Round Eat Up!: Round Eat Up in Taiwan! Part 1

Our trip to Taiwan was kinda unplanned and unexpected at the same time. I was still awake on the wee hours of the night last Christmas Eve, and I saw that there's a seat sale from Cebu Pacific Air. I pm'ed my friend RJ, fortunately she was awake, and I booked our flight to Taiwan. Fast forward to April 2018, and we found ourselves boarding the plane going in a country we have little to no knowledge of, and we haven't researched anything about prior to our booking.

DAY 0: Going to Taiwan!

It was already late so there weren't a lot of people when we arrived at NAIA T3. The process of checking in our baggage, going through immigration and boarding, just took us just a couple of minutes. It was overall a breeze compared to our trip in Hongkong last March when we found ourselves almost not making it to our flight. We arrived 30 minutes ahead of our ETA.

Arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport

We bought our MRT cards at convenience store, Hi-Life.

Hi-Life convenience store at the arrival area

There's no sim card available at that time at Hi-Life, but fortunately, we found a Klook kiosk that offers pocket wifi rentals and SIM at the exit of the arrival area that is open 24 hours! It was contradicting on their website since it says that it's open only until 1 am. We bought a sim card which includes unlimited wifi for 5 days and it costs around P600.

Get P166.8 credit, please sign-up in Klook using this link: https://www.klook.com/invite/RJS9J?c=PHP

The trains going to and from the airport closes at 12 midnight, so be sure to plan your trip accordingly if ever you're arriving after that time. We booked our transfer service via Klook about 2 weeks before our trip. It costs us around P700 per person for the one way carpool from the airport to the city, which is a quite cheap in my opinion.

Our driver was supposed to pick us up at around 3:30 AM but he arrived very early at 2:30 am. We arrived at Taipei city around 3:30 AM.

Get P166.8 credit, please sign-up in Klook using this link: https://www.klook.com/invite/RJS9J?c=PHP

For our accommodation, I was able to book an apartment in Xinyi District, about 10 minutes walk to Taipei 101. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures of the place but it's spacious enough for 4 people.

Get P1600 credit in Airbnb, sign up in using this link: www.airbnb.com/c/morellb3

Sweet Apartment Link: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20560791

View outside our Airbnb apartment

With RJ and Miguel going to 711 at 4am to buy food

DAY 1: Yehliu Geopark - Jiufen - Shifen Tour via Klook/Shopping at Ximending

For our first day, we're going to the Yehliu Geopark Tour booked via Klook. We woke up at around 6AM to prepare and left our apartment around 6:30AM. We allotted a buffer time in case we get lost though it's quite easy to navigate around Taipei since we have unlimited mobile internet. See pictures below of the tour and the shopping time afterwards :)