Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Taipei Trip part 1

Whee....

Part1 of my super anticipated trip to Taiwan!!! Glad that I made the trip even though it made me 3.5k or more poorer....

We boarded the plane on 16/04/20 at KLIA to Taouyuan, Taipei, at 3.20pm via EVA Air. The air fare costs about RM772. Not sure what the normal rates are but I think it's ok.....as long as the flight is comfortable and you're provided with all the extra stuffs without having to pay extra.

It's a good thing that we didn't get Air Asia because for such a long flight....almost 5 hours, you really need some in-flight entertainment, blanket, pillow and hot food to make the journey more comfortable. Plus you don't have to worry about getting lousy seats because EVA Air sends you an itenary which included all the necessary information such as flight details, travel tips and seat number! Oh and we get 23kg for baggage instead of only 15kg.

There were supposed to be 8 of us on this trip but unfrotunately 1 couldn't make it and there goes his ticket! So I ended up with an extra empty seat next to me during the flight. Or else 8 of us would have occupied the entire row of 8 seats.

I love in flight entertainments esp. movies. Managed to watch Kaiji and bits of Avatar. Kaiji was a bad choice as it was scary and I started imagining bad things on the flight!!! haahaa......

I was so happy when the food arrived because it was getting cold and I was getting hungry.

"Chicken or Fish?"

"erm...fish??"


...and it turned out to be curry fish. haahaa......but not bad because I love caramel puddings....

Yes food is always better than No food....

Here's the chicken one.....

Realising that I'm now of age to drink alcohol......I immediately asked for red wine. It's not that I like alcohol.....but just for the fun of it. Lol.....Luckily I had a fellow drinker next to me!

Cheers!!!


Anyways I don't like red wine because of the bitter taste but it did help warm me up.

I soon found out that I couldn't use my phone when we landed. Sigh~ I also forgot if I was able to use my phone or not when I last visited Brunei with the same sim card.

The line for international tourists was super long!!!!! But the immigration officers were still managed to put on a nice smile when it was my turn and they can speak englishh well~

We bought bus tickets for NT160 which included return nus tickets to Taipei Main Station and from there we took train to Guting for only NT20.

I immediately realised that taiwan has a lot of mini marts esp. 7/11. During my short bus ride, I must have seen at least 20 7/11. Another thing I realised was that they have so many petrol stations own by different companies. Plus they have many tiny shops, as in really tiny..., along the road with huge glass walls facing the road. And inside, you can see 1/2 girls sitting there, doing something......erm...nail art shops?? or tailor???

Taiwan has really good public transport system. It's just like Japan, everything's underground and they have several types including shinkansen. Even the ticket machine resembles those in Japan.

The train stations are clean and tourists friendly with hanyu pinyin or english signs. They have even have maps at every exit so that you know you're exciting from the right exit and how to proceed from there.

The only things that were different from here was that they use fake plastic coins with computer chips in them instead instead of paper tickets. It's so easy to misplace them because they're so tiny and shaped just like a 20cents coin except for the fact that they're blue. Oh, and in Taiwan....."slow folks on the right please!" haaha.....I'm so used to standing on the left!!!

Plus we're travelling with our huge luggages. I had to make sure that my luggage stays right behind me when I'm on the escalator.....so that I won't block anyone and I had to do it fast!!!

Every where we went, we were probably the noisiest bunch because 7 of us....dragging 9 luggages as we walked on the streets on Taipei at night.

Was super happy when we arrived at the backpackers place but no one answered the door. We saw an enveloped stuck to the door with 1 of the guy's name written on it, opened it and found keys plus instructions to the rooms on it.

How nice of the person!!! Ain't she worried that some thief might take the keys instead? At that moment, I thought, "wow....Taiwan is really safe". haaha.... We walked up the dark scary stairs and tried the keys on different floors before we called the person and found out that it was on the second floor, haaha...we thought it was the whole building!!!

Dumped our stuffs there and went to the night market, located just right behind the Chocolate Box!!! yea~~~ I was starving by then.....

Even before we crossed the street to the Shida night market, I could smell this......



huu...it's was my first time smelling it. It smelled better than expected but I still dare not try it!

Instead I tried delicious takoyaki's, yummy hot steamed dumplings, hot peppery squid soup and CREPES!!!




Even though it was midnight, the place was still packed and we did manage to shop a bit for leggings, bangles, earrings, socks etc.

Before leaving, how could we not visit their 7/11 to get some snacks first??? Calpis drinks!!! here I come!!

Here's our room...it has 4 bunk beds! I slept at the lower compartment on the right. Bad choice!!!! Sun rises at 5.15.....and gah.....I can't sleep with the sun glaring!!! This bed has got to be the hardest bed I ever slept on!!!! But the comforters were super soft and fluffy!!!!

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