he mentioned NT4000 is inclusive of return trip back to Taipei,thus i was willing to pay that extra NT1000 since he mentioned we are driving up from taipei. But i was bloody wrong because on our last station at Jiufen old street, he mentioned that if we want him to send us back it will be additional NT1000. He still talk in a way as though this was agreed upon of NT5000 for bringing us back to Taipei. The whole day trip in Taichung don't even fucking exceed NT4000! He only take us to few attractions spots to take photo and easily earn the NT5000. SGD ($216.74). By then it was evening and i know if we were to take the bus or train, it will be so fucking crowded. so we got no choice but to pay up that additional NT1000. Maybe we should have left the cab and find other cab driver, but i got a feeling because he was not staying in taipei and he purposely added this additional NT1000 so that we won't take. Maybe i was also being spiteful that i pay just to make sure this fucking idiot is coming back to taipei with us. HAHA i knew it later on because when we was returning to his car, he wanted to drop us back the exactly same point that he picked us up. Trying to ti gong act blur duno how to go to our hotel and I got so fucking frustrated even though i was still speaking in a nice tone, as he was saying this timing sure jam etc and if he drop us at the station then we can still take the metro station to go back to our nearest station to our hotel since its just a few stops away.

If that is the case,then i can also say, since you are also going back to taipei, why are you charging me extra? its the same way what.Your seats behind is also empty even if you don't send us back. Might as well send us back to better utilize your space in your cab. Charge me for what, and telling me that its peak hour jam all this kind of crap. Then? My problem isit? I pay you not to listen to you telling me that i should avoid going back at this timing and to listen to you dropping us at where you picked us. Precisely because its peak hour, thats why we pay you to send us back and you already fucking earn from us so much, stucked in the jam won't kill you anyway. We got tons of time anyway. This was what i wanted to say in my heart when i was already boiling, you know when some asshole try to shake you off but i didn't say this out because we was afterall in the mountain, if he get his gang come out then we may not come out alive. HAHA but i was telling him very directly even though its a few stations if he drop us at where he pick us, i still have to walk to take the metro station, board and then alight at our nearest metro station before walking to our hotel and thus insisted that he send us back to our hotel. so he LL when i find our hotel address in chinese and ask him follow GPS to drive us back. obviously not in a very friendly expression that i show on my face. Then he finally diam. And when we finally alight, i took down his fucking carplate number to warn anyone who wish to hail a cab by the roadside, not to take this cab if you find this number familiar. 946P3 , if i wanted to be more nasty, i would pretend that i want to take a photo with him then i upload his photo showing this idiot look so that everyone can beware of him.But i didn't because i really don't want my face to be polluted with such trash together inside a photo.

But beside looking out for this carplate, i believe there are other kind of drivers that are doing the same thing as him ripping off tourists, so just look out for those points that i have mentioned earlier when you want to hail a cab by the roadside for a tour package. I was so mad because i didnt had any issue when we hail a random cab at the roadside previously, but encountering this idiot make me wary that we shouldnt be tolerating this shit. So if next time i do encounter this time

Later on, i went to check with my first driver that i booked during my taichung trip,xuan liang, he told me market rate is only NT3000, from taipei to go up. so you see how screwed we was paying extra NT2000!Paying additional $86 plus in SGD. damm fucked up. The next time i visit again, i think i will only trust xuan liang to quote me the most reasonable and fair price.

Before my mood got ruined at the last station, i was happy to experience such beautiful weather and view, no filter and true to picture! This was taken after he dropped us at this spot that is named as the beauty of gull to take some photo before we went ahead to Nanya rock formations.

It was a perfect weather, to be outdoor!

Nice weather.

Him helping us to take a photo.

Next we reached the Nanya Rock formations, some background info of this area, it is well known for its rock formations duh. haha the pattern of the stone was formed through the weathering of sandstones that lines the shore. To cut it short, this is NATURE!! haha,i took a shot of the groom and the bride coming down to the rocks to take their shoot.

The driver told us that we can go down and soak our leg in the water. Even offering me his slippers because i think i was wearing covered shoes at that time. You just got to be very careful when you step on these rocks because they have this sea cockroach at some of the rocks,there is alot by the way. Unless you are not scared of sea cockroach like me, you might want to think twice going down, actually i didn't know it existed until i walk down, but since i was wearing slippers, i was okay because if they dont siam, they will only get step by me and my weight can easily kill them. No karma for me because slippers belong to that idiot! Karma will find him. HAHAHA.

