Taiwan 2014 Day 3 & 4 - Shifen, KTV, FIFA World Cup Finals

Day 3

13 July, Sunday

We failed to wake up for breakfast again. I really miss their breakfast stall which I had during my 2nd last trip to Taipei with my mum in Feb 2013. The burgers was really tasty. Nevertheless, we had brunch in one of the nice eatery in Ximending.


365台湾小吃 
Address: No. 34, Hanzhong St, Wanhua District Taipei City, Taiwan 108 (108, Taiwan, 台北市萬華區漢中街34號)
Contact: 02 2314 9889 (+886 2 2314 9889)

Fried Rice with Egg (NT 60 = SGD 2.50) - So so.

Braised Pork Rice (NT 25 = SGD 1.05) - Very nice!

Oyster Omelette (NT 60 = SGD 2.50) - Nice!

Tasty food with my tired morning face

Woohoo, check out my new Hater Snapback I bought at Trend Setting shop at Shilin Night Market last night!

Instagram photo @lynne_chua

While we were drinking bubble tea and contemplating on whether to make our way to Shihfen, we saw Fahrenheit's 飛輪海 member Aaron Yan Ya Lun 炎亞綸!! That's the perk of staying in Ximending as many celebrities will hold their autograph session during the weekends here! He's so good looking in person!

Chachago's Bubble Milk Tea was average

Ximen to Shifen/Shihfen

1) Ximen - Taipei Main Station (MRT)
2) Taipei - Ruifang (Taiwan Railway)
3) Ruifang - Shifen (Pingxi Line)

The journey to Shihfen would take around 2.5hours. Even though it's already 2pm+, we decided to go ahead to Shifen. From Ximending, we took the MRT from Ximen to Taipei Main Station and bought our ticket to Ruifang Station from Taiwan Railway. There are 3 different types of train to choose from, normal (stops at every station), express (lesser stations) and super express (least stations). Of course, the price gets higher with fewer stops. We took the express train (C.K Express, 莒光) at NT 59 (SGD 2.50) per person. We later then found out that we could actually tap in using our EasyCard instead of buying the ticket through the ticketing machines. There was a huge crowd waiting for the train that we were going to board and it took us at least 5min to board the train as it was so crowde and everyone had to squeeze themselves in! We ran across the platform to find a cabin that can accommodate us and we finally managed to find one, paved ourselves in and not missed our designated train. It was a very good experience I would say. Haha

Taiwan Railway Ticket from Taipei to Ruifang Station

So crowded that we had to stand outside of the toilet!! And it didn't really smell nice. Blurred my face out as I was looking ugly with my sad face. Lol

Arrival at Ruifang Station after a ~45min train from Taipei

As the next train towards Shifen would take another 30min (we didn't check the train schedule before we leave), we took a stroll around Ruifang station. There was quite a lot of food places and I bought a drink from my favorite bubble tea shop 50嵐 which is the famous koi bubble tea in Singapore.

50嵐

Food Street in Ruifang

Crossing the road back to Ruifang Train Station

Waiting for our train to Shifen at Ruifang Station's Platform

How the train looks like! This time round we used our EasyCard to tap in. There's actually a guy checking our tickets!

Check check. Indeed, there were people who never tap in nor buy any tickets! Tsk tsk

Shifen (Shihfen) 十分

It was an approximately 30min train ride from Ruifang to Shifen Station. Shifen still retain the vintage feel of Taiwan, we had to walk across the railway to get to the street. Very different feel from the city's MRT! Love it!

Our main motive of coming to Shifen was to release the sky lantern. There were many vendors along Shifen Street and none of them undercut each other. The prices of the sky lanterns are fixed at NT 150 (SGD 6.20) for 1-colour lantern and NT 200 (SGD 8.30) for 4-colour lantern. Each colour represents a meaning, for example red = health/safe, blue = career and yellow = wealth. We picked the first booth we encountered, which was the nearest from the train station. We felt that the location was better and it was more spacious for us to design our lantern.

What each colour represents. Taken at another booth far away from the train station.

The place where we designed our sky lantern!

Up up it went! Good luck to both of us!

May all our wishes come true.

Other booth, it's less spacious as compared to ours

Shifen Waterfall

Shifen Waterfall is located about 30min walk away from Shifen Street. As it was already quite late into the afternoon, we rented a motorbike to make it faster (NT 200/SGD 8.30 per hour), from 30min walk to 5min drive.

Parking our bike here as this was the furthest we can go.

Water's so clear

Ignore the sign on top.. Keep walking, to the left.

Reached! 5-10min walk from the place we parked our bike

Adult NT 100, Soldier/Student/Children/Elderly > 65/Group of >20 NT 80, Handicapped NT 50, Kids before attending Kindergarten NT 20 and BBQ only NT 50

We paid student's price =x when I asked if overseas students can get discount? The guy in the ticketing counter didn't even check our student passes! Hehe.

Shifen Waterfall

Shifen Waterfall - Full View

It's really tranquilizing to be standing in front of such a beautiful waterfall. You can just do nothing, stare at and listen to the sound of the waterfall. As we had to rush back to our train which is departing at 6.20pm, we didn't spend a lot of time at the falls.

