Taiwan - 7 Days of fun!

the landscape of Taiwan!~

Day 1:

After much planning and research, our 7 day free and easy holiday in Taiwan had finally came true! Really appreciated how cooling, or cold to be exact, the weather at Taiwan was since it was post-winter, in the Spring season just before Summer. It is that awesome feeling where you get to wear a jacket everywhere you go, even in the sun and yet not sweat at all. Compared to Singapore, the weather there over the full 7 days were just amazing. Touched down in the afternoon and checked in into our inn, which turns out better than we had expected since we had 4 people altogether and they decided to give us one small cosy room to ourselves (a lucky start!)

the view from our inn

in the night!

Evening soon dawned on us, for oversea trips, it is no doubt that the first and the last day will be cut short due to arrival time and stuff like that so we didn't plan much to explore on the first day, just chilling out over at the 台北地下街 and prepare ourselves for the exciting days over the week. The whole underground shopping street was so long that it stretched over 3 MRT stations, covering almost all the goods that you might want to find, including books, food, apparels, bags etc and even games and anime stuff could be found in the stretch of shops. Each of them were carefully categorised depending on which part of the shopping street you are at, and each group focuses on a general certain range of products. It is a convenient and rather accessible shopping street so spending a few hours there is definitely worth it.

streets of Taipei

台北地下街

Day 2:

After a good night's rest, it was time to head to our main location of the day, 北投, the home of hotsprings.

even their MRT station is special!

There was a fixed timing for a bathing slot in the hotsprings, possibly due to post maintenance or mild cleaning of the bathes. We planned to get ourselves in near the mid afternoon so we spent the rest of the morning over at the various museums around, such as the cultural museum and the hot spring museum.

We later headed over to this spot called the 地热谷, which was the source of the hot springs in the area. It was pretty amazing to see how much steam was actually generated by the heat of the hot spring water, even the drains in the area were giving out steam as they flow down the roads.

fuming drains along the streets

beautiful interior design of the museum

that steam O__O

On the first thought upon stepping into the hot spring waters (which was also my first time going into a hot spring), was that the water was EXTREMELY HOT. It just feels like you are bathing at home and you turn your home heater all the way to the other side, and that was practically what I felt when I entered the waters. It wasn't a good idea to just use your feet to test the water which some other guy did and got told off by the staff there, so we just headed to the lowest temperature of the 3 "pool" which was roughly 35-40 degrees and just went straight in, to the center, sit down, and let our own bodies get acclimatised to the heat. It wasn't that difficult and soon, as long as you don't keep moving your body around, the heat becomes bearable up to a point where you actually start to feel relaxed in the waters. We later started to alternate between the hot and cold baths before finally heading into the medium level hot spring which was already hot enough to deter us from testing out the final highest level hot spring. 

Headed to 新市街 and then to 士林夜市 to fill our stomach with all those famous foodstuffs such as 臭豆腐 and 炸鸡排. I would say that even though the smelly beancurd definitely holds a strong pungent smell, it does however taste rather nice together with its crispy outer skin mixed with a special sauce that makes it such a smelly yet tasty delicacy. There wasn't much of a difference of the crispy chicken over at Taiwan as compared to Singapore's (well except the price that is) but one thing that was really good was their fried mushrooms which although were a little too salty but nonetheless tasty to eat. 

smelly tofu!