It can be quite challenging to step on those rocks so you got to be very careful.

We managed to soak our leg, refreshing. HAHA

Did you see those steps over there that lead you back? Well, we certainly come a long way down before capturing this shot. haha

Nice background to take a photo of le bf!

After the Nanya Rock Formations, next sightseeing spot was the Yin Yang Sea, this sea was named as yin yang sea because there used to be a mine behind this sea and this sea was formed in this way because of pollution that was caused by the chemical run off. Even when they closed down the mines after that, the water remains in this way such that you can see there is two different colour in the sea and that was how it got this name "yin yang sea"It was not recommended to enter the sea as it has highly concentrated heavy metal ions in the water.

Photo illustration as shown below

Just behind this Yin yang sea, you will see the remains of the thirteen levels, it is named as thirteen level because it used to be a massive copper smelting refinery and maybe it is separated into 13 levels. Just saying, anyone interested, please google this to get the correct info!

After that, the driver drove us further up to the mountain, each place would takes the most 10-15mins because its just photo-taking, admiring the view before proceeding ahead.
He told me this was a frog waterfall, i am directly translating, not sure if this is the right term to call, the reason why it was this colour because of the mine that used to produce those gold has flow through here before polluting the big sea which is called the yin yang sea now. In a way, it has pollute and stain those rocks and that how the stone has got this colour now. He mentioned why it was called a frog waterfall because there is a stone that look like a frog shape. he was referring the inner stone, but i thought i saw one that look like the frog shape at the bottom of this photo below.

After this, we went to the golden waterfall. There was a caucasian using drone to take a closer view of this golden waterfall.

This mountain is quite special because it looks like a king kong shape.

This view was very nice, the sky together with the sea.

This is by far one of my favourite shot! This is so beautiful! If i am not wrong, ok la this driver went into the restricted zone to help us take this. But that doesn't mean he deserve to con us extra additional NT2000.

After that, we were brought to the Guan Di temple,

If you ever get to visit this Guan Di temple, you may want to try this shop just beside the temple that sell delicious fried rice and the dessert is good! can't rmb how much it cost, but i rmb its quite cheap!

Especially when it was a rainy day, this fried rice came out smelling so good and pipign hot!

So after this, our last station was the Jiufen old street, i didn't even get to release sky lanterns, i think the driver was asking us if we would like to release sky lanterns, another additional fee. When he was still mumbling like its a pity that since we are already here, we should shun bian release the sky lanterns, which i find he damm tmd because previously he told us jiufen and shifen is not exactly the same way to go, and now he is trying to tell us we should go release. Its not like i never release sky lanterns before! Please lor already kanna tok from you, you think i will still ask you to bring us to shifen old street to release sky lanterns?! Nothing has changed since the last time we came to jiufen. I guess the next time i visit taiwan again, i will only be going to shifen to release the sky lanterns. I was not very happy after being rip off but there's nothing much that we could do, as we walked inside the jiu fen, look at bf funny face, i think we was expressing the sad face after being cheated.

But i think this is a good lesson to learnt from, we will only become wiser the next time we encountered similar incident like this! The next time someone tried to con us, that person is unlucky because i will pay back double counting the first time we got rip off by this idiot driver!

So after that fucker driver finally dropped us back to our hotel, which we have initially stay for the first two days in taipei before going to taichung, we were excited to check in as previously our room was not ready as taiwan have a strict policy of allowing guests to check in only after 3pm. We stayed in the same level again just that it was a different room.
The room is simple and comfortable.

Oops. my leg photobombed in this photo below. HAHA

I forgot what was our conversation that got bf laughing while i take this photo. I realised my leg looks slimmer when i take this shot. haha

It happens that bf's friend kelvin was in taiwan for training so we managed to meet up since our hotel are nearby. I think he was shocked when he came to our room as we was packing our luggage with all the stuffs we bought. Later on we went to had our dinner at ximending, haha initially they suggested to walk, but i find it damm far, later on while walking in the taipei main station, they was saying if we were to walk, maybe we could have already reached ximending, as taipei main station is very big as well!

