I was initially half-hearted about going for a trip in my 2nd trimester because the work plan seemed pretty packed and I just can’t figure out a good period to be away. And to be honest, the idea of travelling was rather lacklustre during the first trimester, with all the discomfort, lethargy and relatively poor appetite.

After much persuasion and insistence from Wayne and the thought that I will not be able to travel for a long period of time, we decided to have a short trip on my birthday weekend. We contemplated between a lazy island getaway and a proper trip to a nearby country.

Finally, we decided on Taipei, somewhere we are both familiar with but have not returned to for about 3 years. Furthermore, there is no language barrier and is an extremely convenient and tourist-friendly place. We thought we’ll leave the island getaways till when we need a break from Baby L in the future 😛

This time round, we booked a room at a little boutique hotel in Xi Men Ding – amba Hotel (意舍).

We love staying at XMD because it’s rather convenient and the area is always bustling with activities, even way past mid-night.

We loved the interesting theme of the hotel and it’s rather new, so all the amenities are clean and well-kept.

 The simple and minimalistic rooms were made more interesting with all the little details, but it’s the hotel’s dining area that stole our hearts.

Upon check-in, we went straight for our standard “first-meal-in-Taipei” at 水龙王.

There’s this thing about 卤肉饭 that always reminds me of Taiwan 🙂

For the rest of the day, we meandered around another of our favourite areas in Taipei – 忠孝敦化. While we still see loads of young people in that area, it has a more off-beat, relaxed and casual vibe to it compared to XMD.

So happy to find a not-too-bad smelly tofu stall in the area! The aunty that we usually patron at XMD has moved 🙁

Settled down at Coffee Alley and whiled the evening away chatting about everything and nothing in particular 🙂

The waffle was not particularly impressive, but the fresh fruit tea was SO GOOD. I need to try making it at home one of these days!

The next morning, we spent quite a bit of time lazing around, enjoying breakfast and making good use of the gorgeous lighting in the room for some selfies :p

Since I can’t dye my hair, I’m trying to pretend that it’s growing out into a natural ombre 😐

And another usual – 阿宗麵線, before we head to 阳明山 for cherry blossom viewing 😀

Had all the intention to take public transport to our destination, but realised that it was the first day of their 3-day public holiday (228 和平纪念日). And that basically meant the places of interest were not only going to be packed with tourists, but with the locals as well. And 阳明山 is a very popular place with the locals for dating, family outing, class gathering, etc…

Hearing that we had to queue for about 2 hours for the bus and that the journey will take another hour or so, we decided to take a cab at NTD100 per pax. We had to share with some other passengers to fill up the cab, but it was money well spent! The journey took less than half hour.

Albeit the sunny weather and crazy crowd, the cherry blossoms were such a delightful sight, they made it worth the trip 🙂

As advised by the cab driver, we didn’t take the usual Red5 bus back to Jian Tan station. Instead, we took another bus to Bei Tou before taking the train back to town. Queuing for the Red5 bus would have taken at least 2 hours and God knows how long the journey back to the station would take!

Had a romantic birthday dinner at VVG Table.

Had a mini cake-cutting session in the hotel room with the complimentary cake from amba 🙂

And we were out again for another round of street food at XMD!

On our final full day in Taipei, we had intended to go 九份. But were immediately turned off by the snaking long queue for the bus at Taipei Main Station. So we decided to stay in town for the day and went back to 忠孝敦化 for lunch. Yes, this is pretty much an eating trip 😀

Found ourselves back in the vicinity of the extremely popular ramen shop, 屯京拉麵 TONCHIN, where the queue never seemed to cease, no matter what time in the day. And before we knew it, we were waiting in the queue as well -_-

If you are in Taipei and has about an hour or so to queue for food, do try this ramen shop! It was really good – the texture of the noodles, the umami taste of the soup, the and the rather simple but unforgettable starters. Simply delish and worth the wait!!

And because pregnant woman can’t walk for too long, we settled down at Stay Real cafe shortly after lunch :p

StayReal Cafe is a collaboration between MayDay and the other extremely popular cafe – Gabee.  and they serve up pretty interesting flavoured-coffee. I tried honeydew coffee while Wayne had banana coffee. Both tasted unexpectedly brilliant!

On the last day of our short rendezvous with this lovely city, the weather started to turn chilly again. We were extremely thankful for the wonderful weather while we were there, the lovely people we met and this short but memorable trip before the arrival of Baby L 🙂 Really glad we made the trip!

And I returned home with this very meaningful souvenir which Wayne got for me in Taipei.