台湾走透透 (一)

We embarked on our 11 days 10 nights trip to 台湾 on 1st November 08.  It was a first-time for me and I was looking forward to the trip with wonderful experiences shared from friends and colleagues.

Departed from Changi Airport T3 (our first time) early morning..Felt so sleepy that I kept dozing off during the flight. Luckily I've my Winnie Neck Cushion (souvenir from suling) with me.


Arrived at 桃园机场 after 4 hours plus flight journey. Weather was breezy. Welcome to Taiwan!


Will talk more about our adventures and trips that we'd in Taiwan... Just to give an overview impression of Taiwan after staying there for 11 days.

Taiwan, to me, seems like a "civil-minded" country. Let's put aside the messy and silly politics aside, they actually care a lot for their country, and their people. Talking about caring about the country, they are in fact caring for the environment. For e.g., they promote the use of recycling bins - practically you can find everywhere you go to in Taipei city. Even at night market. Some places even have "unofficial" recycling bins whereby they put 2 rubbish bins - one for general rubbish, and one for recycling purpose. Even at supermart like Carrefour, they also have this option for you to use recycled cardboards to put certain items you bought from them.

As for caring for the people, I mean people who may be disadvantaged, old, helpless, privileged, etc. At many places such as shopping centres, eateries, convenience shops, underground station malls, they have this "捐发票, 救贫穷" donation bins. To us, the 发票 ("receipts") mean nothing so we just throw in whenever we have any. But what we don't understand is, why and how can the receipts help the poor?? Its still a '???' to us... Anyway, if its effective, I would think this is good for the disadvantaged group of people who need help.

Inside the 捷运 ('MRT"). they have this "捷运心文化" which encourages people to spread the love and care to other disadvantaged, old, privileged groups of people (pregnant women, with children), by giving up the seat for them. Also, they encourage commuters to pledge themselves against "捷运心宣言" - to abide the regulations when onboard, to care for other commuters, to be considerate to other commuters by speaking softly on hp..

Aren't they environmental-and-people friendly? Singapore should really look up to them on their concerted efforts and do more to inculcate these ideas into the people's minds.

Talking about trains, next will be our experience with them.

Majority of the people there, do keep their right, when using the escalator. They also stand within the white lines when queuing to board 捷运. Me blur sotong, never look on the floor, so never notice the white lines till Dear highlighted to me, after a few days into our trip..hee..

And also, other than 捷运, they also have 台铁火车 (railway) which is the older version of 捷运, and also the 高铁通车 (Bullet Train) which is the latest and fastest version of train transport. We mostly traveled on 捷运 cuz' its convenient and pretty similar to our Singapore's MRT but  台铁火车 is the KILLER!!! Firstly we are not familiar with the train routes, end destinations, and which stop will it pass by. Secondly the station and the ticket will not show which platform you should take the train from, so we behave like lunatics, trying hard to see from the information screen which is the right platform/train to take. If not we would ask people for help, yet fruitless cuz they don't have the information either! Sigh.. we even tried running across from one platform to another (not literally "across" la.. we stormed up and down the stairs, trying to catch a train that was about to leave in 1-2 minutes time!!! Argh! Really pulling hair and panting hard liao. Also, the old version of the train will allocate seat no. and car no. to you. and you really have to board and sit on the right seat and car no. one leh. That's their practice there. *shrugs*

Oh, and there are many many staircases to climb in Taipei train stations... so much so that we've got phobia whenever we know we have to climb again, and again..

There's this 台铁便当that I bought at the train station, which I like it alot! U can see how much I enjoy eating it, from the picture above. I even ate twice! Yummy! This is a close-up pic of the contents of the 便当 - Drumstick, hard-boiled egg, steamed cauliflowers, ginger slice, ikan bilis, rice. All I like very much!!!!

Enuf of the train experiences, Taiwan is also very interesting with people like this....

~电梯小姐~
(candid shot! Caught her in shock! haha)

Walking Advertisements (for food, shops, new TV serials...)

地下街- 街头艺人
~They really sing very well.~