EasyCard 悠遊卡: Getting Around Taipei Is Indeed Easy!

{ Picture cred: EasyCard }

If you are holidaying in Taipei, this is one card you MUST have. You can use it for travel on the Taipei Metro, on buses in most parts of Taiwan, some sections of the TRA network and on the Taiwan High Speed Rail (non-reserved). [A full list is available HERE]

I’ll always get mine from the EasyCard machines located in train stations. The (refundable) deposit is NT100, and usage of the card gives you 20% discount each time you travel via the Taipei Metro, thus its attractiveness over the single trip tickets.

EasyCard Refunds: To get a refund of the balance in your card, plus the deposit, head over to the Information Counter of any Taipei Metro station. The handling charge is NT20. [More details HERE]

I’m glad I got my refund during my recent trip to Taiwan, as I don’t think I’ll be heading back again in the near future, certainly not after the recent metro stabbing incident.

My Taiwan Holiday: Narrowly Avoiding the Airport Flooding, Hualien Earthquake and Taipei MRT Stabbing

My previous trip to Taiwan was in 2012. And, last Thursday, I flew to Taiwan for a 7-day holiday, and got back yesterday morning.

As it turned out, the day I arrived in Taiwan, I narrowly avoided the airport flooding incident. I only found out that the airport was flooded by rainwater after I had safely checked in to my hotel.

My first sightseeing destination was in Hualien, and I spent barely 3 days there. After I had left for Taichung and Taipei, it was reported that an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 had struck.

Then, to conclude my trip, it appears that I was very likely on the same train as the murderer who stabbed commuters on the train traveling between Longshan Temple station and Jiangzicui station. I had alighted at Longshan Temple station just before he commenced that senseless killing. Cheng Chieh, aged 21, managed to stab 4 passengers to death and injured over 20 others.

Some reports state that Cheng started his massacre at 4.25pm. I have a photo of me eating meesua at 4.39pm, after alighting from the train at Longshan Temple, and walking to the stall. It was a truly close shave.

Grateful to be alive

Just reflecting on this one trip alone has made me realized how fragile life is, and how I could have been injured on any one of these occasions.

I may not be able to ‘see’ my guardian angel but I’m quite sure he’s there. How else could I have so narrowly avoided these ‘calamities’?

My conclusion is that my mission on earth has not been completed yet; my time’s not up yet. So I have to make every day count, help more people, do more good.

Will I return to Taiwan?

Right now, my answer will be ‘no’. It’s just way too scary there at the moment. If you don’t already know, there have been Facebook pages set up in support of, and idolizing, Cheng the MRT slasher! Like, are you kidding me?!

If you insist on traveling to Taiwan, do keep updated regarding the online threats of similar metro stabbings. This incident might spark off copycat killings, so try to stay safe. Avoid Taiwan in May next year, and on the anniversaries of Cheng’s death (I’m assuming he’ll get the death penalty).

The yummiest meesua and pineapple cakes are not going to draw me back to Taiwan for a while.

The burden of parenthood

Cheng’s parents have produced a written apology: http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2014/05/23/a1111450.html

I believe it’s pointless for them to say anything now. If only…

I would like to urge parents to pay close attention to the kind of computer games your kids are constantly playing. Cheng was a fan of violent games, and look where it got him and many others?

Sure, we cannot stop our children from playing games they enjoy. But we should engage them in other activities, such as volunteer work, nature walks, etc.

Stay safe, folks. And always buy travel insurance!

Taipei Day Two: Modern Toilet Restaurant, Wufenpu, Raohe Night Market

Day One: https://workingwithgrace.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/taipei-day-one-chen-ji-mian-xian-taipei-101-agnes-b-cafe-ximending-2/

[Day Two of Five]

The second day of my Taipei trip was when I did the most shopping. 😀 Simply because we went to the Wufenpu wholesale district for clothes (where blogshop owners go to get their stock too!).

The boyfriend’s grinning happily in the morning… He doesn’t know I’ll be doing lots of shopping in a short while. Hehe!

We ate the buffet breakfast provided by the hotel – just standard fare, nothing to blog about. Then we had a rather early lunch at Modern Toilet Restaurant which is relatively near our hotel – the staff can even give you directions!

