Taiwan day 3~

Been long since i last update. Ok now i will write about day 3 adventures in taiwan!

After having a good night rest the previous night at uncle sam's wonderful hostel, we woke up at 9am+ to start on our taichung journey. Initially our plan is to leave taichung to go to Jiayi for alisan trip early in the morning. However after weighing the cons of going to alisan, we back out. Why is it so?

1. We are very very tired still even though we had a good night rest.

2. Uncle sam's temptation about taichung is too huge, saying that the clothes/shoes/bags are the cheapest and nicest.

3. We dont have a hostel in alisan .... we dint manage to book a hotel room as all are sold out !!!
(even 1 month ahead, this is due to the sakura season...)
And to visit alisan, u will need to stay overnight if you dont have a car to drive you back and dont want to waste $$$ on cab fare. The first train to go alisan is around 8+am, and it will take 3 hours + to reach. The problem here is that the last train to leave alisan is  around 2+pm. So unless you can walk and tour alisan at light speed.
And yes, we actually planned to visit alisan and the beautiful sakura and camp at the starbuck there overnight!! HAHA but after we tasted the hardship of a sleepless night at the airport....

Yeah, under many many circumstances, we decided to remain in taichung!

Back to us waking up at 9+am....

After getting dressed and ready, we went to a breakfast stall around feng jia to have our breakfast <3 I ordered some hot dog which i have forgotten the name, but it taste nice, not great awesome though.  We then begin our journey by ............taking a random bus!!! So unplanned ...

Morning at fengjia! All the shops are closed! Really quiet especially when compared to at night. 

Breakfast <3 The auntie tending the stall is so nice :D

My breakfast :D

At the bus stop. The bus stop in taichung only has this sign board (站牌）

Really empty bus to really ulu place.

We boarded a random bus and end up LOST... We took the bus to the last stop, where it is quite ulu. we bought 太阳饼( the 土产in taichung) at a local shop as we feel really stupid travelling all the way here, lost, doing nothing. After which we took a cab to a shopping mall (新光三越）which is like the takashimaya in singapore, nothing special.

Toilet photo of the shopping malll 

After spending the afternoon and having high tea in the shopping mall, we decide to venture again by taking the public bus. Looking at the bus signs, we noticed that the shopping mall is actually only 3-4 bus stops from our hostel................this is making us totally retarded.

High tea at Dazzling cafe 

This bread thing taste really nice ( recommended by the waiter ) 

Interior 

Our drinks ~ It has a really really long name, so i ordered just to try. Taste like strawberry mocha. Not nice if u dun like coffee like me.

some chocolate drink. 

ANW, we were back to the night market!!!!!! My favorite. We ate a lot of things like the smelly tofu!!!!!!!!!! WHICH I LOVE IT THE MOST.

Personally and initially i hated smelly tofu. I have tried a bite in malaysia and singapore pasar malam before, but i think it really tasted like drain water + shit. But the smelly tofu in feng jia is so freaking nice!!!!!! At first when i smell the smelly tofu, i feel very nauseated. However the more i smell it, the better it smelled! And i begin feeling hungry. Since we were already at taiwan's famous night market, why not try it?! So we ordered 1 and share among us. And to my surprised, the smelly tofu tasted heavenly! omg i am hungry just thinking about it.

Famous smelly tofu stall! The queue is really long. 

Smelly tofu <3 

Close up. blurred...

And other than smelly tofu, we ate the 大肠包小肠which is really huge (compared to those at other night market), the potato cheese, the meat ball dried and in soup  (so nice as the weather is so cold that night). Compared to all the night market i have been in taiwan, i love feng jia the most !!!!!!!!! RARWWW miss the food there ): the bubble tea is awesome too, even though i love KOI very very much, but compared to taiwan's bbt (just a normal bubble tea shop).....i have no words to say...

There are 2 famous da chang bao xiao chang stall, just opposite each other. Their competition is really furious.  And we queued the one which had a longer queue HAHA. 

Cheese potato VERY DELICIOUS 

Meat ball soup. Really warm for a cold night. 

Meat ball with some starch. Really nice too. We cant seem to find such nice meat ball with starch in other night markets ): Do try. The stall is the last shop at the left side of the yan chong juan stall. 

Other than all the eating, we did quite a lot of shopping too (which is such a no no for a back packers to do). The clothes there are nice! and cheap too! :DDD The shoes are very comfortable and cheap. However for people with a big feet (size 40) it can be hard to buy shoes ): as for me, i can fit into the biggest shoe, but it is a bit tight and no longer comfortable. So....i will have to let those shoes go ):

Our loot all over the bed. 