Day 3:

Woke up extremely early for the 3rd day as we have a long way to travel by bus to 九分 (Jiufen), which was the location that was taken as a study material for the famous animated film "Spirited Away". Even the teahouse there was the one that Chihiro had worked at throughout the film. After walking along the old streets and hidden staircases that lead to even more areas, Jiufen is a place that spending half a day (like us) wasn't quite enough. We managed to find the teahouse rather quickly too and popped ourselves in, took a table with an outside view and chilled out while drinking the tea that was served there.

beautiful teahouse!~

the view from our seats

and of course, the tea itself :3

Other foodstuff over at Jiufen includes the yam balls and the peanut ice cream wrap:

The rest of the day was then dedicated to 五分铺 and 饶河夜市, which turns out to be an apparel shopping district (which we got most of our clothing supplies from) and another amazing night market with their wide variety of food. The Raohe night market was easily the best night market to me, with not just its easy-to-walk lanes but the feel and the food there just makes it more classic as compared to Shilin's where everything has been so modernized that it doesn't feel quite right to call it exactly a night market but a shopping district instead. 

one of the best deals for apparel shopping!

best night market woo~

very interesting desert, worth a try!

And of course, not forgetting the iconic Taipei 101. Was a little disappointed at how the building was lighted up, there might be a more "shinier" lighting early in the night so perhaps we were a little too late on arriving at the tower so it just looks like a normal office tower from the outside. It was still a majestic sight to see after all these time I've only seen this tower in the news on new year day shooting out fireworks from the sides :D

Taipei 101!

Day 4:

Yet another long bus ride all the way to Ruifang Train Station and the highlight of the day was the "One-Day Pingxi Line Tour". It is a stretch of old train stations where each station have their own things to see and things to do, moreover for these stations, the streets are just right beside the train tracks so walking across the tracks is a common thing to do. Pretty new experience and of course, there are some "must-see" or "must-do" stuff over at this stretch of train stations.

a special train that operates just within the Pingxi line

If I'm not wrong there is a total of 9 stations along the whole Pingxi line, and the 4 more prominent ones are Shifen, Pingxi, Qingtong and Houtong. For both Shifen and Pingxi, these 2 stations have shops that allow you to release Sky Lanterns of your own. You could choose between a normal 1 colour type sky lantern, or a multi-colour one, where each colour actually represents a certain meaning like wealth or education etc. Basically you just have to write down wishes on every side of the lantern (whether or not you decide to follow the meaning of the colours is up to one's own discretion), and then you get to stand in the middle of the tracks and watch as your sky lantern soar into the sky, carrying your wishes with it. With us having released ours in Shifen, I would personally prefer to do it there rather than at Pingxi since the longer stretch of streets beside the tracks in Shifen makes it a much better sight to see rather than in Pingxi.

up, up and away!

Honestly, this stretch of streets really did remind my of Jiufen and having only half a day to explore the line wasn't quite enough too. The ticket that you would get entitles you to a limitless ride along the line itself but the train arrival time is roughly fixed and the interval was about 1 hour. Which would mean that if you had miss a train just slightly, you would have to wait up to an hour before catching the next one. This would also mean that if you wish to visit multiple stations within a short time, basically you can only spend up to 45 minutes per station to make it in time for the next train. As a result, we didn't quite explore much at Pingxi station, only managed to grab some bites there before heading to the next station. Pingxi's old street was very similar to that of Jiufen and the foodstuff there are great too, just find those with queues and you'll find yourselves eating some amazing food that you've never seen elsewhere (well, it was true for us)

meat + veg + flour fried stick. pretty awesome

Our 3rd station that we headed to was Qingtong, had a stretch of foodstalls as well but this time we had a goal in mind and headed straight there, which was to hang up these bamboo wish notes along the train station itself. I mean why not double up after the sky lantern and do this as well? After all it was something new and definitely something that we can't do back in Singapore. So there we went, sat down, fumbled our heads for the wishes in mind, wrote them down and up on the fence they go! With that, we get ready to head to our last station: Houtong.

we're done!

Our last station, Houtong, is called the Cat Village, because apparently, the train station's vicinity are flooded with cats. It wasn't exactly flooded when we got there, but more specifically, there are indeed quite a number of cats over at that area. The view from the station was beautiful too, coupled with their high bridge that gives you a view from above. 

nyaaaaan~~

view from the top of a bridge!

