Taipei Travel Blog

NEW POST: 10 DAYS IN TAIWAN

7 days in Taipei and I'm back! (a long time ago though!)

I apologize because I haven't had the time to sit down and finish typing this blog post. I'm getting ready for school (with all the administrative things to do and the camps to attend!).

Ok, so the initial plan for our Taiwan trip was to visit Kaohsiung for 2 days before travelling to Taipei for the next 5 days. Unfortunately, the week before we flew off, there were floods in Kaohsiung (TYPHOON!!!). So we cancelled our hotels and booked 2 more extra nights in our Taipei hotel! :)

So sit back and relax while reading this post! It's a rather LONG post :)

We took Tiger Airways from Singapore to Taoyuan Airport. We're on a tight budget so we kind of found the cheapest air tickets that could get us to Taiwan.

It was my first time on a budget airline! :) And I pretty much starved myself during the 5 hours flight. Was saving my stomach for the food in Taiwan! :)

Upon arrival, two of my friends' luggage were damaged. Unfortunately, since Tiger is pretty much a budget airline, there were no replacements for the luggage. We had to claim it from our own travel insurance.

Ok, here's some things you need to look out for while you're at the airport! :)

1. It's true that you might get better money exchange rates in the airport over at Taoyuan. (for SGD)

2. If you're intending to get a phone card in Taiwan, you better bring along your IC. They need both your IC and passports.

3. If you're a youth (technically it means <30 years old), do flash your passport at the tourism counter to get your youth card. The youth card will get you plenty of discounts around Taiwan! :)

We hopped on the KuaKuang bus from Taoyuan airport to Taipei main station for only NT$125.

The bus tickets can be bought a level down the arrival hall.

We kind of missed our stop at Ambassador hotel so we took the bus to Taipei main station instead -.- The bus driver claimed to have called out for our stop but I'm positive he didn't.

At Taipei main station!

So we took a cab down to our hotel (YOMI hotel) which only cost us NT$95.

The hotel room was better than expected! We had the family room so it was really spacious :)

Since we haven't had any food for the past 7 hours, we decided to travel down to a night market to grab some food! :)

Our train tickets! :)

And we traveled down to Shida Night Market.

We had street food for our dinner. Mainly the 大腸包小腸 (Small Sausage in Big Sausage). It's a sausage wrapped in glutinous rice sausage. And it was really filling. Our 大腸包小腸 came along with a free drink :3

This is a glutinous ball with meat in it (i think). I can't really remember what it was but it was yummy :)

Along the way fromt he MRT station to Shida night market, there's this place that sells handmade meat buns. There was a queue when we walked past it so we decided to give it a try.

Look at how big the bun was! :3 Plus it's like a bun with xiaolongbao's meat in it. So it was really delicious. I would buy a hundred home if that was possible.

Pretty uneventful first day if you asked me. I personally didn't like Shida Night Street much.

Next day, we had breakfast at our hotel :)

We took a train down to 新店 (XinDian). The plan was to travel down to 烏來 (WuLai) :)

After alighting from the train, we hopped on the bus 849 down to WuLai. It was a really rocky route and we had so much fun trying to keep ourselves rooted to the bus.

After the 40 minutes bus ride, we arrived at WuLai! Instead of visiting the Wulai waterfall, our cab driver recommended us to visit the Nei-Dong National Forest Park. So we hopped on the cab and he drove us up to Nei-Dong.

There was a fee to enter the park but I can't really remember how much! :3 But one thing I do know is that it wasn't expensive~

We had to walk quite a bit but the main purpose of coming to Nei-Dong was to see its waterfalls. Nei-Dong has 3 levels of waterfalls and be prepared for some climbing!

The first level!

Onward to the next two levels!

At the top! :3

One thing to take note is to make sure you get the cab driver's number so you can call him to fetch you down after walking in the park because you won't get cabs coming all the way up there. Our cab driver gave us his number and we got the ticket counter to call him up after walking.

In the cab back to 烏來老街 (Wulai Old Street) and passing by Wulai waterfall.

Taiwanese sausages!! :D

Mango almond pudding!

Black sesame almond pudding!

And we went to some random restaurant for our lunch! :)

Bamboo rice :D

Small fried shrimps :D

DELICIOUS vegetables. I would have this everyday if I could.

