Sunday 21 May 2017

Taiwan, Taipei 2017

Dear diary,

We had a short vacation to Taiwan!
Taiwan is one of my favorite places to shop for stuffs for the girls. They have many accessories and treats that might be cheaper than our local pet stores. There are only a few particular places has pets shops. I will mention that in the later part of my post.



We stayed at this hotel Midtown Richardson. Its opposite the very well known shopping district, Ximending. The hotel is clean and the price is reasonable. Its very convenient as the train exit (exit 4 Ximen station) is just a few steps away from the hotel. This time round our purpose to taiwan is just go shop and relax. We have been to taipei many times so we do not have the urge to explore, just going to some places for old time sake.

Our new experience is the Hello Kitty themed flight from EVA airways. Its a taiwan airline and its really very "up to standard". Everything was hello kitty and even the toilet has hello kitty toilet paper. The food was so-so, but who cares! Im here for the kitty. Hahaha. There is also entertainment on board so I watched a movie, slept and we reached taiwan! The hello kitty flight timing is rather odd. They only have flights to taipei at 3.25pm for EVA airways. The hello kitty flights are scheduled only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. We reached taipei about 9plus pm and took a train to ximen area. By the time we reached our hotel and check in, its about 11pm. 1st day wasted. But I just really wanted to experience the Hello kitty flight. Haha.








Second day we started our day by eating Dim Sum. We missed our hotel breakfast and had to come out of our hotel for breakfast. The Dim Sum was good and yummy!

Then we headed for our shopping! It was really a blust and I spent most of my expenses. Haha. Lets skip to the interesting part where I shop for the girls.
This is the place where most fur parent will ask. Where is it? Haha I honestly dont know the road. We would take a taxi from Taipei 101 and tell the taxi uncle in chinese "TongHua night market outside those stratch of pet stores" and they will drive us there. Its just a 5min drive, about 100TWD more or less only. Then I went crazy and shopped on and on and on.


















The next few days we went to our old times places like Dan shui, Wufenpu, Shilin night market, Jiu fen, etc. Its a very slow and steady vacation. I really enjoyed it.

Another place I would like to highlight is the Beitou Hotspring. There are many hot spring resorts around. We just have to google it and check for reviews. This time we went to GrandView Resort. We can choose outdoor or indoor private Hotspring. If im not wrong, we paid about 2.6k TWD or less for 90min. Its more expensive than other hot springs around as this resort is one of the higher end resorts. The last time we went to a random resort, the hot spring was just a bath tub. It was so boring experience. This time, the experience is much much different.






They even provided shower essentials and a small dessert, pudding. After the whole session, we had to take a taxi from the resort back to the train station as its too far in. Hahaha.

Next highlight was to a cat cafe. We didn't know where to go on our last day as we have limited budget in our pockets due to major overspending. hahaha. So we went to ZhongXiao Fuxing area and just randomly search for a cafe. This place has a lot of cafes and its the best for cafe hopping! Every corner there is a cafe, some with theme, and some without. Best is to google to check out for reviews! We happened to google and found a cat cafe nearby and decided to search for it and we found it!












We ordered Egg Benedict and it was really yummy. The cats were quite shy and not able to hold them to pat them. I was just busy taking photos of them sleeping and lazing their afternoon away. haha so cute.

Then, we hopping to Agnes B cafe. they sell sweets and cakes and other desserts. We were too full from the previous cafe so we just ordered 2 cakes. and still too much for me. hahaha!









We were too full to hop any more cafes so we just stroll randomly at the nearby estates and guess what i found! 1 sakura tree, planted inside one of the property. We were in luck!






We had a lot of fun and relaxing time until its time to go back home. The mixed feeling of missing the luxury and yet eager to go back to my girls. But I have prepared a luggage full of stuffs for the girls and excited to give everything to them.

The airport was very crowded and EVA airlines took up more than half of terminal 2. The queue was very long and there were many people going home to different countries. I was so worried if my luggage were to be accidentally misplaced as all the luggage were all mixed. But in the end, they didnt. My luggage was safe. Haha.
We boarded the plane on time but there was a queue to take off. The plane was driving on the plane track for at least more than half and hour then the plane captian announced that the plane is queuing to take off. I looked out of the window and saw a long line of EVA planes, queuing to take off... my jaw dropped.......
We were about 2 hours delayed on the overall journey and we were in the plane so we wouldn't inform our family and friends so people were worried.
Maybe next time I will only take the flight from Singapore to Taiwan to experience the hello kitty theme again. But will book a different flight back home. I think they can better plan their flights taking off from the airport. Other than that, their service is really good and up to standard. Very efficient and the stewardess were very well trained and helpful.

Overall our trip was a wonderful one. We spent so much quality time together and had the best break from our hectic lifestyle.

Love,
Mummy bumver