Day 4:
Good afternoon! Yes, it's afternoon again as we woke up late today.
We are heading to Stay Real Cafe to have brunch but before that we pass by the Stay Real fashion boutique! Stay Real is actually a streetwear fashion brand that owns by Taiwanese singer, AShin (阿信) from Mayday (五月天).
The cafe is just near the boutique.
Operating Hours: (Update)They are permanently close.
Look at their cute Halloween cakes!
No mains at the moment, so we decided to just get the waffle and some drinks.
The sitting area at the basement got a very nice instragrammable area!
This brown sugar boba is one of their signature dishes!
The waffle was ok, boba is chewy which is nice but overall, it's a little too sweet for my liking (most likely because of the brown sugar).
After finishing, we went around to take picture with the mascot of Stay Real!
And we found this wall too!
And we then shop around this area, Zhong Xiao East Road (忠孝东路) which is also a famous shopping district.
Many cute shops here too and they have Line friends/BTS shop here for all the BTS army!
Cute little accessory shop.
Suit shop with the old British vibe!
There is Boy London here too.
Zhong Xiao East Road is similar to Harajuku of Tokyo, with many small and interesting shops.
Saw this Ambi cafe and thought of getting a drink or something.
Seems like a fun and instragrammable cafe but we didn't get anything and left the cafe.
For those who are interested in the cafe, here is the address.
Address: 106, Taiwan, Taipei City, Da’an District, Lane 187, Section 1, Dunhua S Rd, 37號正中央，巷口轉角處粉紅色入口B1
Operating Hours: 11.30am - 9pm (Monday to Sunday)
Saw this is a store but sorry I don't remember which store I saw this.
Anyway, I didn't know Kodak is a thing here? Haha! I think it's a collaboration?
Pet also shopping in the shop! I'm so envy...
Went into Chrome Heart but they say their tax refund machine is down, so we decided to leave.
Phylicia wants to get something from Bathing Ape.
While waiting for Phylicia to get her bathing ape...
And again, I really don't like all the bathing ape staff no matter which country. Remember me saying the staff attitude of bathing ape Tokyo? It's pretty much the same here but slightly better here (surprising right?) in Taiwan.
We are actually supposed to meet Charles for dinner, but this Phylicia is hungry again, so we decided to go eat Teppanyaki at this Karen Teppanyaki inside Taipei 101 while waiting for the rest of our friends to end work.
While waiting for a seat, we went next door to get some Kung Fu Tea (just normal bubble tea)!
We waited only for a short timing to get our table.
Let's start eating!
We ordered one seafood and once chicken to share. Taste is good! In general, teppanyaki is difficult to taste bad, isn't it?
Hello Taipei 101 again!
Still have time so we went Shin Kong Mitsukoshi to shop a bit and to digest our teppanyaki.
I'm surprise to see Apivita here! This is the mask brand that we bought a lot back from Greece this year!
Their mask is really good but the price in Taiwan is for sure much higher than in Greece.
Operating Hours: 11.30am - 1.30am (Monday to Friday)
Our first mala hot pot in this trip!
After dinner, we went to walk around the mall.
And they start playing the claw machine.
And none of them catch anything. Haha!
Really nice meeting new friends!
Took some group picture before we bid goodbye!
After dinner, we went over to Carrefour to do last min shopping as tonight is our last night in Taiwan...
Operating Hours: 24hrs
Walk back to our apartment and time to unbox my colour changing cup from Starbucks! The cup will change colour if cold/ice water is poured in! Singapore doesn't have this yet!
Anyway, time to say good night!
Day 5:
Good morning!
Checked out our Airbnb and I happen to see online that this Ximen Corner Hostel allow tourist to leave our luggage with them even though we don't stay with them and at a low fee.
Update: They are permanently closed.
Left our luggage with them and will collect later in the later afternoon.
I'm so excited to be back here to eat this very old school noodle but...
IT'S CLOSED! (I wanna cry...)
The notice here mentions that the lady boss gotten into a car accident so they will be close for 3months... Although I'm very sad but I still wanna wish lady boss a speedy recovery!
