Taiwan Travel Diary #3: more food and Disney's 90th anniversary exhibition

Hey everyone~

I'm back with another blog post ^-^

Or, to be more accurate: a photospam.

I haven't done much the past two days, just been trying to save money as getting settled here is quite expensive after all. But sometimes I just can't resist buying delicious drinks like the lemonade-thingy above. They're only 40NTD (around 1€) .. ;-;

This was my dinner on Monday~ Rice with corn, bulgogi and tofu in the school canteen.

On Tuesday, we woke up quite early to visit Disney's 90th anniversary exhibition at the Songshan Culture&Creative park. Wednesday would be the last day of the exhibition, so we definitely had to go. I had this super delicious strawberry cream bread for breakfast, since there are no cool bakeries on Yangminshan, so I always have to use the opportunity to get something from a bakery when I'm in the city.

The area around the park looked amazing, it was like walking right through a jungle.

They also had this at the entrance. It was supposed to be interactive, but we had no idea how it was supposed to work.

Hi from Taipei~

There was a long~ line outside, and it was quite hot on that day. The weather here can be really weird, because today (Wednesday) was super cold again. And I even brought my thickest winter coat with me to the exhibition because we thought it would be quite cold again. Big mistake, my arm hurt afterwards from carrying it as it's kinda heavy.

Mickey greeted us right after the entrance.

So, first of all: It was way too crowded there. Too many people, and way too many kids running around without any supervision. Somehow I have never been as annoyed by kids than i'm in Taipei...the parents here just let them do whatever they want. Kicking an adult into their legs? Just laugh at the kid and then cuddle it, acting as if it just did something funny. There's a Queue in front of a figurine with which people want to to take photos with? No problem kid, we'll just cut in and get you right to the front! It was quite annoying really..

Other than that, the exhibition didn't have too many informative parts. Which was okay, as they were in Chinese anyway and my reading skills are not that good yet.

The first area was dedicated to all the disney classics.

They also had a history on the Disneyland theme parks all over the world.

I didn't know they had opened the first one already in 1955.

And apparantly, the exhibition included everything that Disney has connections with.
Including Pixar.

And Marvel:

They had figurines of all the Avengers on Display:

And a lifesize Iron Man:

And some Star Wars stuff:

An area for Disney channel~

And quite a few sculptures to take photos with:

excuse my non-happy face. there were kids pushing against me and running into me all the time .-.

And an area entirely in Black and White for the first Disney cartoon, "Steamboat  Willie":

And obviously, a corner fully reserved for Frozen.

Actually I'd say this was one of the most interesting areas, as they displayed lots of concept art and drawings there.

Afterwards, there was an area reserved for the Disney princesses. Including the golden horse carriage of Cinderella, Olaf (?!) and a few dresses designed with one of the princesses each in mind, which were stunningly gorgeous.

And after that, there was my favourite area:

Big Hero 6!!

Big Hero 6 is one of my favourite movies, and I can only recommend watching it if you haven't yet. It's adorable, funny, sad and interesting all at the same time.

And the main character...uh..robot, is the most loveable character you'll ever see:

Baymax!!

"I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion:"

I obviously had to take a photo with him.

And another one:

For some movies, they only had a few posters up. Too bad, I would have loved to see some more Brave or Ratatouille in there.

They also had quite the spacious area reserved for Monsters University.

One could take photos with Mike, or with Sullivan. I only queued for Sulli.

Hi~ that's also my OOTD, i really wanted to wear my Mickey and Minnie Sweater to the exhibition :D

Then they had an area for Toy Story:

And for Cars:

And that's it already. There was a big area full with merchandise, including a super cute Big Hero 6 snapback or a backpack...but everything was way too expensive for my budget. (Think ~30€ for that snapback...and about 60€ for the backpack)

Once outside we noticed that they also had a Dragonball Z exhibition going on.

I never watched it (i was more of a Inu Yasha and Naruto kid), but for those of you who are interested, it's open until April.

They also have a Snoopy exhibition going on.

Some small detail that i absolutely love: the cars outside that sold snacks and drinks were actually designed after the movie "Cars"! :D

The scenery outside was super gorgeous too:

We decided to head over to Taipei 101 , since I had never been there and we wanted to get some rest and shaved ice.

Joke's on us, there is no shaved ice in Taipei 101's foodcourt. So we went somewhere else to find Ice Monster and got some Strawberry shaved ice.

That portion was huge so we shared it. It was about 240 NTD (~6,50€) so not too expensive for each of us. And we really needed that refreshing ice. It had strawberry sorbet and fresh strawberries in it too...and Panna Cotta. I don't get why they always add that to shaved ice here though, it does not really taste that good in combination.

Afterwards we headed to Miramar to go to Carrefour and get dinner at a food court there.

Miramar

My dinner, red braised fish with rice and a small hotpot (mostly cabbage)
NTD 170 (around 5-6€)

The foodcourt there is pretty cool, and they have lots of inexpensive options to choose from too.

So that's what I have been doing the last few days ^-^ 

I hope you enjoyed my Disney photospam, and let me know if there's anything specific that you want me to write about.

Love, Lydia

Korean cosmetics haul (in Taipei)

Hey everyone~

When I came to Taipei, I didn't pack very much as I thought I could simply buy everything here.

Which was a bad idea, I might add. You can buy everything you need here, but it's quite expensive compared to Korea.

