YowCH & Grace

130318 to 20 Taiwan Trip 1/2

We took a 6-day holiday from 18 to 23 March 2013 to Taiwan during the 1 semester school break. With the earlier trip in January 2013, we have good background info and we had also arranged to have a joint holiday with YowCH’s cousin, Phan Wei Lian and family.

Unfortunately, YowCH started the trip with a bad viral infection of his eyes and also flu. And Grace is about 7-weeks pregnant during the trip. Therefore, we took things really slow and the pace is more relaxed than our other trips.

Here’s the map of our trip, covering the north and middle of Taiwan.

Here’s our Taipei area map (click to view larger version):

Here’s our Taichung – Nantou area map (click to view larger version):

Day 1 – 18 March 2013

We flew Scoot, rather nice and cheap. We paid for airplane food, and 15kg check-in luggage for each person, but left Singapore with only 3 checked-in bags. Dad drove us to the airport, and we took off at 01:20 on 18 March and arrived at Taoyuan Airport, Taipei at 05:15.

Upon arrival we took a cab to our hotel, Taipei New California Hotel at Xindian (next to the MRT Station) and then took train and bus to Yangmingshan.

We hiked some trails, saw peach blossoms, visted the Visitor Centre, enjoyed a busker’s music and had some snacks in the village along the way in comfortable 20°C temperature.

With the tireness and lack of sleep, we returned to Xindian for lunch at a local beef noodle shop at about 13:00.

Then we checked into the hotel room, and rested. Towards the evening, we took MRT to Taipei City Hall to visit Taipei 101, but upon arrival at 17:25, we contacted Wei Lian and he planned for dinner at 19:00 at Dongmen MRT, hence too tight for Taipei 101. We walked instead to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall.

At Dongmen, we met up with the Phans and had a great local flavour dinner at some back-street.

After dinner, we had dessert nearby.

We also bought a Taiwan Chung Hwa telephone SIM card for use in Taiwan. Then we returned to hotel by MRT. Wei Lian went home and got some eye drops and cream for YowCH’s red-eyes, and sent the medication to our hotel.

Day 2 – 19 March 2013

We woke up, had breakfast in the hotel and took train at 8:30 to Taipei Zoo, reaching at 9:30. It was rather hot, at about 20°C to 25°C.

Taipei zoo has lots of space, nice collection of animals and kept very clean. Unfortunately, the pandas are in mating season and kept away.

This modified container was use to transport the elephants.

David enjoyed himself very much in the Reptiles and Amphibians House.

We got really tired and not able to walk out of the zoo. So we took the shuttle bus to the nearby Taipei Zoo South Entrance Maokong Cable Car Station.

Then we enjoyed the gondola ride up to Maokong.

We had some local food at the hawker centre near the Maokong Station.

Still suffering from lack of sleep, and tireness due to pregnancy and flu, we didn’t linger too long, and took the ‘crystal’ gondola back down. The base is made of glass, and we can see right through the bottom.

Having reached the Taipei Zoo Cable Car Station at 15:30, we called a cab through the very helpful Visitor Centre and got back to the hotel to rest and shower.

We then headed out to Bitan Waterfront area (500m from hotel) for dinner. Here’s the hotel at dusk.

The Bitan bridge is under-going upgrading, under T.Y.Lin International Taiwan.

The temperature was about 20°C, rather comfortable.

Wei Lian then picked us up in his car and took us to his home for visit. The children had a great time interacting.

Day 3 – 20 March 2013

We woke up very early, at 6:30 to get to Banqiao High Speed Rail (HSR) Station for the 8:02 train to Taichung. The Phans had arrived when we reached the station.

We bought some breakfast snacks and boarded the train.

At the fastest, the on-board notice indicated 280km/h.

We arrived on time Taichung HSR Station at 8:45. The car rental pre-booked by Wei Lian is right in the station itself, very convenient. The Phans drove a Nissan Livina while we drove a Nissan Tiida (both 1.6L).

With free GPS on the Phans’ car, they took the lead and YowCH drove following them (not that driving on the right side is easy at the start, we scratched the right passenger door against a high kerb not 3 minutes into the journey, but thank God, it wasn’t serious and that was the only mishap). The walkie-talkie sets we brought along also helped communication between the cars.

At 10:30, we reached 18°C Chocolates, a very famous brand of freshly hand-made chocolates. Expensive but very nice.

We reached Cingjing Farm at 12:15, but since the room is not yet ready for check-in, we drove to lunch at Lumama, another famous eating house, and had a nice lunch of local food.

After lunch, we drove to the National Taiwan University (NTU) Experimental Farm, and enjoyed the spring blossoms. We had to park about 3km away due to crowd control, and took a shuttle bus to the farm. The temperature was good, 18°C.

This is a locally bred orchid:

This is out group photo.

There is a maze garden, and the Yow children ran in and reached the centre rather quickly.

A beautiful tree.

While waiting for the return shuttle bus, the children enjoyed themselves rolling on the grass field.

Seeing Esther, David and Joseph having fun rolling, the Phan children joined in and so did many other tourist children.

We reached Shangri-la Hotel (part of the Old England group) at 17:00. After getting to the room, we rested a little and made coffee (manual grinder). The place is very similar to Ye Olde Smokehouse.