As you can see, it’s pretty hard to miss

The place is usually packed so we were lucky that we got in without a reservation. Do call in advance if you want to visit this restaurant – the Ximen outlet can be reached at this number: 02-23118822. Check out their website at www.moderntoilet.com.tw

Pop in and you can take a couple of pictures with the very interesting toilet, and hope it doesn’t ruin your appetite:

The seats within the restaurant are really very pretty:

My boyfriend’s quite funny, don’t you think so? 😀

By the way, your table will have a bathtub beneath!

Where food is concerned, there were some hits and some misses. The boyfriend selected a pasta dish which I think you can forget about ordering at this restaurant. I went for a seafood hotpot which was amazingly good! I wanted to come back again before we left for Singapore but unfortunately, there wasn’t time. 😦

Here, my boyfriend’s sipping on aloe vera juice served in a, well, mini urinal:

The drinks are nothing fantastic and the ice-cream is worse. Bear in mind that they are mainly cool for photo-taking, not so much for savoring:

Random street art outside the restaurant:

After a good meal, there is only ONE thing I can think of doing…

SHOPPING!!!

So we took the MRT to Houshanpi station, and from there, a 5 minute walk to Wufenpu:

It started raining when we got there. Bummer. But a little rain never did stop me from shopping. 😀 I lost track of how many hours we spent in that labyrinth but when we DID emerge…

Hehe! I bought lots of clothes that day… And just to share some of my spoils where footwear is concerned:

The sandals on the right are from Raohe Night Market (NT90 = S$3.90!!!), the rubber wedges from Wufenpu (NT800 = S$34) and a pair of Hello Kitty shoes at NT1000 = S$43).

And I found in the August issue of Her World magazine, a similar pair of wedges which cost S$208!!!

What a great buy!

Besides shopping, there are also food stalls within Wufenpu. And I particularly enjoyed the quails egg snack:

When we were done with shopping, we asked for directions to Raohe Night Market which is within walking distance…

Our feet were crying out for mercy after hours of shopping so we got a massage in one of the shops here and the boyfriend emerged from a full-body massage looking decidedly happier. 😀 And we went in search of food.

I’m a huge fan of mushrooms so I just HAD to stop and purchase some of those delicious grilled oyster mushrooms…

And we popped into a random shop selling Lu Rou Fan (braised meat rice). Because I was so very hungry, I didn’t take any pictures… but here’s one from saveur.com:

DEFINITELY order a bowl of lu rou fan when you are in Taiwan. It’s DELICIOUS!

When we had filled our bellies, we did more shopping within Raohe Night Market – no major damage to our wallets, just a couple of tees.

We concluded the night with supper in our hotel room – some sushi we bought at 50% discount (as the store was closing for the night), bubble tea, and muah chee from Raohe Night Market. I didn’t like the muah chee very much as it seemed much tougher to chew as compared to the soft muah chee we find in Singapore’s pasar malams.

Every day was Cheat Day in Taipei – we ate anything we fancied. 😀 But I’m glad to announce that I’m back to my gym routine already. Lots of calories to burn, but oh so worth it! 😀

And on Day 3, we went to Danshui, Beitou Hot Springs & Shilin Night Market! Come back soon for the blogpost. 🙂

Taipei Day One: Chen Ji Mian Xian, Taipei 101, Agnès B Cafe, Ximending

[Part 1 of 5]

I have a love affair with Taipei and the boyfriend calls my almost-yearly visits “Taipei pilgrimages”. Ha! It’s easy to fall in love with this city and in this series of blogposts (5 in total), I hope to share with you my favorite haunts in Taipei plus some of the new places I visited this time in July 2012. 🙂

Let’s start from the flight from Singapore.

I was excited about going to Terminal 1 (after its S$500 million upgrade) to check out the Kinetic Rain installation made up of 1,216 bronze-coated aluminium droplets moving up and down like waves.

Many people gawked at the display

We posed for pictures! 🙂

I also tried Quizos’ subs for the first time – nothing to write home about but enough to fill our stomachs for the 4-plus hour flight to Taipei!