We would totally have went for hot spring in WuLai but the weather was scorching hot.

After lunch, we made our way back to Taipei city.

Say Hello to my Hello Kitty shirt :3

We made our way to 五分埔 (WuFenPu) @ 後山埤 (HouShanPi) Station.

I didn't understand why people could say WuFenPu was such a shopping paradise. So little appealed to me. I just remembered buying lots of necklaces there. I didn't like how the clothes were displayed so I didn't really get much there.

After walking around WuFenPu, we moved towards 饒合街光觀夜市 (RaoHe Street Night Market).

Before that, bubble tea!

At RaoHe Street Night Market!

Right at the entrance, they have this really long line of people queuing for this meat bun. You can see how the buns are roasted from the picture!

While waiting for my friend to queue for the bun, I got my favourite! :3

I ate this the day before and will probably be eating this the next few days in Taiwan too!

Our dessert!

Can I express how much fun I had walking down RaoHe Street Night Market?!

Next day we decided to head down to XinBeiTou!

We alighted at XinBeiTou and made our way to the Hot Springs Museum.

The weather was killing us so we decided to seek shelter in the air conditioned room.

And then we moved towards the Thermal Valley, stopping by to dip our feet into the hot spring water.

We hesitated about going to the BeiTou Thermal Valley. It's a really warm day, ok?!

But we still made our way there!

Trying to tolerate the immerse heat that was emerging from the thermal valley (along with the strong sulphuric smell)

After baking in the hot sun, we decided to make our way to 西門町 (XiMenDing ) for lunch/dinner!

Pop by my favourite retail outlet, uniqlo! :)

We tried looking for restaurants with buffet promotions but they were all barbeque buffets!

We settled at 熊一燒烤 (Xiong Yi Shao Kao) for our meal. It was rather price-worthy in my opinion! :)

Looking at the food now makes me so hungry!

So they had one pot for steamboat and the other side for barbeque. But the best part was that there were free-flow of ice-cream!

I would really highly recommend this place.

Before leaving Xi Men Ding, we decided to do up a clay model of ourselves! :3

We were extremely exhausted so we hit the sacks immediately after we reached our hotel!

The next day, we decided to embark on a journey to 陽明山國家公園 (Yang Ming Shan National Park). A kind Taiwanese local recommended us to explore the park and commented on its beautiful scenery.

We hopped on bus 260 near our hotel to the place. But, you can hop on RED 5 at 士林 (Shi Lin) too! :)

Upon reaching the place (the last bus stop), we had to hop on another bus to travel around the entire Yang Ming Shan area. For NT$60, we could take the bus 108 (internal bus service) around the area for unlimited of times. And so we bought the concession!

First stop!

We had to walk a rather long way after alighting the bus to the 陽明書屋.

We hopped on a tour around the 陽明書屋 and it was rather insightful!

But I guess if you're not a really museum or history person, just skip this.

Then, we were told to hop on to the next bus stop 竹子湖 for some lunch. But we skipped it because we realized that we have to walk a long distance in to the restaurant.

We went straight to 小油坑 in the end.

We bought some food and sat beside the place, enjoying the scenery and the food!

Pocari Sweat :)

:) I really enjoyed myself at 小油坑. I've never really seen such a sight before! Sure, the place reeked of sulfuric smell, but it was a really nice first experience here!

Next stop 擎天崗!

Yet another beautiful sight!

It would be so romantic to walk down the entire path :3

And erm... cattle?

We couldn't manage to walk the path because we were rushing to 淡水 to catch the sunset! :)

So we hopped back onto the bus 108 back and then another bus to the nearest train station!

I guess we were a little early!

So much love! :3

:) Afterwards, a walk around the night market and then back to our hotel! :)

The next day was a theme park day! We went to 六福村 Leofu Village Theme Park!

My only say for this would be.... don't bother going.

We didn't enjoy ourselves.

士林夜市 (Shi Lin Night Market) for our night activity! :)

LARGE FRIED CHICKEN!

And we actually ate and shopped a lot!

Our last day in Taipei!

Hopped on to 永康街's 鼎泰豐 (Din Tai Fung)! That's actually recommended by our hotel receptionist!

I guess that's where all the tourists go for some xiao long bao!