23 Apr 2011

Taipei

Finally have the time to blog about my Taipei trip! Many, many thanks to my friend, Bear, for helping me with the itinerary!

Day 1 (27 March 2011, Sunday)

0715: Departed from Singapore via JetStar. Apart from the very limited legroom, there’s nothing much to complain about.

1145: We were so glad that we arrived Taipei’s Taoyuan Int’l Airport much earlier than expected. Roamed around in T2 and had 魯肉飯 as our first meal in Taiwan! LOL! Bought their local 3G SIM card from Taiwan Mobile 台灣大哥大 for only NTD645, for 5 days of unlimited data and almost 50 minutes of phone calls to Singapore was inexpensive. (That explained my frequent updates on Twitter & Facebook! Muahaha!)

It was raining heavily and the temperature was only 11 deg C (with strong winds!), so we were freezing outside while searching for the FreeGo bus, which took us from the airport to our hotel (NTD140/person for a single trip). We finally located the bus, but not the counter. Fortunately, the person was helpful enough to help us buy our tickets, although it was quite chaotic as he kept rushing us to load our luggage.

1430: The bus journey took about an hour to reach TS Hotel, located near Ximending (luckily for us, we didn’t have to drop off to transfer to another mini bus). We were allowed to check-in early at the hotel, so we rushed to nap. LOL! However I think the excitement kept us from napping, so we decided to walk around XMD.

1700: We cancelled our plans to Shida Night Market as it was still pouring. So we decided to settle our dinner at 飛天, a steamboat restaurant located opposite TS Hotel. The variety was not bad, different from the ones we find in Singapore. Love their thinly-sliced meat and CHEESE TOFU! Imagine the tofu was only 2mm thick, and all the cheese inside…CAN WE FIND THIS IN SINGAPORE?!!! NTD439 + 10% service charge per person – coffee, can drinks, variety of desserts and Häagen-Dazs ice cream! Definitely worth the money, HAHAHA!

1930: Roamed around XMD for a couple of hours before finally heading back to the hotel to SLEEP.

Day 2 (28 March 2011, Monday)

Hired a private guide, Mr Xu 許先生 (+886 933 920 845) for a day trip to the North-East part of Taipei, NTD3000 for 3 persons. He drives a Toyota Wish and introduced Taiwan’s history during the journey.

0930: Set off from our hotel to Yehliu 野柳, which took us about an hour to reach. Nice place and scenery, a little too commercialized though.

1300: Set off from Yehliu to Jiufen 九份 (can’t believe it started raining once we went on the car). So once again, it was pouring while we were walking along the shops in Jiufen. Holding an umbrella and taking care of our cameras kind of hindered us from buying lots of things there. Wasted!

1500: Mr Xu drove us around to Golden Waterfall 黃金瀑布, Yinyang Sea 陰陽海 and Keelung 基隆. Unfortunately, it was still raining and all the places we went were almost just “touch and go”. But we were told that there are frequently rains in these areas.

1700: Miaokou Night Market, our final destination of the day. Had some local food, my favourite has to be the fried sotongs! Actually, nothing too special about it, but it was just…nice, not too “rubbery”.

2030: And finally, back to the hotel!

Day 3 (29 March 2011, Tuesday)

1130: Took the bus from Shilin station to the National Palace Museum. A good place for those who are into Chinese history, arts and culture. Just didn’t like the huge tour groups who were talking really loudly in the museum, they spoiled the tranquility of the place. :@

1500: Back to Shilin for our late lunch. Ordered their normal and kimchi-flavoured 鍋貼 and fishball soup. Oh man, they were delicious! Cheap and good, will definitely go there for their 鍋貼. (Indeed, we went again on our last day!)

1600: Headed to Danshui for the sunset, wheeeeee! We then took a 10-minute ferry ride to 漁人碼頭 for NTD100 (round trip).

1700: Waited and waited for the sunset…

2000: Took the MRT to Jiantan station and headed to Shilin Night Market! Crowded and huge place. Had the famous 超大炸雞排 (which was quite normal to me), 阿宗面綫(same one as the one in Ximending) and CHEEEEEESY POTATO!

