Day 1 - 30 May 2007

So begins the adventures of 3 girls who embarked on an exciting trip to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. The country where many, many celebrities on the chinese entertainment industry call home. A place where you can shop till you drop, fill your stomach with delicious (if slightly unhealthy) eats and expect to see an idol or two while you're at it.

It all started, of course, at the airport. 3 very excited girls met at Changi Terminal 1 (or 2? I forget. Please enlighten me on this, my companions. In private. Do not correct me on my tagboard!), baggage in tow. The size comparison of our baggage was the first surprise I encountered (and I hadn't even left the country!). As we didn't take pictures of something so mundane as baggage, please excuse my flimsy illustration:



On the left we have a regular travel bag on wheels, which belongs to yours truly. In the middle we have a slightly bigger luggage belonging to Flora. And on the right we have a gigantic bright red hunk of a baggage who hails Jia Ying as its owner. Naturally, we laughed at the size of Jy's luggage. But in the end, its size came in very useful in storing our sizeable amount of shopping.



The 3 of us happily awaiting our turn to board the plane.



Me and JY with our oh-so-cool shades which we'd specially gone out to purchase at Far East prior to the trip.

Us on the plane during the four-hour trip to Taipei.



And, of course, what plane ride is complete without a customary snapshot of the mid-air view?



At about 5 pm (there is no time difference between Singapore and Taipei), we arrived at the Taipei Taoyuan International Airport.



They have travellators too!

After passing customs and collecting our luggage, we went to take a chartered bus to our hotel, Kilin Hotel.



Jy found out about this airport transfer bus service through a travel guide. It's cheaper than riding a taxi there...only about 7 or 8 bucks per ticket (though they charge a bit more for the trip from hotel to airport for some reason).





The bus is comfortable, too! Like those deluxe coaches people take to Malaysia. There's a TV on board.



Again, the obligatory scenery snapshot. Not bad, eh? The Taoyuan airport is very out of the way from the city, which explains the lush greenery.

It took us about 1 hour plus to get to the hotel from the airport. Our hotel was a 15-minute walk from Ximending, the heart of Taipei.

We checked into our hotel, and received the key (which was attached to a long and big keychain thingy) to a very auspicious room number:



Being scaredy cats, we decided to take the necessary precautions (knock on the door, say you're sorry, etc.) in case there was "anyone" living inside.

After dumping our stuff, we could hardly contain our excitement and headed straight for the place which we'd heard so much about - Ximending. It's like Orchard Road, you know? Pinnacle of fashion, shopping and idol-spotting. We asked for directions a few times, and the Taiwanese we met were very friendly and knowledgeable about their way around. They would give very specific directions like "cross 3 road junctions, turn left and there you are" (in chinese, of course).

We reached the place after about half an hour of wandering around. And we weren't disappointed. There was a bustling atmosphere befitting that of the heart of a busy city. Even at about 8 pm on a weekday, there was a fair amount of people still walking around.



Ximending at last! Jy looks pleased as punch.

We explored the place (which is quite big, with many twists and turns leading to other side roads) for a bit, then answered the repeated anguished calls of our famished stomachs. We passed by this curry restaurant, and decided that we would have our very first meal in Taipei there.



Doesn't it look inviting and promising?

We leafed through the menu (which was filled with a large variety of interesting curry dishes), made our order and waited hungrily for the food to arrive.





And my, was it worth waiting for. Just look at the picture, and imagine how it must have tasted. Yup, that's exactly how good it was. The fluffy yellow thing was an omelette with rice underneath it. The floating bits were chicken slices buried in a sea of yummy curry. The curry there was reminiscent of Japanese curry, slightly salty but delicious nonetheless. The one shown in the picture was either mine or Jy's order, I can't remember. Flora was less lucky with her choice; she wound up with some spaghetti thingy which was not nice.

The set meal came with milk tea. Jy took a sip, and exclaimed that the milk tea is very special! We all tried it, and echoed our approval. They added some special ingredient which made it more fragrant. Over the next few days, we found that the milk tea almost everywhere we went in Taipei tasted like this. We became fans of their milk tea, haha.

As you can guess, the curry meal was very very filling and only cost us about 10 SGD per person. That was the most expensive meal we had in Taipei. Budget travellers, us. After paying the bill, we set out again to continue exploring Ximending.







Jy took a picture with this cute lion outside one of the shops. I bet you wouldn't have guessed that it's actually an advertisement for a doughnut shop! The lion's "mane" is a doughnut.

We went into quite a few apparel shops, and spent a lot of time in a department store -_- which had...erm...a surprisingly not-bad collection of clothes. Think slightly above This Fashion standard.

We shopped until all the shops started to close at around 11. Yes, the shops closed at 11 on a weeknight! Orchard road shops close at 9-10, or at the latest, 10.30. The nightlife there is so much better.

And then it was back to the hotel!



Our hotel was actually not bad for a budget hotel. It had a clean toilet, a well-lit bedroom with a double bed plus a single bed (it was a triple suite), two antique-looking chairs with a round table in between, a dressing table and a small television.

The television was the object of our affections. Why? Because it had like 99 channels, including local and cable channels. Heaven for those who love watching taiwan variety shows and dramas! There would always be some exciting talk show or variety show (which we would only be able to watch on Youtube back in Singapore) running everytime we switched it on. Not to mention I caught Kangxi Lai Le (my favourite mandarin talk show) quite a few times! So happy.

We watched tv and talked until about 1-2 am, then went to sleep, happy and full of anticipation for whatever new and interesting sights awaited us the next day.

Labels: I-Gulliver