WE MISSED OUR TRAIN. Yes. We missed our train.... The next train was like 1 hour later! =( We went to the control station to ask if there's any alternative to get us back to Taipei. The assistant was very helpful, he came out of the office, handed us the bus schedule and pointed to the bus stop which was opposite the train station. He asked us to run to the bus stop as the bus was coming. Thank you!

This was the bus stop. We walked super fast so that we could catch bus 795 which will stop at Muzha Station in Taipei

Nice old street!

Beautiful house opposite the bus stop!

On board the bus to Muzha Station

The bus ride was about 40min. We took MRT from Muzha Station, interchanging at Zhongxiao Fuxing Statoin and alighted at Taipei Main Station for their underground mall. Many shops have started closing as it's already passed 8pm. We walked into one of the eatery (didn't take picture of the place) and ordered some noodles. I like my beef noodles!

Beef Noodles

Today was really a tiring yet fulfilling day!! However, the night has not ended. We gonna catch FIFA World Cup Finals at a pub later!! Before we went back to our hotel, we went to HolidayKTV in Ximending to book a room at 11pm. They only got a room after 11.20pm and so we went back to hotel to wash up, changed clothes and went back to the KTV at 11.25pm.


Holiday KTV 好樂迪
No. 62, Xining South Rd, Taiwan 108 (Ximending)
Website: http://www.holiday.com.tw/

We took a student package where each of us paid about SGD 17 for singing session of 11pm-5am including buffet. That's actually very cheap! We have a private toilet for ourselves as well! The system was easy to use but one negative point was that it was not in the latest Hanyu Pinyin "a o e, i o u" kind. It's using the traditional form. Thus, it's impossible for us to find the exact song we want unless we search it from the artist menu. Nevetheless, it was an enjoyable session! We left at 2.15am as the world cup final match would begin at 3am.

Cute start up screen

Buffet spread

Initially, we planned to go to Brass Monkey for the match. However, upon reaching, the bar was damn full. There were many other world cup fans standing outside as they were denied entry. We took another cab and headed over to On Tap.

On Tap Taipei
Address: No 21, Alley 11, Lane 216, Zhongxiao East Road, Taipei, Taiwan (106台北市大安區忠孝東路四段216巷11弄21號)
Contact: 02 2741 5365 (+886 2 2741 5365)
Email: info@ontaptaipei.com
Website: http://www.ontaptaipei.com/
Operating Hours: 5pm to late (Daily)

On Tap Taipei was located out of nowhere in the neighbourhood. You will never imagined that there would be a bar if you were in the area. On Tap staff told us that the bar was full and asked if we mind standing. As we do not wish to return to the hotel, we agreed to the condition. The entrance was NT 500 (SGD 21) including NT 500 coupons for food & drinks.

The atmosphere was really damn great when we entered! Everyone was excited and cheered loudly whenever the ball's near the goal post. We were standing around until one of the female staff came over to ask us where were we seated. We told her that we have no seat and she asked us to wait awhile while she arranges seats for us! That's nice of her. We were ushered to the basement by a Caucasian (I guessed he's the boss of this bar) and seated next to a big table of Taiwanese family, on the high chairs, without a table.

Yummy nachos

Onion Rings

Heineken & Sex on the beach

The match was so long and ended with 0-0 draw. YAY I WON SOME MONEY!! =P We left after the first half of the additional time as we were too exhausted. We then watch the match using sopcast on my mobile while we were on the taxi back to our hotel and Germany finally won with 1-0 in the 2nd half of additional time. Congratulations!! Both teams fought hard. Lionel Messi, my BF's favourite, failed to score a goal at the last minute which might change the destiny of Argentina to fight Germany again in penalty shoot-out.

This was the staff who sold us the 'standing' tickets

Day 4

14 July, Monday

Slept at 6am, woke up at 11am, checked out at 12.30pm. We left our luggage at the hotel while we headed to Ximending for lunch and some last minute shopping.


Risotto (Ah Mao Risotto Restaurant) 阿毛石鍋燉飯

4th time in Taiwan, 1st time stepping into Ah Mao Risotto Restaurant in Ximending. They have golden retrievers (real dog) at the entrance of the restaurant. It's not difficult to spot this restaurant at all. We had doubts about the food of the restaurant but we were wrong! The food was actually not bad! It wasn't very expensive either.

Tomato Soup - Real tomato, not Campbell soup kind.

Very nice and fragrant tea!

BF's mushroom risotto - a bit too bland

I like my curry beef risotto!

Good bye Ah Mao!

Not giving up, BF finally had his peanut mochi on our last day in Taipei!

En route to the airport:
1) MRT: Ximen - Taipei Main Station
2) Highspeed Rail: Taipei - Taoyuan
3) Ubus 705: Taoyuan HSR - Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1

Bus from Taoyuan HSR to the Airport

We almost missed the check in for our flight! I forgot to check the timings for the highspeed rail and ended up waiting 30min at Taipei station. Luckily we managed to make it before the check in closes but we were separated in the aircraft. =(

Queue to board the flight 

Nyonya Chicken Meal on board tigerair at SGD 12 (ouch!) - Quite tasty & spicy.

This trip was a good getaway, we will definitely be back for more! Till then, bye Taiwan!