Hey Hive/Steemit!
So if you didn't catch the last couple of posts, we're currently on a brand new journey to Taiwan! This was back at the end of 2016 and was the second new year we spent overseas together! It was also my first time visiting Taiwan and I was really excited so here we go!
Last week, we took a leisurely stroll around our neighbourhood in Kaohsiung and visited IKEA!
We had a nice early dinner there before walking to a huge mall not too far away called Dream Mall, where they had some really nice Christmas lights up!
I had to cut the post short since it was getting pretty long and we still had quite a lot of photos left from exploring the huge mall. So here we go!
3 January 2017. Tuesday.
Just to recap, this was what the mall looked like on the outside:
According to Wikipedia, Dream Mall is the largest shopping mall in Taiwan and the 15th largest in East Asia! With a total area of more than 400,000 square meters spanning across 12 floors, Dream Mall has over 2,000 stores and contains restaurants, a movie theater, gym and even a rooftop amusement park!
It is definitely impressive, and since one of our pasttimes is walking around in malls and window shopping/looking, we thought it'd be nice to check it out!
Source: khmice.org
The first thing we noticed upon entering was definitely how much space there was. It definitely beats all the other malls we've seen since we didn't have to be jostled around in a crowd here.
We were pretty lucky that the mall was quite empty at the time as well.
We did see some interesting shops and products though, like these toy cars:
They looked like high-end versions of the toy cars we would ride around on as kids. I'm not sure why parents would want to splurge on stuff like this since it would most likely break after a couple hours but hey, the demand must be coming from somewhere right.
We also saw this cool-looking merchandise shop but we didn't know what it was from at the time. And I just learnt that it's actually from a mobile game called Tower of Saviors! I've never heard of that before but man, imagine having a whole shop dedicated to a mobile game! Kudos to them!
And as I wrote that I remembered the existence of Angry Birds and how we actually went to an Angry Bird park back in Finland. But okay tbf Tower of Saviors was made by a Hong Kong-based company and Angry Birds was by a Finnish company.
But anyway, we walked past quite a few other shops and eventually found the one place we really wanted to see - the arcade!
No surprises there, if you've read my older posts. But man, this arcade was probably the biggest one we've ever seen!
And so we whiled the time away playing a bunch of different games.
I think we made the new high score on this machine but I don't remember:
After a couple of games, we got kinda hungry and wanted to get a snack and we found this cute fortune cat!
We could also smell the sweet aroma of waffles so we went to check out her cafe, which was called Kuko Belgian Waffle!
There were so many flavours to choose from; and her being a cat reminded me of our favourite waffle place in Osaka that also had a cat mascot; called Maison de gigi!
Anyway, we finally decided on a standard chocolate waffle
I believe it had a maple glaze and dark chocolate on top, and it was actually pretty good despite not being too warm.
We did come across this other dessert place that I guess was supposed to be serving a Taiwan version of bingsu (Korean shaved ice dessert):
I was really tempted to try it because it looked so huge, but we were still pretty full from dinner and it also looked like they just made it huge with a ton of whipped cream which I'm not a fan of, so we passed on it.
After walking past the food court, we found a nice area outside.
After taking a couple of photos we returned back to the mall since we wanted to make our way to the rooftop amusement park.
On the way there, we found this huge area that was just made for kids, where I guess parents could leave them here to play while going around the mall themselves.
We saw that they had a few coin rides and one of them was this cute ducky!
Then we found an exhibition/ballroom area. I think we got a little lost.
But eventually, we managed to find our way to the roof! And they actually weren't kidding about the amusement park. There were carnival stalls and everything.
And a really huge lighted Ferris wheel!
There were a couple of outdoor rides and some small roller coasters but I think most of them were closed by the time we got there since it was pretty late by then.
There was also an indoor section of the amusement park which was kinda like another arcade, but it also had rides instead of just game machines.
We kept seeing banners for that 5D motion platform thing that looked pretty interesting so I thought it'd be cool to check it out. And it felt like a waste to go there and not ride anything so why not right.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us in the actual ride since it was pretty dark most of the time and we weren't allowed to take pictures anyway. But it was basically like a movie theatre but the seats were hanging from the ceiling instead of on the floor.
I remember the ride being quite long, and we were watching the screen from a first person perspective kinda like VR. The ride took us to so many places around Kaohsiung that it felt like a virtual tour of the city. But we were flying over buildings, through waterfalls, and in actual roller coaster. And it was in 5D so there was wind and some mist that would blow at us depending on the landscape on the screen. I believe we the only ones there in the room which was good because we could scream as loud as we wanted and be our goofy selves.
It was actually pretty entertaining! I didn't have high hopes since it looked pretty cheesy on the outside but it was actually not too bad. It actually did feel like an actual roller coaster at some points.
But anyway, after that it was getting late so we decided to start making our way back out.
But not before taking lots of pictures!
On the way back to our apartment we found this little stall that was still open past midnight and decided to get some snacks before heading back.
I was in the mood for some fried stuff so we got onion rings:
And a bowl of noodles:
We also stopped by a convenience store to get some drinks and I saw this line of drinks that were so cute!
I loved that together they formed a whole picture! I thought that was so clever I had to get a picture.
4 January 2017. Wednesday.
I would've done a double special again today but unfortunately, I fell sick the next day. When I woke up I had a slight fever and I felt so weak I could barely move to the bathroom. I think I might've thrown up or had diarrhea but it wasn't good. We also had some toilet trouble so that was another whole mess. It really sucked because I had to stay in bed all day. I've never fallen sick while overseas before this (and actually since then). But I couldn't do anything so Sean went out nearby to get medicine and food for me. He didn't really explore much other than the night market nearby for food. He did video call me a few times to show me around and cheer me up though. Then he bought some food as takeout and we had dinner together.
I'm not sure what made me sick exactly, since I was perfectly healthy the previous day, but man I did not feel good at all. Sean said as least I fell sick toward the end of our trip but still. It sucks that I had to waste a day in bed.
5 January 2017. Thursday.
I was feeling better today and it was our last day in Kaohsiung! After reassuring Sean that I did feel a lot better, we headed out earlier than usual since our flight was in the evening and we could at least spend our last few hours sightseeing.
There was a department store nearby that Sean found the day before so we went to check it out. And in there we found this shop that sold these cute toast plushies!
There was also a monkey one that I thought matched Sean really well:
We also found a cool puzzle shop on the way to the top of the department store, and they had so many different Snoopy puzzles!
Even puzzle clocks! I always thought puzzles did get kinda useless after you finish them, so I thought that was a really unique way to make them useful.
This shop also sold huge stuffed animals!
And just beside the stuffed animals was another awesome looking bookstore!
Although not as awesome as the one we saw in Taichung, it still looked pretty cool. The stairs were definitely what drew me in.
But it was still a nice and spacious book store nonetheless.
Anyway, I think that'll be all for now! Apologies for the abrupt ending but I do want to save the ending for next week!
Tune in next time where we explore somewhere high above Kaohsiung before departing back to Singapore!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #84 (Taiwan): Where Dreams Are Made 🌟
