Date: 26 Feb 2008
We woke up at about 4:30AM and left for Singapore Changi Airport at 5+AM. This was our first time departing from Changi’s Terminal 3.
Reached Changi Airport Terminal 3 at about 5:45AM. We walked around to find the check in counter for SIA staff. Found it without difficulty.
Took some photos while waiting for the counter to open at 6AM.
Thats the only luggage that we brought.
After checked in, we had breakfast at Burger King, the only fast food restaurant within the departure hall.
Time to proceed to the departure gate 20. According to estimation, the time required for us to walk from our current position (center) to gate 20 (the end of the left wing of Terminal 3) will take us about 20 minutes – super far! Lucky, we discovered that Terminal 3 provides sky train service to the end of the terminal. We hopped onto the sky train and whizzed off to Gate 20.
At Gate 20:
Chosen a seat near to the glass windows.
Looked around at the other passengers. Saw some SQ air stewardess. Looked out of the windows again, this is what I saw:
The airplane was in placed already. Didn’t even “hear†it coming. I only turned away from the windows for less than 5 minutes.
The flight was slightly delayed. We boarded the plane at 08:40 AM.
We fell asleep before the plane took off. I woke up just when the plane was taking off. JR slept throughout the take off but was waken up once the plane was in the air. He was amused by the quietness of the take off.
JR watched Hitman while I watched Le Grand Chef. I fell asleep halfway throughout the movie due to the lack of sleep the previous night.
We arrived in Taipei at 13:05 PM. Once we were out of the arrival hall, we went to the FreeGo bus ticketing counter and bought our tickets. The FreeGo bus is not FREE. The English name was “created” from its chinese name 飛狗 (fei gou).
We rushed out of Taipei Airport, into the 13 Degree Celsius cold. We didn’t except the cold! According to Google Weather, Taipei is about 20 Degree Celsius.
We took the FreeGo bus to the nearest MRT, then the MRT to 新北投站 where our hot spring hotel is. We bought Taipei’s version of Ezlink Card – EasyCard æ‚ éŠå¡. This card can be used on Taipei Rapid Transit System and on buses and other public transport in Taipei. It is also similar to the Octopus card in Hong Kong.
We asked for directions to our hotel at the MRT control station. After some walking, we saw the hotel sign on top of a building. We walked into the building but couldn’t locate the entrance. JR asked a passer by along the row of shops. The entrance was just behind us. We had just walked passed it without noticing the entrance! The entrance is so small that we had missed it.
We checked in and collected our room key from the hotel’s reception counter – Room number 206. I asked JR if we could have a room at a higher floor but JR said it might be too troublesome for changes.
We entered the lift. We saw only 3 buttons – 1, 2 and 3 (other than OD & CD). The hotel is 3 levels high only! Lucky we didn’t embarrase ourselves by requesting the change of rooms.
The hotel room doesn’t look as bad as I thought it will be.
We took a quick soak in the hot spring tub. Feeling hungry, we decided to try something from Taipei’s McDonalds – the nearest food outlet, next to our hotel. We shared the double Filet-O-Fish burger. It is really different. The burger is made of wholemeal bread, with not much mayonnaise. It’s too dry for my liking. Overall comment – too healthy.
Shilin Night Market 士林夜市
The first tourist attraction that we decided to go on our first night in Taipei. The night market is in close proximity to Jiantan station åŠæ½ç«™ on the Danshui Line æ·¡æ°´ç·š (Red Line). We had thought the night market was at the Shilin station. Fortunately, JR had managed to enquire from Shilin station that we had to get off at the next station.
Potato chips?
