Where to, Gumshoe? – Page 15 – Follow us through our day to day travels and adventures

Travel Without a Budget

Something many people asked us when we first told them we were quitting our jobs and travelling was what our budget was. “How much do you plan to spend”, “are you sure you want to quit your jobs”, and “did you win the lottery”, were all things we heard in one form or another. While a budget for a trip like this should be an obvious thing to have, the questions actually caught me off guard. As much as Kaitlyn and I talked about whether we actually wanted to take this trip or not, a budget wasn’t something that ever really entered the discussion. If you know me (and my obsession with personal finance), you might find this surprising, but let me explain.

Travelling without a budget doesn’t mean we have unlimited funds (whether saved or through debt) to spend on this trip. What it means is we have no predefined spending plan that we will try to adhere to. We will allow ourselves to spend as we please, but we’ll be conscious of our spending. We’ll deal with money and spending on the road the same way we did at home (while employed)… without a budget (which don’t work for most people).

I enjoy (or rather, am compulsive with) personal finance, but I don’t believe in budgets. They may work for some people (e.g. crazy disciplined people, of which I am not), but I genuinely believe they don’t work for most. So how does a person concerned with personal finance go about their spending without a budget? I practice (what I call, not sure if there’s a formal term…) value based spending. To me, it is the most important principle in personal finance, and the one thing everyone should be aware of. What you spend your money on is a true reflection of your values. No exceptions. (The same can be said of your time, but that’s a topic for another day). So, consider what your values are, and spend accordingly. Simple, right?

Or maybe not so simple, because people can have little or no idea what their values are, and when they do feel like they have certain values, a reflection on whether their spending habits actually align with their “values” can be a difficult thing to reconcile.

Do you spend more money on charity or on shoes?
Do you save for financial security or take on debt to buy things you can’t afford?
Do you value things or experiences more?
How much money have you made in your lifetime and what do you have to show for it now?

So how does value based spending allow Kaitlyn and I to quit our jobs and travel for a year (without a budget)? First and foremost, we value freedom. As long as we were dependent on our work related incomes, we weren’t free. We were wage slaves to our employers. So, we spent money on ourselves (i.e. saved a high percentage of our income), so that we had enough savings to afford our (temporary) freedom. Second, we value frugality. Given our frugal nature, we can spend freely without a budget knowing that our savings provides us with enough of a buffer. (If you value luxuries over basics, and convenience over frugality, then save (or budget) accordingly).

Meditate on what you value (or want to value), then see if your spending aligns with it. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why not, then take action.

While we may be travelling without a budget, that doesn’t mean we don’t track our spending as we go. Just as I do at home, I am meticulously recording our spending on this trip. An important part of value based spending is tracking your spending so you can review and reflect on whether your spending aligns with your values. When things don’t align, you have the information to make the necessary adjustments so that your spending better reflects your values.

We’ll have future posts with details on our spending (maybe 1 post per country?). Hopefully, those posts can help you with planning your own trips and allow you to set a budget (if you happen to be one of those people who’s good with using budgets).

For those who are curious, I’ll also share what software I’m using and maybe post a spreadsheet or two. I’m sure you’re all dying to know what this is for:

=IFERROR(INDEX(Transactions!$L:$L,MATCH(1,(Calendar!$B2>=Transactions!$J:$J)*(Calendar!$B2<Transactions!$K:$K)*(“Accommodations”=Transactions!$G:$G),0)),””)

Hualien (Day 11): Day of Semi-Rest

March 11, 2016:

Today was our last morning in Taitung. We bought tickets for the train to Hualien at 9:39am . Tim’s aunt picked us up from our hotel at 8:30am and dropped us off at the train station. She made sure we collected our tickets from the ticket counter, since this was the first time we bought tickets online. We said our goodbyes and said we’ll be back soon.

While waiting for our train to arrive, we grabbed some breakfast from 7-Eleven. I decided to try a tea egg and a pudding (which is a popular snack in Taiwan, probably not a very good breakfast choice, but a delicious snack choice!).

The train ride to Hualien was 2 hours long. I finished up my blog from yesterday but after writing for a half an hour, I felt a bit train sick. I fell asleep for the rest of the train ride (I’ve been pretty good at sleeping most of the way), so I missed all the mountainous terrain on the way towards Hualien.

When we got to Hualien’s train station, we wanted to go to the ticket counter to get tickets for Sunday back to Taipei. Tim’s aunt warned us that the train is usually booked up from Hualien to Taipei, but we didn’t realize how crazy it would be. Once we got to Hualien, the train station was a gong show and we thought, uh oh, we’re in trouble. We had searched for tickets quickly while waiting at Taitung’s train station and couldn’t find any trains at a decent hour that were available.

The hotel in Hualien has a free shuttle service to and from the train station, so there was a van waiting for us when we arrived. Trip Advisor’s reviews were right, East Town 26’s service was really good so far. We were welcomed by the front desk girl and we were able to check in early (their check in time is 3:30, we arrived around noon). We got to our room and it was nice and clean and more modern than the last hotel we stayed in. The cheapest room (Tim: and only ones available) were single beds, so we just go that (we’re roomies!).

