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Grad Trip: The beginning!
posted : Friday, July 27, 2012
Day 0: Travelling in the rain
Flight was 10am and factor in the travel time from hotel to airport...left at around 630am. Cab driver offered to drive us straight to LCCT but we turned him down...budget budget. Stuck to shuttle bus instead so cabbed to KL Sentral...Met up with Val at LCCT, check in, breakfast (ok this part kinda boring so skip to photos). 
4 of us who left from Bukit Bintang!
Minimal luggage to start the trip
KH with his beloved pillow
McD for breakfast, for the lack of other choices.
Excited!
Flight was 4 hours +...not to say very long but was feeling very restless throughout. Couldnt sleep also even though din get much sleep the night before...while KH was semangat-ly playing with Stel's mum's iPad which ended up as a rather good travel companion hahaha. By the way, tip for travelling with AirAsia: if you want to eat something hot, like a proper meal (cup noodles dont count), must pre-order when you book. Because they probably only pack enough to sell on spot to the hot seat people. Yep so forced to go hungry coz indignantly refused to buy their super overpriced cup noodles (okay everything is overpriced but somehow expensive cup noodles are so much more unacceptable).
Stel and Val managed to get a packet of Masala Chicken tho.
Gloomy clouds welcomed our arrival in Taiwan...nevertheless, still excited. First step after clearing immigration and baggage, went straight to the Tourist counter, filled in a form and collected our Youth Card! Comes with a booklet detailing where and what discounts are available to holders of the card. In truth, in the end the card didnt help much because we werent planning our trip based on places which offers discounts mah. Think we only flashed the card like 2-3 times throughout the trip. Oh well it makes a nice bag tag.... 
Pretty self explanatory, this one.
First group photo in Taiwan!
 
Collection of the youth card!
Next stop, to get SIM cards. Can't stress enough how important internet on-the-go is....yea our generation is spoilt...traditionally people would have taken out maps and bus guides or what not if they get lost in a foreign country...now you have Google Maps that does everything including public transport guide and it's way convenient. Got two numbers in the end, one without data plan and one with unlimited data...which is helpful for instance in long train rides when you have nothing to do..then can online.  
Bus Tickets, take bus number 1819.
Arrived at Taipei Main Station in the rain.
TRA ticketing hall.
Story about the train tickets: Our initial idea was that we don't want to be too tied down by schedules...so didnt get train tickets in advance when we need to do inter-city travels..few days before we left for Taiwan I randomly went to the online booking system and found out all Taipei-Hualien train tickets have been sold out?! Then googled and found out Taipei-Hualien tickets are usually hard to buy...more so on Friday nights. Panicked and started searching for alternatives...at one point was even contemplating flight hahaha. Forums stated that standing tickets (i.e stand throughout the ride) would never be sold out...so we were like, bo pian lor, if have to stand then so be it. Thankfully when we checked it out at Taipei Main Station seating tickets are available, possibly because people cancelled bookings last minute etc...so yep, wasnt able to sit together but at least within the same carriage. And had to take a later train as well...projected to reach Hualien at 1130pm. Minsu owner had no problems with that either, thankfully, and still say she will send someone over to pick us up.  So we had quite a bit of time, explored Taipei Main Station for food...somehow while we were being indecisive abt what to eat...the 便当s from various stalls were all sold out...BK sold out, and food court had too many people....ended up with bread and sandwiches for dinner. Too hungry until not hungry already so that was kind of sufficient lol. Taiwanese trains are super punctual. That was one of the first things that impresses me (other than the obvious service quality)....its like they can have this train schedule board, kind of like the ones in airport, for years and they don't even need to update it. Then there is ample room on the trains, and rather comfortable too..I guess I could sleep really well if not for the lousy convo I had with my mum right at the beginning of the ride. Sigh...sth I dun wan to rmbr really, so let's just move to the end of the ride. 
If you get what I was trying to say back there...
 
Super duper sien by the time we reach Hualien station. Rain stopped couple of hours earlier i think as the roads were pretty dry by the time we reached. Minsu rep met us at the rear exit of the station...turns out to be owner's husband! And we did something I think is rather familiar to tourists: we walked to left side of the car expecting to board the passenger's seat. Heh. Not "orientated" yet bah. So squeezed into the car without much comments..less than 10 minutes car ride and we are there!
 
Stamping counters, there are present in all tourist attractions.
Left at such ungodly hours...
Mmm..I shall have a dedicated post about our place...so for now, just know that we settled in past midnight and by the time everybody is done bathing etc...around 2am already. And minsu owner arranged for our cab driver to come at 830am the next morning zzzz. Oh well. More on that! Labels: taiwan |