I bought most things from Etude House, since their shops are almost everywhere. They also added the most samples for me, which was nice.

Something else that was nice about their shops:

They still had many items of Etude House's Sweet Recipe collection!

I was really happy about that, because when I was in Korea in 2013, lots of those items were sold out already.

The first item I got was their Sweet Recipe Cupcake All Over Color in RD301, Rasberry Mousse Cake. 

Then I also got one of their Sweet Recipe Dear My Jelly Lips talk lipsticks. So far, I really love it ^^

Finally, something I actually needed: cleansing tissues.

And a dry shampoo. Taipei is quite humid, so basically I gotta wash my hair every day for it to look okay-ish. This is for lazy days, or when I don't have any time to wash my hair. Or for those days during which I only have time to shower in the morning...and in the morning, except for one shower stall, the water is cold. 

Their silk scarf hair treatment~ My hair is pretty damaged so I needed something to help me with that. When I bought it, they added another one for free as there was a Buy 1 Get 1 event going on.

I also went to Skinfood because I needed a toner, and theirs are always great. However, they're super expensive here. I paid around 700NTD for this one (almost 20€) >< But I really needed a toner, my skin is pretty dry here.

I also went to Tony Moly to get their Cats Wink clear powder. Since the weather here is pretty humid, and it will only get even more humid in summer, only BB cream will not last very long.

I also bought two sheet masks at Innisfree because they were cheap.

So that's my small haul for today.

If you want any reviews of a specific item, please feel free to tell me! :D

Do you have any of those cosmetics yourself? If yes, how do you like them ? ^^

Love, Lydia

Taiwan Travel Diary #2: Foodporn and a 八三夭 831 concert

cherry blossoms on college campus

Hey everyone~ I'm back with another post about my life in Taiwan ^-^

Which mostly consists of food, since I didn't do much yet.

So on Thursday we went to Taipei Main Station underground mall for some shopping, but before that we stopped by Dongmen to get some shaved ice~

We actually ordered two portions of this accidentally and it was waaay too much for one person.

By the end of the meal I was shivering and really cold.

It was super delicious, and only 190 NTD (about 5€) though.

One thing I gotta complain about though: Smoothie House somehow has a Doraemon theme, which you can see on the table design as well. However...somehow they thought if they had a Doraemon theme, it would be a good idea to play the Doraemon theme song constantly. There were only like 2 other songs that were played, other than that it was only the theme song in different variations. By the end of our meal, we were so sick of that song. Which is sad, because originally it's really cute.

view of Taipei 101 at the end of the street

Afterwards we headed to Taipei Main Station and split up. I went to the underground mall that I had seen before on Tuesday and tried to search for a warm jacket to wear. While it's quite warm during the day, evenings tend to get cold here with lots of wind, especially on our university campus.

I didn't manage to find one ;-; They didn't have much clothes there...mostly just stores with random stuff or Anime figurines. Which would have been cool to look at, if it hadn't been so crowded. I feel like no matter where in Taipei you go, it will always be crowded with old people and small kids, even if there's nothing of interest for them there.  And said kids tend to run around with almost no supervision, so you gotta watch every single step of yours.

Out of frustration I ended up buying a few things at Etude House. I'll show them to you in another post ^-^

We ate dinner in the food court below a shopping mall next to Taipei main station.

Their Bibimbab was pretty big, and only 160NTD (4€). It tasted just fine, but Kimchi here in Taiwan tastes a lot more sour and less spicy than I'm used to.

Saturday was spent on Campus, as I was really tired from walking around so much during the week.

We ate dinner at one of the small restaurants in our university's canteen, and oh my god was it delicious!

Chicken cutlet with vegetables, tofu, egg and rice on a hot stone. Only 90NTD! (2,20€)

Today, we woke up quite early to head over to Ximending for a concert. But before that, we got some delicious (and pricey) breakfast.

Fruit Ice Tea (60NTD) (1,50€)

Waffles with cream (originally waffles and ice-cream + fruits .-. they were out of ice cream)

Afterwards we headed over to Ximen to see a band called 

                                               八三夭 (831)

and they were absolutely amazing! I only listened to their songs for the first time yesterday night, but they're really great and their stage presence is amazing. They really rocked that stage!

Their bass player somehow always looked quite sad and pouting.

While their singer was pretty much partying on stage.

It was a lot of fun for sure!

Because it's the end of lunar new year, they threw Tangyuan into the crowd. And they threw it pretty hard, I'm glad i didn't get hit by one xD

After their concert, they even held a fansigning right there. We bought albums and got in line, and waiting there was definitely worth it. They were super nice, gave us all handshakes and were quite surprised when they saw me (i think every other fan was taiwanese, i didn't see any foreigners there).

When I told them I was from Germany, one of them (the bass player) even said "oh? Guten Morgen!"..I definitely did not expect that :D

And somehow, we got interviewed right after the fansigning. We were asked to explain what "passion" is to us. I had no idea how to explain that in my own language, let alone in Chinese. After some stuttering, they gave up on us. Whoops.

I took a photo in front of their tour bus as well ^^

Afterwards we walked through Ximending for a while and searched for a place to eat dinner at.

There were quite a few street performers, but almost no street musicians.

Today was a really awesome day.

What do you think? Tell me your opinions ^^ Are the diary posts getting boring, or do you want more? :D

I'll try to keep you all updated.

Love,

Lydia