Hello! I've finally got the time to start on our 10 days Taiwan trip from 1st - 10th September 2013!
Every posts are gonna be full of pictures & words as I hope these details will help anyone who are heading to Taiwan have a better gauge of what to see/do/bring/, hence please bear with me ya! :)
To start things off, we got our flight tickets from Tiger Airways back in May 2013 when they were having a 1-for-1 promo for all NTUC card members. The prices were the same if we went for just 7 days or 10days, hence we decided to make our money worthwhile by opting for the 10 days duration. We also purchased a 20kg check-in luggage to Taipei and a 30kg check-in luggage back to Singapore. *Do note that Tiger allows combining of luggage(s) hence you don't have to buy for each passenger!*
Total price of air fares ~ S$539.99 / 2 = S$270 each for 10 days with 20kg/30kg check-in luggage.
Another thing that I would like to encourage you to bring along is this Taipei guide book that my friend lent to me! It's like a dummy's guide to Taipei or the holy-taipei101-bible. This book covers cafes, stalls, restaurants, shops from every MRT line. It's really like an adventure trying to locate some of the recommended places listed in the book but the end result?? COMPLETE SATISFACTION for the food and reaching a very short term goal. The bad news is.... I don't know where can this book be purchased as my friend's sister got it from Hongkong and... EVERYTHING IS IN CHINESE. HAHA GOODLUCK.
Oh yes, for girls who (like me) don't intend to shop in Taiwan, these are the amount of clothes I bring over. I actually brought a tad too much though! The only clothing item I bought in Taiwan was 1 paisley skort which can be seen in the later posts)
Here are the list of what I brought (in a snake manner clockwise) :
- 3 dresses *can actually bring 1*
- 2 rompers
- 1 shawl + 1 cardigan
-1 set of basic top + tweed shorts
- 1 set of lace top + denim hws
- 1 set of basic tank top + cotton on skorts
-1 set of houndstooth top + shorts
-1 set of sleep wear
- 1 spaghetti tank to wear under sheer tops / + megagamie digi prints skirt *can omit the skirt*
- 1 set of cream top + cotton on skorts
- 4 extra tops (peplum + tees) *can omit*
We woke up early for our check in at 0655 and thanks to my dad for driving us there! :)
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| Mandatory breakfast shot of Changi Airport's MacBreakfast. |
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| Waiting for our numbers to be called before entering the plane. |
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| Goodbye Singapore! |
We were really lucky to be allocated the emergency exit seats as there were more leg room for us for the 4 hours+ flight without any additional charge.
Touched down at Taoyuan International Airport and the first thing we did was to purchase their Taiwan sim cards! P/s: For easy reference & calculation, every NTD100 is equivalent to SGD4.
When you exit the arrival hall, turn right and walk straight all the way until you see on your right there will be 3 telco counters selling sim cards. I think their 3 teleco's are like Singapore's M1, Singtel and Starhub.
We bought the cards from 台弯大哥大 (Taiwan Da Ge Da) as it was the shortest queue of all but there weren't any hiccups during our 10 days in Taiwan so I would recommend this if the queue is short!
You can choose from the plan depending on how many days you are in Taiwan. We got ourselves a 10 day pass (Plan E) for NTD500 (~S$20) which consists of unlimited data usage and NT100 worth of talk time which is about 10-15minutes? I used that to call home on certain days and to contact our Hualien private guide - Tiffany Chang. Will blog about that more in Day 4!
We had late lunch at their convenience store called Hi-Life located at 1 level below the arrival hall. It'll be better if you take a lift as it leads you directly.
In Taiwan, you will never be hungry as their convenience stores such as 7-11, Hi-Life and Family Mart will leave you spoilt for choice from their instant noodles to their traditional Lok-Lok aka our yongtaufoo to their snacks and majority of the drinks that are not on the shelves anywhere in Singapore. Oh and did I mention that everytime you step into the 7-11 store, you WILL smell their fragrant herbal tea leaves eggs!!! I LOVE IT but because of the first day's herbal eggs purchase, the herbs were not fully absorbed into the eggs, I kinda ate a normal hard boiled egg instead and had a phobia of purchasing another herbal tea egg from any convenience stores.
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| Tea Egg NTD8 + Creamy Chicken Pasta NTD 62 + Honey Red Tea NTD20 = NTD90 (~S$3.80) |
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Taiwan's easy card : 悠游卡 (Youyouka) which is similar to our ez-link card.
The card itself is a non-refundable deposit of NTD100 + we topped up NTD200 value. (~S$12) |
We then took a Freego coach (from Hi-Life walk straight out, turn left and you will see some counters again) to our hotel for NT70 (~S$3) each and the ride lasted us for 2.5hours.
Before you go up the coach the driver or his assistant will pass you a map & guide you to inform you on which stop name to hear and look out for, and when it was the stop for alighting, the driver will call the station name out and we would alight - to then change into another shuttle bus to 西门 (Xi Men) as our hotel is located there.
Inside the shuttle bus!
However from the shuttle bus onwards you'll have to be sure of the roads & buildings as the driver wouldn't be informing you of your station to alight so please refer to your map!
