Monday, October 19, 2009

Back from Vacation I

I was in Taipei from Sunday evening to Friday late afternoon, so it is 5 days 5 nights. Being a Chinese in a Chinese environment, and also bringing along 2 kids, I chose a free and easy style. This was the itinerary.

Sunday Night: Our hotel is at XimenDing, so naturally it is shopping at XimenDing. I think my personal expectations were too high. I thought it would be highly unusual shopping and food, but it feels rather like shopping in Chinatown. It is still an enjoyable experience, but I guess there is no wow factor.

Monday Day: Seeing that the weather was fine, we wanted to strike out the first must see location that depended on the weather: Tamshui. This location is for the Taiwanese what East Coast Park is for Singaporeans. If you want to enjoy a scenic place to walk, go here. Our aim is to cover Tamshui to the YuRen MaTou(Fisherman's Wharf). We walked from our hotel at XimenDing to Taipei Main Station, enjoying the traffic and stalls along the way. Walking in Taipei city feels like walking around in old Singapore with shophouses everywhere. Thumbs up for this. We then took the MRT to Tamshui. From there we walked down Tamshui LaoJie (old street) and had hotpot for lunch. Food is very affordable there. The shopping here is much better IMO. However all the walking tire out my kids and my family decide not to continue the road march to the Fisherman's Wharf. Since we have already seen the scenic view, I guess it was not necessary to go the extra mile. We also missed Fort Santo Domingo. Going back to our hotel, we discovered (after calling) that my wife's idol 張晉樵 is performing at a pub on Monday night and Tuesday night. So we decided to change the night plans from a more popular night market to a unknown night market near the pub's location.

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