Short getaway at Taipei/Taiwan!

Dear Diary,

Its the time of the year for our annual trip to Taipei. Every year, we will choose a month to head to Taipei for some shopping and stock up. Taipei is one of our favorite destinations as they have a lot of shopping and is a very relaxing place to be! Best thing about their culture is they are dog friendly almost everywhere! We can spot dog owners almost everywhere and all dogs are really very well trained to follow their owners without leash.
This trip was planned at the very last minute therefore, our tickets were booked just few weeks before the trip. We managed to get a good deal and a good hotel as well.
Details of our trip:
Airline -> China Airlines
We booked through Expedia. 2 way transport was about S$800 for both person. (including choosing of seats and travel insurance.) The airline already had meals and 30kg baggage included with the fees.
Hotel -> Burgary Hotel
We booked through Agoda. Per night was at about S$100 including breakfast. The breakfast was not buffet style. The big highlight of the hotel is that they have personal Jacuzzi in most individual rooms. The Hotel is also very convenient as it is located very near to Ximen station.

I will briefly go through a few highlights of our trip. As this is an annual trip, we didn't focus on exploring the country. Our focus was mainly shopping for the girls(Bumbie and Clover) and for ourselves.

First Day
We landed in Taipei at about 3.30pm. Took some time checking out from the airport and bought some snacks from the nearest 7 11 as we were quite hungry. Board the shuttle bus from the airport to Ximen Station. There are many shuttle buses at the airport that provides cheap transport to town. So we chose a random bus that is able to alight near our hotel. It was a bad choice as the bus made a big round alighting our passengers. The journey took about 1 and a half hour. Not the best plan for someone who has motion sickness like me. We checked in the beautiful hotel and rest a little as i need to recover from my motion sickness.
We headed to Taipei 101 for our dinner, Ding Tai Feng. Its a mandatory meal each time we are in Taipei. The beef noodles taste so much different from the beef noodles served in SG. Much tastier and flavorful. They allow customers to choose lean beef or fatty beef from the menu. The queue there is always a good half an hour to an hour wait. But its totally worth it.

 

Then we head to my fantasy world. Pet street. I don't have the exact location on the map but i know its located directly behind Tong Hua night market. We will always flag a taxi from Taipei 101 and tell the taxi uncle in mandarin "the pet street behind Tong Hua night market" and they will bring us there. Its less than 10 min taxi ride from Taipei 101.

the whole pet street. 

To go back, there is a nearest train station "LiuZhangLi" station (brown line) near by. But we are always lazy and will take a taxi back to hotel after that.

Second Day
We went to our usual temple to pray. Long Shan Temple. Located directly at Long Shan Station. If you have strong beliefs in prayers, this temple has always been our mandatory visit. This temple is one of the tourist attractions so be prepare for the crowd.
After the prayers, we headed to Taipei Zoo station. Not to visit the zoo, but to sit the cable car ride up the mountain to Mao Kong station! The weather was cooling and we went there at about 4pm, just nice for the beautiful sunset! There were 2 types of cable cars to choose from, the full 360 glass cabin or the normal regular cabin. Of course we choose the glass cabin! So that we can have a good view even from below!

Nothing much up the mountain, other then tea houses. So we walked a little and took a cable car back as it was getting dark (sun sets in Taipei is around 5pm-5.30pm. So by 6pm its already night time!) and taking cable car that dark is scary for me. Its the only way down hill unless you don't mind taking a taxi down. The night view is also as breath taking so don't waste the chance to view it from above!

map of Mao Kong

Night View

Third Day
We woke up slightly earlier to head to JiuFen. Its at the outskirts of Taipei i suppose. We had to take a train to Taipei Main Station to change to a railway train to head to Jiu Fen. From the Taipei main station, we had to take a railway train to RuiFang. Once at RuiFang, we had to cross the street and take bus 788 (keelung bus) all the way up to JiuFen. Jiu Fen is also one of the tourist attraction so be prepared for the crowd.

Keep cool, and walk on. HAHA
If possible, try every food there. No regrets!

Make every effort to explore the shops. You may find unique gifts and souvenirs.

Forth Day

Its a full eating day! We had street food, steamboat etc.

All at Ximending. We had to shop for gifts and last min items for ourselves. Ximending is our favourite shopping district. You will not have nothing to buy or eat there. After shopping hours, all the street night shops will come out! That is when you will have good shopping deals!

This marks the end of our little getaway. On the fifth day, We had to fly back to SG. Mixed feelings as i was unhappy that this holiday is just too short but excited to show the girls things that i bought for them.

Special thanks to our best buddy, Yukiko, for helping us to look after the girls. I am so forever grateful that she is always there for us.

