Taiwan Day 5 : 中正纪念堂 - 宜农牧场 - 望龙碑 - 老爷酒店

Our last day at Taipei, we have planned to go to 中正纪念堂 and have lunch before we check out. 

Anne volunteered to buy breakfast before 8am. 

This is what she bought, along with the 水煎包 too.

Quite delicious.

Joshua bathed the kids one last time at the compact bathroom. I only bathed them once here.. I just cannot handle, I will think too much about the process and get stressed up. 

We were all ready. Already packed up 90% the night before.

By 9am we were out to the train station. Anne enquired again on the tickets. We have two 24 hour passes from the night before, so she only need to buy 2 more round trip tickets. 

Because this is just a morning affair, I don't think Jasper urgently needs to be breastfed, thus I wore my favourite most confident green doublewoot dress! Yeay!

Again, given priority seat on the train. :) I enjoy this privilege a lot. 

Mummy too!

I love this combination of dress with this grey tight with white ribbons (bought to wear for Anne's call in London but she had to resit so we cancelled the UK trip) and my brown flats. This flats was from San Francisco's Forever 21, I love it but I can't help but to think I look like I am wearing 2 sampans on my feet especially when I pair it with skirt / dress / shorts.

But when I pair it with heavy top oufits like a coat and neck warmer, the shoes looks very balanced.

We arrived at the station and the distance was supposed to be shorter than what we went through, simply due to some wrong directions given by the locals.

This day is more chilling - I like!

Jasper is getting more and more steady in his walkings. He used to walk and drop himself on his bum quite frequent, but we can definitely see that reducing.

See that finger pointing? If this is a video then u probably will hear his high pitch sound. It's so Jasper.

Wish we spent more time here as it's like a very nice and well maintained park with lots of nature around us. But we have to quickly look for the hall where change of guards will take place. That's our main objective. 

We convinced Jasmine to come down and do some running since the area is so spacious.

We got into the hall. I love it when we can remove her jacket. Because underneath is a carefully planned outfit for this little girl. :) Otherwise she looks the same in all photos because she only has 2 big jackets.

This vintage cart reminds me of daddy's days of selling ice creams. I asked mummy was it something like this. She said my daddy's equipment could've been much simpler than this. This seemed luxurious to a poor boy in the 1950s-1960s. 

We are here specially to watch the change of guards. The middle statue is statue of their 国父 and below it is his last words for the country. I tried to read but I couldn't understand even though I am chinese educated. I need time to decode the meaning behind those words.

We told Joshua, he may get stoned if the locals know what picture he was taking. 

We are actually early, so we have some time to kill even after watching the guard struggle to stay still, and the opposite partner had call it quit because he was about to faint, and the back up came in.

This is right outside the main hall. It's like a grand entrance to a palace. 

Me in my favourite outfit, plus my anello and brown coach. Yums. 

Joshua and I rarely take photo of just us ever since we have kids, so this is supposedly quite special lah. 

Mummy and her favourite daughter. I know I am not her favourite hahahahaha. 

The guy who hopes to make a name on youtube. :) I won't complain if he ever become famous. 

Group photo, my mummy is such a good sport to join in! And Jasper was taking his morning nap there. 

We went back into the hall up there in time to stand in front before change of guards takes place. Man, we waited for quite a while! Imagine holding the kids where every corner u turn, you will turn into someone? Finally the guards came out, Joshua shot a video and then we decided we don't have to stay through the whole thing, after a while it gets a little boring. So we came out and was to make our way back to airbnb.

I encouraged Jasmine to run, keep running because it's so spacious. But I forgot to remind her to slow down when she was on high speed... and then she fell down and had a little scratch on her knee. :( Sorry Jasmine. I was surprised she didn't blame it on me. But she was definitely miserable and refused to walk after the little fall. This is her first ever fall that's on outdoor flooring, there were bleeding and she was clearly very disturbed by it. She asked for plaster and I think I took out from my purse for her. 

