Day 3 in Kaoshiung was all about traveling! We woke up late because we were so exhausted from the day before and we were supposed to catch the HSR to Taichung at 11.30 am but we were late so we caught the 12.10 pm ride instead. While still in Kaoshiung, my sister-in-law took Hugo and I to 7-Eleven to grab a quick breakfast and that’s where I had my usual combo of the sandwich and fruit juice.

Other than that, I bought myself a 7-Eleven iCash card/EasyGo card that can be used for bus rides, MRT rides and 7-Eleven’s. And they have the cutest designs ever for the card that changes frequently, they had Spongebob Squarepants, Shrek 3 characters and this Rilakkuma character from Hello Kitty’s family. No points for guessing which card I bought.

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Day 2 in Taiwan began a little late, partially because we were so tired from traveling the day before and partially because my brother and sister-in-law aren’t exactly morning people. We woke up, showered and fed Stella her milk before we head out for our brunch.

And the weather was so HOT! Seriously for you people who are planning to go to Taiwan during summer, make sure you bring an umbrella or buy an umbrella! You will definitely need it because the sun sears your skin!

In a matter of a minute, whereby I was carrying Stella down from 6th floor in the elevator to the car, I was already sweating buckets. It was really really that hot.

We headed to somewhere nearby our place, it was a fast brunch for us as we are about the have a long drive to Kenting National Park. We were at Paddy Aurae, a Taiwanese version of fast-food, was supposed to head to Dolik for breakfast but we were rush for time. Anyhow, I ordered a bowl of pork meat plus floss and pickled vegetables served with rice and a bowl of white fish meat soup that costs 60TWD for both! Seriously it’s a cheap meal, there’s fish!

It was nice, will definitely have it again when I have the chance.

One thing about Taiwan architecture, the buildings are mostly tiled. Like 98% out of the buildings are tiled, as opposed to Malaysian buildings whereby it’s all just painted.

After our quickie brunch, we headed down to Kenting National Park and on the way there, we detoured to Pingtung and my brother decided to randomly drive around since he’s never been in that area before. We didn’t know where we were so we scoured to using Googlemap’s to help our navigation.

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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.

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Finally I have time to continue writing about my trip, these past few days has been tremendously busy with so many things to do plus the hot humid weather in Ipoh isn’t helping either.

Anyhow, back to my Hong Kong trip story, day 4 is probably the grandest and most expensive therefore the budget for the day was pretty high. We started the day off by skipping breakfast with a quick cuppa of Milo each before dashing to Sheung Wan to board the ferry to Macau.

From Mong Kok, we followed the Tsuen Wan line till we reached  Central stop before interchanging to the Island Line and got off at Sheung Wan. From the Sheung Wan MTR exit, keep a look out for signs directing you to the Ferry Terminal and there shouldn’t be any problem as there are ample signs around therefore the chances of getting lost is very minimal.

By following the signs, you will somehow end up in Shun Tak Center whereby it’s a shopping mall plus ferry terminal. You will have to go up till the 3rd floor where the ticket offices are located and there are several ferries to choose from and we chose TurboJet. We even got the tickets cheaper too, if you were to buy from the TurboJet ticket counter it would cost 134 HKD each but there is a nearby agent stall that sells the tickets for 130 HKD each. So we got a cheaper deal by 8 bucks.

The inside of the TurboJet ferry is very comfortable, even more so than my Cathay Pacific flight. The seats were comfortable and spacious, and prior to boarding the ferry you will have to submit your tickets to the counter where they will allocate your seats with stickers.

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Set on the itinerary for the third day, was to venture across to Hong Kong Island. We planned to have a close up look and probably go into some of the skyscrapers such as the IFC, Bank of China Tower and The Peak. So it’s a pretty extensive coverage for us, and trust me I walked till my feet literally cried for help because I ended up with blisters at the end of the day.

We started our journey at 8.30 am  with breakfast of bread and Milo in our room before heading out for the Mong Kok MTR station nearby our hostel.

We chose to stay in Mong Kok because it’s a hotspot for shopping and dining, plus it’s more economical compared to staying in Hong Kong Island. Tsim Tsa Tsui is not a bad place to stay too, also a very popular area but for Mong Kok,  traveling is made easy with a two minute walk to the nearest MTR station. For those who are going to Hong Kong , it’s better to book your room in advance prior to arrival instead of walk-in to avoid traffic and unavailability and there is no hassle as sites such as HotelsCombined would offer information about places to stay according to areas, so you can book your room in advance way before your trip like how we did.

As you can see from the MTR system map, (which you can click to enlarge) Hong Kong’s MTR system covers pretty much every area in Hong Kong therefore covering Hong Kong isn’t a problem except for time constraints. And there are machines in the MTR station to reload and check your Octopus card, also computers with free internet access for 15 minutes! Yea, you can use the computers for free but there’s a 15 minute countdown once you begin.

Anyhow, our journey started from Mong Kok (red) where we traveled all the way to Admiralty, then interchanged to the Island Line (dark blue) and got off at Central.

In Central, there are several landmarks like the Standard Chartered Building, HSBC Main Building, City Hall, Bank of China Tower and the Two International Finance Centre (IFC).

The MTR station at Central is just a close proximity to the City Hall, therefore we crossed an overhead bridge into the City Hall for another breakfast at Maxim’s. Again, no pictures were taken because both of us were so hungry plus the food was just so-so, not very cheap either.

From the we walked quite an extend till the IFC or the International Finance Tower and we took a quick stroll in the building before moving on. There was nothing in there, mostly high end retail shops so it was just window shopping for me.

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