It was back in November last year, before my dad passed away that Hugo purchased Air Asia tickets to Taiwan for about RM400. I had high hopes that on the time of travel that I am able to travel to Taiwan with the entire family but shortly a month later, the hopes dwindle down to nothing. And I have been moping since, with added back to back semesters and internship with no break. Then time came for my final semester in my bachelor’s that my Taiwan trip was to fall smack middle during the semester. But something changed. I didn’t care if it was stuck in the middle of a semester!

To think that early last year, I had the opportunity to travel to Taiwan with my parents to attend my brother’s wedding but I passed on it, why? Because it was smack middle during a semester. But this time, I couldn’t care less and off I went excited but tired, very much reminiscing the time that I passed the chance last year. A lot of what if’s came into my mind.

Enough of my introduction, let’s jump into my Taiwan trip now. I know I haven’t been the best blogger out there but I’m surprised and elated to see traffic is still coming in because of my Hong Kong trip posts! So I hope this Taiwan posts will do the same, I like to write it as detail as I could because I would be reading this 10 years to come and still remember what happened.

My departure to Taiwan was on a Sunday morning, 10 am from LCCT and I had to fly from Penang and stay over in KL for a night. And on Saturday I still have classes going on hence I flew to KL at night so it was pretty nice that my classmates wished me well and have fun on this short holiday.

I flew to KL on Saturday at 11pm and the next day it was 10am from KL to Taipei. I didn’t enjoy the flight to Taipei at all because firstly, the food sucks, and the air-conditioner was way too cold and I miss the comfort from non-budget airlines like Cathay Pacific or Thai Airways. So yea, in general, I do not enjoy Air Asia flights at all and this is only my first time flying with Air Asia X. So perhaps, hmmm.

Anyhow, we landed in Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport that was quite a run down airport, it’s not as “wow” like HKIA or Heathrow and I couldn’t even find the duty free shops! Hence I failed to buy the Glenfiddich’s and Caster’s that my brother requested. And I was carrying about 500gms of tobacco in my luggage.

A very important point, don’t forget to take the free tourist maps available in the airport! There are maps for the entire country, from North, South, East, Central and Taipei.

As we were heading to Kaoshiung immediately after landing, we took the High Speed Rail (HSR) which is probably the fastest way to travel there other than flying.

From the airport, you will have to take a bus to the HSR station which is about a 20 minutes ride. Following the signs, make your way to the ticketing counter for buses and you will probably see a sign that says “bus to HSR terminal” and if you don’t see it, just ask around. Taiwanese people are really friendly and courteous, unlike people here. Anyhow, we went to the U-Bus ticket counter and purchased 2 tickets to the HSR terminal for 60TWD which is RM3 for each person.

At the HSR terminal, we purchased the tickets from Taipei to Zuoying, which is in Kaoshiung for RM133 each person.

The journey took about 1 hour 50 minutes as we were traveling for the top north stop to the down south stop in Taiwan. Once we arrived in Zuoying, we were greeted by my brother who was waiting to fetch us home. Ahh finally the end of traveling for the day. It was so tiring after traveling consecutively for more than 7 hours in a day. My brother told us that the Zuoying HSR terminal is actually linked to a shopping mall, but we were too tired to wander anymore.

On the way to my brother’s place, it was definitely weird being on the road because the driver’s lane is on the right and the driver’s seat is on the left. Which I mistakenly tried to enter the car from the driver’s side, because I’m used to sitting on the front passenger seat on the left.

Anyhow, we arrived at my brother’s place which is a 7 storey shop house and we are to stay on the 6th floor.  The first floor is a restaurant and the second floor is a karaoke lounge. Once I entered the house, my brother’s daughter; my niece Stella immediately gave a loud scream that was glass breaking but I made my way to my room  because of the luggage that I was carrying. She immediately started crawling into my room, kepoh about what I’m doing in the room. Here”s the video of Stella crawling into my room.

We had a short rest, finally showered, freshened and feeling very much alive, my brother and my sister-in-law; together with Stella took us for a night drive out on the way to dinner. We headed to Kaohshiung Arena, a shopping mall and dined at Saboten, a Japanese restaurant.And the food was good, and plentiful.

Mushroom Daikon Salad & Wild Yam

It was about RM86 for a set meal that serves two or more, comes with a serving of pork cutlets with mash potato, salad, d’œuvre’s that consist of sweet black beans, wild yam, mushroom daikon salad that was free flow. My favourites were the sweet black beans and the wild yam.

We had their famous pork cutlets, which does not stick to your teeth (even with my braces!) It was just perfectly fried, with no fats, no chewiness, no raw pork taste. It was just perfect. Plus the sauce to go with the pork cutlets was awesome.

Each person is served with a bowl of sesame in it’s grinder and you are required to grind the sesame by hand and mix it with plum sauce to dip the pork cutlets with. The combo was perfect, the sesame’s aroma mixed with the sweetness of the plum sauce is just perfect with the juicy pork cutlets. Other than that, each person is served with a bowl of rice, a bowl of miso soup, cabbage salad and a glass of ocha that is all free flow!

After dinner, we shopped around for a while but we were too full to be in full shopping mode and we adjourned to a night drive in Kaoshiung. We headed to the famous and beautiful Love River to enjoy the night view, there were a lot of people strolling and doing night picnics there.

The view was night, however the weather in Kaoshiung is horrible. Hardly a gust of wind so it was very dry, hot and stuffy there. Perhaps travelling to Taiwan during summer isn’t a good idea at all. But nevertheless, I very much enjoyed my first (half) day in Taiwan. Courtesy of the hospitality from my brother and sister-in-law of course.

We ended the night by getting drinks on the go, I got Iced Grapefruit that took 2 days to finish for only RM 4.50 and headed home, watched UP in HD and then hit the sack.

♥ Wendy