Our check out time was supposed to be 11am but we asked whether we could just keep our bags till 12pm, to which the host agreed. We arrived at slightly past 12pm, I changed, found a cold nugget sauce in fridge as substitute for ice cubes, gave it to Jasmine hoping it will help soothe her pain. She complained about the pain and limps whenever she remembers it.  

Lunch at 蓝家割包! Wanted to eat here the night before but they were closed. So glad they are open for lunch! 

After our lunch, 小傅came to pick us up. He bought us 油饭！！ He didn't know we will have had our lunch already. So thoughtful... we still ate in the car. Cannot waste his efforts. It's very delicious. A little like 荷叶饭 but not so sticky. Jasper ate some too!

We are taking 小傅's suggestion and going to the local farm!  Again, while all of us were asleep, Jasmine sings the whole way. 

Here we are!  宜农牧场 self pay as we enter. Such trust. Jasper is snoozing, it's his long afternoon nap.

Lets go!!!! Can't wait!

Look at the baby pigs!!!!!

We bought the milk for Jasmine to feed the baby pigs and the baby goats. Jasmine was so excited that she kept chuckling, and forgot all about her knee pain.

The pigs looks irresistably cute!

We bought mini carrots to feed rabbits and guinea pigs too.

Here's the goat place, the bigger goats eats the long grass.

First row are baby goats, so we fed them milk. Same milk fed to the baby pigs.

Mummy also fed the goats! She didn't mention but I do hope she enjoys it. :D 

Jasmine also fed grass to the goats. 

And further out, there are chickens, gooses, ducks and fishes in the lake.

Anne signed up for goat milk expressing class.

Jasmine observed how Ah Yi expressed goat's milk, she even helped by holding the metal cup to catch the milk. 

As part of the goat milk expressing class, Anne got to drink FRESH goat milk. The one she helped to express. She drank it and said it tasted surprisingly good!

We all drank some too. 

Jasper woke up... and 小傅 introduced the animals to him. He really helped to babysit Jasper throughout our farm time. 

At the back of the goat milk expressing room, Jasmine found a small slide and requested to play. We let her play a few rounds before we go out to explore more farm animals. She's been asking us to bring her to playground since day 1 in Taiwan, but we didn't have the time to go. We know there's a mega playground few stations away from our airbnb but we really couldn't find time to go. 

We bought food to feed the other animals. Jasmine fed them to the ducks, goose and fishes.

We walk around the farm, to get closer to the fishes and ducks.

Earlier when Jasper was still sleeping in the stroller, we were walking round the lake to get closer to the ducks, I saw some leisure tables & chairs around, and told Anne who was behind me that we should've taken down the 油饭 to eat here! It was a joke but 小傅 heard it and volunteered to go get it from his car! He was with the stroller and still took the trouble went back to the car to get it for us. But we end up didn't have the stomach space and time to eat it there. :P

Apart from the farm animals, they also make the place like a mini playground for kids to explore.

And they have hammocks too.

Jasmine's first hammock experience. Like a giant rocker. I wish I had gone in myself! :D Looks so comfortable.

We could really stay one whole day at this farm! Definitely want to return again. :)

Anne got a goat's milk ice cream from her expressing milk class, she didn't like the taste. I didn't mind it so I was eating it, and when we were entering the car, Jasmine wants some too. I decided to let her eat the whole thing so I passed the cup to her... It has mostly melted so she was supposed to drink from the cup but just moments later she spilled it in the car. @.@ 

Next stop : 望龙碑 

Main objective is to drink coffee. 小傅said the coffee here is great!

Jasmine helped to mix the creamer and sugar into all our coffee. She enjoyed stirring and then serving to us. 

While we were drinking our coffee, 小傅took Jasper to walk one big round around the lake. It's a nice place. On google images, this place was not attractive and we didn't want to come until 小傅 said the coffee here is good and is near the farm.

After we're done with coffee, it's starting to turn dark, already past 5pm so we quickly take the short walk around the lake.  

