taiwanandindo

[taiwanandindo]

Day 11: September 10th- Last day of our trip. We had a long layover in Taipei. We took the opportunity to explore the city for one last time. We had breathtaking views of the Taipei 101 tower from our hotel room. The W even surprised my sister with an early birthday present! We went to the Ximending night market area. We shopped for some souvenirs and stopped by Alice is coming Cafe. We had some yummy dim sum for lunch and Tiger Sugar for Tea 😋. We had a good relaxing day before we headed back to LA! 🙂

[taiwanandindo]

Day 10: September 9th - We spent our last day in Bali. We had a traditional Balinese breakfast complete with Satay and Taro Frappuccino. We headed to see Uluwatu Temple, a cliff side Hindu temple. We walked around the cliffs to see the temple on top of the cliffs. The temple shrine was closed as it opens only during prayers. We headed to the airport and met some fellow travelers from Santa Barbara and Vancouver. We enjoyed the Garuda lounge before take off and headed for our 5 hr flight to Taipei. We got to the W hotel at Taipei and headed to the rooftop for some drinks with a beautiful view of the city.

[taiwanandindo]

Day 9: September 8th - We took the ferry back from Nusa Penida into Bali. Our first stop was at Tirta Empul Temple, famed by the movie Eat, Pray and Love. The temple has traditional water baths where worshipers can wash away their sins and be reborn after taking a dip in the holy water. We then headed to another temple Gunung Kawi Sebatu, which wa similar to Tirta Empul. We weren’t allowed to enter certain sections of the temple unless we were worshiping the temple gods. We fed some koi fish and headed to get lunch with a beautiful view of Mt Batur. Mt Batur, is an active volcano in Bali. We had an Indonesian buffet while we enjoyed the views of the volcano. We drove back to Sanur, where we went to a beach lounge, Arthotel, where we sipped on some cocktails and watch the sunset. We head out at night to explore the night life in Bali , Canggu. The streets were packed with beach bars crowded with tourists. We sipped on some cocktails and watched the crowd dance the night away. We were exhausted from the travel and called it a night 😴

[taiwanandindo]

Day 8: September 7th- We took a ferry into Nusa Penida. The one hour ferry ride brought us to the tiny island of Nusa Penida. Our first stop was Crystal Bay. After driving through some narrow bumpy roads we finally made it to Angel’s Billabong and Broken beach. The breathtaking views and the crystal clear blue water was gorgeous. We then headed to the famous Kelingking beach, where we descended several stairs along the backbone of this dinosaur rock. The narrow stairway was pretty nerve wracking to climb down. Our last stop for the night was Diamond Beach and Atuh Beach. Diamond beach had gorgeous views of the ocean.

[taiwanandindo]

Day 7: September 6th- We drove 1.5 hrs to go to Ulun Danu Temple. A Hindu temple located on the west coast of Bali. We traced our way back to Ubud town. Our first stop was the Monkey forest in Ubud. We had the monkeys take our selfie 😂 . We went to the Ubud palace, Saraswati temple and Ubud market. We shopped a little at the market and got some duck for lunch. We then headed to Goa Gajah, a UNESCO historic location. We then headed to Tegenugan water falls for our final stop for the day. We wrapped up the day with some good Balinese food right by our Bnb in Sanur.

[taiwanandindo]

Day 6: September 5th- We took a flight back from LBJ to Bali. We grabbed some fatty pork with spicy topping on white rice for lunch. We then made our way to Tegalalang rice terraces. We went to Alas Haram where we saw how they make Kopi Luwak or poop coffee. The coffee beans are ingested by these cats that then poop the beans. The digestive process makes the beans provide an extremely smooth coffee flavor. This coffee is considered to be decaf. The coffee is usually black and appeared to be strong. We walked through the paddy terraces and did an adventure swing. We headed to our Aibnb in Abiansamel, Green village, where our entire house was made of Bamboo and the toilets were made from brass. We relaxed in our tree house and made some Indomi for dinner. We had a fun time relaxing at the bamboo house. 😴

[taiwanandindo]

