SHOPPING SPREE

The Great Mall in Milpitas has always been everyone's favorite place to go to when it comes to shopping. About a month ago, Teresa, Sierra, Elda, and I went there to do a little – well – shopping. We met up at Valley Fair's Cheesecake Factory before departing together with a bus to downtown San Jose. From there, we took a Light Rail ride straight to Milpitas Great Mall for around thirty minutes. So yeah it was quite a long journey.

Once we got there at around 1 pm, we went straight to Jollybee to have lunch and after that, our shopping spree began! We started off at Forever 21 which is first and foremost my most favorite clothing store ever. It was soooo huge but I already recognized the area.

We spent about an hour or two there, grabbing some stuff from aisle to aisle and trying them out. Apparently, since I already had a shopping spree in Forever 21 less than a week before, I decided not to buy some more clothes and instead, I bought myself this cute guitar necklace which cost around $2.00. Not bad.

Then we explored more and more places, hopping from one store to the other. There are bunch of clothing stores there that I barely remembered where we went to. Last but not least, we visited H&M where I spotted a very cute green shirt in a very reasonable price. Seeing that I have no green colored shirt, I decided to purchase one.

We got back to the Light Rail station at around 6 pm and switched to bus in San Jose Downtown. While waiting for the Light Rail to come, we decided to take some pictures :)

This one below looks like a movie poster

LOL-ed hard at this picture. Elda and I looked really serious while Sierra just couldn't stop cracking to laugh.

What a fun day, too bad not a lot of pictures taken since we were too busy shopping. That week was probably the most-money-spending week. I got to refrain myself from shopping a little too much and save some money for Spring break and something else.

Trip to Taiwan - Part 13

The day before our departure is also the day we had been waiting (especially for heavy shoppers) and maybe not, since it's the last day.
Plans for today would be shopping time in Tamsui Street and Shi Lin Night market.
Rejoice shoppers! The way we left the hotel reminds me of when we departed to Presidential Palace on our second day after our arrival here. Can't believe that it's already our last day, because we lined up at the lobby and walked out of the building in groups.

Anyway, to get to the Tamsui Street, we had to catch an MRT until it reached like...the last station. Apparently the last station was located at the bay, so we could see the sea from there.
Tamsui Street was awfully packed with people, and you're also going to find some foreigners strolling around this place.

The place is nice though, especially for heavy shoppers, even though it wasn't filled with boutiques, shoe stores, and other clothing shops all around.
Just like Liu He in Kaohsiung, the market was also packed with food stalls all around. So boutiques and food stalls existed in balance.

As it was the last day of shopping in Taiwan, we went all shopping-mode-on. As for me, I didn't shop much the day before, but as this was the last day, I decided to spend the money I'd saved before to shop in this huge market. Very worth it, indeed. The girls of my group even bought the backpacks for tomorrow's departure. Since we had shopped like crazy before and that the luggages and the cabin bags were nearly full, we decided to purchase a backpack instead to stuff some things into it instead of shoulder or hand bags.

The backpacks we got have the same styles yet different colors. So each girl of our group got different colors. I got mine a hot pink one, others had yellow, red, soft pink, purple, etc. Can't wait to wear it tomorrow.
I spotted a claw machine with many cute pink panther dolls in it!

After shopping, we stumbled upon Laoshi and some boys from other groups and he said that at the end of the road, there was this small resto selling the so-called tastiest mango ice. Lao Shi had recommended something like this though, and it was the noodle we ate back in Ximending. I wondered if this mango ice he recommended would taste as tasty as he said.

We ordered a huge plate to be shared to everyone and it was absolutely tasty!!

Then we strolled a bit more and some of my friends decided to buy mochi. After that, we got back to near the MRT station before moving to the second yet the most anticipated market, Shi Lin night market.

Anyway there's this small orchestra show at the sidewalk. So intriguing.

The journey from Tamsui to ShiLin didn't take much time by MRT. After a few stops, we finally made it to the well-known night market in Taipei.

Spotted!
The Pentul Family!
Karin as the dad, Sonya as the daughter, and Shelly as the mom
Cute eh?

I took a picture with Mia and Singing.

You know what happened next. I managed to buy two Tshirts from NET which was having a discount at that moment (I really was a discount person, wasn't I?) and a couple more accessories. I even got to taste the tastiest fried chicken. No kidding. It was so good and famous that I could already see people lining up.

The sky got darker but that didn't decrease our urge to go shopping.
But as for me, I thought I'd get enough things for today and it seemed I'd bought people at home enough souvenirs. Apparently not for my friends though.

It was already 9.30 and the bed check would be held at 11pm (we were to get back to the hotel all by ourselves). People of my group had split earlier. Seemed the urge to shop had blinded everyone. This is where the trouble came up. Since everyone would possibly (or had) split, we had a deal that we would get back at 9.30 pm at the MRT station. Even it already passed 9.30 pm yet my friends were still excited about shopping (what's not to be excited about?).

