kriz Wanders in Taiwan: New Year Escape 2019
DIY travel is in nowadays, but we have to admit that having a DO-IT-YOURSELF Travel in a country wherein you are unfamiliar and you can not understand their language is a bit difficult, but me and my friends were able to pull it off when we took our vacation last December 2018 to spend our New year in Taipei, Taiwan. I’m going to share our 6 day itinerary and some of our travel hacks. So if you are interested, keep on reading this blog.
TIP #1 ALWAYS BOOK AHEAD OF TIME!
So this is my first time to travel overseas, and luckily, I don’t have to get a visa for this trip since currently, Taiwan is visa free for Filipinos. Originally, my friends and I were planning to spend the first quarter of 2019 in Cebu for Sinulog. But, suddenly they had a change of plan and I had to choose if I will come with them, or I will just go to Cebu on my own. And that’s how I ended up with this trip. Taiwan was not in the list of the countries that I wanted to visit, but as I come to wander around, I fell in love with the place. And so with the people who are very nice to us.
We booked our flight way ahead of time, so we can get a lower price for the plane tickets and my friend booked a place via airBnB, which is supposed to be cheap if only, we were able to book ahead of time. There is a big price increase if you will book a month before your stay, which happened to us.
So does with the place that we're going to stay, we didn't book ahead of time. When we were doing a canvas like 6 mos before our stay, the price was cheap, but when we alreadydecided to book a place, few months before our flight, that was the time that the price suddenly went up.
So always remember, BOOK AHEAD OF TIME!
You can really save some money if you will book ahead of time from the tickets to the place that you will stay. What happened to me was, I was so confident that I won't be needing an extra baggage allowance, since it will just be a week of stay, but in the end, I realized that I need an extra baggage, which lead me to a pricey addition of extra baggage. If you will just add a week before your flight, then it would cost you a lot. That was my case, and I regret it.
TIP # 2 FREE WATER @ the airport
We arrived in Taiwan at around 1AM, most stores in the airport is already closed at that time. Since most stores are not open when we arrived, the choice that we have is the 7-11, it's open 24 hours near the airport food court. But if you just want a water and you don't want to spend, the airport water refilling station is there. If you've watched my Vlog, it's the part where in there is a paper cups. Â I was a bit amazed when I first saw the paper cups and I was like, that's cool.
TIP #3 EXCHANGE YOUR MONEY AT THE AIRPORT
Upon arrival at the airport, you're going to need some money to spend to buy some stuffs. There's a money changer as soon as you go out after picking up your luggage in the carousell area.
My friends chose to have there Php change to NT before leaving the country, they bought some NT in NAIA before our flight. They had an exchange rate of 1.85Php to 1NT that time.
But I chose to exchange my money as soon as I arrive in Taoyuan Airport. Since I have US dollar, the exchange rate will be higher to NT than if I chose to buy NT using Php.
1 US Dollar = 30NT
NOTE: The money changer at the airport only charges 0.30NT compared to having a money exchange at the local bank in Taiwan which charges 200NT.
I really regret that I didn't exchanged everything at the airport, and just had my other money exchanged at the bank a few days after our arrival. I didn't have an idea that it would cost that much.
SO NOW YOU KNOW GUYS!
TIP # 4 PORTABLE WIFI + SIM (Bought at the airport)
We live in a modern age, where in internet is a part of our life and we love to update our social media accounts on our whereabouts. So here's a very useful and economical tip that I can share with you guys. You don't have to register your sim for roaming and subscribe to a surf promo using your local network here in the country so you can use data when you're abroad. You don't also need to rent a portable wifi in the airport  or from an online shop.
What you'll need is just YOUR OWN PORTABLE POCKET WIFI which is not locked from any network (OPENLINE), so you can use any network and enjoy surfing.
So upon arrival at the airport, we decided to buy a simcard that is under a local network in Taiwan, what's cool about is for 5 days, you'll get unlimited data for only 300NT!
That's cheap!
And of course, having an internet connection in a foreign country is a way of survival, well that's our case. We can always use google maps, online translator so we could understand the things that we're not able to understand.
TIP # 5 MRT FOR TRANSPORTATION
There are a lot of ways to get around in Taiwan, there's MRT, BUS and TAXI. But we chose to use the MRT, because it's easier and faster than taking a ride by bus/taxi. You should be aware of the bus routes, if you will choose to get around by bus, there bus ride system is different than ours because they use bus route numbers for their destinations. MRT is very convenient for transportation and cheaper. Since most of the tourist spots can be accessed using MRT, we chose this as our mode of transportation.
NOTE: You can buy a card that is good for 1 week stay in the train station, so you don't have to buy chips whenever you're going to take train/bus ride.
But in our case, since we know that we won't be able to consume everything in the card, we chose to buy chips every time we're going to need it.
(See here: Getting around Taiwan)
TIP #6 BOOK YOUR HOTEL/AIRBNB NEAR MRT STATIONS
It will be much easier to wander around the area and will be cheaper if you will stay near MRT stations. In our case, since our place is near the MRT Station, whenever we're going out, we will just walk to the nearest station and head to our destination.
We only took a cab like twice? It's because we are too tired that we don't want to walk anymore.
There are two options in taking a cab:
1. UBER - it's simple, just pin the place and you're good to go, no need to explain.
NOTE: Cash is not accepted, so you must connect your credit/debit card in your account as a mode of payment.
2. Hire a taxi
We're lucky enough that the driver is fluent in english so we we're able to understand each other and had a fast drive.
So here is our travel itinerary
DAY 1: - Arrival at TAOYUAN AIRPORT - TAIPEI MAIN STATION - MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Taipei (MOCA TAIPEI)
(MOCA TAIPEI)
You can go here by walking from Taipei Main Station, no need to ride.
Day 2:
- TAIPEI ZOO - MAOKONG GONDOLA - CHIANG KAI SHEK MEMORIAL HALL - XIMENDING - SHILIN NIGHT MARKET
TAIPEI ZOO
You can find a lot of animals that is not present here in our tropical country. So if you're an animal lover, you must visit this place. There is just an entrance fee of 60NT.
From here you can also ride going to MAOKONG, however you can also go to Maokong without entering the zoo, because they have a station outside the zoo. In our case, we rode from the south station of Taipei Zoo going to Maokong Station, which costed us 70NT.
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A post shared by Kristine Bonx (@kristinemaeb) on Dec 30, 2018 at 12:38am PST
MAOKONG
It's very cold here!
So we went here riding a crystal clear cable car, it's a 30 minute ride so the 120NT charge is not bad (MAOKONG STATION-TAIPEI ZOO STATION)
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CHIANG KAI SHEK MEMORIAL HALL
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XIMENDING
If you love shopping, this is the place to go. The Red brick house is also found here.
SHILIN NIGHT MARKET
Another place to go for shoppers. There's a nice vietnamese restaurant here.
DAY 3: - TAIPEI 101/TAIPEI 101 Mall - TAIPEI 101 Observatory deck - TIGER ROAR @ UNI-PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL BLDG
TAIPEI 101
At Taipei 101, there's a starbucka where in you can chill and enjoy the beautiful view of Taipei city, but you'll have to make reservations for it.
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A post shared by Kristine Bonx (@kristinemaeb) on Dec 31, 2018 at 3:50am PST
TIGERROAR is a korean cuisine restaurant and they have great food. This is where we chose to have our New Year's eve dinner. Most restaurants were full and we found this as we search for a place to eat.Â
NEXT = > DAY 4