Once we got to our room, we both got on to our laptops and tried to search for train tickets back to Taipei. We weren’t having any luck, the website kept saying everything was full or that we’ve tried too many times for the same search. After about half an hour of trying we decided to go to 7-Eleven to buy the tickets. Most convenience stores in Taiwan sell rail tickets (at a premium, extra 8 NT = $0.30).

When we got to 7-Eleven, we took a look at the kiosk and realized that we weren’t going to be able to buy tickets because it was all in Chinese with no English option. Feeling a bit defeated we turned to the lady behind us and Tim asked if she could help us translate it. She asked us where we wanted to go and she pulled out an app on her phone. We sat down with her and she reserved the tickets on her phone (super quickly) and she pulled up the tickets on the kiosk we were just at with a confirmation code. The kiosk then printed out a receipt that we used to pay at the
7-Eleven counter. Tim asked her if we could get a drink or anything for her because she helped us out, but she said she didn’t need anything, she was just happy she was able to help us.

Unfortunately, the only time we could get that would get us back into Taipei before 3pm (we’re checking into our Airbnb on Sunday) was if we left Hualien at 6:07am (not looking forward to Sunday morning, but beggars can’t be choosers). We’ve learned our lesson about train tickets (especially the Hualien to Taipei route). We also learned that with that app, locals can reserve train tickets without paying for them right away.

With that out of the way, we decided to find something to eat. The lady at the front desk suggested a few restaurants she likes to go to. We stopped by one that looked pretty busy and promising. It looked like they specialized in steamed juicy buns. We got a seat and they handed us an order form in Chinese. Tim told the waitress that he couldn’t read and that we’ll just order 10 buns and hot and sour soup. We literally just looked at what others were eating and copied them.

There isn’t much in Hualien in the city itself in terms of “must see sights”. Most people stay in the city so they could use it as a base to see Taroko Gorge National Park, which is exactly what we’re doing. Although it was starting to rain, we headed to the coastline to walk around.

It started to rain a bit harder so we started to head back into town. I was feeling a bit tired and cold. Today was actually the first day that I felt colder than normal. The temperature in Hualien was around 15 degrees and dreary – felt like home.

When we got back into town, we looked for something to eat for an early dinner. I wasn’t feeling that great and just wanted to take it easy tonight because tomorrow was going to be a full day of exploring the Taroko Gorge. We found a soup noodle restaurant so we decided to eat there. It was like Tawainese casual noodle restaurant. My noodles were okay, Tim seemed to enjoy his pork hock a lot more (Tim: The pork hock was good, but the noodles and soup weren’t much to write home about). It was only 5pm and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

After our early dinner we went to a bakery (“181 Bakery”) that we had passed by earlier to pick up some buns to pack with us on our day trip tomorrow to the Gorge. The whole bakery smelled really good. They had samples in front of most of the items, so we were able to sample a few.

Because I wasn’t feeling that well, we decided not to go to the night market tonight. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by a bubble tea place to grab a milk tea for later. We headed back to the hotel around 6pm and since then, I’ve been writing today’s blog post while watching “Fuller House” on Netflix.

We’ll probably sleep early tonight as we have to get to the train station tomorrow around 7:30am to catch a bus towards to the Gorge. I’m looking forward to going back to Taipei and chilling out and spending time with my sister, Noel, and Nate.

Total steps for today was 15,000.

Taitung (Day 10): We’ll be back

March 10, 2016

Today was our first full day in Taitung. The weather didn’t really improve much from yesterday, it was still overcast with no sun in sight (Tim’s going to say, “stop complaining about it being overcast!”). The reason why I wished the sun would come out is because I know that Taitung would be amazingly beautiful with the lush green mountains and ocean on either side of the city. But with an overcast sky, the city wasn’t able to really shine through. I suppose I had high hopes for Taitung because it is Tim’s favourite Taiwanese city. I wanted to love it here like he did, but I didn’t. I would like to come back when the weather is nicer (which is usually 90% of the time), to experience the city the way it should be.

We started off our day with a nice and hearty breakfast… at McDonald’s. We like to try different McDonald’s around the world because they always have unique menu items and Taiwan was no exception to that. We ordered a chicken and egg breakfast sandwich meal (which is like a McChicken with an egg in a muffin (Tim: and without lettuce)) and an extra sausage and egg McMuffin. The meal came with a hash brown and instead of coffee we ordered corn soup. I enjoyed everything in the breakfast – especially the corn soup (Tim: I love how corn soup is a substitute beverage choice).

After our breakfast we picked up bikes from the apartment and started a trail that wrapped around the city. We headed towards the mountains and the bike path was pretty clear. It felt good to ride and feel the breeze – it was refreshing and freeing! (Tim: It wouldn’t be as refreshing if it was sunny and hot… Thankfully it was overcast). After we passed the 2km mark, the bike trail emptied and we were the only ones on it. It was nice that was it just us, fresh air, (away from all the scooter exhaust) and some small low flying birds.

