I will start with Taipei first because people will not miss Taipei when they are coming to Taiwan. Will be blogging about the other parts of Taiwan in my later posts :)
The first serious question I am going to ask you is how many people are you going with? If it is a group of 3/4 and more, I will highly recommend you to book a cab to tour around when you reach Taipei. What I mean by tour around is not to ask you to take cab from places in the city that the MRT can take you to. The purpose of booking a cab is to take you much further places away from the city, such as the popular destinations 九份，十份，金瓜石，野柳 etc.... which take long hours and hard time (tedious) to get there by public transport. And if your itinerary is already v packed you will take up a lot of unnecessary time travelling, and result in you visiting lesser places!
You can find a lot of taxi drivers inside the streets of Ximending (or anywhere, you can try to ask any drivers if they offer this service, most of them will offer) and they will call out to you with their attractive brochures and itineraries that they have already planned. It usually works this way: you can book them for a day (around 8 hours) and depending on how many sightseeing places you want to go, you may book as many days as you want, the driver will just plan everything nice nice for you. All you have to do is NOTHING! The driver will drive you to all the sightseeing places and arrange everything nicely for you. You can also request which places specifically you wish to go, there's no problem. But, mostly all that we plan to go would be included in the taxi driver's itinerary cos they know so much more then us anyway haha.
The usually price that they will offer to tourists is usually around the range of NT(3000-3800) a day, which costs around SGD$125-$170. I think anything more than NT4000 would be a rip-off. Hence, don't get cheated by them if they are offering more than this price! This is usually the market price already, if you are lucky you will find NT3000 ones. Thus, the more people you are going with, the more worth it it is to book a cab! It might even be more expensive if you trying to make your own transportation arrangements, and furthermore during weekends, it is difficult to get train(火车）tickets to the attractions! Cab is definitely the option if you are travelling in big groups. Groups of 4 or 6 would be perfect! If you are travelling in group of 6 you can hire a bigger cab that can seat 6 people and the the total price usually wouldn't be more ex than 4 people after dividing out :)
For those travelling as a couple or in groups of 2, it really depends on your reservation price for cabs. Weigh the money paid and the number of attractions you wish to see and decide! If you are those type that wants to max out your itinerary and go as many places as you want, you can pay a bit more for cabs. The price is still around the same NT3000-3800 but the price paid by each person will be higher of cos, compared to larger groups. You need to ask yourself if you are willing to pay :)
I know its tedious and I have both taken cab and public transport before to make the comparison ;)
These are the must-go attractions in Taipei for sight-seeing
1) 九份 (Jiufen)
If you are taking public transport , here are the instructions:
Make your way to Taipei Railway Station, which is near the Taipei Main Station (MRT) and get your train tickets. There are a few train operators, but choose the 自强 (ziqiang) company one because its the cleanest and they take the shortest time to get there. Ex by a few dollars NT only. Around NT136 for a return ticket~ 38 mins to reach Ruifang station and then you can take a public bus up to jiufen(15 mins) or take a cab up(5-7mins). Cabbing is recommended if there's a long queue at the bus stop and if the bus intervals are long.
Photos of jiufen
Must eat this when you are at Jiufen- the yam ball dessert!! Its their traditional dessert and the yam balls really have the taste of yam unlike some sellers which don't really use a lot of yam to make the dessert.
I ate from the first stall on the right after entering the main entrance of jiufen but there are many other stalls there too. Basically, jiufen is like an old street selling a lot of taiwan local snacks and the difference from buying it here than outside normal shops is that here is much fresher(i feel) and has a better taste. Good time to buy back all the local snacks to Singapore and to give your family/relatives/friends :D
2) 十份 (Shifen)
From Ruifang, transfer to another train on the Pingxi Line (平溪线) and straight to Shifen.
This place is near Jiufen and it is the perfect place to release sky lanterns! 放天灯 They sell you the paper lantern for you to write down all your wishes and offer the service of helping you to lit up the lantern and taking photos of you when you are preparing to release the lantern to the sky~ There are different types of paper which they differentiate using colors to represent different wishes for prosperity, studies, romance, work, healthy etc etc to choose from. So cool!
As I have blogged in my earlier post that I have went there with family this year and I really enjoyed myself, esp the time together writing all our wishes down.
You can purchase these cute mini sky lanterns as souvenir! They have those that can glow in the dark
You can see their famous 十份瀑布(waterfall) which I have missed it because it was too late for us.
3) 野柳 (Yehliu)
They are known for their amazing natural rock formations. The most well-known is "The Queen's Head" (女王頭). You have to pay an entry fee to go in which is quite low, like less than NT100??
I have to even queue up to take a shot with The Queen's Head.
On the way to these places, the driver stop at some interesting places for us to take photos.
黃金瀑布
萬里区
The view was really breathtaking!
4) 淡水 (Danshui), 爱河(take a short boat ride from danshui)
Can take MRT go. Preferably to go during evening to see sun-set and the lightings at the love bridge is beautiful at night :)
Must eat 阿给 there, its like 冬粉 inside toufu, v special!
Jay Chou's favourite wanton mee there~ along the danshui streets
Other places include 宜蘭，阳明山，北投(for hot spring, you can take the danshui MRT line) which I haven't been before but I heard its really worth going!
All right, these are some places I recommend for sightseeing in Taipei that I have been before. Of cos there are still many more you can find out but I guess this is sufficient!
Hope its useful :) xx
No comments:
Post a Comment