You see the nightmarket itself is really like a sea of people.

Monika, Tasya, Jane, and I managed to get back to the MRT station as promised, although it had passed the promised time. But when we came across a crowded zebra cross, Jane happened to drop something while crossing and Monika and I suddenly didn't get to see where Jane and Tasya were. We had looked around us and they still weren't there. Even Monika was in a panic state for not being able to find them (we were split into like groups of four people like us, but now, we were even split into two).

We got lost, people.

LOST in the most crowded spot of Taipei

The late the night got, the busier the district got. It reminded me of Shibuya in Tokyo. But I wasn't thinking of Shibuya at the moment. I was thinking how to get back home. Monika and I later made our way back to the entrance of the MRT station and decided to wait for others there. I was confident and positive we would catch a glimpse of people we knew, especially people from our group.

Minutes passed.
Still no signs of people we knew. I thought maybe Jane and Tasya got back to the nightmarket.

I started to get panic as well. Monika almost spilled her tears, and my face constantly went like O___O while looking around, hoping for a miracle. Yeah, we were already that desperate.

But it wasn't until I caught a glimpse of people I knew.
There were Mochtar (he's from our group, and hailed all the way from Makassar), Winny and her friends. Actually Winny is from Jakarta, but she's from another group, but I happened to recognize her since she's my dining chairmate.

Gosh, I felt like lucky to know her at that moment. She's really our heroine in the story. If not then, we might get lost till even more late at night. Anyway, I spotted her first as she entered the station with her friends. When Monika and I caught a glimpse of them, we were like "Thank heavens you're hereeee!!!!!" Even Monika shook hands with them.

Winny was fluent in Chinese and she even knew the way home. So Monika, I, and Mochtar (who also happened to get lost there) decided to follow Winny back to our hotel by MRT.
We hit the hotel at 10.30 pm after a few stops and train transits.
I profusely thanked Winny for helping us to get home just half an hour before the bed check. And guess what, apparently those who we thought had also got lost at ShiLin had been back at the hotel even earlier than us, even Jane and Tasya who were split at the junction.

So you can imagine us meeting at the hallway and we were like "Where have you been? We were looking for you!"
Well, at least now we had got our butts back at the hotel safely.

We spent the rest of the night gathering in the hallway, where we were given a chance to tell our impression about our trip. It was quite a teary moment and even some of us cried. I didn't though.

The fu dao yuans were really kind to give each of us a greeting card as a souvenir. I got mine with a pineapple picture on it. It was really cute!

Inside it is a picture and some Chinese handwritings by our beloved fu dao yuans.

After the gathering - it was already late at night - we spent our time by stuffing our shopping things into our luggages and weighed our bags. Some of us, especially heavy shoppers, might be a bit panic since the luggages were overweight (that they had to stuff their things into others' luggages). Thankfully, my luggage was fit enough for everything I bought. A bit heavy, yes, but at least the weight is still reasonable and I had no problem carrying it.

It's still a long night to tell but this post is long enough.
So, next part? Coming real soon...

<< Part 12 • • Part 14 >>

Trip to Taiwan - Part 7

Thirteenth day: July 3rd, 2010 (Kaohsiung - Taichung)
Going back to Taichung today! Hope you won't be too bored to hear Taichung-Taipei very often. You'll be hearing it a lot more often.
Mm...destination today would be Fo Guang Shan. Just in case you don't know what it is, it's like a huge Buddhist monastery spread worldwide, home to lots of monk. Again, it was another hot day and once we arrived, we climbed up on these long staircases (many staircases) towards the upper lot, where stood the mother temple.

We were guided by this nice monk who took us on a tour around the area. A very good place indeed, with many refreshing sights especially those sights might not be common to be seen everyday.

First stop, calligraphy workshop, where we had to trace on Chinese writings and had it rolled. It was said that the calligraphy words might have a connection with your personality. Coincidence much? Then we visited many more places, from the mother temple, where took lots of picture, to the dining hall to have lunch.

Picture credit to: Sunita Sumawi

This kind of lunch is very different than other lunch we had before. As told in the briefing earlier, we were going to have a Buddhist kind of lunch. It started off with a chanting, then the dining manner where the rice bowl should be put on the left to the dishes' bowl, and the soup to its right.

The briefing itself was quite long and the lunch already sounded stressful, especially manners really counted on this lunch. The meal and everything was delicious and the lunch itself wasn't all that stressful as expected. In contrast to what explained in the briefing, it was actually very relaxing. It was just the quietest lunch I'd ever joined.

We spent the rest of the day having a tour around Fo Guang Shan, still guided by this nice monk, exploring the art gallery (likely a museum), a large golden Buddha statue, and ended up in a gift shop. I bought nothing but a bottle of pulpy orange. What a hot day and it seemed everyone preferred to buy drinks instead of souvenirs.

