TAIWAN TRIP — DAY 1

Hi friends! Yes, I am finally updating Medium again. Have been busy ever since A’s ended! With all the applications, outings as well as planning for my 1st overseas trip with my friends to Taiwan!

So I have decided to blog about my 8D7N trip to Taiwan with Nose Club. FYI, Nose Club actually consists of JJ-HY’s 4E1 kids HAHAHA. Came back from Taiwan approximately a week ago, and have finally tidied up my photos from my DSLR and phone. So I can finally share it here on Medium, yay!

So here we go!

Our flight was apparently at 1AM on 5 January. So we had to reach the airport at 10PM on 4 January? Met up with Zi Ying, Yi Jie, Shang Mei and Kenzo at Terminal 2 after having a dinner with my family! It was pretty awkward when all of our families (Mine, YJ’s mum and SM’s family) met, and WE are at loss. So… we decided to quickly check in to cut off the awkwardness as well as getting our families to go home early HAHAHA

After checking in, we slacked at Krispy Kreme along with Yong Xiang and JiongDa. Getting into the departure hall, we slacked at Starbucks and played “Psych!” (its a pretty good game btw). All ready for the flight, we made our way to the gate and pretty much followed all the rules. It was a smooth security check! We were all excited for the trip, but at the same time, feeling tired because it was 12:30AM already?! HAHA. So here’s our 1st group photo of the trip!

It was my first budget airline flight. However, it was Scoot so I am pretty much confident because Scoot is under Singapore Airlines. So… yes, I have confidence in our home brand, HAHA. 
We sat in the sequence: YJ-ZY-Walkway-Kenzo-ShangMei-Me. So yay, I have the window seat! The moment the plane takes off… YJ was already sleeping within 1 hour. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t so I was reading all the magazines that they had in front of me. It was 3:15AM and I decided I should sleep. Kenzo was off to the unoccupied row in front of us and slept there. So apparently, me and SM has 1 empty seat in our row. We took turns lying down on 2 seats and slept.

And I don’t know how, the flight was ahead of schedule by 30 minutes (?!) and we reached Taoyuan International Airport at 5AM instead of 5:30AM. We collected our luggage and etc., and made our way to a convenience store to get something to eat. I got a sushi like thing at the store which caused 30 TWD, which is cheap! Next, we went to the bus “terminal” at Terminal 1, and decided to get a bus to Xi Men Ding (XMD) since we have nothing to do at the airport.

Had difficulty talking to the guy at the bus “terminal” because… yes its the 1st day and I have not get used to the way how they communicate and the new places and the new street names. But yes, we succeeding in getting the bus ticket and boarded the bus. Surprisingly, the bus seats were more comfortable than Scoot’s HAHAHAHAHA. We all fell asleep in the comfy chairs but I woke up halfway through to check out the scenery in Taipei as well as making sure we do not miss our stop.

We finally reached XMD, and were at loss AGAIN. HAHA. We were at XMD at approx 8:30AM but could only check in at 12PM at our residence. So we went to a nearby Mac to have our breakfast. (didn’t expect myself to have mac as my first meal in taipei…) We finished our bfast at approx 9:15AM? Nowhere to go, we eventually went to a 7–11 to slack and slept there for 3 hours. HAHAHA we look very pathetic, but… we don’t have other choices. Shops are only opened at 11AM in XMD.

Side note: 7–11, hi-life (a type of convenience store) and family mart are everywhere in taipei. It was really fascinating. Every street has at least 1 convenience store. At our residence area, we had 3 7–11 stores around us (front, back and diagonal). Along the same street where there is 7–11, sometimes there will be another convenience store. 7–11s in Singapore cannot compete with the ones in Taiwan. Taiwan ones are really great, filled with many instant food, ready-cooked food, cooked food, ANY FOOD. They have many many many choices, while SG’s ones only has a limited range of options.

At 12PM, we finally checked in to our residence area which is booked from YJ’s cousin’s friend. HAHA It was a pretty cool room and very comfy! It comes with a sofa, bar counter, mini-kitchen, bathroom, balcony, coffee table and 1 king size bed! 1 thing about the room is that there are so many sockets, and we have no problem in charging our cameras, phones, portable chargers and using the hair dryer HAHA. So… we packed our things, rested for a while and decided to have lunch/brunch.

We went to a local telecomm shop to get 1 SIM card with data. However, the unlimited ones ran out, and in case of any urgent use or emergency, we first bought the one with 2GB. It was at a reasonable price I guess.

So we made our way to M-one cafe for lunch! First time taking their Metro, it is similar to SG’s one, but still cool HAHAHA.

I really like M-one cafe. The ambience, the food and the price. They charge at really reasonable prices and the food were in big portions. I was really full after eating that cheese mushroom omelette HAHA. (They come with croissant + fruit juice + coffee/tea btw)

We finished our meal at approximately 3:30PM? So we decided to walk around the place, with no goal in mind. However, the moment we walked to the main street, we saw Taipei 101. Decided that since we are nearby, we might as well just visit 101 on our 1st day. Thinking that its near (because its look damn big), we decided to walk. However, walking for 30 mins, we weren’t there yet but came across another telecomm shop. So ZY decided to buy an unlimited data SIM card and we waited in the shop for 30 minutes… and… I fell asleep in the telecomm shop (AGAIN). HAHA I was so tired since I didn’t have enough sleep on the plane.

So apparently, we have 2 Wi-Fi sources. 1 from Kenzo’s, another from Zi Ying’s. We tried to maximise out Kenzo’s one till 2 GB is used up and then ZY open up his hotspot for us to use. 
P.S.: Throughout the trip, we used connection to Wi-Fi sources when we accidentally split up HAHAH. that means if i accidentally lost ZY, my wi-fi signal is gone. but when my wi-fi connection to ZY’s phone came back, I know ZY is nearby so is easier to look for him. I called him “our wi-fi source” HAHAHA. Ohya, because we kept on depending on google maps to find our way and do research on sightseeing places and snapchatting, and whatsapping, we used a total of 14GB in 8 days HAHA

At approximately 6:30PM, we finally reached Taipei 101! It was really beautiful especially at night! (We waited in the shop for almost 1 hr btw) The sky darken at 5:30PM btw. I thought it was already 8PM when i see the dark sky HAHAHAHA

Because YJ and Kenzo visited before… me, ZY and SM decided to go up the 89th floor (the viewing gallery) to look at the captivating view! The lift was really quick, and there were so many people… (especially koreans. I thought I was in Korea for a moment HAHA) The ticket was priced at 450 TWD (student) and 500 TWD (adult). Me and ZY managed to get it at student price (we presented our student ez-link card) while SM didn’t.

Since it was still 8:30PM and the night is still early, we decided to go to a nearby night market — Tonghua night market. I didn’t buy much… because I am telling myself to control my eating HAHAHA. There wasn’t much food that was my favourite anyways.

We made our way back to our residence place at approximately 10PM? On the way back, we get something from the 7–11 store downstairs. The guys got instant noodles, SM got ovaltine while I’m pretty sure I get a bottle of Yakult because I was having digestion problems HAHA.

We ate supper, chat, watched tv and slept at approximately 1AM? In conclusion, it was a great but tiring day due to the flight from Changi to Taoyuan and travelling to XMD and etc.

Please look forward to my next post regarding Day 2!