My neatly pack loot haha! The brown shoes is really cheap! (~S$4 ) because it is those shoes on sale/ they wanted to get rid of. 

I think thats all for day 3, stay tune for day 4 in kaoshiung!

Day 2 in taiwan - Taichung

After slacking for a very very long time at the 7/11, at 4 am we hired a cab to taoyuan train station. The first train was at around 6am, but we reached there before 5am -.- 


The cab fare at taiwan was almost like singapore, only slightly cheaper. A 30 minutes ride cost around NTD 510 (~S$ 22.30). Do hire a cab at the airport, as they are licensed drivers, so they wont scam your money. 
After we reached the train station, there was no one, the train station was not opened yet. It opens at 5.30am. So we walk around and get some breakfast. 

蛋饼 NTD 20 (~S$0.80) 

I ate this  蛋饼, consist of egg wrapping around some veggie. This is not nice to eat. After which we bought a TRA pass , NTD 799 (~S$ 35) at taoyuan train station. This pass is like train concession, and it is valid for 7 days. Meaning that we can take the local trains (and other slower trains) around taiwan for unlimited amount of time. This is very worth it, however the disadvantages of this pass is that firstly, it is only for student, secondly, the trains that allow this concession are very limited and slow. WORST of all is that this concession dont have seat number, meaning that you will need to STAND if the freaking train was full (we din noe this until when we were travelling from taichung to kaoshiung, we almost died). 


(Do check the train schedule for the timing of the specific trains you can take using TRA pass. Only Chu-Kuang Express, and local trains are covered by the pass.) 

 And so at 6.05 am, we boarded a train and we sleep like a log all the way to taichung (REM TO SET ALARM, their train timing, arrival time is quite accurate).

Interior of the train. The train was very empty. But half way to taichung, a lot of high school student boarded. 

Taichung!! After 2 hours of train ride.

We are still freaking sleepy... We reached around ~8 am and we called the hostel (Fashion Home 26) to ask the host to pick us up :D 

Instead of going to the hostel, we asked uncle sam (the host, i hope he wont see this blog for which i have called him uncle), to take us to the bus station to go to sun moon lake while uncle sam help us carry our luggage back to the hostel, he is so damn nice THANKS A MILLION! we will really die if we were to tour with our backpacks. 

We bought a day pass to sun moon lake which includes round trip bus to sun moon lake, free bus around sun moon lake, a ferry ride, and cable car rides for NTD 699 (~S$31) 

1 day pass for sun moon lake 

This symbol is carved around sun moon lake

Cable car ride! One piece theme XD

Sun moon lake view from the cable car.

At the end of our sun moon lake tour, it was not fun at all. I think mainly is due to lack of sleep. We were SO FREAKING tired when we were there and we wanted to go back to the hostel so much. However thinking that we have already paid so we just go onto the bus and ride around the place... and that day was a sunny and hot day too...

Finally at around 5 pm we leave the place... A point to note when going to sun moon lake, DO eat the ah po cha ye dan (herbal egg). The egg is really delicious, and it is kind of a trait mark for sun moon lake.

In overview, we did very little stuff at sun moon lake. We only take a ferry, eat 2 eggs, take the bus round sun moon lake and take the cable car. ... A so not adventurous day... -______-


OKAY thats all for sun moon lake! We were very happy when we were leaving. So freaking tired that the moment we went onto the bus, we go into hibernation.

We took the same bus back to taichung but this time round we stop at taichung high speed rail station. The station was so much more nicer than the train station!! The motive of us there is not to take the train but to take the shuttle bus from there to feng jia, where we will be staying XD

And so we paid NTD 20 (~S$0.80) to take the shuttle bus to chao ma stop (near feng jia) and we spent a hell lot of time looking for our hostel (fashion home 26). In case you intend to stay there to, just ask for direction to feng jia university, when you are facing the university, turn left and walk all the way straight for 5 -10mins. Ask for direction again and tada! 

bus ride to feng jia

While looking for our hostel we were too hungry, so we ate this  bean curd fries which tasted disgusting. 

烟囱卷！We decided that our graduation trip will be at taiwan because we saw 你猜 introducing this bread.

DAMN NICE. Too excited, hence continuously took 3 blur pics ...

A part of feng jia ye shi! My fav night market in taiwan XD

 When we reached Fashion Home 26, uncle sam brought us to our room. The room is rather small, consisting of a double bed, a sofa bed and a bath room which is transparent!!! OMG although all of us are girls...but still feel very shy bathing there (got a curtain which looks kinda thin)

Our hostel! Fashion home 26. bathroom.