What's a night in Taiwan without a night market?! And for that night, it wasn't just one, but two night markets that we were heading to, just that it turns out that one was less interesting than we had expected. Both the Gongguan yeshi and the Shida yeshi were quite close to each other, of walkable distance in fact, just that the Shida night market was a little too hidden for us, since we decided to take a shortcut instead of walking along the main road. Gongguan night market was a little disappointing in terms of its size, it was only 2 small stretch of roadside stalls, but it was mainly a food focused night market. Got to eat some awesome crepe too which was filling enough despite it's small serving size. Shida night market on the other hand was more apparel focused and boy, getting there wasn't as easy. We decided to take a shortcut into the night market but we soon find ourselves in the middle of dark streets and after figuring out our exact location, we decided to turn into a even dimmer lit street and after some time, we finally saw the lights coming from Shida. The night market was more specifically targeting the girls since most shops were selling girls clothing, (for most night markets this was the case, but for Shida it is exceptionally so). Didn't spend much time there and went back earlier, for once, and had a good long rest after those 2 hectic days. Into day 5 we go!

spicy chicken + veg filled crepe :3

Day 5:

This day was kind of considered as a recovery day for us, after waking up very early in the morning the past two days just to catch our bus to Jiufen and Pingxi. It was about time too, that we visited the Taiwan National Museum which was just opposite the inn that we were staying. A pity too that its exterior structure was under renovation but nonetheless the inside was beautiful. The interior building style did seem like our Singapore National Museum too, perhaps all national museums do have the similar interior design?

:O

Spent the rest of the morning at the museum before moving on to the famous shopping district: Ximending. 

The first thought that came into my mind when we reached Ximending was "eh? Bugis Junction?" It was THAT similar in terms of its shop placements. Most of the shops there were selling branded goods and stuff, for the main street that is, and after some hunting, we finally found the dessert shop that we wanted to go to.

easily the best snow ice I've eaten there!

It is called the 幸春三兄妹豆花, definitely a must-try if you are in that area! 

Headed out to the side streets of Ximending and that's where I found one of the few Animate shops in Taiwan. Turns out to be a whopping 2 storey shop too. It houses mangas, novels, CDs, singles, doujins and even merchandises of many variety. I would honestly say the shop itself has even more things to see compared to 2 AFA booths combined (inclusive of MUSE too). This was the place where I practically spent a bomb at (cmon, they were real cheap man :X) and with that bit of shopping done, we head on to the Longshan temple and Huaxijie night market.

Amazing building design both in terms of its exterior and interior. Even the walls and the ceiling were amazingly sculpted (I don't have photos on the inside of the temple so sorry about that :X). It was a pretty big temple too so we did spend a longer time here as compared to the other temples that we've went by.

night market once again!

Apparently there was another night market just beside Huaxijie, which was called the Monga Night Market and there, was where we spent the majority of our time, eating, drinking and playing those roadside stall games because apparently Huaxijie was just "empty". It just didn't feel much of a night market at all, but rather just a bland mix of stalls lining up beside each other in a 1st-floor-style Chinatown building that you'd see in Singapore. Nothing much to do there and we just walked through it once and off we go. Day 6 was arriving and boy am I excited :D

Day 6:

high speed rail!

Say hello to the Taiwan High Speed Rail! We had planned to go somewhere far, away from Taipei for one day and having decided to go to Tainan, taking the high speed rail would be the fastest way to travel and save on the journey time too. It was a 1hr 40+min train ride on the high speed rail, it wasn't a bullet train in particular but it did went to rather high speeds and seeing the landscape of Taiwan flash by, it was a neat experience overall. The seats in the train were a little too hard though, thankfully the ride wasn't that long since it wasn't exactly comfortable sitting in those seats. 

the max was 238km/h!

