Hotel Puri : Taipei Station

For our Taipei Trip, we decided to stay at Hotel Puri, Taipei Station. It was about 10 minutes walk from Taipei station. We booked a standard twin room for 2 adults. While we were searching for our accommodation, we noticed that most affordable rooms in Taipei are dormitory style with shared bathroom. We wanted a room where we have privacy, own bathroom but still at an affordable price. I think Hotel Puri is the only one that fits these criteria. 

Location: 

Location is near the central station. It is around 10 minutes walk from the station. There are several 7/11 shops around and small restaurants / food stalls where you can buy your meals.

Price: 

I think the price for this is really great. We paid P5,478.86 (144 AUD) for 2 nights standard twin room with private bathroom. There were 2 single bed, safety box, water heater (for tea), complimentary tea bags, coffee, and water. 

Cleanliness: 

The room is very clean. They also do the beddings every day, change towels and refill the supplies. 

Others:

There is no breakfast included for this booking but they do have a mini pantry/kitchen near the reception area. There you can get extra water, tea, coffee and they have snacks available in the morning. I think I saw cereals, milk, and popcorn there (didn't go there for breakfast because we always eat out). If you arrive earlier than the standard check-in time, they allow guest to leave their luggage at the hotel. We did advise them that we might come back late and they said it's ok to do late check-in because they already have our luggage in their storage. Overall, I think this is a great place to stay at an affordable price and does not sacrifice privacy.😁

Taipei : Maokong Gondola

The Maokong Gondola has three (3) stops. Taipei Zoo Station, Zhinan Temple Station, and Maokong Station.

First stop, Taipei Zoo Station. We stayed and went around the zoo for about 2 hours. We didn't spend a lot of time here because our main reason for going is to experience riding the "Gondola" 😉. I'll post the picture from the zoo in a separate blog post. 

We also went down at Zhinan Temple Station because we saw the Giant Dragon Statue from the gondola. We thought since we're already there, why not take some pictures with the dragon? (Insert Dragon Ball Z OST here!😀). The station is still far from the actual temple. There are a lot of Taxis waiting near the station though. So if you're planning on going to the temple and haven't arranged a service in advance, you can take the taxi here. We didn't bother to check how much they are charging. We are in a hurry to get back to the Gondola to reach Maokong Station. 😁

Finally, after 2 stops, we reached Maokong Station! There is a tourist information centre inside the station. There is also a convenience store and several souvenir shops. However, the best part is across the street from the station. They have lots of different tea houses offering a variety of food and drinks. The whole road (maybe about 1-2 km) is filled with tea houses. If you are not keen on walking, there is a big food court (hawker-centre style) just a few minutes from the station. We tried their oyster pancake, milk tea, and lemon tea. The oyster pancake was so yummy! You can also try this pancake at Raohe Night Market. We saw several stores selling it there as well.

  

Taipei: Taipei 101

Taipei 101 is Taiwan's highest building and was actually the World's tallest building until 2010 (before Burj Khalifa in Dubai). It is a couple of minutes walk from the train station. The building is so tall, you'll need to find a spot few blocks away if you want to snap a whole picture of it. 

On our quest to find the best spot, we passed by some cool decorative balls which were great for wide angle mirror pics. 😉

Taipei : Jiufen

After our hike in Shifen, we continued our journey to Jiufen Old Street. From Shifen, we took the train to "Rui Fang" station. Then take the bus to Jiufen Old Street. 

This location is included on the list of places to visit for first-time traveler to Taiwan. 

In my opinion, Jiufen is more suitable for Food Trip. Most of the establishment are selling snacks and native delicacies. You can also find stores selling souvenirs and local products. The streets are bustling with people, mostly tourists. 

However, our main reason for going to Jiufen is to see the inspiration behind a set in "Spirited Away" Movie. It's supposed to be a Tea House looking over the ocean and Jiufen view. It took us a while before we actually found the Tea House. There is no signage to show you the way. But, because this view is very popular there are a lot of people going. 

Tip: Follow the crowd and they will lead you to the Tea House. That's what we did! LOL. The struggle of not being able to understand/speak Chinese... 😤 

Warning: There are a lot of people going in the area, master your Ninja Moves to get a good spot and take instagram-worthy pictures. 😅

Taipei: Shifen

Shifen Old Street is one of Taipei's most popular tourist destination. Tourist flock the streets for their wish lanterns! The old railway is still operational. The shops do know the daily schedule so they will advise their customers when they need to leave the railway. 

After lighting/flying your lantern, you can take a walk to Shifen Waterfalls. It took us around 45 minutes -1 hour to the falls. We did stop for short breaks and picture taking in between. If you are not keen on going for an hour walk but still want to see the waterfalls, you can take a taxi. It will take you to the closes drop point and from there you just have to walk for about 15-20 minutes. The Taxi cost around 100 NTD each. We walked from old street to the waterfalls and took the taxi going back. We were too tired to walk the whole way back to the station. 😂

   

Taipei Taiwan Travel Video

Hello hello! 😀

I'm too lazy to sort out and edit pictures from my recent travel ( I got around 1000+) right now. For the mean time, I decided to just post a video. I was planning on showing a short snippet for each place I visited. However, I found out that I was not able to take video in some places. 😂

I'll try to find some motivation and battle my laziness in order to sort/edit pictures and write the actual blog post.

I put "ft. Bro Bear" in the video because he was my companion for the duration of this trip.

Places we visited:

• Shifen
• Jiufen
• Shilin Night Market
• Taipei Zoo
• Maokong
• Zhinan Temple
• Dazhi Bridge
• Raohe Night Market
• Taipei 101
• Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
• Ximending

AN: I am LOVING the emoji feature right now. If you notice from my recent posts, I'm now using EMOJIs! 😉