Firsts | Taiwan

Yet another reckless decision in life. An impromptu trip to Taiwan to chase cherry blossoms cause apparently their cherry blossom season is much earlier. And yes, I had school. Then again, who says ‘no’ to cherry blossoms? That’s right. No one.

“Let’s go Taiwan next week”. So we did.

Day 1 Ximending+Shilin Night Market
Landed at Taoyuan International Airport around 1pm and took the airport bus to mainland Taipei. The bus services are found in the basement of the airport and tickets were priced at 90 TWD per pax. There’s different types of buses providing the same route to Taipei but the price range is around the same. The bus ride took about an hour to reach Taipei Main Station. Then we made our way to our hotel.

Oh, did I mention we booked a sex themed hotel? Yup. I saw the murals in the room whilst booking and well, I’m amused so we booked it. Upon reaching, we got a free upgrade to the premium room and well, there’s a swing in the room. Wew. One can only guess what a swing is doing in a sex themed room. Hmm. But honestly though, the room was pretty legit and clean and fun fact, I didn’t even know Taiwan has R rated shows on the TV programmes list but well now we know. HAHA.

Made a quick trip to Ximending for Ah Zhong mian xian and some snacks befoe going to Shilin Night Market. There we ate quite some oysters, clams, snacks and bubble tea. We had to wake up early the next day to catch the HSR so we slept early that night.

Day 2 Cingjing Farm+Fengjia Night Market
Woke up at 630am to get onto the 740am HSR towards Taichung. It took us about an hour to get there. Then, we took a shuttle bus that caters for tourists to go Cingjing at Taichung HSR station basement. The tourist pass was pretty value for money (includes return bus ride to Taichung station, farm entry and skywalk entry) so we bought it at 610 TWD per pax. The bus ride took us almost 2 hours to get to Cingjing. Was pretty tired so we slept on the bus ride there but we woke up pleasantly surprised at the cherry blossoms lined along the roads. It was soooo pretty. Fed and chased some sheepies there and oh god are they hungry. They were intensely grazing the barely there grass and well… you need skills to make them look at the camera of course. Being a pro that I am, obviously this was an easy feat. HAHAHA.

As the evening approached, the sky became foggier but luckily we finished visiting the sheeps already. We cleared the Skywalk pretty quickly and visited the cardboard shop located nearby. Finally, the bus back to Taichung came and we made our way to FengJia Night market for dinner.

Tbh we barely had enough time to walk in FengJia because we underestimate the amount of time required to travel to Fengjia (we took the bus and it took almost an hour to reach there) so we grabbed a couple of snacks and cabbed our way back to Taichung for the train back to Taipei.

Day 3 Wuling Farm
So. There’s only two timings for buses going to Wuling from Yilan County and we decided to make it for the 730am only which leaves us waking up at 530 am to rush for the train in Yilan. Unfortunately we missed the 730am bus by 10 mins. Wtf. And there’s no way we are gonna wait for the 12pm bus so we flagged for a cab. He quoted us 3500 TWD for a return trip to Wuling Farm and we agreed. We had no other choice honestly. This cabby brought his ‘friend’’ along for the ride and I highly suspect that’s his wife…pretty smart of him to get a paid date by tourists huh. The trip to Wuling Farm from Yilan was approximately 2 hours and I fell asleep in the car as usual.

Along the way uphill, we chanced upon snow. It was snowing! Perhaps the altitude was really high in the mountains but there was snow covering the sidewalks of the roads. Initially we didn’t think too much about it but as we proceeded, the snow grew thicker and our driver started to panic because he doesn’t have any snow chains for his car. Well, I told him to continue and he hesitated but his wife sort of instigated him to continue forth and we did. Yeah, he actually grew a pair.

Once we reached Wuling Farm, it was raining): And it was darn right cold. Heck, we didn’t even dress enough for this kind of weather but well, we walked through the park anyways. We spent a good 2 hours there before making a move.

路边的野花不要踩哦

Perhaps we might come back during autumn when the weather is nicer so we can fully explore the Wuling farm again. The weather was really a bummer that day. Piggy caught a cold so we retreated back to Taipei afterwards to have an early night back in the hotel.

Day 4 Yangmingshan+Ximending
This was supposed to be a laze day but we wanted to fully utilize it before we caught our flight back to SG at night so we decided to visit Yangmingshan. Took bus 260 towards Yangmingshan and we were greeted by a heavy rain upon arriving. Yes, it’s super cold again. We didn’t bring any umbrella though…but we queued for the shuttle bus up Yangmingshan anyway. Once we reached the peak, it was foggy af…we didn’t alight the shuttle bus cause we probably can’t see anything out there anyway. And it’s freezing. The trip to Yangmingshan was a little wasted cause of the bad weather but it’s alright we can always visit it the next time we are there. Before we rush off to the airport, we made a quick stop at Ximending for Ah Zhong mian xian again and some snacks. Wonder who was craving that hmm.

Overall, this trip albeit short but it was pretty fulfilling. It’s the first time we went overseas together. The first time we saw cherry blossoms together. The first time we saw snow together. To many more firsts to come. We’ll be back for you Taiwan, until next time.

Next stop: NZ. Are u excited? Cause I sure am.