Tim has fond memories of the time he spent in Taitung in 2009. He likes to recount how while biking along this same trail, a stray puppy rode along side him for a couple of kilometres until he got to a larger street intersection that he needed to cross. The puppy was too scared to the cross the street and Tim never saw it again. When he thinks about it, he gets a bit sad. (I think he regrets not keeping the puppy). I make it worse when I tell him that the puppy chose him (just like how elephants choose their mahouts (owners) in Thailand) and he just left him. Later on at the beach, a stray dog was attracted to Tim and followed him around while he took pictures. I thought it would make for a pretty epic story if that dog turned out to be the same dog from 7 years ago (too bad this dog was brown and not black).

When we reached a split in the trail we decided to head back so we could go back towards the beach. We ended up walking to the beach instead because I was too scared to ride on the street alongside all the scooters and cars. I get a bit anxious when I’m on a bike or scooter in traffic and I feel like in Asia it’s even more chaotic (although, it’s likely more of an organized chaos).

After dropping our bikes off, we stopped to get bubble tea a “Presotea” which advertised a “Panda” bubble (black and white pearls!). We also attempted to Facetime my family for my Mom’s birthday. Taitung County has free wifi (TT-Free) throughout the city if you register your phone number. Unfortunately, my family was only able to hear us, but we were able to hear and see them.

We walked to the beach area that we visited shortly yesterday. This time we walked down to the actual beach and watched the waves crash on to shore for a while. The east coast of Taiwan is very beautiful. In the summer, Taitung has a hot air balloon festival that looks awesome, maybe next time we’ll come for that. Although, I’m sure then I’ll probably wished the weather were like how it was now- mild rather than really hot.

After the beach we headed back to the apartment to grab our bags that we left there. We were moving to another place to stay because the apartment was booked for tonight. We walked down the street and checked into our hotel, “Traveller’s Hotel”. We read good reviews about it for being a clean and friendly hotel. The room is very basic and clean (the only important thing), which works for us! The only “bad” thing is that the internet is a bit slow.

Once we checked in, we headed to grab a late lunch and walked to the Taitung Forest Park to wander around. We thought that on our way to the park we would pass by a lot of food options, but that didn’t happen. I think we underestimated the effects of a small town/city. I kept thinking, there’s got to be a lot of places surrounding the park or even a snack stand inside the park. We were wrong, there’s no vendors inside the park. It was about 3:30pm and we were both pretty hungry (Tim: Kaitlyn was pretty hungry). We walked around the park for like 15 minutes and then left to find something to eat.

We decided to walk down a different street on our way back. There were a few bento lunch options and we decided on “Woo Ricebox”. We’ve seen a bunch of these types of Taiwanese fast food restaurants around, mainly at train stations. The wooden bentos are filled with rice, pickled vegetables, cabbage, sausage, chopped bok choy and a meat of your choice. I had a pork chop and Tim got pork belly. They were a good lunch option and I can see why people would order them to take with them on a train.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to settle in and get ourselves organized for tomorrow. We booked our train tickets from Taitung to Hualien (we’re heading north on the east coast). This was our first time booking the train ticket online – we didn’t want to risk the train we wanted to be sold out. We also booked our hotel for two nights in Hualien – “East Town 26”. The hotel has really good reviews on Trip Advisor so I’m looking forward to it (hopefully I won’t be disappointed).

Tonight for dinner, we met with Tim’s relatives at “Showtime Plaza”. This mall was built a few years ago and is one of the newer building complexes in the city. It has a movie theatre, a couple of clothing stores (Uniqlo and Nike) and a few restaurants. Tim’s relatives made reservations at a Japanese Tonkatsu restaurant (I couldn’t find the translated English name). It’s always nice to meet with family and friends while traveling. It’s a nice familiarity and comfort knowing that loved ones are close by. The tonkatsu set meal and was delicious – it was my first time having tonkatsu where you have to crush the sesame seeds with a mortar to make the sauce. (Tim says now we don’t have to go to one in Japan…). Tim’s relatives are in the middle of moving so we caught them at a hectic time. They were very hospitable to us despite this and I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet them on this trip.

After dinner, Tim and I decided to check out the night market, which was down the street from where we were staying. The night market here is only opened from Thursday-Sunday (the majority of night markets in Taiwan are 7 days a week). Tonight it started to rain, and apparently when it rains no one in Taitung goes out. This was evident in passing by the night market. This was the saddest night market we had seen so far. Many of the vendors were closing down and some didn’t even set up. There were no crowds at all. See? This is what happens when the weather isn’t good in Taitung.

Now we’re back at the hotel, getting ready for tomorrow. Tim’s aunt is going to pick us up tomorrow morning to drive us to the train station at 8:30am, our train to Hualien leaves at 9:39am.

There’s still a lot more of Taitung that we haven’t seen, but we know we’ll be back one day.

Steps walked: 24,300 steps
Biked: 11 km

Taitung (Day 9): Hello, Pacific Ocean

March 9, 2016

Firstly, Happy Birthday Mom! We love and miss you. Wish we could have spent the day with you.

Today was our last morning in Kaohsiung. We called it an early night yesterday and didn’t get to walk along the Love River, so that was our plan for the morning. We planned to catch the 12:40pm train to Taitung, a small city on the east coast of Taiwan.