I would like to recommend The Fluffy Hut as a very good and cozy boarding for my 2 rabbits( Mabuyi & Kibo), 1 Chinchilla (Pistol), 1 Guinea pig (Hugo) and 2 hamsters (Zorro & Neko). As we have so many fur babies at home, its not easy to find a good boarding for small animals. We are glad to find The Fluffy Hut. They have a 24/7 webcam that has 2 way communication so that we can watch our babies and speak to them as and when we want to. They provide meals for them and clean them up daily to ensure their play pen is clean and neat. Their play pen space is really huge and allows the fur babies to roam around the play pen freely. I can see that all the small fur babies do enjoy their stay with The Fluffy Hut.

Thats a nice long write up for our holiday! Hope you enjoy the read!

With love,
Bumver Mummy

Pistol, Our new member

Dear Diary,

On the 30 August, Pistol was adopted. He was an abundant chinchilla that was being rescued by his foster parent. Along with 3 other chinchillas that was being abundant together by the ex owner.
We always wanted a chinchilla but we have yet to find the opportunity to have one. We were trying to find the perfect chinchilla to fit into our family.
When i was scrolling Facebook, i chanced upon Pistol and fell in love with him. His main features that attracted me was his big eyes and huge ears. I decided to contact the foster lady to have more information on him. Unfortunately, he was still not ready to come home yet as the nice foster lady was nursing him back to health. I took this opportunity to learn more about chinchillas and got myself ready. I had to search for the perfect cage, with the perfect routine for him. As his nature is so different from the rest (the rabbits and guinea pig), i had to find the perfect routine that fits all. The challenging part is planning how to keep the area cool enough for him as chinchillas have thick coat.

Once everything has been sorted out, i started to shop for the cage, toys and equipment. This cage has to be much bigger than the rest as he needs space to jump here and there. Toys that are chinchilla safe as they love to chew everything they can get. Once the cage and accessories arrived, it was just in time to welcome Pistol home!

No any particular reason why i name him pistol. Just that his colour just reminds me so much about gun metal. haha.

He is currently 4 years old and had a different life before me. Now, we will help him write a new chapter of his life. It can be challenging for both of us as we need time to know each other. So far, trails i learnt about him are: stubborn, smart, observant, and a fussy eater.
t took him a while to start eating his hay and food. i had to bribe him with treats and sometimes treats doesn't even work as he was so persistent in being stubborn. HAHAHA.

I have yet to let him mingle with bb and clover as i need him to gain his confidence first. He is still quite wary if the environment but slowly trying to explore. 

Chinchillas have very long life span. Up to 20 years. We are gonna have a long time together buddy! I guess you will have a chance to see our family grow and grow old with us.

Small animals have high responsibility level too. Some people ignore the fact that small animals do not need these attention. Small animals cannot express much feelings on their faces but no doubt their hearts are the same as ours. Their heart bleeds, their heart beats. They do feel pain, and they do feel agony and sorrows if we ignore them or abundant them. 

Stay tune for more pistol's progression with us in months to come!

Love, 

Mummy bumver

Clover's Birthday!

Dear Diary,

Its the time of the year again for Clover's birthday! This year she is turning 5 years old! I decided to bake her a big cake for her Birthday party. I love baking cakes for my girls especially when there is an occasion. I searched around for inspirations and came out with this idea. Presenting you, the cake:

I did a little mix in colours and hand piped roses. All made with potatoes and colours were made from vegetables. The cake has at least 1.5kg worth of pork. I took about 7 hours to bake this cake. It was hard work, but worth it. 

We celebrated her birthday at Tanjong beach. Clover was really fortunate to have so many people to celebrate her birthday with her. She is so loved!

For tradition purposes, at the stroke of midnight, we will blow the candle and eat the cupcake!

Thank you our dear friends for loving Clover. Everyone had seen her at her worst and yet still love her endlessly. Clover is so blessed. 

Happy birthday dear clover! May you grow up to be a more cheerful girl. You are always so brave and always protecting all of us. You are my little queen, my little alpha and my little protector. I love you so much! 

With love,

Mummy Bumver

My Little Clover

Dear Diary,

Was looking through at some of Clover’s puppy photos and decided to do a little story on our Clover. She really came from a long way. Those who watched her grow, witnessed her blossomed into a beautiful girl.

