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So Day 2 in Taiwan begins...with a big hearty breakfast! Breakfast is the other thing I keep in view while choosing for the hotels. Of course free breakfast will be the best, but free doesn't always mean good (like what we're to experience soon in Taipei). But back to Day 2, the hotel provided a rather good spread of local delights (local breakfast in Taiwan = porridge + side dishes). The place was well kept and there were TVs that showed the daily news updates and stuff. I liked the floss & peanuts (my main side dishes) and also the cold milk tea, although it's kinda weird to drink cold stuff with the porridge but went ahead anyways. It turned out quite good such that it helped in the making of my daily business that I wish to settle before exploring the place ;)

Breakfast: provided. Not bad, replaced punctually!

Next stop is to Yamay theme park in Houli town. Most people tend to visit Leofoo Village theme park but on my lil' sis research, she encouraged us to go Yamay instead - good choice sis! We had planned to take a taxi down because of the long distance as shown on the map. However, after the advice of the information counter at Taichung HSR, we changed and decided to travel by public transport instead. My father wasn't feeling really well so we had plan to cancel the theme park event, which we also contributed to our decision in taking public transport because time weren't the concern already. In the end, we took a bus from outside our hotel and went to the railway station to take a ride down to the theme park station.

Amazingly, the journey via railway was quite short too! And it was quite cool to take the railway because this is quite different from the mrt feel back at home.

Cost: NT$31 (Taichung > Houli)

The very very laid-back feel station layout - how great if life can travel at a slower speed...

So after arriving at the station (that consist of loads of pictures with info about the station background), we were kinda lost as we did not know how to proceed next. There were a few touters (tricycle + taxi drivers) present at the gates who kept questioning where our destination is. Initially, we wanted to try the horse ranch which is the replacement event of theme park. However, they told us that riding horse is only available for experienced riders (no choice must go learn horse riding already!). So in the end we chose to take a cab down to the theme park. Along the way, we chatted with the driver and asked about the theme park. It was initially a duo park consisting of the wet & dry parks. However, they close the wet park during the winter season and we only had the dry park to go. It's great for me both ways, but I think my sis really wanted to go the wet one. We even brought all our swim suits and bath stuff. Luckily they were light!

We also bought tix to the park from the taxi drivers who said that he can sell us at a discounted price that we will not be able to get. I thought that we had a bargain with the discount. However, later we came to realize from another driver that he will be willing to let the tix go at NT$400 to us had we met him -.- (we should have bargained!).

taxi ride cost: NT$200 (pre-fixed rate)

duration: 10-15mins

entrance tix cost: NT$530

Looking at the bright side, we saved NT$80 had we bought from the tix counter. Ok enough about money, talking money spoils mood. Upon arriving, we saw 2 gigantic dragon/lion-phoenix statues. It looks like a lego-made structure but it's not. Looks interesting though, so *snap snap*!

My sis & I made a few poses with the structures too. But...the sun was really bright that day so I had abit of difficulty opening my eyes, as seen below: of course, the poses remain =)

There were these very pretty turning fans placed just after the gates which makes the park a much happier place to visit.

Here's the map of the place, and we aimed to try everything at least once (which we didn't cos some really too kiddy for me & "kiddy" for my sis already, heh heh.

A picture summary of what we sat! Everything was so fun!
Oh ya, remember to bring ponchos for the wet games!

We had a quick lunch at one of the few diners in the park.

The dishes there were okay, and we chose to eat at the Chinese themed restaurant (there are western, itallian etc.) The prices are comparable to back home, but it's considered higher there I guess. I would choose mushroom + minced meat rice the set (+ meat ball soup) to get for this meal!

Then we took this uber cool ride. Even the picture looks exiting already! How this machine works is that the coaster carriage will park onto the top end of the tracks, then the tracks will turn 90degrees down to connect to the vertical track and *ZOOM* down it goes at free fall! It's one of the most exciting ride of my life cause this ride forces you to look forward over the horizon (its v high by then already), then it slowly tilt downwards and forces you to look at the height you're dropping from. whoosh, heart pumping mega-thrilling ride. Rode it 3 times and everytime I see this pic, it still brings thrills~

~~Will try to get the exciting video up and running and uplaod it here whee!~~
The video is here! (Spot me and my sis and my father!)

Also had the chance to get some bumper action (can't wait for gentings bumper cars too!).

Before we left, we made sure to make our mark there & showing abit of our masculine side...

HAHA, it was really fun! I believe what made it real fun was the fact that there were very few people there. Crowds are always a downer (at least for me). And then we took a cab to another famous market called the Fengjia night market in taichung. This night market was even more crowded than the first one we visited the previous night, but generally, both were good night markets to visit!

We bought this really long ice-cream for NT$30, which is really worth it! (Normal height ice-cream sold at the temple at SML was like already NT$50/stick, luckily we came here first and didn't got cheated...heng)

I drank my second cup of bubble tea of the trip too. It wasn't really good (to me) either. Gotta keep looking!

Then, the main dinner was a meesua stall we went amongst the huge crowd (yep it was squeezier than the other night market). The meesua tasted good! But the service of the waiters weren't so good, I guess that's how alot of busy business owners are these days. If I ever were to become a businesswoman, I will remember to keep the service awesome so that my customers will enjoy their experience...

Again, we stayed the night at kiwi's.

Day's summary: Kiwi > Taichung Station > Houli Station > Yamay Theme Park > Fengjia Night Market

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Day 1 in Taiwan!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

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

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

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

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

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