On our walk down to the Love River, we stumbled upon a breakfast place that had a long line (out the door, if they had a door). Long line ups have proven to be the most trustworthy source on our trip, so this was a good sign. It looked like their specialities were steamed buns filled with pork and cabbage (it had it’s own separate line) and sao bing (layered flakey flatbread). When we got there, the kitchen was trying their best to keep up with demands of the line.

We ordered a sao bing with egg and one with a Chinese doughnut. After we ate, we got into the other line and got two steamed buns to save for lunch later on the train. In hindsight, we should’ve eaten these buns right away when they were fresh and juicy. You could tell that they would’ve been amazing if we had them fresh, oh well, next time! (Tim: They were still good when we had them on the train, just probably not as good as they could have been)

After a satisfying breakfast, we continued our walk to the river. We passed by a baseball field that had multiple posters of the Taiwanese movie, “Kano”. The movie is based on a true story about a Taiwanese baseball team that goes to the championship tournament in Japan in the 1930s. Tim and I had watched the movie in Vancouver a year ago when they were touring the movie in North America.

As we past by the field, we saw the Korean flag and a flag that said “Doosan Bears Spring Training”. The team was having spring training practice, so we stood there watching the practice for a bit. The Doosan Bears are a professional Korean baseball team from Seoul. It’s funny that they’re a professional team, we saw half the team running along the river after but some were totally slacking and some were even just walking, so we thought they weren’t a professional team.

It was about 10:30am when we finally made it to the Love River, and it was already about 28 degrees in Kaohsiung. At least it was overcast or else it would’ve been more uncomfortable. Walking alongside the river and seeing some of the taller buildings against the water reminded me of Chicago. Kaohsiung is Taiwan’s “second city” after all.

After a sweaty walk back to the hotel, we picked up our bags and headed to catch our train to Taitung. The train was about a 2.5 hour ride (~175 km away). As usual, I fell asleep on the train. The train chairs are comfortable because they recline quite far back, which makes sleeping on the train a bit better! When I woke up, I looked out the window and all I saw was green, then I turned to the right and I saw the Pacific Ocean. It’s too bad it was overcast and very windy out.

We arrived in Taitung to Tim’s aunt and cousin waiting for us at the train station. They took us on a quick tour of some of the Taitung sights and brought us to the B&B we would be staying at. The host is a very friendly Burmese woman who moved to Taiwan for university and ended up staying here. Her place is very nice and super clean, cleaner than the last hotel we stayed at.

Taitung is the smallest city we’ve been to on this trip. Although it is a lot more rural than the rest of the other cities, I’ve noticed that there are a lot more noticeable backpackers (single white males). In looking at restaurants that were recommended on Trip Advisor, there are a lot of western restaurants for tourists – mainly pizza places. It’s only been just over a week of Taiwanese food, and I’m craving western food already. We found a compromise of western food and Taiwanese food that was highly rated on Trip Advisor – it was an American fried chicken place run by Taiwanese people.

The restaurant is called Blue Dragonfly. It’s basically like a local KFC. Tim and I shared a combo. It came with a drumstick, wing, and two “chicken pieces (Tim: Not sure what part of the chicken this was)” and a side of fries (was basically like a sprinkle of fries) and a drink. We got a slushy (“slash shake” on the menu) that tasted like pina colada.

After dinner we walked through the park that was filled with lanterns. It was so pretty. There was a mixture of printed lanterns and some that were painted by elementary school aged children (I assume).

We walked through the park and took our time looking around. The city is so quiet compared to everywhere else we’ve visited. It’s a nice change of pace.

After our walk, we saw a KFC and went to get an egg tart. I’ve been hearing about KFC’s Portugese egg tarts for a while now and finally got to try it. It was really good, perfectly flakey crust and warm egg custard. These egg tarts are only available at Asian KFCs. I would highly recommend them.

We took a longer walk back to the apartment and stopped to get some fruit. Taitung is known for their custard apple, so we decided to try one. We also picked up a passionfruit lime drink from a vendor that is downstairs from where we’re staying. Both were very refreshing and the perfect way to end the day.

Our internet was down so we called the host and she came by and brought us another custard apple! So now we have one for tomorrow.

Tomorrow we’re planning on seeing more of the beach and forest area. The east coast is beautiful with the tall green mountains and the ocean being so close. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow (Tim: And if it’s not, it’s out of our control so it’s silly to let it bother us, right Kait?).

Our total number of steps for today was 17,300.

Tainan (Day 8): Taiwanese History Lesson

March 8, 2016

This morning was the first day we set an alarm clock that we didn’t wake up before (Our jet lag is gone! Finally..) (Tim: I woke up before the alarm clock…). Tim planned out our Tainan day trip last night and said we needed to catch the train at 8:48am.

We got ready and went downstairs for free breakfast at the hotel. I had read on Trip Advisor that the breakfast wasn’t good, so my expectations were pretty low. We looked inside and the dining area was full of a Mainland Chinese tour groups rushing to finish their breakfast. None of the food was very appetizing, I took a scoop of congee and a boiled egg and that was about it. The combination of being surrounded by rude Mainlanders and bright lighting made me feel like I was in China. I didn’t write about our breakfast experience yesterday at the CityInn in Taichung – but I guess I should’ve because it was actually really good. It had a good mix of Taiwanese and western options and large platters of fresh fruit (I had a plate of strawberry, papaya and guava). Anyway, I digress, Trip Advisor reviews for these two hotels were pretty spot on.

