10 days trip to Taiwan

Finally I’m back from Taiwan! I was getting bored with the hawker food there on my last few days there. Too much of anything is indeed not good. I spent most my days in Taipei. Some of the places that I like in Taiwan are, Ye Liu Geology Park, Alisan, Mei Nong Hakka Village, A Mei Cultural Village, Feng Jia Night Market, Longshan Temple, Fisherman’s Port, Dan Sui Old Street, Eslite Bookstore 诚品书局 and Ximenting.

In short, I will say that Taiwan is a shopping paradise for girls. Quality goods are selling at a cheaper price in Taiwan.

During my visit there, it was approaching winter. Most of the clothes that they’re selling are mostly thick and long sleeves, the “free” size there is a bit too big for a timid person like me. Thus, I only manage to get a few blouses. The clothes there are very fashionable; too bad it’s not suitable to wear in Malaysia as it’s too thick for the hot weather here. The Taiwanese are all very well-dressed. Everyone walking on the streets looks like they are a movie star.

The hawker food in Taiwan ranged from around 30 to 40 TWD. Currently, 100 TWD is around RM9.25. The portion is very big, it’s better to buy 1 and share out with friends. I especially like the “mee suah” at Ximenting. The bubble milk tea there is cheaper and nicer as well. For 40 TWD, you can get an extremely large cup, enough for 2 person. There’s a lot of small coffee shops in Taiwan, the coffee, milk tea, drinks and dessert that they’re selling are much cheaper compared to Starbucks (there’s a lot of Starbucks outlets there, do not worry if you miss Starbucks in Malaysia). A great place for those who wish to hang out for some chatting.

Personally, I like to collect small, light and nicely design umbrellas. Those kind of umbrellas are relatively cheap in Taiwan and even cheaper than in China. I bought 2 fancy, good quality, small and light umbrellas at 350 TWD. 1 umbrella is around RM19. Currently in Malaysia, for such an umbrella, you definitely won’t be able to get it at RM19. Perhaps you may get it at at least RM40.

Alisan is a very nice place to visit – fresh air, nice scenery, and many weird trees which reminded me fairy tale stories. But the journey up is a very long and scary one as the road is extremely narrow. I would say that drivers’ skill there is extremely good. They can drive on such roads even without any street lights and there’re hardly any cars or houses around the area.

Transport around Taipei is very convenient. You can take the MRT around easily. Taxi charges is by meter and very expensive. Minimum payment is 70 TWD. If you want to go to places like Taipei 101 and Mei Li Hua, you can take MRT and then take the FREE shuttle bus as you get off from the MRT station. There are signboards at the MRT station there indicating which exit and bas you should take.

The bas and MRT station here very much reminded me of those in Korea.

Good points of bas service in Taiwan:
- Got indicator (where is the current location, they’re about to make a turn or break). We can easily know where we are without asking the driver.
- Only 7 TWD per ride.

Good points of MRT service in Taiwan:
- There’s a gate forbidding passengers who are waiting for the train to go over the safety zone.
- At peak stations like Taipei Station, there are personnel around to direct the passengers when the train is full.
- There’s escalators and lift at all MRT stations.

But, I did prefer the MRT station design in Korea. You can easily differentiate the stations by the design itself as all of them are different.

There are many night markets in Taiwan. If you want to buy cheap stuff, night market is the place. The cheapest night market that I come across so far is Feng Jia Night Market 逢甲夜市. This night market is named after the university located beside the market, Feng Jia University. The things there are cheaper as they’re targeting mainly students. As the things there are cheap, it attracted a huge crowd, including tourist like me. It very much reminded me of the streets near Busan National University in Busan. Things there are cheap and nice! Things that is cheap in Taiwan: towel, variety of socks, soft toys, necklace and other accessories, umbrellas, bags.

There’s a lot of unique snack food in Taiwan, one of the popular ones is “mua chee”. A bit different from those in Malaysia, it comes in a variety of flavor – green tea, peanuts, yam, chee ma and so on.

For those who forget to pack in some of their things, fear not, 7-11 shops are almost everywhere and open 24 hours to serve you with all your needs. They are selling a variety of goods, from food, umbrellas and other stuff. You can get almost anything there. The size of the 7-11 shops there vary, some maybe as small as a normal shop, some maybe as big as a drive-in fast food outlet in Malaysia. The food packaging there is very nice. There’re selling a variety of coffee in 7-11, very much reminded me of the convenience shop in Korea.

I will keep you guys updated with more info on the interesting places in Taiwan in my next post.

Meanwhile, here’s some photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/dellachew/sets/72157603141047523/