Our stuff. girls room is REALLY MESSY HAHA

I bought a pair of slippers and socks. Slipper NTD 50, socks X6  NTD 100. 

Was a really tiring and lack of sleep day, after we bathe we went straight away to dream land .......zzzzzzzz snoreeeee

Day 1 in taiwan

Before departing taiwan, you might want to drop down at Taiwan embassy. Taiwan embassy (near raffles place mrt station) sometimes provides freebies to tourists visiting taiwan!!
They provide free concert tickets, and the tickets are not for those unknown artists but for quite well known artists such as soda green, fahrenheit ETC, too bad the concerts happen before/ after we reached taiwan. However we did managed to get the taiwan "MRT" card, which is 10% cheaper if you take buses/mrt paying by cash.
After which you can apply for digital tour buddy (only if you are below 30). Digital tour buddy package contains a phone and a sim card for you to use in taiwan. The sim card also contains NTD50 (~S$2.20), this is VERY useful when you need to call your hostel for directions.

YAY THEN WE FLEWWWWWWWWWWW.
Tiger air is really squeezy 0.0

After 4 hours of anticipation, we have reached taiwan!!! WOOHOO

We reached taiwan at around 8.30pm. We did not book a hostel for that night as we think that it is a waste of money and time. So upon reaching we went to the 'food court' at the airport for dinner! At termainal 2 of taoyuan international airport. 

My pork rib noodle (ignore the date, forget to set the timing on camera) 

Seafood rice 

After dinner we went on to collect our digital tour buddy package, which is only a sim card as they had finishes distributing the phones. The sim card is not compatible with iphone. 

We then wander around to find a 24hour cafe/shop and we found a 7/11 ! 

Drank this at 7/11 ~  Thought the drink at the right is coffee...

Taiwan 7/11 is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than singapore's. 7/11 there is like a mini food court selling all sorts of food! They have cup noodles, rice, spaghetti, pau, salad ETCCCCCCCCCC and they do provide places for us to sit and slack. And so we spent our night slacking at 7/11 until 4am where we called for a can to taichung train station......

First timer taiwan trip - lodging

After getting air tickets, we will need to find a place to live. Of cos if you have friends or relatives in taiwan, it will be much much cheaper or even free! But we dont have any...

Lodging will stand up of a huge sum of money (since we will be staying for 14 days!), thus we will need to find places that provide cheap lodging as well as safe to live in.

Google, being our best friend has helped us a lot. Through googling we found websites that provide lodging's information all over the world. And we noticed hostel stay is a lot more cheaper than hotel (like of course -.-) We booked through hostel world and travel point.

At first we were very worried that the websites are a scam, so we actually emailed the hostel (if they provide email address) to enquire and when we noticed that the hostel and the websites is affiliated, we booked in peace (:

Booking through these websites require us to pay a 10% deposit, some handling fees of USD2 and also, according to a hostel owner, booking through these website is actually 10% more expensive than the stay itself, as the website need to earn money too.

For example: A night stay = S$10 (if you booked directly from the hostel)
                      A night stay = S$11 (if you booked from the website)

So if you want to save more $$$ you can try emailing the hostel and book directly instead of through the website.

Back to my taiwan trip. Being very ambitious, we decided to tour round taiwan even though this was our first trip there. So we booked our hostels all around taiwan online.

Below were the hostels we stayed in:

1st stop: Taichung --> Fashion home 26 
Charges:  ~S$16 per head ( we booked directly from its owner, sam, so it is cheaper)
Room type: Private room for 2 (we added a bed)

2nd stop: Kaoshiong --> Walking story  
Charges: ~S$18 per head
Room type: 4 beds female dorm

3rd stop: Kenting --> Kenting Youth Hostel 
Charges: ~S$ 13
Room type: 4 beds female dorm

4th stop: Taitung --> La Pace hostel
Charges: ~S$ 18
Room type: 4 beds female dorm

5th stop: Hualien --> Sleeping boot 
Charges: ~S$18
Room type: 8 beds mixed dorm

6th stop: Taipei --> The meeting place
Charges: ~S$ 13.20 (we booked directly from its owner adam)
Room type: 12 beds mixed dorm

The conditions of booking these hostels are firstly, CHEAP but we also take note that these hostel must be accessible (can be reached by cab from the nearest train station within ~S$5) and near the NIGHT MARKET!!!! As all of us LOVEEEEEEEEEEE to eat. If you like food as much as we do, please stay near a night market, it is worth it! Thinking of night market, i seriously miss the smelly tofu ther ........talk more in the subsequent post.