Day 5: September 4th : We head off early in the morning for our day trip to Komodo Island.We we’re off at at 6 am and we were able to catch the beautiful sunrise from our boat. Our first stop was Padar Island. We hiked to the top to get breathtaking views of the island. The island has 3 different colored water - Blue, black and pink. While admiring the views I unfortunately twisted my ankle 😑. Our next stop was Pink Beach. We got to snorkel and admire some beautiful coral and tiny fish. Next stop was Komodo island. The Komodo island has over 1700 dragons. We got to see 6 of them. They lazed and sun baked. We weren’t allowed to get too close to them. We then headed to Taka Makassar Island, a crescent shaped beach in the middle of the ocean. We got some snorkeling in. We got to see some coral and schools of colorful fishes. We then headed to Manta Point where we dived off the boat in the middle of the ocean to see several Manta rays. Our last stop for the night was at Kanawa island, where we relaxed on the beach and enjoyed some swing time. We were back to Labuan Bajo, watching the sunset on the boat. We had an eventful day and we called it a night pretty quickly after we got some yummy dinner.

[taiwanandindo]

Day 4: September 3rd - Travel Day. Yohanes is reunited with the group. We head out to Labuan Bajo, an island about an hour flight from Bali. This is the closest island to Komodo. We walked around the town and saw the street markets selling grilled fish. We ordered a spread of food and listened to some live music playing at the restaurant. We were knocked out for the night. 😴

[taiwanandindo]

Day 3: September 2nd - We headed out to Yehliu Geopark to see inconic rock formations such as the Queen’s head. It was extremely windy and there were several geological structures that mimicked a mushroom. We then drove off to see the Ying Yang see, where the golden and blue waters meet. We were enroute to Jiufen when we stopped at Golden Waterfalls. Jiufen is a small mountain town in the northeast known for its high mountain tea and its multitude of stores. It’s home the Ghibli’s inspiration for Oscar winning movie, Spirited away. We tried some local peanut ice cream roll 😋 We headed to Shifen waterfalls , a 40 m waterfalls in Shifen. We headed to Shifen old street, Pingxi Station to release a multi color lanter - Red ( health and peace), orange ( romance and marriage), yellow (wealth and money) and blue ( career promotion). After our first lantern crashed and burned, our second one set off into the clear blue skies. We ended our day with a 60 min foot massage which was incredibly relaxing. We closed off the night by walking through the streets of Ximending night market.

[taiwanandindo]

Day 2: September 1st - We started our day hiking Elephant Mountain. A steep set of stairs leads you to the top of the mountain to get sweeping views of the city. We headed to Din Tai Fung at Taipei 101. Taipei 101 has several stores and food courts at the mall. We headed to the tallest Starbucks in the world at 35 floors high. On our way back to the hotel, we stumbled upon a Game of Thrones coffee shop. We set out to explore another night market in the evening. We went to Dalongdong Baoan Temple and then to the Confucius Temple. We took the train to Shilin Night Market, where the locals and tourists throng for delicious food. We had some more Boba Tea - Tiger Sugar, the best boba tea yet! We got some Taiwanese Sausage, some yummy corn, flaky scallion pancakes with bacon and shaved ice with mangos for dessert. We closed out the night by checking out a few speakeasys - Ounce and Sidecar. Ounce made drinks for us based on what alocohol we wanted whereas Sidecar is a Botique Gin bar. We had extremely friendly waiters who made excellent drinks for us! 🙂

[taiwanandindo]

Day 1, August 31st : We landed at Taipei International airport at 5:30 AM local time. Our first stop was the Taipei National Museum.. This is the only place that opens as early as 8 AM 🙂 We headed to TimHoWan for some Michelin Star dim sum. We walked around Peace Memorial Park and to Liberty square. Liberty square had concert halls and monuments all around for a 360 view. Taiwan is where boba tea originated. We had all the boba needed to get us over getting jet lagged!! At night, we headed to Ximending night market and got more boba tea. We headed to Longshan Temple and paid our respects to the gods. We headed to Taipei Huax St market which was block away from Longshan Temple. For dinner we had some fat pork over rice and some pancakes for dessert. We finished off our night by getting drinks at the Draft Land,one of Asia’s 50 best bars! 🍻