Taiwan + Okinawa 2017

There was a first for us in 2017- first time having a family trip with Dear's family. And also Dear's parents' first overseas trip.

So for such a milestone, what is the best place to go? Of cos Taiwan!

We visited Taipei and made days trips to Jinguashi, Shifen and Wulai which Dear and I didn't visit on our previous trips. So there was also something new for us. But actually what I learnt most from the trip is that what is most important is the time spent with each other and not squeezing in visits. Aww~~

I finally got to try sieving for gold at Jinguashi, though i think cheating one lah- how can really have gold dust. It was raining that day and we had lunch at their restuarant which offered a bento set imitating the tradional lunch that mine workers would eat- pork chop, egg, pickles. Best thing is can bring back the bento boz and scarf- souvenirs!

As it was raining, we were wondering if we should proceed to our last stop Shifen. We decided to drive there and hope the rain will stop by then! Really stopped! So we managed to see the small (really small) town and release sky lanterns. Another Taiwan experience checked!
 

We also had a day trip to Wulai, but was raining again! Sigh. We had a very nice aboriginal lunch at one of the restaurants and walked up to the hot springs to look see. There is a free hot spring by the open stream that you can soak but no toilet or towel.  Despite the challenging (aka dirty and wet), we still sat down and soak our legs. I'm quite impressed with myself for being willing to do it, and thank you dear for allowing me to wipe my legs on your jeans cos we had no towels.

So another Taiwan experience unchecked!

While planning for the trip, I came up with the idea to combine this trip with visiting Okinawa as it is cheap and near to visit from Taiwan. Okinawa has always seem like a cool place to visit but it is expensive and far from Singapore. There are no direct flights and I don't wanna fly 7 hrs just for a few days trip in Okinawa.

So we said good bye to the rest of the troops and took a short flight (1hr plus only) to Okinawa. We drove around (of cos we must have a driving trip!) and while Okinawa was different from what we imagined, the trip was still rather pleasant I guess.

Must dos: Eating fresh sashimi don and visiting the aquarium for the whale sharks.

 We also visited the American Village and had cheap good sushi there.

We queued for 1hr plus for the so called famous ramen at the prime shopping street. Not that the noodles were bad, but seriously need to queue so long anot.

The main shopping streets felt like the Patong of Okinawa but nonetheless still good for tourist shopping hahaha.

This was our main trip of the year actually, cos after we adopted our Buddy and life took over. We did visit Bkk in Oct but that was becos we booked the trip before Buddy came along. And luckily we did book the trip cos it forced us to take a break!

Ok lah, don't say until so cham. We somehow also got to Batam cos we saw a cheap promo for the ferry tickets (again, before Buddy came along).

So we had some short breaks but we really need to go on a long break and we are working towards that after successfully finding Buddy a caretaker when we are not around!