After breakfast, we headed to the train station to buy our tickets. The reason why we were so particular about making sure we caught the 8:48am train was because we needed to go to Yongkang Station; this station is only available on local trains and the next one wouldn’t depart until noon. This stop was the closest train stop to the National Museum of Taiwan History. Tim was interested in this museum since it only opened in 2011 and wasn’t around the last time he was in Tainan.

The train ride was long since the local train stopped at every station, it took about an hour to get to YongKang Station. I passed the time by watching the Amazing Race on Tim’s tablet – he downloads shows whenever we have WiFi so we’re caught up with all our shows while we’re here. When we finally arrived and walked out of the station, it definitely felt like we were in the rural countryside. The museum was about a 45 minute walk from the station or if we had waited for the bus it would take an hour to get there. Since there was no bus, we decided to walk.

I thought the walk would be more interesting and that we would possibly get a snack or have a real breakfast along the way, but unfortunately there was nothing to see (Tim: Not nothing, just too interesting). We had to walk through a lot of industrial looking streets with non-existent sidewalks. Then for about 15 minutes, we were walking on a shoulder of a highway. I wasn’t too pleased with how the morning was turning out. I was warm, hungry and not enjoying walking like hitch hikers (there were no pedestrians in sight).

Then finally, we see a juice stand (Tim: Actually, the juice stand was pretty early on the walk). Hurray! They had all fruit juices for sale but we saw a pile of watermelons behind the counter so we just ordered watermelon juice. It was nice and refreshing to have on our long walk.

Finally, after about an hour we arrived at the National Museum of Taiwan History. The museum is basically in the middle of no where.

There weren’t too many people in the museum besides groups of elementary school kids on field trips. It was nice the museum was quiet, at least there weren’t hoards of Mainland tourists there. They probably wouldn’t want to visit this museum any how (Tim: or wouldn’t be allowed to).

The permanent exhibit of the museum is on the second floor where you learn about the history of humans in Taiwan – from prehistory to post WWII. The exhibit is easy to follow and the displays were well done. There is English written on about 90% of the displays, but if you go to the exhibits that are seasonal you won’t be able to read anything if you can’t read Chinese.

This museum clearly shows how much pride and love Taiwanese people have for their country. Before meeting Tim, I honestly knew very little about Taiwan so I appreciate him sharing his own family stories with me. This made going through the museum more important to me on a personal level. I feel like the Taiwan pride thing is a bit contagious, but at the same time I’m not Taiwanese so it also feel likes I’m turning my back on being Chinese. Although I didn’t know that much about Taiwan, I did know that most Taiwanese people do not like China (and love Japan) and I didn’t know why (but now I know). And contrary to that, a lot of Chinese people do not like Japan. It’s complicated.

I’m ethnically Han Chinese and proud to be. I’m proud of my Great Grandpa for having the courage to leave China to a foreign land to only face harsh racism and inequality while working on the railroads. But I’m far from Chinese in a lot of people’s eyes, but then I’m also not “white” enough to other’s. It’s something that I think about a lot and I’m sure a lot of other 2nd or 3rd geners do as well. I’m Chinese, but I guess more importantly, I’m Chinese Canadian, and I do have a lot of Chinese Canadian pride. I’ll probably reflect on this more as the trip goes on.

Any way, back to our day in Tainan. After the museum, we took a bus to Tainan’s train station. We then caught another bus to the historical district of Anping (Tainan is Taiwan’s oldest city and first capital) to check out the old Dutch Fortress, Fort Zeelandia.

We walked around the old town of Anping, which is geared towards tourists. There are a lot of food souvenir shops that sell shrimp chips. We went to a couple and they all gave us samples. I felt a bit bad we didn’t buy anything.

Besides the museum, Tim wanted to come to Tainan for their danzi noodles (or they’re often referred to as “slack season tan tsi noodles”). Tim had two places starred as options in the city. While we were walking around Anping, we decided to check out a place called “Chou’s Shrimp Roll”. It had a good amount of people inside so we decided to try their shrimp roll (which is shrimp paste fried with a batter). Tim noticed they had danzi noodles as well so we shared a bowl. Both dishes were really tasty (Tim: The noodles were just okay) but we knew that we would still have to go to one of the better places for it later on.

We caught another bus from the Anping district back to the city centre. Tim did research last night on danzi noodles and decided he wanted to try “Tu Hsiao Yueh”. It did not disappoint! These noodles were a lot better than Chou’s and were the same price. The fried oysters were very fresh and perfectly cooked. (Tim: After seeing this place, I realized it was the same place I had these noodles back in 2009 when I was last in Tainan).

We caught the train back to Kaohsiung and this ride only took about 35 minutes (an express train). It was another long day and it was nice to call it an early night. Tonight was the first night we didn’t go to a night market!

Tomorrow we’re heading to Taitung, which is on the east coast of Taiwan. Tim has relatives there and we’re looking forward to taking it easy in a smaller town. Tim says it’s his favourite place in Taiwan, so I can’t wait to see it for myself.

