Taiwan Trip

We are back from our 4 day Taipei trip! We took the 11:30am EVA Air flight to Taipei on Jan 22 and arrived around 1pm in the afternoon. We had a very tightly packed schedule, but we managed to do most of what we wanted to do there.

Day 1
When we first got there, we took the shuttle bus from the airport to Taipei train station which is where our hotel (Cosmos Hotel) is located. We toured around the area and had a quick lunch (The ever so famous Japanese fast food chain MOS Burger), by 5pm, we took the subway to the wedding photo company Catherine. We took around 2 hours to pick out the gowns for the photo session tomorrow, so we ate a quick dinner and headed back to the hotel for a good night rest.



















Day 2
Today is our photo day! We woke up at 6am to start preparing: packed our towels, sandals, extra clothes and headed for breakfast. We got to Catherine at 8am and the makeup artist started "working" on me. She then helped Yusuf do some magic and we were ready to go around 10am. We rented a taxi for the whole day (NTD 2000) and we then went to many outdoor scenic places for photos.
The weather was not good at all and it even rained at most of the places we wanted to go. The worst was we couldn't rent a horse as we intended to on the beach. But what can we do? We can only enjoy the day best that we can!
By around 5pm, I was really tired. We didn't eat lunch and I didn't go to the bathroom since the morning! It was really a test of endurance! At around 6:30pm, we headed back to the studio for indoor shots. Fortunately, Catherine prepared dinner for us and I ate while the makeup artist changed my hairstyle and refreshed my makeup. (I totally felt like a model!)
We continued taking more photos after dinner and finished at 10:30pm. Yes, 12 hours of photos!!! We got back to the hotel to take a shower and then went to a nearby 7-11 to buy some cup noodles for midnight snack. We were beat!














Day 3
Day 3 was super short because we woke up at 1pm after such a crazy day! We went to the World's Famous Soy King for lunch and ordered some dishes. After lunch, we visited a very famous chain bookstore which opens 24 hours. Can you imagine?
We stayed at the bookstore for about 2 hours, then it was time to head back to Catherine to select the photos.
The photo selection process was long! We got there at 6pm and didn't finish until 11pm! The photographer took 250+ photos and we picked 50 (as negotiated in our package). Here is a brief sample, teehee.
Taipei is famous for its night markets, so we went to Shilin night market afterwards. Night market is a place where there are many street vendors selling dishes and snacks. You can walk around and eat at different vendors one at a time. We probably ate at around 6 vendors. Then we took the taxi home at 1:30am.





















Day 4
Since we had to check out, we stayed up a bit to pack our suitcases. For lunch, we have decided to visit a very famous restaurant called "Ding Tai Feng", so we took the subway there. The thing is, I wasn't aware that the restaurant was not close to the station at all!!! We were walking all over the place looking for it, finally we gave up and took the taxi. When we got there, we saw a long line up at the front and when we asked the waitress, we had to wait for 30 minutes! Of course, we didn't plan this wait and would run late for our flight. So, Yusuf suggested that we order takeout and eat somewhere else. So we ordered takeout and took the bus back to the hotel. But it was our last stay so by this time, we have already checked out, we ended up eating in front of the Taipei train station. (Yes, we looked very strange to the locals)
After lunch, we took the shuttle bus to the airport which ended our hectic, tiring, but memorable 4 day trip to Taipei.