You can refer to my previous post on this place:
Address: (Update: They have relocated further down to) No. 80號, Section 2, Hankou St, Wanhua District, Taipei City, Taiwan 108
Operating Hours: 8.30am - 2pm (Monday to Friday)
6.30am - 2pm (Saturday & Sunday)
Since we have no noodles to eat, we decided to use the KFC discount voucher we receive and settle our lunch at KFC.
So, the meal set is fixed, we cannot choose what set we want but it doesn't seem bad at all! The set consist of 1 burger, 1 piece of chicken, 2 egg tart and 1 medium size black tea and at only 100NT (=SG$4.70)! Super worth it! Glad that we didn't throw away the voucher! Haha!
After lunch, coffee is much needed for me now.
Pass by this Oven Coffee and decided to give it a try.
Operating Hours: (Update) They are permanently closed
"My life need to be charged". Travelling is my way of recharging myself! How about you?
Caffeine fixed so we went to shop around to see if we miss out any shopping! Haha!
Anyway, saw another bubble tea chain but we had enough drinks for now so not gonna get any.
Bump into our colleague who is here for holiday too!
Went into Porter International at Eslite Specrtum Wu Chang (武昌诚品) to see what new style they have and also helping my friend to get a bag.
Kinda like this denim messenger bag but I have a exact same design and size already, the only different is mine is not denim (only the flap is denim).
Oh ya if you didn't know, Porter International is actually a Taiwanese brand, which is some sort of "sister brand" of Porter, which the later is a Japanese brand.
Operating Hours: (Update: The Eslite Spectrum Wu Chang is temporarily closed)
You can check out their other outlet here: https://www.ll-porter.com/sg/store/?rack_class=17&rack_brand=-1&city_id=-1&send=1
Headed up to customer service counter for my tax refund.
And next, head over to Ru Yi Tang (如邑堂) which is also within Xi Men Ding area, to get our sunny cake and my favorite pineapple tart and lemon cake from them!
Operating Hours: 8am - 10pm (Monday to Sunday)
I love the fact that, every time you go in, they will serve you tea and a plate of different sample for you to try!
The menu or should I call it catalog?
And after trying, you can just write down what you want to order on this paper and pass over to the staff and while sitting down, enjoying the tea and sample, they will start to pack for you and will leave it at the counter till you are ready to pay. Very nice service here!
So, we are supposed to go collect our luggage and start our journey to the Taoyuan airport, and I received an email from Jetstar Airway that our flight had been rescheduled from the original timing at 8.20pm on 21st October, to 1.25pm on 22nd October.
I quickly online chat with the customer service on regards to this issue because I receive the email only 4hrs before the flight.
After chatting with the customer service, they mention that they can reimburse us for our extra 1 night of hotel stay and also our dinner.
150AUD (=SG$150) for accommodation per room per night, and 30AUD (=SG$30) for meal per person per day.
I guess we have no other choice so on the street of Xi Men Ding, while everyone is busy shopping or eating, I'm sitting there trying to find a hotel that have vacancy, and we can check in right away.
Luckily, we visit Taiwan during nonpeak season, so we manage to find a hotel located at Xi Men Ding right away.
Picked up our luggage and checked in our hotel, the Midtown Richardson Hotel for our extended holiday! It's located just behind the famous Party world, good location!
Look of the hotel inside.
Our room! Not bad! The size is quite decent and clean too! Price is reasonable too because even we can do reimburse, the amount is not much so we are lucky to be able to find this place!
The bathroom.
Off for dinner!
Since we are able to reimburse our meal for 30AUD (=SG$30) per person, we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant!
Braised pork rice again! Haha!
Food from the buffet counter.
My pork chop is here! Not bad too.
After dinner, went shopping around again since we got nothing much to do for this unplanned extended holiday.
Got ourselves some coffee while people watching from the second level and also because we didn't know the hotel restaurant is so cheap, so we still have some money allowance from the meal reimbursement.
They make us stay one more night of course we need to max out the reimbursement amount right? Haha!