After our dinner, we were just taking a walk around ximending. I make some last min purchases because we had ask to extend for late check out as i was lazy to move on the last day at Taiwan, my plan was to nua at the hotel room before going to the airport to catch our flight. I think this bear seems to be the iconic bear for Taiwan. As there are many products that has this bear design on it. and i saw in the airport that it even had a food stall selling chicken cutlet, and it was named after this bear name.

Took this, i was trying to pronounce the bear name, directly pronouncing it, xiong hou jiak!
Its in hokkien i think, initially when i read it out then i realised it mean in chinese that it is very nice to eat! and this 'xiong' refer to bear HAHAHA no wonder its a bear.

I saw this in one of the ximending shop that was selling this tangle teezer brush. Initially i was quite skeptical as they mentioned it will help to detangle your hair so dont have to struggle to comb your hair so hard because this will help to detangle as you use it. I bought one to try and it works! So the next morning when we went back to ximending to have our lunch, i bought another 2 more. One for olm and the other one to try on duffy. HAHA apparently when i used it on her, she stopped fidgeting, maybe its not so painful compared to the usual brush we used on her.
I think this is really useful when you are going overseas or having staycation and you know hotel combs can never allow you to comb your hair properly, but when u bring this, it work wonders!

Later on, we parted ways with kelvin as he went to look for his friend and we shop for awhile before returning back to the hotel to continue our packing!

The next day, i was happy to laze in my bed and bf went down to get us macdonald breakfast, but apparently it was too late when he went down because breakfast is over and he mentioned since we are going to ximending to had our lu rou fan, we didnt had the macdonald breakfast, but he spotted this!

This was so cute, like it was released on that day we was flying back, so he asked if i would like to buy, and he came back with two! The moomoo one was the hot favorite as it was the last display set so it didnt had the plastic bag on it. I couldn't decide which one to get, so eventually he decided to buy two for me. The other two will only be released next week, by then we had already returned back to Singapore, but he msg his taiwan friend to help us to buy and he will be coming back with the other two when he returned from his training in oct!

Afterthat, we went to check out the various transport to go taoyuan, the last time we would take the high speed rail to taoyuan hsr before taking the bus to taoyuan which was cheaper thn if you were to take a cab. But since we are staying in taipei main station, there were also buses that bring you directly to taoyuan airport. and it cost even cheaper! If you take high speed rail to taoyuan from taipei main station, it cost NT320 per pax before you spend NT60 (2 pax) to take the bus to taoyuan airport.

But if you take the bus, it will only cost NT250 per pax and send you directly to taoyuan airport.

Actually, i prefer high speed rail because i love to sit their high speed rail even though it cost slightly higher compared to taking the bus.

Beside, the moment i recall that we had to carry each 2 piece of luggage climbing the stairs and going down the stairs from taipei main station to our hotel on our first day of check in, i was not very keen to take the bus. Somemore on our way home, its not just 4 pieces of luggage because we are helping his friend to bring one carton of tai yang bing back and our luggage are at max weight, so the more i was not reluctant to take bus. HAHA thank god we didn't buy the ticket as we was only comparing the prices before taking our lunch.

Our must order dishes when we are in ximending!

We ordered the small portion of the lu rou fan, it makes me feeling nauseous after eating because i was feeling so bloated. but this is good and cheap! This makes me so full that i didnt even had to take my dinner when we was at the airport.

Later on, when we went back to rest in the hotel, kelvin came to find us and he was also horrific to know we are planning to take bus instead of taking cab.

So somehow eventually, we decided to take a cab after kelvin also mentioned that we should take a cab so bf suddenly got enlightened. HAHA because when i first ask him,u sure u can take? so many stuffs,how are we going to take? Then he tell me can,can. so i was just waiting for when he cannot and i have to help to carry those heavy luggage and i will snapped at him. But this didn't happen as we took a cab eventually.

Dont belittle this two bigger luggage, black and the purple one, cos it couldn't balance and keep dropping to the floor because it was too heavy!

We got the hotel staff to help us book the cab and called us once the cab is here according to the time we are checking out. We managed to reach the airport in the most easy and comfortable way. The cab is so comfortable and this driver is so cute to tell us that his cab got wifi so we can use wifi if we want, so like i mentioned, not all drivers are like that fucktard that cheat our money. Majority of the drivers do live with a conscience!

As we reached too early, we went to the basement as they have a food court there, it even has a bakery now!

The breads looks so nice that i bought a few just in case we were hungry during the flight.