As our hotel
Muzik Hotel is located at 西门 (Xi Men), we alighted at 簏夏 (Lu Xia) and we were really surprised to see that our hotel is just walking distance from the alighting bay!
Our hotel is inside/beside the huge "Miranda" poster. You can also see Just Sleep Hotel which is the green building on the left!
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| Entrance of Muzik Hotel, which is also known as 簏夏(Lu Xia) Hotel. Btw that is the closest "lu" I can get on my keyboard. Their lobby is located on the 5th level and rooms are on the 8th. |
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| The prettiest hotel card I've ever seen! |
As the hotel has a late check-in policy at 3pm, we were not affected by it as we arrived there at around 4.30pm and our rooms were allocated to us within 5mins! It is located 5 minutes away from the local 西门丁 (Xi Men Ding) and the location is really easy to find as it is opposite Just Sleep Hotel and near Xi Men station. Their staffs even helped us with 1 of our luggage and their bed is really huge and comfy! I like that their room is small yet cozy as stepping into the room makes us feel at home. Do note that for our room there are no windows, no cupboards though only 4 hangers provided but our toilet did have a bathtub. Housekeeping was done well too and they also provided complimentary snacks, coke, sprite and mineral water for us everyday. Free wifi is provided too but we didn't use it as we had unlimited 3G data! Their air-con however is hard to be adjusted into your required temperature as it will automatically change by itself (we woke up 1 morning to find that it was 16deg!)
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I'd call this the triple king-sized bed!
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We booked this room online via Agoda and they were having an early bird promotion. We stayed a total of 3 nights there and paid
S$252.70 which amounts to S$84.23 per night! We split the hotel charges among us and each paid S$126.35, which is even cheaper considering we paid S$42.17 for this kinda hotel!
And now.. It's time for dinner at 西门丁 (Xi Men Ding) !
Food #1 : 阿宗面线 (Ah Zong Mian Xian)
阿宗面线 (Ah Zong Mian Xian)
Located at No. 8-1 Emei St, Wanhua District, Taipei City
Opening hours : 1100 - 2230 (Mon-Thurs) & 1100 - 2300 (Fri-Sun)
I couldn't really remember how to get to this stall but if you were to take exit 6 from Ximen Mrt, it will be about a 5-minute walk around the corner.
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| A large bowl costs only NTD60 (~S$2.60) |
Instead of the usual oyster mee sua, they actually served pork intestines and their noodles has a smooth texture to it. Beware of the chili sauce though! Just a tiny spoonful and it was kinda spicy for me.
Food #2 : 葱油饼 (Onion pancake)
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| Onion pancake + cheese ：NTD35 (~S$1.40) |
This stall is just walking distance from Ah Zong Mian Xian and it is actually prata!! But the prata is already mixed with spring onions and we ordered one with additional topping of 1 slice of cheddar cheese. It's really naizeeeeeee when the cheddar melted due to the heat from the pancake and it's crispy as well! Definitely not the usual prata you have in SG. You should give it a try and it's available almost everywhere. *Do note that it would be better to go to the stall that doesn't have many of the pancakes already made as we may not know how long has it been left out in the open. Ours were made fresh!
Ps : Do you know that Cheese in chinese is actually 起士！Haha really direct translation.
Food #3 : White bittergourd with honey from 柠檬屋
This was in the Taiwan guide book but I don't have the exact location as I've already returned the book to my friend. But it's really easy to find!
When you walk towards 豪大鸡排 (Hot Star chicken cutlet), turn to the left, walk straight all the way and you will see the stall.
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| Honey bittergourd : NTD60 (~S$2.60) |
As BunnyBoi has said in his instagram @jxnr : trying this gives you a better understanding of the chinese saying 先甜后苦 (Sweet first, bitter later). You'll taste the sweetness of the honey at first and after swallowing the drink, you will then start to taste the bitterness lingering in your taste buds.
Heading back towards the direction of Hot Star, we couldn't help but be lured by the fragrance of the carrot cake and here comes :
Food #4 : Fried carrot cake from 天天利 (Tian Tian Li)
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| Fried carrot cake : NTD25 (~S$1.06) |
This carrot cake has a very fragrant smell, is chewy on the inside yet crispy on the outside topped with their sweet chili sauce. I also like that it doesn't have much of the flour aftertaste unlike for some carrot cakes that has it.
Next up would another of the highly acclaimed by everyone else who's been to Taiwan :
Food #5 : 起士马铃署 (Prince Cheese Potatoes)
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| Club & Cheese : NTD65 (~S$2.80) |
Their mashed potatoes are really delicious with the generous topping of corns & ham and for cheese lovers, this will be heaven for you as it is submerged in cheese. For myself, I find that the cheese gets a tad too overpowering after a few mouthfuls which made eating the potatoes very... Tiring?
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| MUST BUY BEVERAGE IN TAIWAN!!!! |
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| Almost all of Taiwan's Uniqlo stores are flagship stores. |
I'm finally done with day 1! Yay!! Here's ending this post with our OOTD!
On him:
Top & bottom from Uniqlo x Shoes from Vans
On Myself:
Dress from inhousefashion x Shoes from Bangkok