Back to hostel.
Disadvantages of hostel compared to hotel:
1. Service not as good ( you can still feel free to ask questions, just that little hostel provides housekeeping, laundry services. You can wash clothes yourselves)
2. Atmosphere not as nice
3. Less privacy (u get little privacy if you are living in a huge dorm)
4. Can be scary (if you are afraid of human. Yes i was scared when i live in a dorm because i am sort of a introvert, only for the first 2 days though)

Advantages of hostel compared to hotel: 
1. CHEAP ( hostel is much cheaper than hotel at a normal rate. Hostel rate ~S$ 20 Hotel rate ~S$70)
2. Can meet a lot of different countries ppl! ( Have met ppl from hong kong, malaysia, france, america, korea, holland, taiwan)
3. More interactions with people (hostel normally had a common area for travellers to gather and chit chat )
4. Understand the taiwanese better ( hostel owner is normally local taiwanese, thus will be able to advice you on where to go)
5. Can learn to be more independent
6. More "lifestyle like" ( feel like you are living in your own apartment with a lot of friends, as if in hotel, once you close your room door, you will be in your own world. Living in a dorm, even if you close the door, there will be others living with you)
7. A very unique experience for ppl who always stay in the hotel when overseas.


OKAY THATS ALL FOR A LONG AND WORDY POST. following i will post about my trip DAY 1 . And will put up pictures ~~~

First timer Trip to Taiwan!

My friends and I had just came back from a 14 days Taiwan "backpacking" trip. The trip was really fun, and was a eye opener for us (noob backpackers). Our trip was very budgeted (if exclude the intensive shoppings), so it can be used as a reference for those who want to go taiwan without wanting to spend a lot of money.

Okay, first of all i will start with booking air tickets. 


- Book your air tickets way way way in advanced of your trip if it is possible! 
We flew on budget airline (tiger) and we noticed that air tickets can be really cheap if you booked it very early (6-9months earlier). Tickets booked way in advance can be 3X cheaper than if you booked the ticket last minute. For example, when i started looking round trip tickets to taiwan (around 6 months in advance) it was really cheap, only cost ~ S$280 while if you book the tickets last minute (around a week or a few days) the pricing goes as high as ~S$700-800!!

We didnt manage to get the cheapest air ticket as we were unsure of our schedule so in the end we bought the cheapest ticket possible for ~S$400 2months in advance.

- Look through all the dates before you book!
If you are very free like us you can look at different days to see which day is the cheapest to fly. There can be a huge variation in terms of pricing depending on the day. Weekend will be more expensive than weekday. Also flights at a weird timing might also be cheaper.


-Mind the hidden charges!!!
Some air ticket might seems to be really cheap! Like around ~S$120 (one way trip). BUT it can be deceiving!!! For example, air asia have a lot of charges such as aviation levy, fuel surcharge, passenger security fee, passenger service fee ..........which can add up to ~S$70!! So in the end, promotion = no promotion.
The reason for us booking tiger air is because the hidden charge is not a lot. It does not have fuel surcharge, which is the most expensive hidden charges. So flying by tiger is the cheapest (excluding the possibility of other airlines having promotions).

-Other services
You can choose other services such as boardmefirst(if you hate waiting with other passengers), pay more to choose your seat, top up a huge sum of money for the switchmyflight service so that you can change your date of departing and coming back (SO NOT VERY WORTH IT if it is for taiwan, as the charge can be more expensive than the flight itself) or you can buy the tiger insurance .

You can also buy luggage weight as tiger air only "free" 7kg for hand carried luggage (hand carried luggage cannot exceed certain size). Can know about their luggage policy here.

Of cos, we didnt buy any of those except for the luggage weight. Unless you are strict on going backpacking and sight seeing ONLY, and you can resist any temptation of shopping, my advice is that you should at least get a 20kg while you are getting your air ticket. As it is much cheaper this way, 20kg luggage cost S$20 while you are booking your flight, but if you buy your luggage later it will cost $38 for 20kg. IF you bought it when you are going to fly, you can only get max of 15kg for ~S$38. WORST OF ALL, you will be fine heavily for exceeding weight, or you will have to throw away your loot in taiwan when you are flying back to singapore.



That's all about booking your flight from my point of view! Next post will be on booking your stay in taiwan~~~

Hi there!

Just established this blog. Hope to start up a blogshop, but now is still a long way to go! Gotta do more researches on starting a blogshop!