Day 5: Taipei - 11 Aug 2013

We met at 10am to take a cab to New Life church (新生命小组教会). The service was held in the school hall of 復興中小學. The service was three over hours long but it didn't feel long at all because each segment of it was very touching and meaningful. The service began with praise and worship, followed by child dedication, testimonies, dance item, song presentation and lastly, the sermon. The deepest impression I had was the fact that the pastor was very firm in his words and yet gentle and fatherly. He had no qualms exhorting the church in his harsh tone. I saw a man of convictions who really wanted the good of his people. At the end of the service, we went up to him to take a picture with him and also had him prayed for all of us. Oh, I also saw Taiwanese singer 刘畊宏 in the church but I felt a bit strange to go up to him for picture-taking as though I was some crazy fan of him. All in all, the church experience was great and God was really doing His marvellous work in His church. Chinese people really has a special place in my heart. I was so moved by the entire service; more than just the programmes, it was the people's hearts for the Lord that touched my heart. That connectedness when we belong to one God and devote our lives to building His Kingdom alone.

After the service ended, we took a cab to the Din Tai Fung at 忠孝东路 for lunch. The queue was long and we had to wait for a good 40 minutes. Meanwhile, we went to Elim bookstore which sells Christian books, CDs and etc. We walked and browsed the items in the store and when we felt that it should be our turn for our queue number to be called, we walked back to the restaurant. True indeed, we didn't wait long before the counter lady called for our number. It was a very satisfying lunch.

As we couldn't finish browsing all the items in Elim bookstore before, we went back to it after lunch. We spent hours in the store. Though I wasn't the shopping kind of person, I enjoyed the time spent in the store, fingering through books and stuff.

We then went to have the yummiest mango desserts in Taipei - Ice Monster. The queue was absurdly long. People actually queued for hours just to eat the desserts. Of course, we were not spared for being deemed the crazy sorts who would queue for hours just to have the best. The efforts were certainly rewarded and we had no regrets at all after sharing two bowls of mango desserts and another bowl of red bean dessert amongst the four of us.

We had to do a checkpoint stop to feed our boy, before proceeding to the next stop. The nearest shopping mall, from where Ice Monster was, was at 统一阪急 near W hotel. It was a smart choice to feed him there because otherwise, it would be almost impossible to feed him at our next destination which was Raohe night market.

At Raohe night market, the throng of people that flooded the place was scary. We had to walk through this narrow road and it seemed that the stalls which flanked both sides of the road didn't interest us much. Any pause to look at stuff would seem to cause human traffic jam. As I was pushing the stroller, I was guilty of hurting the feet of many individuals although I had tried my best to maneuver the stroller without hurting anyone. We were just hoping to get to the exit and when we eventually did (at this point, we had not covered the whole night market), we decided to look for a place for dinner, away from Raohe. Perhaps, it was a Sunday and that probably explained the overcrowding.

Dinner was at a local noodle shop near the hotel where parents stayed. All of us couldn't finish our portions as we were still overwhelmed by the desserts that we had hours before. After dinner, we just went back to our respective hotels and rested for the night.

Tomorrow, my parents will go back to Singapore in the afternoon. I had planned to bring them to savour one of my favourite 卤肉饭 tomorrow morning. I hope as much as I love it, they'd too.

This trip was indeed memorable and one that I would remember forever. Emma and I enjoyed the time spent together with my parents. They were also very helpful in looking after Benji and feeding him when we needed to do stuff or when we really needed their help. They also "entertained" him when we just needed that short breather. Most importantly, this trip was made possible because we love them and just want to do our little bit to appreciate them for everything they are.