Today, our steps today was 22,500 steps. Not too shabby considering we rode a lot of busses today.

Kaohsiung (Day 7): We missed the sunset

March 7, 2016

The beds at CityInn were really comfy which felt good after our long night. Today, we planned to head south to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city and the largest port city. It’s about 200km away from Taichung, and about a 2.5 train ride on the regular Taiwan rail.

Before heading out, we wanted to go back to Miyahara to have ice cream and browse around to buy something for family at home. The store is a couple blocks away from the Taichung Train Station (not the high speed rail stop) which makes it really convenient if you just want to go to Taichung to visit the store from Taipei. Miyahara is actually a former eye hospital built by a Japanese optometrist (Dr. Miyahara) while Taiwan was under Japanese rule. After WWII, the building was turned over to the government then eventually sold to a businessman and became a ice cream/tea/fancy treat store (pretty random). Taichung’s famous pineapple cake brand (actually they’re originally known for their cheesecake) is called “Dawn Cake”, which has made Miyahara their flagship location.

When we were there yesterday, the ice cream parlour had a crazy long line up so today when they opened at 10am, we decided to try their famous sundae before we left Taichung. When we got there, there were only a few people ahead of us.

For the sundae, you pick 3 ice cream flavours and get to pick 4 toppings. There are 54 different flavours of ice cream (18 of them are just chocolate) and they all looked really good. If we stayed in Taichung longer, I would probably go back for a scoop of ice cream each day.

The ice cream sundae was very over the top but we both really enjoyed having it (for our breakfast and lunch). My favourite ice cream was the mango. The chocolate was really good too, especially when eaten with the cheesecake. But I always gravitate towards fruity ice creams/sorbets because they’re more refreshing.

We bought tickets for the 12:17pm train to Kaohsiung and this time Tim and I were able to sit together. The train ride was about 2.5 hours long. This train wasn’t as nice as the last one we were on to Taichung, but it was comfortable enough.

We arrived in Kaohsiung around 3pm and walked to our hotel, which was about 10 minutes away. We booked the “Cloud Hotel” on Expedia ($55 CAD/night), because of the decent reviews on Trip Advisor and mainly because it was a 3 minute walk from the Formosa Boulevard KMRT stop (which connects the two KMRT lines).

Today, we wanted to catch the sunset from the British Consulate Residences (which is on a hill overlooking the ocean) and go to out Cijin Island for seafood for dinner (I read that Cijin has better seafood than Keelung. I haven’t been to Keelung so I have nothing to compare it to) While taking the KMRT, we noticed how quiet the train stations were. It was a bit odd, we have a few pictures of how empty the stations and train cars are.

Kaohsiung is definitely a lot more laid back than Taipei and Taichung. There are way more locals wearing shorts and flip flops and you can feel how easy going things are. I like it!

On our walk, we grabbed pearl milk tea from “Gong Cha”. It was a fairly busy location with a large seating area. We noticed afterwards that they have locations all around the world, even in Canada (Markham). When we got back to the hotel, Tim looked at his expenses and saw we went to one in NYC this summer. I guess I drink too much bubble tea to remember. On a related note, Gong Cha is originally from Kaohsiung.

While walking down the same street as Gong Cha, we came across a place filled with locals eating noodles at 4:45pm. We looked inside and decided to share something since we didn’t have lunch yet. Tim ordered pork hock with noodles and a Sarsaparilla (sort of like Taiwanese root beer). I got some pickled garlic cucumbers as a side. Everything was very tasty and the noodles were perfectly cooked. And in true Taiwanese fashion, they had a container of fresh minced garlic to add to your meal – which Tim did of course.

Here are pictures of some of the interesting places we past by on the way to the viewing point.

After our pit stops, the sun was starting to set (you can see it on its way down while we were at the park) and we didn’t know if we would make it up to the top of the mountain. We found steps up to the British Consulate Residence (which is the recommended viewing point for sunsets) and basically went up as fast as we could. It was a good short work out. But unfortunately, by the time we got up the sun had gone below the horizon.

After walking along the pier and trying to get ahead of the masses of Mainland Chinese tourists (there were over 20 tour busses at the park), we headed to catch a ferry to Cijin Island. Cijin Island is a small island five minutes from Kaohsiung Harbour, known for their seafood and beaches.

The ferry ride there was 25 NT = $1 CAD and the ride was a short one. There were three ferries operating at the same time to and from the island.

Once we got to Cijin Island, we did a quick walk up and down the seafood restaurant row and just picked one. They were all fairly busy so it was a coin toss to see which one we would go to. I did read some reviews on Trip Advisor about one that was top rated by mostly Japanese tourists but I had forgotten the name. (Tim: the one we ended up at was only so-so).

We picked clams, snapper and shrimp at 100 NT per dish. My favourite was the stir-fried clams, they used a lot of garlic and basil. The deep fried shrimp was a bit underwhelming. If we had more people to eat with, we could’ve tried a lot more.

We decided to call it an earlier night and head back to the hotel. We took the KMRT back and again noticed there aren’t that many people using it. Kind of weird, right? Also, the train makes its transfer point announcement in Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, English and Japanese.

