Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Taipei Day 1 - Highlights

My second trip this month is Taiwan.

My last visit to Taiwan was about 10 years ago. It was during the summer of my third year in high school. (That long already? I'm that old already?) I went on a 2-month study tour to Taiwan to learn Mandarin. Our trip fell during the time of the SARS virus so our trip was cut short to 6 weeks. And we weren't able to tour Taipei through and through as originally planned. It was so long ago that my memory of the place is close to zero! Anyway, I had always wanted to go back. And so this year, my family decided to make a trip there!

I think this is the trip where I've taken the most pictures. And I don't usually take pictures. Only when its necessary, or when the place is extra nice or, when I find a piece of art that I'd like to remember. Other than that, I let someone else do the photo-taking! But here, I took a picture of each place we visited. I don't know, maybe because my Samsung made it so convenient for me. It'd be a shame if I didn't share the pics. Especially when I pretty much documented our whole trip! So I decided to blog about it -- in full detail! (Or as much detail as I could possibly get out of me :))

So this is Day 1. It's a short Day 1. It was raining and cold, so we decided to take it easy that first day. Only to find that the rain would continue until the fourth day. Why did I not listen to forecast! The weather was a bummer. Temperature dropped to about 13 degrees. Winter weather in the summer! That's what I get for complaining about the hot summer sun back in Calaguas :P


Taipei Main Station. 
It's huge! It's the main hub for trains in and out of Taipei, and an interchange station for different subway lines in Taipei's MRT. From the airport, we got on a bus to this station. We stayed at the Y[MCA] Hotel, which is conveniently a mere 2-minute walk from the Taipei Main Station. 

There's plenty to do here. There're restaurants and little shops and pastry shops and lots and lots of cake and sweets stalls! Oh and they even have Tokyu Hands here! Only it's called Tailung Hands :)



The infamous Din Tai Fung!
Xiaolongpaos were really good, as expected. The skin of the dumplings were soft and thin but didn't break easily. And the soup inside was simply delicious. I also loved their Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake. The service was fast and excellent. We had to wait to be seated though. The line was quite long. This branch was in Taipei 101.


Hot milk tea in Xi Men Ting.



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