Sanmotoonge Cafe - Buamdong

Confession time: So prior to this trip, I don't think I have payed much attention to the 'Coffee Prince' Korean drama, much less intended to visit the place where it was filmed at. So when my friends said they want to check it out, I admit I had my doubts about it. But you know what, it's actually a really chill place to hang out and have a drink with the mountains and fog as your companions.

Getting there can be a hassle, since it's up on a hill, but the way route there is a very scenic and enjoyable one. Plus the chilly weather and cherry blossoms made the journey up a whole lot more bearable. 

Yeouido Spring Flower Festival 2014

I realised that it will soon be a year since I went to Seoul and since many will probably be thinking of visiting Korea in Spring, I figured my first blog post on Korea should be about Yeouido Spring Flower Festival (haha yeah, I'm very helpful like that).

Unfortunately for us, by the time we visited Korea (12 April 2014), we missed the optimal full bloom period even though the recommended period of visit was 3 - 13 April 2014. So the pro tip will be to visit Korea, or more specifically Yeouido Spring Flower Festival, during the first few days of the full bloom season. (Directions there can be found below)

But just because some of the cherry blossoms have already wilted / dropped, doesn't mean it's not worth a visit!

Taiwan Day 2 in Nantou (Cingjing)

Alright, since I'm stuck at home because of the flu and cough I've been having for the last 3 days, I shall do up a post on the Taiwan trip. (It's so close to being a year since I went there!) 

Day 2 consisted of us driving up to Cingjing area and spending the entire day amongst the clouds (I'm not even kidding). Here's an example when the driver stopped a bit for us to take some photos:

Isn't it gorgeous? And this is not the most spectacular view, yet.

Seoul 2014 April Masterpost

I know.. I know.. I haven't even completed my Taiwan blog posts, and I'm creating a Korea masterpost? But hey, this is my blog and I can post whatever I want right? Haha! I'm not too sure if I will ever get round to completing the Taiwan posts or even get started on posting about Korea. But I figured I should at least keep a record of our Seoul itinerary for future reference, you know?

Day 1 (12 April):
Lunch at Tosokchon (Famous Ginseng Chicken); explored Bukchon Hanok Village and Samcheongdong; visited Yeouido Spring Flowers Festival; dinner at Yoogane Hongdae. Stayed at PigFly hostel in Hongdae.

Day 2:
Breakfast at Myeongdong Gyoja; visited Sanmootonge (the place where they filmed Coffee Prince) at Buamdong. Had Kyochon Chicken for dinner!

Day 3:
Breakfast at Isaac Toast. Day trip to Jade Garden. Dinner at Mabongnim Halmeoni Tteokbokki - Famous Army Stew. Visited Gwangjang Market at night.

Day 4:
Full day DMZ + Panmunjom tour. Dinner at a random Korean BBQ in Hongdae.

Day 5:
Visited Bau House Dog Café, tea at Publique Cafe, dinner at Chuncheonjip Dakgalbi Makguksu - Famous Dakgalbi. Stay at Travellers' Planet at Hongdae.

Day 6:
Shopped at Ewha area and Dongdaemun. Tea at Bridge Cafe.

Day 7:
Hiked at Uiryeong-gil Section 21,  cycled along Han River and visited Namsan Tower at night.

Day 8:
Visited Seoul Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and had tea at Osulloc Tea House. Visited the Flea Market at Hongdae. Dinner at Kyochon Chicken Hongdae.

Day 9 (20 April):
Takeaway breakfast and afternoon flight on Korean Air back home~

Dawncake (Miyahara) 宫原眼科

Has it really been 2 months since I last updated? I know it's such a cliché, but the days just flew right past. Alright, enough chit-chat, let's talk about one of my favourite shops in Taiwan instead - Dawncake (Miyahara) 宫原眼科. It is housed in a historical building that used to be a Japanese eye hospital, hence its English name, 'Miyahara Ophthalmology Department'.

What's so great about this shop? First up, the decor!

Is this Hogwarts?

The Diner (Taipei)

The Diner is probably one of my favourite eateries in Taiwan, maybe even surpassing that Michelin star global brand. Some may cry foul over the blasphemy of having western food instead of local cuisine while in Taiwan, but food shouldn't be limited by geographical boundaries right? By the large crowd that was in the restaurant, it seems that I am not the only one impressed by this unassuming restaurant.

Taiwan November 2013 Masterpost

Hello everyone! It's been close to a week since I got back from the 7 days in Taiwan and I finally got round to saving the photos onto my computer. I don't want to bore everyone so I won't write about all we did there, I will only write about the more interesting places we went to. The list below is our itinerary and I will be adding the links to the individual spots once I have written up the post on it!

Day 1: Tainan
Anping Old Street, National Museum of Taiwan History, Hua Yuan Night Market. (Tainan Commercial Hotel)

Day 2: Nantou
Green Green Grassland, Carton King, Old England Manor. (Cloud's Hometown)

Day 3: Taichung
Shin Fong Leisure Farm, Sinshe Sea of Flowers, Miyahara (Dawncake), Chungyo Department Store, Tian Wai Tian Steamboat, Fengjia Night Market. (Le Parker Hotel)

Day 4: Taipei
Shifen Waterfall, Shifen, Jiufen, Ximending. (Just Sleep Hotel)

Day 5: Taipei
The Diner, Eslite (Xinyi), Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, Sadaharu Aoki Taipei, Taipei 101, Shilin Night Market. (Miyi Hotel)

Day 6: Taipei
MOCA, Coffee Alley, Wufenpu, Formasa Chang, Shida Night Market, Taipei Main Station Mall. (Miyi Hotel)

Day 7: Taipei
Din Tai Fung, Yong Kang Street.

