This is the first free-&-easy trip I went with my family, which is quite cool cos I can foresee we can get to spend more time walking the places we want and take out own sweet time to stroll about rather than having to continuously check our watches in case the time's up to proceed to another destination. Of course, the bane of it means we don't get many "promotion prices" which the tour agency can get huge discounts in bulk purchase. Nevertheless, it's a good experience and the prices aren't thaaat expensive too (considering we will spend the money we save giving tips to the guides if we follow a tour). So with that said, the time has come to begin the liberty trip! whee~
I really like shots from the airplane windows. The skies are always so blue and peaceful, and I think my blue camera takes really nice pictures as seen from above. *heh heh heh*
Of course, after reaching the airport, it was the grab-as-many-maps-&-info-booklets-as-you-can time =P There were a selection of maps there but I think these maps are also available (and sometimes in more details) at the places of interest themselves. Best will be take the maps of places you will be visiting only. The maps of other places will always be there when you're catching a flight back (and in a whole nice piece too).
We got a phone plan for the days we were there too. The plan was quite affordable and we got wireless everywhere we went for our trip (good as we relied loads on google map).
As my sis and I are students, we went to the info desk to "collect" (you have to request) our student tokens. It's a key chain like thingy which allows you to have discount if you flash them at certain places, but we forgot to do so for the whole trip! So disappointing the discounts wasted! Must go back to get those discounts man.
Note to self: always remember to keep flashing student token no matter where I go
Also, before going to taiwan, always remember to visit the taiwan embassy in Singapore as they will provide some souvenirs (like Metro Easy cards + brochures) by showing the confirmed plane tix (my sisters went to collect it before we went).
Okay, so moving on, we took an airport bus to Taoyuan high speed rail (HSR).
Cost: NT$30
Board from: platform 12
Duration: quite fast really, we didn't really notice the time passing cos we were busy being touristy (snapping photos that is) heh heh...below are the evidences:
Saw this very nice sticker on the windows of the bus. It's nice enough to deserve a snap *click*. I don't really understand what it is about though, but I find it interesting =)
Coincidentally, if u noticed on the background of the above pic is a very unique bridge, which is co-coincidentally blue too! This particular blue has a very olden feel to it, so i got an arty instinct and *tada* (see below):
Hahas, I know v random =P but that's what you do when you're travelling on a public bus for the first time . Everything looks amazing from the bas-side ;)
So when we reached the HSR, we were all rather hungry. But....we have a train to catch! What to do?
Buy the food and hop onto the train.
Yep! the HSR in taiwan allows passengers to bring food on, even soup-based food! cool right! Eating on the platform never felt so shuang and fear-less.
Cost: forgot but totally worth it! should buy more.
From: 7-11 Convenience store
From: 7-11 Convenience store
Yup, that's our lunch. Should have bought more cos we weren't sure if they really allowed food and and we only buy a few to 'test waters'.
So here's how the HSR looks like! Looks like a future auto-mobile.
Cost: NT$540
Duration to Taichung HSR: 40mins
Continuing on, we had a distance to travel to our hotel. Actually, we could have saved the bus fee from this HSR to our hotel if we were just 1 day ahead in booking the free shuttle bus the hotel provides for it's customers. As we had to arrive at the hotel on the day itself, the hotel employee said it was impossible for us to get a lift and so, we had to take public bus and pay.
Note to self: always remember to book free shuttle if there is! another discount wasted.
So public travelling in taichung can mostly be paid with the Easy Cards (given by embassy or buying for NT$100 deposit). There's this bus no.15 that is a free shuttle to taichung central from the HSR. We got there by going the 6 exit at the HSR, which we have to take an escalator down after tapping out of the gates. The customer service people there are rather friendly and they are always willing to help whenever we ask them.
Cost: Free!
Duration: longer than taking bus no.82
Duration: longer than taking bus no.82
If we took bus no.15, we will reach a garden but it will still be a distance from our hotel. Some cab-drivers wandering the bus interchange then advised us to go with bus no.82 instead. They said no.82 goes nearer to our hotel and it only cost NT$28. Seeing that we had quite a heavy luggage to haul, we decided to go with the driver's suggestion. (Wow! drivers in taichung are friendly man.) But of course, they gave the namecards and asked us to patronize them for future travelling purposes. I mean, if they are intending to ask customers hire them with their make-you-feel-oblige-cause-they-helped-you tactic, it's really working on me cause I had the "i'll definitely hire you tml" thought. Luckily we didn't, because the post-bus ride walk was really loooong! shessh you cabbies -.-
Cost: NT$20+ with Easy Card
Duration: 10-20 mins
Duration: 10-20 mins
Yep, the buses looked very old-school too. Feels like going back in time, but it was a really good feeling. The bus drivers are really friendly too, and almost all the passengers said their thanks when they alighted except for a few ah lians ah bengs youths (what is the younger generation getting to). After we alighted a the taichung central, we should have changed to another bus to out hotel because it was a long + heavy walk to the hotel with so many signboards hanging around and not knowing what to look for. It's really impt to ask around because (don't worry) the people there are friendlier than you expect and also, even if they're not willing, they give u a "rough" answer anyways.
Sooo, we finally arrived at our hotel (for 2 nights). Luckily it looked not bad and the amenities were okay. The lift was small but acceptable as it fitted all of us. Our room was just outside the lift (or you can say the lift is just outside our room). We shared a family room with 2 big beds but 1 toilet (toilet is a very impt factor in my hotel choice). The toilet has a bathtub and it was clean but it would be better if we had 2 toilets instead because waiting for 1 user is quite different from waiting for 3 users. Anyhow, we survived =) haha.
Convenience: Not bad, just beside a busstop
I noticed the day last v short because by 530pm, ther skies are already dark. We quickly made our way to the first night market for our journey: yizhong night market. It's quite near our hotel, just a few bus stops down. Boarding any bus outside the hotel will get you there I think.
We saw a watermelon juice stall. What is so interesting about watermelon leh? As seen in the following picture, the watermelon shape is oval one! More like winter melon right...
My parents bought the watermelon juice (the usual -and only- juice I drink in school). But i resisted, because I know that coming to taiwan, the only drink to go for will be: the legendary bubble tea!
Yup yup! The stall I bought the drink from is stated as above on the cup in Chinese It wasn't as nice as I've expected. But maybe its the taste-difference between locals & foreigners because the stall had a queue which i decided to join (yep, still as Singaporean even when overseas).
We were really hungry by the time and didn't know what to eat, so we randomly stopped by one stall and ordered whatever that was there. It was made up of 2 mini-stalls really: one that looks like a kway chap stall and another that looks like a dim sum stall. The dim-sum woman wasn't really friendly and she told us sternly to go back to our seats for a few times (cause we're not sure how the payment + speaking works there). The next order was better at the "kway-chap-like" stall because we just ordered like back at home.
The bottom-left corner shows the chicken cutlet we bought on the streets. It had a really long queue too, but I don't really fancy it as it was wet & soggy (their specialty I guess). We also bought waffles (bottom right pic) but we left them till the next day before eating them (too full from getting random street food), and as expected, they didn't taste good. haha.
We stayed the night at kiwi's.
Day's summary: Taoyuan Airport > Taoyuan HSR > Taichung HSR > Kiwi > Yizhong Street