Tomorrow we’re planning on taking a day trip to Tainan to visit the National Museum of Taiwan History and Tim has some other specific food he wants to try there.

Today we walked 21,000 steps. It helps being close to an MRT (or even having one)

I’m glad we’re spending another night in Kaohsiung, I really like the city so far. I like being close to an ocean and having the mountains close by too (reminds me of home). When we saw the ocean (Tim: straight) for the first time from the view point, it made me really happy. I guess because we’ve been in two land locked cities with a lot of scooter exhaust in the air for the past week; it made me really appreciate being close to water (I’m a spoiled Vancouverite). When we were walking along the waterfront, we sat and just listened to the small waves wash up against the shore. It was nice.

Taichung (Day 6): Same Same, But Different

March 6, 2016

Today we planned on heading south to Taichung in the early afternoon. We still woke up really early at 5:30am (I’m always the first to get up) so we started to pack up our things and clean up the apartment before we left for the week.

It was early and we wanted breakfast, guess where we went? Back to 永和豆漿大王 (King of Soy Milk). We’ve been there three times on this trip so far but it’s been both of our favourite meals of the day and it’s within a 10 minute walk from the apartment! I know there’s supposedly a better place for breakfast in Taipei called, Fu Hang Dou Jiang, but it’s farther away and would require riding the MRT or walking 55 minutes (it wouldn’t have the same neighbourhood feel to it) (Tim: I’m also not convinced Fu Hang Dou Jiang could possibly be so much better that it justifies taking transit and lining up for it. I think sometimes people are just obsessed with having whatever is “the best” without concern for what marginal difference the best is actually better by, and at what additional cost you incur to have “the best”… I fall victim to this sometimes too). We’ll try it out eventually but for now, we’re feeling like the King of Soy Milk is our go to breakfast joint while staying in the area. We can’t wait for my sister and Noel to come, it’s 24 hours and their flight from Vancouver arrives at 5:30am, so we know where we’ll be going.

I was going to post a picture of what we ate, but I realize I didn’t take any pictures today. I guess we are transitioning into becoming more like locals. But I guess that’s wishful thinking, we both scream tourist when you look at us. Tim has a Vancouver Canucks t-shirt on and I’m wearing yoga/gym wear with a backpack 90% of the time.

We made our way to Taipei Main Station to catch our train to Taichung, which is about 175km south of Taipei. We took the regular (express) train versus the high speed “bullet” train to save some money and the location of the regular train stations are usually right in the city and the high speed train stations are usually at the edge of town. The tickets were 375 NT = $15.50 per person and the train ride was just under two hours.

When we bought our tickets from the machine, we were assigned seats and the only ones left weren’t together, but were close to each other on aisles. I was seated next to a 50-60 year old man and Tim was sitting next to a 20 something year old girl. My row mate fell asleep as soon as he sat down and was snoring the whole way. I decided to join him (I don’t know if was snoring, but if I was he was probably overshadowing me).

We arrived at Taichung Main Station and immediately saw our hotel from the platform, which made it easy to find. We’re staying at the “CityInn Hotel Plus Taichung Station Branch” for the night. The location is perfect for us since we’ll be leaving tomorrow for Kaohsiung. The room is small but clean, staff is friendly, they provide free bottled water and snacks in the room and even have free laundry machines to use downstairs. If Tim didn’t already do some laundry yesterday, this would be perfect for us!

After checking in, we walked down the block around the hotel and saw there were a lot of food and bubble tea options. We decided to have ramen at this place that translates to “One Heart Ramen”. It was a recommendation in Taipei by our Airbnb host but we saw it here so we decided to give it a try. Tim loves ramen (Tim: Sort of… I love noodle soup, and I love pork fat, so ramen is often a good fit… But in the world of noodle soup, it’s top 5, maybe top 3… “love” might be too strong a word) so this was a good late lunch option. The ramen was good but not amazing, Tim drank both all our soups still.

We got our bearings and narrowed down what we wanted to do here. We decided to check out Miyahara (Daniel’s suggestion) and Fengjia Night Market, which got glowing reviews on Trip Advisor. When we googled where the night market was in relation to our hotel, it was 7.5 km away or an hour and a half walk. Taichung doesn’t have a very good transit system – there’s no MRT here, just local buses. We decided to just walk to the night market and just see the city on the way there.

The streets outside the front of the train station (our hotel is at the back of it) was crazy busy. The sidewalks were congested and there were people sprawled all over the open spaces loitering. It felt like we were in SE Asia, which was a very different vibe from Taipei. But as we got further and further from the train station, the streets were much quieter, sometimes a bit eerily quiet.

Our first stop was the store, Miyahara. This store was recommended to us by our friend, Daniel. It’s such a nice looking store with lots of yummy things to buy (pineapple cake, cheesecake, chocolate, jellies, tea). We’ll likely go back tomorrow morning to buy a few things to try and to send back home. I love all the packaging, it’s so pretty! The busiest part of the store was their ice cream parlour. They’re known for making crazy sundaes, maybe we’ll try one tomorrow. They had like eight different chocolate ice creams – based on cocoa percentages.