D' Good Cafe

WISHES COME TRUE. Hahah I wrote about waiting for the day I get a bear latte art in my previous entry, and the day has finally arrived! So this will be a short entry about my adorable milk bear ( which I later murdered ). 

Hello Bear

Department of Caffeine ( D.O.C )

After our brunch at Symmetry, we headed to Tanjong Pagar for our next stop, the Department of Caffeine! It is tucked inconspiciously at the corner of Duxton Road; a couple of stores away is Littered with Books and Group Therapy, both worth checking out too.

Do I have your attention now? 

Symmetry

I have a bunch of things that I will like to blog about, including the trip to NYC in 2011 and a couple of backdated events. But I decided to skip them over for now and write a little about some of the cafes I visited recently. First up, brunch at Symmetry!

Symmetry is about a 10 minutes walk from Bugis MRT Station. Head towards the direction of Haji Lane / Arab Street and you should be able to locate the street, Jalan Kubor, very easily.

Spot these four words and you are there!

Food For Thought (National Museum of Singapore)

I originally wanted to post about our trip to National Museum of Singapore, unfortunately the roll of film I shot in there came out a little underexposed. So I decided to write about my favourite pancakes from Food For Thought instead!

(Photos shot with Nikon FM,  using Fujifilm NPZ Portrait 800)

Pancakes for everyone!

Le Chocolat Cafe

We went to Le Chocolat Cafe for a mini birthday celebration for a friend. Le Chocolat Cafe is located in Club Hotel along Ann Siang Hill, it is a small but cozy cafe offering an extensive desserts and drinks menu. I should have taken photos of the cafe itself, but I must have been too distracted by the pretty desserts!

(Photos taken using the iPhone)

Rainbow Cake!

BKK trip (Jan 2013)

Before I went for our Taiwan trip, I went to Bangkok with another group of friends. We travelled from 17th to 20th January 2013, so I had about 2 days of rest before I flew to Taiwan. Travelling to Bangkok was quite an experience! 

We took a late afternoon flight, so we arrived at our hotel at around 11pm. We stayed in Grand Diamond Suites Hotel, which we chose because it is located right next to Platinum Mall. But in hindsight, we should have paid more to stay at the newer Glow Pratunam Hotel. Grand Diamond is a little old and creepy, we noticed that there was a strange hairbrush lying on the floor on our last day there. Thinking about the room gives me the creeps again!

(Photos were taken by my iPhone, sorry for the lower quality!) 

BKK's night scene

Melange Cafe 米朗琪咖啡館 (Taipei)

Melange Cafe (米朗琪咖啡館) was the only cafe that we had planned to visit prior to the trip, for we had read many rave reviews about their waffles and desserts. We reached there at around 2pm and perhaps it was a mistake for us to visit them at the peak tea-time period. It was a good 90 minutes wait for the table!

When we arrived there, we took a queue number and were told about the 90mins wait. Resigning to our fate, we decided to wander around the streets and shops near the cafe. Fortunately, there are a few shops selling clothing and zakka items that entertained us for a bit. 

There are actually two branches along the lane and we were allocated to the main branch. If I'm not wrong, there is a minimum spending of NT100 each. Be sure to hang around the area when it is nearing your stipulated time as they will serve the next customer if you miss your turn.

(The photos here were taken by my iPhone 4, so the quality is not as good as we will all like it to be. My apologies!)

The main store.

The other branch further along the lane.

Taiwan January 2013 (Part 2)

On the third day of our Taiwan trip, we bid farewell to Kaohsiung and it was hello Taipei! We spend our three nights in Taipei at a small boutique hotel, Miyi Hotel, which is located near Taipei Main Station. Since my memory is hazy, I will only be covering the highlights of the trip.

Out of all the places we visited in Taiwan so far, I think Yang Ming Shan National Park (陽明山國家公園) has to be my favourite. Maybe it was because of the really cold air or the cherry blossoms (though sparse) or the fact that we got so lost up there that all added up to one hilariously memorable trip up the mountains. We took a shuttle bus from Taipei Main Station and the journey up was an extremely gripping one as we had to stand and there were so many sudden swerves and turns. 

Food stop to recover from our gripping bus ride.

As we went in January, there weren't a lot of fully bloomed cherry blossoms. But they were enough for us city kids to swoon over them.

This is probably the first time I saw cherry blossoms.

Pink or Red? Or somewhere in between?

A very happy old man.

Taiwan January 2013 (Part 1)

This is my first travel post! It will be about our free and easy trip to Taiwan from January 23rd to 29th 2013. This trip was supposed to be our graduation trip and because we went on an off-peak period we were able to enjoy cheaper tickets. For this trip, I only brought my film cameras and the photos posted here were by my Canon-A1. It will be my second time to Taiwan and I might post some of the highlights from my first trip too.

We reached Taoyuan Airport in the wee morning and had breakfast at the airport itself. After some transfers, we made our way to Taoyuan HSR station and then took a 90 minutes train ride to Zuoying HSR station to get to Kaohsiung.

Most of the passengers slept or played with their gizmos throughout the ride

Lobster Salad Onigiri and Bottled Milk Tea from 7-11.