Day 01 – Flight and arrival in Taipei

2023-10-14/15

Flight

Transfer to the airport was easy and smooth, as we only had to take a short taxi trip from near the airport. Flight took with 13h a little bit longer than usual, due to the unfortunate geopolitical situation, but it was still bearable with the upcoming trip in our minds.

The food from Michelin star restaurant “Yang Ming Spring” deserves also a mention for being exceptionally good for airplane food.

Arrival and first day

Arrived on time early Saturday morning. Foreigner checkin took quite long as usual. Then organized money and SIM card (4 weeks unlimited 4G for roughly 23€) directly on the airport. We had also registered for a lottery from the Taiwan tourism bureau where you get an 150€ voucher, but no luck 🙁

Transfer to town was easy, we booked a big taxi (71€, if someone plans something similar) with extraordinary service (excellent pre-communication) prior. Johnson, the taxi driver, who is also a passionate cyclist and an overall nice person took us safely to Taipei downtown.

Checked in at the Star Hostel near mainstation, chilled in the super amazing lobby and went for a walk around town until we could get into the room. When walking, we went to Dangxi old street with its nice shops with loads of dried goods, had mizudashi cold tea and went to the Dadaocheng wharf beside Tamsui river. We even discovered a public toilet where you can take your bike you…wow..that’s Taiwan! On the way back had some “Tempura”, which was rather Oden (later we learned this is common to Taiwan), but still tasty.

Then took our rooms, showered and got picked up by our friend Kuan-you with his car. Went for a district with loads of old japanese buildings, had some super nice dumplings filled with soup and our first bubble tea with plum here.

Afterward went to to overcrowed but still amazing Shilin night market and had tasty grilled squill eggs, squid and some squashy noodle soup with innards.

Kuan-You was then so nice to introduce us to his stylish flat with 2 wonderful patterned cats. Had some beer and went with a taxi to a giant karaoke centre, where a friend of him was celebrating his birthday (prior to the actual date, as no other room was free on his actual birthday). Met a lot of his really kind friends, enjoyed some songs, drank beer flavoured with dried plums and some good talks.

Quite tired from the flight, left by foot and drank some finishing beer with good talks, relaxed in the warm summery atmosphere at the 7/11 in front of our hotel.

Wow, what a great first day!