In the afternoon, after we finished our stroll, We bid the kind monks goodbye for their guidance throughout the tour. Next up, we'd be heading to Taichung. Since Kaohsiung was located at the southern part of Taiwan, and Taichung was on its other side, this journey would take around 4 hours, before we reached our next destination. During the ride, most of us decided to just take a nap and some would stay awake since the fu dao yuans played two movies: Alvin and the Chipmunks and Up.

At last, after approx. 4 hours of journey, we made our way to Lu Gang Street, yet another night market. But when we hit the place, it wasn't dark yet, and again, the place had more food, traditional stuff, rather than boutiques. I bought myself a satay of wallet's eggs and even stopped by to munch on fried oysters. Looks yummy eh?

There was a kind of small Believe it or Not, which my friends and I were considering to enter, but it was quite pricey. We thought it wouldn't really worth it to spend some NT to see ridiculous sights.

So we decided to stroll some more and bought boxes of mochi for our families. The bus played another movie on the way to Taichung, which was G.I.Joe: Rise of the Cobra, which sadly I never understood.
We got into our hotel shortly, attended a short briefing at the corridor on level 6, where we should fill out a form (IN CHINESE!!) about our plans for tomorrow and where we were going. As for me, I spent the rest of the night browsing at the lobby and watching "Inkheart" in my room while two of my roommates, Sonya and Jane, had their laundry done.

Fourteenth day: July 4, 2010 (Taichung)
Since today was Sunday, so today was FREE DAY! Today was like the first official free day in Taichung, since we hardly ever got out of the hotel during our stay in Taichung. We woke up pretty late, at 8 am to be exact and took a shower at 10 pm before departing to a nearby mall by taxi. As we got there, (since we had no breakfast) we rushed to the foodhall to have our brunch. The mall was effin huge and was divided into different section, so it took us a moment until we found the foodhall. Monika and I decided to share a large plate of beef curry rice.

Later, we sort of separated and I ended up strolling with Jeje, Didi, Monika, and Audrey. Somehow, while windowshopping, we happened to stumble upon a department store with a small shoe store inside it, which obviously displayed quite attractive shoes. I planned to purchase another pair of sneakers, but again, due to the price's matter, I had to stop that urge to buy'em.

Instead, Didi and Jeje decided to two pairs of sneaker, only with different colors. During the payment, we had a little interaction with the young salesgirl, and later, Jeje and Didi (whose Chinese was very fluent) exchanged emails with her. After figuring out that we were from Indonesia, the salesgirl mentioned that she was newlywed (congratulations!!!) and planned on going to Bali for honeymoon. Aww...

We reconciled with others after a short shopping session and later, someone mentioned that this mall had very uniquely designed restrooms!
My friends sort of received that info from other groups or Lao Shi who'd been to this mall. So we strolled around the mall, starting from the ground level, only to take a look at each floor's restrooms.

Ground floor: no result, since it was a normal, damp restroom. Second floor and so on, until on another floor, when we entered the restroom, suddenly Didi (who was walking ahead of us) yelled. "This one got a Victorian style!!!". And yup, it was a Victorian style restroom.

See?? No one would have known that it was a restroom, since it didn't look like one!

We climbed up to the next floor and found no interesting restrooms until on two floors above the floor where we found the Victorian style restroom, that we found more unique restrooms. We found a restroom designed like an aquarium, all blue, which would remind you of Seaworld for sure. If I hadn't told you where we took this picture in, you wouldn't have figured that it was in a restroom.

These pictures were taken in more unique. We found a restroom with colorful square patterned walls and a restroom with bamboo displayed on its wall.

Before we left the mall to go to the market, we dropped by at Eslite bookstore. It was like Kinokuniya, only the bookstore consisted of two floors. So you can't imagine how big is it. Must have been a paradise for those who love to read, like me. Too bad we didn't spent much time there.

Shortly after that, we took off to a nearby shopping district. It was like a market, but more like rows of shop along the street. We headed to a stationery store where everything was completely cheap!! Not kidding.
Even better, the shop was having a discount, so you can't imagine that cheap things could be even cheaper! I bought quite loads of thing, from journals to Super Junior cards for my friends and for myself. We also bought some colorful cardboards to design booklets for our fu dao yuans to be given on the last day. Teehee.

We happened to stumble upon small clothing store and vendors that sold clothes at the side of the street, where I bought a pretty white shirt with only NT 150. That's like 45.000 IDR or US$4.50.
I'm loving Taiwan even more :)

At 6 pm, we got back to the hotel and stopped by at 7 Eleven to buy curry rice (haha yes, fact is, I ate curry rice twice a day. Only for today though). As for my other friends, they had bought bento rice for themselves. Since I wasn't in mood to eat stuff like bento (some of my other friends too), we decided to just eat curry rice. The good fact about this small convenience store is, it was only a few blocks away from the hotel! Quite near, wasn't it?

A VISIT TO THEME PARK TOMORROW.

<< Part 6 • • Part 8 >>