Taipei 2.0

15-18 January 2015

I thought we had already left behind the bad luck from Taipei 1.0. It was a new year after all. But alas… a week before our trip, we realized that we made a mistake in booking our tickets. Instead of booking for 3 days in Taipei, we only booked for 2 days in Taipei. So, we had to cram our original itinerary and slash out a few activities. But the biggest headache was that the Pope was arriving in Manila on the day we were supposed to leave. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Pope but there were scheduled roadblocks around the airport, making it impossible to get into the airport 3 hours before our flight. As a result, although our flight was at 22:00, we arrived at the airport around 12:00. Plus, a lot of flights were cancelled and although ours was not, we were worried that if there weren’t enough passengers on our flight, Cebu Pacific might cancel it—after 10 hours in the airport!

To make matters worse, I had a slight discomfort in my chest, which signified that I was about to get sick. Nevertheless, I placed all my anxiety inside a box and put myself in positive-mode. Although we almost missed the boarding call again (Our gates changed last minute and Cebu Pacific didn’t even announce that our flight was already boarding 10 minutes before the actual boarding time), at the wee hours of the morning, we found ourselves in Taipei. Yay!

Day 1

We started the day early and took the train to a nearby town called Shifen. Part of the Pingxi Line, it’s a quaint old town with a railroad crossing the heart of what they call Shifen Old Street. Along that railroad are shops selling Chinese food, souvenirs and lanterns that are meant to be lit up with your wishes.

  

Train passing thru Shifen Old Street

After writing our wishes on a sky lantern and letting in fly away, we went to the Shifen waterfalls. It was about 20 minutes away from the Shifen Old Street.

Shifen Waterfalls

Originally, we were also planning on going to Jiufen, another town along the Pingxi Line. However, we decided to go back to Taipei. That night, we went to Ximending, the trendy area of Taipei, and had our dinner at the Modern Toilet Restaurant. There was nothing special about the food but what was unique about the restaurant was how they serve it—in a toilet bowl.

Modern Toilet Restaurant

After dinner, we went to the Shilin night market. I wanted to try some street food but nothing caught my eye. In the end, we decided to join a long queue for chicken and mashed potato in gravy sauce.

Shilin night market

Day 2

I had a nasty sore throat when I woke up. Luckily, my friend had some Paracetamol and painkillers, and since we were already leave by midnight, I just had to survive the day. We checked out first thing in the morning then left our bags in a locker at the Taipei Main Station.

 I wanted to go the National Palace Museum but all my companions wanted to go to Taipei Zoo. I don’t usually fancy animals in the zoo (I prefer to see them in the wild) but I have to admit it was nice to see an adorable panda eating bamboo grass and the giraffe was so clean it looked fake. The zoo was really big and although we spent the entire morning there, we weren’t able to see all the animals.

Adorable panda eating grass

In the afternoon, we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Confucius temple and Lungshan temple. Gail bought a kite and ran around, outside National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. We had an early dinner at the popular Din Tai Fung in Taipei 101, where we had Xiaolongbao (soup dumpling).

View from Chiang Kai-Shek

After dinner, we went up the 88^th and 89^th floor of Taipei 101. I wasn’t really fond of the cityscape, but I was eager to see the damper ball. The damper balances the building’s vibration during earthquakes.  And right before we left, we went to the outdoor deck on the 91^st floor.

 

Taipei 101 damper ball

We couldn’t stay much longer since we had a flight to catch. Our trip in Taipei was pretty quick but in some ways, I was glad we were going home that night because I was pretty sick and I felt like sh** (I had a fever by the time we reached the Philippines).

Taipei 101

Expenses:

Category	PHP	NTD
Transportation	10,502.57	962.00
Airfare	7,992.57	0.00
Taxi, metro, train, etc	340.00	962.00
Travel Tax, Terminal Fee	2,170.00	0.00
Accommodation	555.66	1,322.00
Food	125.00	547.00
Attractions	0.00	600.00
Shopping	0.00	350.00
Personal souvenirs	0.00	250.00
Gifts	0.00	100.00
Others (Visa)	2,100.00	60.00
Total	PHP   13,283.23	PHP    3,841.00
Grand Total	PHP 18,696.55