Her History:
She was a refunded puppy. When we saw her at the farm, she was recovering from a skin allergy (claimed the farm assistant which doesn’t seem like an allergy to me). They said that the ex-buyer couldn’t handle her and decided to refund her back to the farm. When she was refunded, one patch of fur on her back was already bald. The patch was as big as a size of my fist (that’s a very big patch for a Chihuahua). We didn’t know what exactly happened to her because 2 different assistants told us both different stories. All I know she was really scared she was shivering very badly when the assistant held her. We had a connection immediately when I held her. Her shivers stopped immediately and she started licking me and rubbing herself all over me. Then, we decided to bring her home. Maybe to Clover, we had saved her life. But she had already saved our lives.
After my mum had passed away, all of us were very depressed. The house felt empty and Bumbie was so low in spirit. She wouldn’t move, wouldn’t eat. She would just lay one corner of the house whole day and sleep. After Clover came into our lives, she lifted all of our spirits and everyone was busy again.

Puppyhood:
Training for her is really very tough. But I didn’t give up, I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. She was really a little monster (we guessed maybe that is why the ex-buyer/owner couldn’t handle her but that was not an excuse). When we put a barrier up, she would ram into the barrier and knock it down as if she was a little bull. She would push my laundry basket down and scatter all my clothes all over my house. She was so hyper that she couldn’t stop running and hopping. She had food aggression and all other aggressive behaviour. She wouldn’t hesitate to bite us. I had my hand full or bite wounds and scars. Even when teaching her basic commands, she couldn’t stay still to learn. While learning the command “Sit” her butt would move from left to right while sitting. HAHA.
Her biggest fear was leaving the house. That was not normal for a puppy. Whenever I open the gate, she would run back into her crate and hide. If she had the ability to lock herself in there, I think she would. She would shiver so badly again when we are about to bring her out. When we brought her to meet our friends, she will turn aggressive and bite them. I guess she was really afraid that people may take her away from the happiness that she just have. I took one month, every day, rain or shine and brought her out. I trained her to walk on leash and off leash. Slowly, she learnt to be excited when we head out for events. She learnt a lot of values from Bumbie and she will always follow closely behind Bumbie during walks. Friends who loved her, didn’t give up on her and slowly, they managed to gain her trust day by day. Clover now is so affectionate and she had learnt what love is and how love feels like. She had learnt how to love and show love.

Adulthood:
Life has been very nice to her and she had really blossomed into a very beautiful girl. Many people looked down on her looks when she was a puppy as she had a default angry face. Many compared to Bumbie as Bumbie has a default smiley happy face. I wanted to prove it to everyone, what love can do and how great love is.

Anyone can buy a puppy from a pet store, anyone can adopt a dog from the shelter. No matter where we adopt them from, its very important that new owners must have RESPONSIBILITY. Only adopt or get a pet when you are ready. Listen to owners talk about responsibility and how much does it cost to keep a pet, or do research on google to learn more about the pet u are considering to buy/adopt. Because that pet will turn into family.

Top 6 photos are clover's puppy photos. look at her face, always frowning. 

Love,
Mummy Bumver 

My New journey to be a Groomer

Dear Diary,

I have been busy lately. Ever since after the new year i have been doing many things to move forward to my dreams. Met with a few hiccups along the way and now trying to get back on track.

I always wanted to have my own Pet Grooming shop. That's why I pursue for a Pet Grooming certificate. I have successfully completed and obtained my certificate and now officially certified to be a groomer! Its still not the end as there are 2 more Certificates to obtain to be certified the best. Along the way, I made some plans. Unfortunately, was unsuccessful and I am still trying my best to achieve my dream.

I recently just started my freelance grooming, tagged to a shop. Not too bad, but i really need much more experiences than this. HAHA. Lucky the boss of the shop is very understanding and he gave me room for mistakes and improvement. I learnt many new things in this industry. This is a very big change for me as previously I was working in an office environment. I wouldn't say its easy just because I have passion for it. The learning process is quite tedious and i do find it very tiring compared to an office environment. In the pet industry, i am more fearful of making mistakes therefore I m very careful of what i am doing. Especially now that i hold on to expensive and sharp scissors whole day. HAHA!

Working with animals, mostly dogs, really makes me a happier person. But every job still has it's stress level. So far, i have not much issue for handling dogs. Some even dozed off while i was trimming. The most challenging part is cutting nails. Most dogs are afraid and tend to be aggressive. Got bitten a few times but all is well.

For now, I am planning to do freelance, home grooming. I will start home grooming (going to client's house) once i am more confident in my styles. I am also currently pursuing to upgrade my certificate and take it to the next level, B class cert. So that i can do better grooming for my clients in the future.
So if anyone is interested for me to groom their dogs, please PM me and i will plan a date. But please be understanding as I am a NEW groomer!

Don't be afraid to pursue what you want to do in life. Today is the day I wake up to follow my dreams.

Love,
Mummy Bumver