Friday 31 October 2014

9D8N Taiwan Free & Easy Trip - Day 1 (Taipei)

I have just returned from a 9 Days 8 Nights Taiwan trip and I will briefly summarise the itinerary in my blog. The free and easy trip (for 4 adults) was planned and organised by my wife. She had done extensive research on the places of interest as well as the accommodations. I will also highlight some dos and don'ts in this blog so that viewers can take note in your research for your next trip to Taiwan.

We had planned the trip to start on 22 Oct (a public holiday in Singapore) and end on 30 Oct. The weather in Taiwan in this period was fair and temperatures were around 17 to 30 degrees C depending on the time and location in Taiwan.

We took Scoot from Singapore at 12.45pm and arrived in Taipei at around 5.30pm. At the tourist information service at the arrival gate, you can apply the free wifi (iTaiwan) using your passport. The passcode will be your passport number in capital letters/numbers. However, we were a bit disappointed as the iTaiwan wifi was not readily available in most cities.

We bought some drinks and snacks from the convenient store and went to buy the bus tickets (NT$90 each) to Taipei Railway Station. We had booked train tickets to Hualien online two days ago and needed to collect the tickets by 22 Oct at the Taipei Railway Station. Note that the tickets are limited and during peak period or holidays, it may be sold out.

We hopped onto the CitiAir Bus #1961 to Taipei Main Station at 6.20pm. The journey was about 1hr 20mins. We arrived at the Taipei Railway Station (Main Station) to collect the tickets.

4x train tickets to Hualien

From the Taipei Main Station, we bought the EasyCard to use on the MRT. From Taipei Main Station, we took the Bannan Line (Taipei Metro Blue Line) to reach Ximen station (only 1 stop away).

At the Ximen station, we walked for about 5 mins to reach our hotel, Wonstar Zhonghua. This hotel is reasonably priced and cleaned. I have stayed a couple of times when I was in Ximending.

After we had checked in to the hotel, we went to the Ximenting shopping area for dinner and desserts (at Cheng Dou Yang Tao Bing).

Ximending
Dessert @ Cheng Dou Yang Tao Bing
Continue my trip at Day 2.

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