Saturday, October 31, 2015

Taiwan Trip 2015 - Day 1 - Cambridge Hotel Tainan

For our accomodation in Tainan, we decided to stay at Cambridge Hotel cause of its good location near attractions, shopping area, etc. There's a family mart near the hotel where we make friends with the staff cause we went there nightly to get our coffee and supper hahaha.

The hotel is very outdated and old but some rooms were newly renovated. The hotel room were very cheap as compared to those in Taipei so we decided to upgrade to a big room meant for four but only hubby and me stay. The room were clean except that the carpet looked very old but the dresser seem brand new and clean.

Everything were given to us in fours. We were given four breakfast vouchers daily but we actually utilised only two hahaha. Even the complimentary mineral water we got four bottles so we dont have to purchase any extra mineral water during our stay in Tainan.

The exterior of the hotel, sorry for the blur photo.

There's laundry room on the highest floor and free to use. Detergent were provided free too.

Saw this message on the room door, hahaha , the translation looked odd. Was a reminder to lock the room door when we sleep.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Taiwan Trip 2015 - Day 1- Taking the High Speed Rail Train from Taipei to Tainan

From the plane, I could see Taiwan but we could not land cause of heavy traffic at the airport, we need fly in circle in the sky for extra 30 minutes before landing. It was a good thing that I did not booked my High Speed Rail Train Tickets in advance otherwise I could have missed my train. But if I had booked online I could have discounts on my train tickets but if I missed my train, I could end up losing money too.

After clearing immigration and collected our luggages, we exited the hall and turn right to the bus station.

At the bus station, there's different bus companies selling tickets to different parts of Taiwan. As I wanted to take the high speed rail train to Tainan, I need to purchase a shuttle bus ticket to Taoyuan High Speed Rail Train Station as there's no HSR Station in the airport itself. The ticket costs NT30 per person. It was only about 15 minutes ride from the airport to Taoyuan HSR Station.

After purchasing the tickets, we proceed to Row 1 to board UBUS 705 to Taoyuan HSR Station.

We just put our luggages in the middle part of the bus.

After about 15 mintues, we finally arrived Taoyuan HSR Station and we quickly queue to purchase reserved seat tickets to Tainan, we also collected our tickets for our return trip from Tainan to Taipei, we booked online and had some discounts. It is easy to book online. You can refer to my old post on how to book online.

There's a little window on the train exterior to indicate the Train Number so there's no reason to board the wrong train.

Large luggages could be stored at each end of the cabin but sometimes they were full so we need to put it on the overhead rack or under our feet for bigger luggages but we were lucky we always managed to store our large luggages at the designated location.

After about 1 hour and 20mintures journey, we finally arrived Tainan and we just looked out for the directions to the taxi stand. The fare from Tainan HSR Station to our hotel (Cambridge Hotel Tainan) in Minzhu Road Section 2 Tainan, was NT460 but the cab driver was crazy , he thought he was a F1 driver, he was speeding so fast that I was worried about our safety. Luckily, we managed to arrive our hotel safely, phew. The journey was about 30 minutes. There's another way to save money, board the free shuttle bus at Tainan HSR Station to Tainan Railway Station and hitch a cab from there to the hotel which is much cheaper.

Short video on the high speed rail train.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Taiwan Trip 2015 - Day 1 - Changi Airport Terminal 3, Butterfly Garden and Singapore Airlines Food

Finally, I am back from a very tiring trip to Taiwan. Main purpose was to attend a wedding in Taiwan during my trip. Was a very joyous and happy occasion.

On the day of the departure, we headed to the food court in Changi Airport Terminal 3 for breakfast, there's lots of choices and yummy local food.

After breakfast, not to be missed must be the butterfly garden in Terminal 3 but was disappointed that now there were not as many butterflies when I last visited.

After viewing the butterfly garden, I was off to Shilla Duty Free Shop to purchase some cosmetics. Of course the price here were so much cheaper.

Finally hop onto my favourite Airline, Singapore Airlines.

There's two choices to select for lunch but we dont even have to select cause all the oriental menu were selected by other passengers and only the western menu were left,so had to settle for that. :(

Luckily the fried fish tasted good but the pasta were rather hard for my liking.

The best part must be the dessert, ice cream coated with chocolate, yum yum.

Saturday, October 03, 2015

Taiwan 2015 - Collect free gifts from Taiwan Tourism Board Singapore

Went to Taiwan Tourism Board Singapore to collect some free gifts before departing for my trip to Taiwan.

The address of Taiwan Tourism Board is: Taiwan Visitors Assn (Taiwan Tourism Bureau-Singapore office) 30 Raffles Place #10-01, Chevron House ,Singapore048622 Office Hour : 0900-1700 (Mon-Fri) Tel:+65-6223-6546

If you are coming by MRT, alight at Raffles Place MRT Station, Exit B, Chevron House is on the left, take the escalator to Level 3, exchange your identify card for a visitor's pass, take the elevataor to Level 10.

This month the free gift was a one way bus ticket to or from Taipei Taoyuan International Airport to city or vice versa. And also 10% discount vouchers for theme park to Window of China.

Also collect much needed map of Tainan. The information on the map are really useful. Looking forward to my trip to Taiwan. :)