Back to hotel, as we thought finally, we can relax but and again I received another email saying that our flight that was delayed to 1.25pm tomorrow (22nd October) will be further delayed till 2.25am on 23rd October! I was so angry!
I again went to chat online with the customer service to talk to them because this is really unacceptable now! Both of us have a meeting on 23rd October at 8am but our flight will only reach Singapore at 7.15am if we accept the new flight timing. I know Changi airport immigration is fast and Singapore is small but that doesn't mean that we can reach our meeting within 45mins including clearing immigration and collection our luggage!
While talking to the CS, the staff mention that if we really don't want to accept the new timing, they could do a refund of one way ticket amount to us which is like SG$322.58 for 2 person and so I ask about the reimbursement again and to my surprise is, the staff told me that if I accept the refund, we can no longer get the reimbursement for the hotel and meal anymore! Which means they are forcing us to accept the new flight timing, if not we have to pay the hotel ourselves! Yes, the amount of the hotel and meal is not a lot, but I don't see this as my problem when Jetstar Airway is the one who are causing so much inconvenient to us!
And after a good 1.5hr talking to the CS, finally they agree to refund us the air ticket amount AND also proceed to reimburse our hotel and meal for this extra night.
And while talking to the CS, I'm already searching for a flight back to Singapore at the closest price we can find and which there is still ticket available. Luckily, I manage to find that EVA Airline had tickets to Singapore at 7.40am, which is just a few hours later, so once I finish talking to the CS, I quickly book the ticket.
The price for the one-way ticket for Eva Airline is $397.60 for two people, very close to our refund ticket price from Jetstar, which is $322.58 for two people, so each person will just need to pay a additional of $37.51! Not so bad!.
This lady here needs to sit on her luggage to zip up again due to the fact we have to open up our luggage to take our toiletry and our clothes out again. The result of over buying and bringing a smaller luggage! I guess she underestimated her buying power! Haha!
Day 6:
Good morning!
We slept for 2hrs, well technically we don't dare to sleep because we need to wake up at 4am to take a taxi to the bus station. The hotel reception helps us to call a taxi and time check it's 4.50am now.
Luckily, it's very early now so there is basically no traffic, so we reach the bus station like within 10mins.
Time checks 5.02am. The counter staff see us rushing and she told us to slow down, it's ok because the bus will only leave in 5mins time.
Time check: 5.05am and we are leaving to the airport! *Phew*
It's so early but yet the bus is almost full.
The bus ride to the airport is about an hour.
Since it's super early in the morning, there is not much traffic, so we manage to reach Taoyuan International Airport within 50mins.
On time for our check in!
Ready to go home!
Eva Airline is famous for their Hello Kitty airplane so near by the boarding gate are all filled with Hello Kitty shop and display.
Even this baby/nursing room is decorated in Hello Kitty!
Sanrio shop for Sanrio lover.
Hoping our plane will be the Hello Kitty plane!
It's only my second time taking Eva Airline because they had the worse timing you ever will fly. Usually, their flight from Singapore to Taiwan is afternoon flight, so will reach Taiwan in the evening, which means one day wasted, and their flight back from Taiwan to Singapore is only this timing, 7.40am which is a super early flight, and which means another day wasted again.
Anyway, look at their boarding gate waiting area!
So, I thought since the boarding gate is Hello Kitty, our chance to board a Hello Kitty plane will be higher but NOPE! It's still their normal plane! Haha!
Oh ya introduction a new friend that follow us back to Singapore. Phylicia bought this handmade sheep coin purse at Eslite yesterday.
I guess the only difference we took Eva Air is, we have on board meal! And of course, their good service as compared to Jetstar Airway. Can't really compare an international airline and a budget airline though...
Anyway, I need to do some power nap as I have a colleague farewell dinner in the evening later!
Oh, and also, because I've been to Taiwan multiple times so this trip is more on a rest and relax one, if you want to explore more other part of Taiwan, you might want to check from my previous Taiwan post.
Bye Taiwan and see you soon!
PS: I will try not to take Jetstar in future.