I was so happy to be flying off that I’d pose with any (random) sculpture!

And the Who-Did-It-Better Contest:

And I also found one of my favorite retailers: Harrods! Please get me this Swarovski crystal-encrusted bag for my birthday! 😀

And no trip to Harrods is complete without a picture with its mascot – I love the bear!

(above) I think the bear was wishing him a pleasant flight, or something. XD

As ours was a 1.15am flight via Jetstar, we reached Taipei around 6am.

The view from my window

There’s no need to take a taxi or arrange for airport-hotel transfers where Taipei is concerned. Just buy tickets to the MRT station nearest to your hotel. We took a bus to Taipei Main Station, just one stop away from Ximending, where we stayed.

Total cost for 2: NT 250 or S$10.76. The exchange rate we got was S$1:NT23.22 in Singapore (Chinatown) and S$1:NT23.20 in Taipei.

We stayed at Ximen Citizen Hotel at No.72, 94, Emei St, Wanhua Dist, Taipei City 108. The room rates there (for what they deem a bigger room) are NT$2280 for Fridays, Saturdays & holidays, and NT$2080 for all other days.

We deposited our luggage at the hotel reception since the official check-in time is 3pm and we were REALLY early.

Then we headed to Chen Ji Mian Xian for breakfast. Singaporeans generally flock to Ah Zhong Mian Xian in Ximending but the locals favor Chen Ji Mian Xian. 😉

Didn’t snap a good picture of the shopfront ‘cos I was busy eating 😀

NT 65 for a big bowl and NT50 for a small one. We got ourselves 2 big bowls of goodness and paid just S$5.60!

The bosses are really generous with the oysters (some of which are really big) and the pigs’ intestines which have a chewy texture we loved.

Again, this place is accessible by MRT as well so all you need to do is take the train to Longshan Temple station, one stop away from Ximen station (super convenient location, I know!). Then take exit 2 out of Longshan Temple station, take a left turn and walk to He Ping West Rd no. 166. It’s a short, barely 5-minute walk and you’ll get to Chen Ji Mian Xian. 🙂

After breakfast, we took the train to Taipei City Hall station and strolled about, waiting for the malls to open for business. We made a serendipitous discovery when we found the Agnès B Cafe in Taipei 101! 🙂

The cakes were yummy, even though the serving sizes were small.

Each slice costs about NT120 which is about S$5. Savor SLOWLY.

I’d read a blogger’s review that the fruit juices served in this cafe are good too so I bought a bottle of mixed fruit juice. It did not disappoint. 🙂 [See pic above]

And finally a picture with the Agnès B rabbit at the entrance 🙂

Shopping at Taipei 101 is neither cheap nor exciting. But when we left the building and roamed around the streets nearby, we found HOT models handing out flyers advertising the new ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ movie.

I’m looking like some super happy Japanese tourist…

What can I say? These models really know how to strut their stuff.

Then, we walked into a store selling crystal-encrusted sandals. Prices were steep, at over S$100 per pair. And I did some “modelling” myself. LOL!

The shop owner was only all too happy to oblige. He told me to try on any pair I wanted, snap more photos, and help him promote his store. Alas, I forgot where I kept his namecard! Oops! XD

Then we spotted an Ireland’s Potato outlet which sold fries with a variety of sauces.

The boyfriend wanted to get an order of fries but I told him we can find the same store in Danshui. He was quite insistent so what could I do but oblige…

Dinner was at Dante Coffee back in Ximending. There are a number of Dante Coffee outlets in Taipei, and the food is always good – I don’t know why.

The Japanese Curry main I ordered…

The boyfriend went with the beef and we enjoyed the boob-shaped rice balls too! The food here is really good!

And finally, some random snaps around Ximending:

We turned in early as we didn’t get much sleep on the plane. With the help of some Lychee Beer, I dozed off pretty quickly… 🙂

Come back soon for Day 2 and beyond  – there’s the Modern Toilet restaurant, Jay Chou restaurant, Hello Kitty Sweets cafe, Wufenpu, Raohe Night Market, Danshui, Beitou Hot Springs, Shilin Night Market, Tianmu, Jiufen, Keelong, Miaokou Night Market, etc! 😀