Tainan was mainly a place for tourist to visit historical sites, old buildings and even famous statues that we coincidentally spotted. We were most unfamiliar with the buses around at Tainan, google map did help of course, but the timing from point A to B were a little off (since I think google map did factor in the waiting time of the bus which was like 40mins) and coupled with our lack of sleep over the past night, we ended up sleeping through the entire bus ride around Tainan and wounded ourself back at the station. Thankfully the whole ride was less than an hour, so on we go again on the same bus and finally we reached out first destination, The Eternal Golden Castle. 

cannoooooooooons

Do note that all the historical sites / attractions in Tainan have similar looking admission ticket and fees so its cool to collect them all haha. The Eternal Golden Castle is an old fort back in the olden days being used to defend against invaders. Looks somewhat similar to Fort Canning too. The cannon replicas there are really huge though :P

this was hugeeee! O___O

En route to our next location, we chanced upon this huge statue of 林默娘. The view from the garden too was amazing. It is quite hard to miss out on this statue once you're heading towards Anping so do take a look if you're there. 

Our next destination was 天后宫, honestly all their temple designs in Taiwan are all so detailed. Especially the interiors as well, but same as the Longshan temple, I do not have photos of its interior.

the view from the top is awesome!

Next was the Anping Old Fort. Similar use as the Eternal Golden Castle where instead the previous had a moat around it as compared to the Anping Old Fort. Definitely a must-go-up to the viewing tower where even though it doesn't look that high, you can practically get a beautiful 360 degree view from up there! 

even the windows are all labelled!

Oh, you could spot part of the 林默娘 statue from up there too, that's just how huge the statue is!

luckily we went here when it's still bright :X

The Anping Tree House was last on our list for the historical sites. It wasn't exactly a kind of tree house that you see being perched on top of a tree but rather a house being swarmed over by trees and branches and with the top platforms making it more like a classic tree house that we have always thought it looks like. Pretty lot of low branches hanging around with signs cautioning about the danger of hitting your head too. Some areas are not as well lit as the rest and they do look a little spooky too, so it could be a daring experience if you decide to come here at night (not sure if they still open at that time, nor how well lit it is gonna be)

And finallyyyyyyyy we head to our final highlight of the whole trip itself:

sunset viewing platform!!!

Had been looking forward to this spot for very long and unfortunately, it was cloudy that evening, up to the point where we can't actually see the sunset at all. Well at least the horizon into the sea was epic enough, just that it was really a pity that I couldn't catch a proper sunset at all :/

into the seaaaa

Beautiful way to end the day with as we took our last high speed rail back to Taipei. Managed to get a cup of one of the best bubble tea I've drank in Taiwan so far too. It's near to the Tainan train station (not the high speed rail station)

you can already smell the aroma by just walking past!

Day 7:

On the last day, we quickly checked out of our inn after a loooong rest from returning from Tainan, went back to the Taipei underground shopping street to do some last minute shopping (it really is a good place to buy souvenirs / foodstuff etc, since the bus interchange to Taoyuan airport is just above). Spent the rest of the time waiting for the bus on the various arcades there. And I would have to say that Taiwan have a few amazing music arcade machines that we've not seen locally yet. Furthermore they are all loaded with vocaloid songs too! Their Taiko machine even had Senbonzakura in it @_@ 

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And before we know it, we're already on the bus, on the plane, and then back to Singapore once again. Really appreciate you guys for tagging along with me on this trip and assisted in the planning one way or another, making those 7 days really memorable and fun at the same time. So Taiwan's completed, what's next? :P

Oh and here's some interesting things to note in Taiwan:

1. There are very very little dustbins in the streets of Taiwan, even so in the night markets. It was easier for us to find a 7-11 store than a dustbin. Well their 7-11 have dustbins too so yea, it'll be faster if you decide to head to a 7-11 instead.

2. Their 7-11 is just amazing. Lots of food stuff to get at a cheap price. If you spend more than a certain amount there, you can get a couple of stickers and redeem them for certain prizes!

3. Play their claw machine games. Compared to Singapore's, their claw machines are really damn easy in comparison. I did won a couple of soft toys over there so definitely worth a try!

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till our next trip! :D