Arrival

As I have mentioned in the previous post, we were a total of 18 people in this trip, and so we had a bus all to ourselves. Haha. Our tour was c/o Topology Travel and they also picked us from the airport and brought us to Westgate Hotel, our home for the next 5 days.

Free day

After getting settled in our respective rooms, some of us decided to go to the grocery across the street, Jason's Marketplace, to buy supplies and drinking water for the next day's tour. The grocery was a lot like Rustan's and it was hidden at the basement of a shopping mall (Far Eastern Department Store) where a food court can also be found. We ended up buying pasalubong right away because there were a lot of food items that were not available back home.

After grocery shopping and resting a little bit, we went out for dinner at a place a few steps away from the hotel. (I forgot the name of the restaurant. Sorry). It was an authentic Chinese restaurant, much like Luk Yuen or Wai Ying but only one person knew how to speak little English so it was a challenge ordering food. We were all starving and decided to stay despite the language barrier. Also, their house tea is not free and they don't give drinking water. When we asked for water, they gave us one 500ml bottled water and no glass to drink it from. :| Lesson: when hungry and not sure if the neary resto has any English-speaking servers, go with fastfood, you'd be much happier.

We didn't have anything planned on the first night and we used the time after dinner to explore the neighboring shopping area in Ximending.

Milktea heaven!

5 floors of H&M!

Free hugs near the Ximen Station

My cousin joined in giving out free hugs as well.

After 11pm, the shopping area becomes deserted.

Capturing light trails in front of the hotel.

It was around 13 degrees Celsius that evening but the gusts of wind made it colder. After getting tired of hanging out in front of the hotel, and barely having any feeling left in my hands, we decided to call it day.