The night market has lots of illegal stores too. It was quite funny to see them pushing their carts away frantically when the policemen were on their rounds, and they would appear again shortly after that, then escape again……and the circle continues… HAHAHA!

Day 4 (30 March 2011, Wednesday)

1030: Went to Longshan Temple 龍山寺. Kind of different way of praying from the one we go in Singapore.

1130: Shopping at Shinkong Matsukoshi. Unfortunately, the things there were not to my liking.

1430: Shopping at Zhongxiao Fuxing 忠孝復興. There are 2 buildings there, Zhongxiao branch (more high-ended stuff) and Fuxing branch, so of course we went to the latter lah. Again, besides looking for Onitsuka Tiger, nothing much for me to shop. Actually regretted not making use of the spare time to go to Ashin’s StayReal store which was one station away.

1700: Returned to Ximen, rested and headed out to Carrefour which was only a 10-minute walk from our hotel. Bought a few packs of cup noodles and my dad was already complaining that we bought too much. (In the end we had to ration them when we came back. Next time we gonna buy cartons back okay!)

1930: Walked to Ximending to look for my OT shoes! Almost gave up trying to locate the store, but luckily my dad insisted on looking for it since we were already had Google Maps (which is quite outdated). SO WE FINALLY FOUND THE STORE AFTER WALKING FOR 2 HOURS! Major damage to my wallet, but worth it.

Day 5 (31 March 2011, Thursday)

1100: Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall 國父紀念堂. They have change of guards every hour, and the whole ceremony took 15 minutes. Just notice the cracks on the tiles…LOL!

1300: Took cab to Taipei Medical University where Mr. J restaurant was located at. Knowing that we are foreigners, the female cab driver took us the long way and drove us into some crowded markets and extended the journey, which costs NTD 150. (As a tourist who doesn’t know your way, be prepared to spend this kind of money. @#$%^&*!)

Each of us ordered the set lunch (soup+garlic bread, main course, coffee/tea). The food was not bad and the portion was quite big. Total bill was NTD 550, which is only about SGD8+ per person! Cheap cheeeaaappp! Definitely not a fan of Jay Chou, but I’ll go back for their set lunch again. Hiak!

1400: Took cab again to the Xinyi’s branch Eslite bookstore. Deepest impression of the place? Their super atas restrooms! Even cubicles are automated. LOL!

1600: Headed to Wufenpu 五分埔 where it’s well-known for fashion goods at low prices. Eeeps, the clothes there are not really to my liking. Too small, too fanciful, too girlish…it’s just me lah. Hur hur… After an hour of fruitless shopping, we went into a shop that sells really nice and good quality tops, and we found out that they actually imported them from Korea. No wonder that shop just looks different! HAHAHA! Can’t believe we actually bought 4 pieces of shirts for NTD4,000 in that shop. We quickly ended our shopping in case we went cashless there. LOL!

1730: Went to Raohe Night Market. I actually like it there because the stalls are much more organized than the ones in Shilin.

1930: Took the train from Songshan Train Station and changed back to the MRT at Taipei Train Station. One station only, we also must try. Hehehe, too bad we didn’t have the time to try their High Speed Rail.

Day 6 (1 April 2011, Friday)

1200: Check out from our hotel and headed to Shilin for the 鍋貼 again! This time we ordered the curry-flavoured ones and we like them even more! Definitely one of the food in Taiwan I miss right now.

1300: Last minute shopping along the underground mall from Taipei Main station to Zhongshan station.

1630: Back to TS Hotel where the driver we hired would send us to the airport in his black Merc.

0030: Landed in Singapore and the first thing that came to my mind was “WEATHER SO HOT!!!” Yeah, definitely miss their cool weather there. (We were told that it was the first time in 40 years that the temperature was still so cold in March! Lucky us!)

I’m glad that my parents love the trip, even my dad said that the whole family would go again after my two sisters complete their major exams!