Day 2 in 台北. Woke up to a gloomy overcast day. 台北，你跟我來陰的？
After a good night's rest, we were all ready to explore the city.
At 9am in the morning! Early bird catches the worm, but retail stores do not open till 10-11 onwards!
Monkeying around while waiting for the lift. Sarah's pose is so demure!
Pa and the kiddos.
Managed to get a family portrait taken before we stepped out of 東吳飯店。The kids looked so good in this shot,
Since the shops are closed, we decided to visit the nearby Carrefour, 家樂福，which is just at the next corner on 重慶北路二段。
The short 5 minutes walk provided many photo opportunities!
轉角遇到家樂福！
Crossing 重慶北路二段 at 0920 in the morning.
First stop, the halloween costume section. Pa managed to fulfill his life long dream of being a bumble bee, while Sarah decided to be a pirate. Archie wanted to be a young punk.
The hat was made for him.
She went round trying on the other hats and was very pleased with her selections.
The young punk decided to look around for self help books.
While this girl was lazing around, as if she was by the pool on a deck chair.
I wonder where she learned that from?
We bought them a couple of activity books and puzzles. The minute we got back to the hotel, they were playing with their puzzles.
After packing up, we bid good bye to 東吳飯店。Highly recommended, quality room and service without burning a hole in your pocket.
We took a cab to our next hotel, Taipei Sheraton, 喜來登飯店，along 忠孝東路。It is very convenient to use the MRT 捷運，as the Shan Dao Temple Station 善導寺捷運站 is just beside the hotel.
After checking in and dumping our luggage in the hotel, we began our 台北 adventure via MRT.
Their MRT is extremely accessible to travellers with prams or on wheelchairs。Commuters line up orderly to get into the train and are more than willingly to give up their seats to those in need. Singapore is still years behind in this aspect.
We alighted at 忠孝復興站，to pay homage Hello Kitty at the Hello Kitty Sweets Cafe. -_-". Took a while to find it as 大安路一段 is a small road and Pa is still finding his bearings and is rusty in his map reading skills. Lessons learnt from asking for directions in 台北 is，always walk in opposite direction to what the passerby on the road (路人甲）advices. They have so many small lanes in 台北，even the locals are confused!
Finally there, but to find it fully booked. We were told to come back in an hour and a half.
So we took a look at the cutesy cakes and swallowed our saliva before leaving.
Decided to find lunch for the kids while killing time. We somehow wondered into Sogo 太平洋 忠孝館，and somehow wondered into a Thai restaurant 泰過熱, that is opened by a Singaporean. So we ended up eating Thai food in 台北，how weird.
I don't know how much they paid Mama, she decided to advertise for the restaurant for all our photo shots there.
To our pleasant surprise, they served one of the most yummy Thai food that we have ever eaten. The Phad Thai and the Thai Beef Noodles were scrumptious!
Forgot to take a picture of the beef noodle as we could not put down our cutlery to snap a picture!
After a most satisfying meal, we rubbed our tummy and rolled back to Hello Kitty Sweets Cafe. To our nasty surprise, there was a minimum spending of $300 新台幣 per pax。Luckily though, the kids were exempted. There was no way we could squeeze in $1200 worth of food into stomach after our lunch.
Enjoyed looking at the cakes in the display counter, while waiting for our seats despite reservations.
Finally we got in and got a sofa seat by the window, would be lovely under normal circumstances, but not ideal when we have two toddlers that climbed in, out, over and under the sofa.
The pretty cakes that we ordered arrived, we requested for the helpful staff to take a picture of us. While he was snapping, someone was sticking her finger into the cake and back into her mouth!
As both of them looked tired, we decided to bring them back to the hotel for a nap before making further plans.
Instead they were full of energy and bouncing happily in Archie's crib.
So we went out again, we had only just pushed the prams into the MRT station and this happened...
We took the train to 後山埤捷運站，then a leisurely stroll to 五分埔。
Lots of shops there, but sadly nothing much for us to buy. Maybe with our prams, it was difficult for us to dig in the bargain bins for gems. As it is a wholesale centre, not all shops were friendly and willingly to entertain retail customers. So we just walked through the area and brought back two things, a t-shirt for Archie and a great disappointment.
We hopped on the MRT again, this time to 市政府站 and explored around the 信義 area.
After having Thai food for lunch, we had Viet cuisine for dinner this time. Here we are in Taiwan, eating anything but Taiwan food! What odd fellows we are!? The choice of venue for meals are solely decided by the availability of high chair rather than the food itself! This is the sacrifices that parents have to make! Aren't we 偉大？
The food here is average, nothing to rave about. The only thing good are these two handsome boys.
Pa decided he wanted to pay a visit to 誠品，which is next door. While at the entrance of 誠品，we could not resist a photo opportunity with the Numero Uno Building in Taipei, the 台北 101.
The flagship store of 誠品。
Did not manage to walk through the levels, we headed straight to the toys section so that the kids could have some fun after a tiring day for them.
Sarah and her expensive taste for toys. She stuck herself in this corner of the store and playing the expensive toy with the 店長，basically just screwing in toy bolts with toy power drills. We ended up having to buy it for her.
We left 誠品 close to 10 pm and headed back to the hotel dead tired. We covered a lot of ground today with the kids in pram! Great job!
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