Upon landing in Taiwan Taoyuan Airport and got into the building proper, I immediately went towards the arrows that either said “Immigration” or “Arrival”. Fuck looking around, get this thing cleared first. But looking around still had advantages for the average tourist. Like, “submit your immigration arrival card online”. Some of the tourists noticed, some didn’t, and some had printed-out arrival cards (not sure if it’s because they came from certain countries or whatever). I noticed, fortunately. So I hooked my phone to their free airport wifi, and filled out the form while I was queueing on the immigration lanes. I was done submitting it when I was five people behind the queue. I’m not sure what was the penalty or result of getting in front of those officers without a filled-up arrival form either online or printed, and honestly the line was quick enough so I never got to find out what happened to those who didn’t. Meh.
The airport terminal itself was nice. Air smelled clean, the area was well-lit and wide for multiple lanes, efficient, and impressive. Just noting, this impression was from me on arrival, I’ll have a separate impression on departure.
After clearing immigration and getting my tagged luggage off the carousel (the green hue helped me spot it easily off the multitudes of black and red), first thing I hunted for was the Klook booth to redeem my package – one preloaded EasyCard and a 7-day SIM card. But I immediately spotted something was wrong with my luggage when I was walking away from the luggage carousel. I looked down and I found the upper left wheel set had one of its rubber covers gnarled up and tangled around the axle. That made me a bit ticked off. Luggage handlers probably tried to wheel it roughly, dislodged the rubber and got it tangled. That sucks. I immediately adjusted it, and went to find the Klook booth. I easily found it, switched my SIM, and soon I was off to the train lines that I was to be on. One convenience, check.
Now, I’m a curious ass. I could use the EasyCard as is, it’ll let me in the train station and board a train headed for the Taipei Main Station, easy. But then, I saw a booth before the train station entrance that was selling one-ways for cheap. I watched as a couple of foreigners bought two tokens, and soon after I decided to buy one just for the experience (and photo) and to keep my EasyCard untouched for now.
The train ride was smooth, by the way. No complaints. I stood the entire ride just to help my back. I sat for four hours in that plane anyway, I was in no hurry to sit down again. I just looked outside and saw the countryside sights. Many construction projects in various states of either near-completion or just-starting. And it was clear we were nearing Taipei when the trees started to gave way to more houses and buildings and roads. Same as anywhere – the closer to the capital is, the more urbanized it will be.
Once I got to the Taipei Main Station, I used Google Maps to find me the most efficient means to go to the Roaders Hotel in Ximending. And this is the first time I noticed that Google Maps has some kooky recommending logic. I initially looked for buses, but their recommendations either had buses with stopovers, or buses with longer routes. But when I checked the “Walk” option, it’s just a measly 13 minutes. Fuck it, let me see how walking will do. More calories to burn.
And this is where Google Maps kind of shines. It recommended me the optimal route, and it did lead me to the hotel properly. Hauling the luggage wasn’t easy, but since wheels are there, it was relatively simple. However, I learned something from my South Korea trip that badly-jagged sidewalks can fuck with the luggage wheels. Cracks, splints, and chipping. So while I followed Google Maps as faithfully as I could, I had to prioritize my luggage wheels. I did my best to look down and see the sidewalk texture, and I ended up lifting my luggage through the rougher ones. Rubber covers won’t save the wheels from those jagged sidewalks, it’s just for airport convenience to have the wheels make way less of a sound while being wheeled to and fro. Fortunately, it’s just a few bad sidewalks. Eventually, I found my hotel. Can’t miss it. It had a big sign outside.
I checked in to their Basement 1 counter, and man the lounge was comfortable. I kind of forgot to take pictures, but I assure everyone it was comfortable. There’s a couple of tables, some couches, three game machines, and free snacks galore. The whole hotel’s set up like this – westernized. Drinks galore too… except alcohol, those are charged. But the drinks are good enough. Fruit drinks, soy milk, pure water. Nothing too “sugary”. Noodles are free, buns are free, sandwiches are free, hotdogs are free, cookies are free. Great! If you’re traveling on slightly tight budgets, this hotel is a good deal considering its proximity to conveniences and price. I saw a lot of foreigners in the lounge as well.
