Hey Hive/Steemit!
If you didn't catch the last post, we wrapped up Travel Japan 2.0 - Our hot summer in Tokyo! It was nice to recount that trip even though the weather and the short exchange program we participated in left a lot to be desired. But overall, it was still kind of a fun and interesting experience, and we did explore some new places.
But anyway, welcome to a brand new Travel series! This time we're recounting our trip to Taiwan back at the end of 2016! This was the second new year we spent overseas together and it was such a fun trip! This was also my very first time visiting Taiwan so I was really excited! Here we go!
27 December 2016. Tuesday.
Our flight was in the evening at around 5pm so we arrived and checked in at the airport at 3:30pm. And since our counter was at Terminal 2, we got to take a few photos in front of the iconic analogue flight info board!
And in our matching shirts to boot! If you look closely our shirts are actually flight-themed! With clouds, planes and hot air balloons. So it seemed fitting for the occasion.
I always thought this board was so cool, and would wait to watch the numbers flip and change. The digital ones didn't look as cool. It also reminds me of that scene in How I Met Your Mother just before the big reveal in the season 8 finale. If you watch the show, you know the one.
Unfortunately, these last analogue boards has since been taken down in Jan 2020 when T2 went through some upgrading. The organisation in charge of airport operations, Changi Airport Group, has said that the boards were becoming too difficult to maintain, and replacement parts were hard to find. So unfortunately, everything has now become digital. They did repurpose the boards in the museum though, so you can still look for them there.
Anyway we had some time to kill before our flight so we just hung around taking photos while heading to our gate.
Soon it was time to board! The flight duration was about 5 hours from Singapore to Taiwan so we just watched movies. It seems like flights are pretty much the only time I have to watch movies these couple years.
After a while we realised that the flight was actually surprisingly empty! When Sean went to the restroom we noticed that the first few rows were all unoccupied. I think it might've been a transit flight and I guess Singapore to Taiwan and the second leg and a lot of people must have alighted at Singapore.
Well good for us! I think that was one of the most empty flights we've ever taken. And as a result, the most peaceful.
It was really cool to see how empty the plane was, but since we weren't gonna sleep (to maintain a normal sleep schedule), we just returned to our seats after taking some photos.
Pretty soon, we arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport! Our plane was a budget airline so we didn't have the luxury of being connected straight to the terminal and had to take a bus from the tarmac. But it was alright. We did, however, have to step out into the open air and it was pretty chilly.
The airport itself had some cool architecture:
So we did the usual stuff upon arrival; going through immigration and customs and all that. Thankfully, it didn't take too long since there weren't that many people.
After we were done we headed to the bus station and waited for a bus to take us into the main part of Taipei to our Airbnb.
And about an hour or so later, we arrived at our apartment!
It actually looked pretty nice, and I'd say it was about the same standard as a Japan airbnb.
The lobby looked pretty fancy, and the room looked really nice too:
It was kinda like a hotel room actually, with similar amenities, even.
The room itself is a little small, so it's definitely like a Japan apartment for sure. We're kinda used to it already though so it wasn't an issue.
It was already half past midnight by the time we were settled in and since we were hungry, we went scouring for some food. And the only places that were open nearby at the time was of course, McDonalds!
I'm not sure what burger this is but it looked like a chicken cheese burger.
But we also got their special chicken cutlet!
Taiwan is known for its many different types of street food and one famous snack is the fried chicken cutlet! You'll often find many stalls in night markets selling their own brand of chicken cutlet with their special homemade batter and spices, so each one tastes different.
I guess the local McDonalds also jumped on the bandwagon and made their own fried chicken. It was actually pretty tasty! The batter had a slightly sweet taste to it and wasn't as salty as I would've liked but it was good.
After that snack we walked around the neighbourhood a little bit more and came across this cute monkey statue!
I think he's the mascot for the bank; I'm not sure which one though, but he looked really cute!
After that we reached a park which had a pull-up bar and of course, Sean was drawn to it immediately.
Sean's really into calisthenics; doing pull-ups and muscle ups and stuff. I'm sure you can tell from his hoodie.
After he did some muscle ups, we walked around a little more and he said he still wanted a snack. So we headed to the nearest convenience store to check it out.
And just like Japanese convenience stores, they had all sorts of snacks and light meals. The store even had a proper seating area where you could sit and enjoy your food for a bit. We decided to try one of their instant noodles on the spot.
And man, there were so many different kinds of noodles! We tried this one called 维力炸酱面 (Wei Li Zha Jiang Mian) that separated the noodles and the soup. I guess it was a dry noodle that also came with soup. Typically in Singapore, zha jiang mian comes with a small bowl of soup in hawker centres, but I've never seen that with instant noodles before so this was interesting.
And it was really yummy! Salty, savoury and full of oniony goodness, it was delicious! And the soup really hit the spot, especially with us walking around in 10+°C weather.
After our bellies were satisfied, we made our way back to our apartment. It was past 1am by then and we needed to get some rest.
So tune in next week where we start exploring Taipei!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post here!
TacoCat’s Travels #77 (Japan 2.0): Sayonora! 🛫
