Taiwan Day 7 & 8

Day 7 Hualien to Taipai (10/7/06)

We all bought lots of flavoured muah chee and guo3 dong4 at the nearby famous Magi store selling these Taiwanese goodies in the morning before we checked out of the hotel. We then got to the train station via taxi and minibus as the hotel provides free transport there.

Hualien Train Station

Photos taken in the train en route to Taipei

We headed back to Rainbow Hotel via MRT from Taipei Main Station and left all our luggage there. We then headed back out for more shopping and food.


Lunch at Ximending Korean restaurant

We then took MRT to Shipai MRT and took cabs to Tianmu Circle as the shopping belt is recommended by Terence and Peiying. We spent quite a lot of time in a big retail shop as the clothes were branded clothes rejects. I splurged my money on a pink striped Ralph Lauren shirt and Nike berms which costs slightly more than S$50.

Although there wasn't a lot of shops there, quite a number of shops were worth taking a look. We did not really have time to finish shopping the entire belt as we had arranged to meet Terence & Peiying 7.30 pm at Jiantan MRT Station.

We all then headed to Miramar Entertainment Centre via a free shuttle bus. The shopping centre there is more catered for the wealthier customers and we did not spend much time inside. Our main purpose is to sit on the ferris wheel which is the world's 2nd largest.

Miramar Ferris Wheel

Group photo

The ride is quite cheap and we all bought tickets for the ride. It seemed to be moving rather slowly as the wheel is very huge. We spent 5 to 10 minutes in the compartment and the cityscape was slightly disappointing as there wasn't a lot of skyscrapers in Taipei and 101 is quite far away.

Merry Go Round

2 extremely cute dogs we chanced upon in the shopping centre

We then headed back to Jiantan MRT via shuttle bus and went to Shihlin Night Market for supper for our last night. Most of us had the extremely big Ji1 Pa2 (fried chicken patty) for the last time.

We then played the basketball arcade game (Taiwanese love to play it) for the last few times as we were hooked onto it as well.

Only NT10 ($0.50) for an intensive 4 minutes of game and exercise

We headed back to the hotel after midnight via cabs and had a good night's rest.

Day 8 Taipei (11/7/06)

We woke slightly later than expected and missed our hotel breakfast. We had breakfast at a nearby eatery before going on a shopping spree at Ximending. We found out that there were actually quite a lot of lanes, walkways and shopping areas which we did not explore and we tried to cover those areas that we did not go before.

We bought some Tai4 Yang2 Bing3 (Sun biscuits) before we left our hotel with our numerous luggages to hop onto a ride on the Go Bus that goes to Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.

At Chiang Kai Shek International Airport before leaving for Singapore

To wrap up this Taiwan trip, it has been quite a well balanced trip with sufficient shopping and visiting scenic places. People who love shopping will love Taiwan for the abundance of clothes located at Ximending, Underground Mall, WuFenPu Garment Wholesale Area, ZhongXiao Fuxing to Zhongxiao Dunhua stretch, Tianmu Circle and Shihlin Night Market. People who like healthy food may not enjoy Taiwan food as the good food are normally fried, oily or sweet. Also, Rainbow hotel is a really good hotel to stay in due to its new and spacious looking rooms, free internet access computers, good service and central location. To add on, the people in Taiwan are definitely more well dressed compared to Singaporeans. Almost all of the guys wear sneakers instead of slippers (unlike Singaporeans) , the guys & gals have more hip and funky clothing and accessories, and the gals often are seen with make up. The service is also better and the MRT is a very convenient form of transport there.