I got checked into Room 505. It was an upgrade, because I booked the single-bed room but I got upgraded to a room with a king-sized bed. Sweet. Wide and nice. Room sufficiently chilly, but it’s a bit tight though. To unpack my big green luggage, I had to put it on top of the bed to unzip it full and well. Bathroom was decent, had enough toiletries, towels, and liquids. Warm shower was decently warm to my liking. They had conditioner separated from shampoo, which was helpful.
After a quick shower, I put my clothes back on (I didn’t want to use any of my packed clothes yet) to head out. It was 7pm. And I headed towards Ximending Night Market for a look around. Maybe food and shit as well.
First order was to get a meal. I was hungry, and my last meal was 8-9 hours ago. I walked into a street, and I decided the first thing I saw with a big line was what I’ll eat. Didn’t wait for long though. I saw a big line at Ay-Chung Flour Rice Noodle (some foreigners, but mostly Asians). So I ordered a big bowl of their noodles.
It helped that the night temp was chilly (I did wear my coat just to preempt the chill) and this bowl of noodles was pleasantly hot – I still have to blow to get each spoonful to be less hot. I got the large bowl for NTD 75. I added vinegar and loads of chili sauce in it, and it hit the spot just fine.
But this is a night market, I thought. It was very tourist-y, which might be the point of the entire market. Uniqlos and Sushi Express and sporting gears and souvenirs all around. Eventually I found the actual food stalls, but they were in nondescript street alleys. Only the smells and seeing clusters of people eating at the street corners clued me in as to where the stalls were.
Fortunately, the noodles earlier helped make me feel full, so I decided to go for just one and call it a day. I went for a stinky tofu skewer. It was two blocks of stinky tofu in a skewer, stuffed with lightly stirfried vegetables, brushed with soy sauce and had a spinkling of chili powder. Good enough. The stinky tofu wasn’t bad by any means. In the Philippines we had “tokwa”, and it was almost near this one. Because I knew well what was freshly-made tokwa and what was old tokwa, and Taipei’s stinky tofu tasted pretty much like old tokwa. There’s a strong familiarity with the taste.
I went back towards the hotel after that light snack (and a lot of walking around). But for protein purposes, I went into the nearest 7-11 to my hotel. I remembered from Mikey Chen’s Taiwan videos that the 7-11s had tea eggs (they’re hardboiled eggs but boiled in strong black tea), so I bought my necessities along with two big tea eggs. Cheap, too. The necessities were a 2L bottle of water (emergency potable water in case), three iced teas (I chose the less sugary ones, thanks to Google Translate) and two cans of iced coffee (one Boss and one Lotte).
After going back to the hotel and in my room, I promptly ate the tea eggs downed with some nice red tea. The eggs were piping hot, which was nice, so I peeled it using the sink in the bathroom to protect my hands from the heat. Pleasantly brown on the outside. Good enough. Got my protein numbers up in the app.
I finally rested in the hotel bed, and it was close to 9pm. To chill, I spent an hour perusing the TV in front of my bed. I immediately noted to avoid any of the news channels (except for NHK). I kept in mind the numbers that led me to either National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC Earth, Animax. Those are chill channels.
TOP TIP: Avoid news channels on vacation. You’re there to chill, be happy, away from the ills. News channels nowadays are misery porn with ads. Go watch news channels after vacation.
Soon, I landed on a local Taiwanese station showing basketball. Cool. But soon I noticed… Jeremy Lin. Oh shit, it’s the local league, and he’s playing on the “New Taipei Kings” against another team. Super cool. So I kept my TV on it to watch what the Taiwanese basketball league was about. And it’s… just like the PBA. Not much scoring, more onto basics. But I recognized some of the other American players. I knew them from years of playing fantasy basketball from 2011-2017. I was like, oh so this is where they ended up. Maybe I should watch Japan’s basketball league, I might recognize more ex-NBA players. Shame I didn’t see Dwight on the Taiwan basketball games.
I then took another quick pre-sleep shower (it’s a habit). And soon, I felt the drowsiness kick in. It’s 11am, and the first big thing to do in Taiwan is on tomorrow. I should sleep early and well, I suppose. Fortunately, their bed was soft and comfortable (I could smell a faint flowery smell, must be the fabric conditioner), the duvet was sufficiently thick and warm, and I was able to sleep right away. Target was to wake up early to catch a Taiwanese local breakfast near the hotel. Even for only once.
Next part: My June 13 tour trip. That one will be a very multi-part long-ass thing to recollect. Lots of nice photos too. Might take a while to pick the best ones.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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