We bought a pack of fish food here to feed the fishes. 小傅 said we don't have to finish the whole pack here, and should keep till we go to another place after we check out from Lao Yeh Hotel.

See it's already getting dark....

We really fully maximise the time today. Covered so many places and mostly we are very satisfied.

After this was quite a long drive, to get to our hotel. But before reaching our hotel, 小傅 stopped us at a bakery shop that sells 铜锣烧, the one Doraemon loves to eat. Anne requested for this. But, it was sold off when we arrived at around 7pm... I didn't think the stop here as necessary at all, it looked like a very common bakery. Anne ended up buying a pack of 蜂蜜蛋糕 which I felt tasted so so only. I am really not a foodie, just porkie. 

Anyway we got a call from the hotel because we were supposed to check in much earlier! We were delayed... and our dinner arrangement had to change. We actually booked individual meals at their restaurant but the delay only left us with the choice of buffet dinner. I didn't like the "downgrade" but had no choice.  小傅 quickly took us there. 

At the reception, Jasper did a huge poop business. The smell was very strong and powerful. I could even smell it now. 

This was in our room. There's a lady who come and explain to us everything in the room (what we can take home, what we cannot), the facilities in the hotel, including the time schedule of the activities.

They gave us fresh fruits too. Jasper plays with them like balls and then chews on them too.

They made us a pot of tea on the spot.

After the lady left, and we cleaned up the poopie diaper... we all were knocked out. It was a long day for all of us and we still have dinner to catch!

So we quickly went down for the buffet. Jasper has been very picky when it comes to meal times. The whole trip he doesn't eat well. He mostly feeds better if we let him feed himself, but this always ends up in big messes or very hard if no baby chair given. Thank God in the hotel, we get baby chairssss!!!

Jasmine has started coughing more during this trip and complains of stomach pain once in a while. 

Now, we are at buffet we hope to give them more balanced and nutritious meals instead of junks from night markets. 

We take turns to take food from the buffet line. I was mostly stationed here with the kids to make sure they eat.

After dinner, there's a show at the foyer. We went to check it out. I didn't like this kind of 唱大戏 though.

Jasper started playing with the chairs. So we knew the right place to go next is the playground.

All the entertainment facilities happens at Basement 1. So we found this play corner next to some pool tables. 

Next to the pool tables are ping pong tables, and next to it is a gym. Next to the gym is quiet study / computer room, where its corner is the PLAYGROUND.

We discovered it!!! The ultimate playground! The kids went wild! 

Then Ah Ma and Ah Yi came to join us after they're done with the show. Outside the room, we can get coffee from the coffee machine. Tasted quite good!

We went back to our room... and got the kids ready for bed. This is the bathroom. We only have 1 bathroom, for everybody, and it's next to the hot spring. They have everything you need, esp for kids. They have kids toothbrush toothpaste, cup for rinsing mouth, step stool and shower gel.

Mummy and Anne sleeps upstairs. Their room even have a sofa to relax on, and a tv.

Joshua and I sleeps downstairs. One of the room service was they will come at 9pm to transform the living room into bedroom. We sleep like the Japanese, together with the kids. And we have a TV too. Joshua watches the TV quietly while the kids were asleep and I could hear mummy started enjoying the hot spring bath. It's right next to our room.

The hot spring has 2 options, hot (hot spring water) and cold (not hot spring water). So if we want 100% hot spring bath, we have to plan properly, fill the tub half, let it cool down, maybe we go out for a meal, then we return to fill the other half with hot spring water, then we can hop in. Ideal temperature is 37 to 40 degrees. That night I didn't use the hot spring. Only mummy did. I could hear her splashing the hot water.... and I pray that she is having the best time. Hehe.

Next day early morning I believe at 6am or 7am... Anne got up and had her hot spring bath. Mummy had 2nd round too. They loved it!! I should probably tell you, they did the skinny deep style. Haha.