After Miyahara, we walked in the direction of the night market. Taichung has a different feel from Taipei, a bit older and more rough around the edges. I was more scared for my life while crossing the street than I was in Taipei. We even saw our first scooter and car collision (well, the aftermath).

While walking along Taiwan Boulevard (for an hour), we noticed there were a ton of pineapple cake shops and wedding shops. Actually, the wedding stores dominated. They weren’t just all clustered together (although some were), but they were throughout the whole city. I guess the wedding industry is hot in Taichung! I’ll just share some pictures of what we saw along the way.

After passing by these monkeys we were more than half way to the night market. Thank goodness!

The first thing we wanted was something to drink. We had finished all the water in our backpacks on the way there (Tim: actually we had 1.5 full bottles still, Kaitlyn just wanted a fancier drink). We saw a whole street full of bubble tea shops in a row. So many choices! I read that Taichung was the birth place of bubble tea, which is also why I like Taichung. The prices for food and beverages are a bit cheaper than Taipei. We decided to get a passion fruit “QQ” drink (it had pearls, coconut jelly as well as passion fruit seeds). It was super refreshing, we sat down for the first time and it felt good.

After we rested for a few minutes and devoured the bubble tea, we headed out into the crowds. The Fengjia night market is right beside Feng Chia University, so the crowds were definitely very young. At first glance while walking through rows and rows of food stalls, we noticed there was more selection and more appetizing looking food than what we saw in the last few night markets we’ve been to. Basically anywhere with a long line up we wanted to try (Tim: Kaitlyn wanted to try. I prefer no lineups). But going to a night market with just the two of us isn’t ideal because we could only eat so much. We saw a long line up for this chicken place and decided to try it out. Not only did it have a long line up, but they had a TV screen blaring footage of the stand from local channels and testimonials from customers.

We didn’t know exactly how they were preparing it, but it looked good and the university students seemed to love it. We ordered the cheaper of the two options, not sure what the 85 NT option was. Tim said he would figure it out when we got back to the hotel when he google translated.

When we got the chicken, it wasn’t deep fried, which was actually surprising (Tim: Actually it was deep fried, just not battered). It wasn’t what we had thought it would be but when we tasted it was pretty darn good. Both of us don’t like white meat, but this was different. It’s hard to describe and the picture doesn’t do it any justice – actually the picture makes it look not that appetizing. The stall owner was a very nice chubbier man, he asked if we were from Hong Kong and then we told him we were from Canada. He thanked us coming to try his chicken.

After eating the chicken, we both looked at each other and we were full. Night market fail, we only got to try one thing! Behind the chicken stall was a gua bao (Taiwanese “burger”) stall, which is Tim’s favourite. The stall didn’t have any line up but Tim wanted to try one any way. Having no line up at a night market has been pretty accurate so far in terms of if the food is good or not. The gua bao wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good mostly due to the fact that the fatty pork belly in it, wasn’t pork belly at all, it was just slices of pork (Okay, so maybe short lines > no lines > long lines).

We walked around some more and I finally got to try the candied fruit on a skewer. The stall for this at this night market looked legit. It, along with most of the popular stalls had pictures of happy customers, write ups in newspapers, and TV appearances. This one also had a long line, so I decided if I’m going to have it, may as well be from here.

We didn’t really try any other food because we were full from that chicken. I really wanted something refreshing and we past by a watermelon juice stall. Watermelon is my favourite fruit so this was a perfect way to end the night.

At this point we were fading and our legs hurt. We found a bus that would go back to the train station. The bus was packed with university students and it took about 45 minutes. We stood the whole way which was a bit painful for me and we realized how much we walked. We finally got off the train and couldn’t wait to wash up and get back to the hotel.

Our total steps today were 25,500. This wasn’t close to the 44,000 from the other day, but considering we weren’t doing too much walking until later afternoon, it definitely felt worse.

Tomorrow we’re going to pack up, make a stop at Miyahara before getting back on to the train and heading down to Kaohsiung. We booked a hotel last night for $55 CAD on Expedia, good location and decent reviews. We were debating between staying one or two nights there because we were waiting to hear if Tim’s relatives would be in Taitung and Hualien (where we planned to visit later in the week). It turns out no one will be in Hualien for us to visit, so we may go to Tainan for a night. Tainan has a lot of sights Tim’s Mom suggested us to visit. Tainan is also where they recently had the 6.4 magnitude earth quake a month ago.

Any how, looking forward to seeing different cities in Taiwan. So far Taichung and Taipei feel same same, but different.

Taipei (Day 5): Just relax

March 5, 2016

We ended up going to bed around 11:30 last night, which is late compared to our regular 8:30 nights. We were excited when we both woke up and looked outside and saw it wasn’t dark (it was 6:45am).

After our long day yesterday, we said we were just going to take it easy and that’s exactly what we did! What’s taking it easy in Taipei? Eating.
Other than a few sights in the city, doing as the locals do is basically just eating. Tim keeps referring to the CNN’s list of 40 Taiwanese food items you can’t live without and I don’t think we’ve even cracked 10 yet.

We walked to our new favourite breakfast place (I love that it’s so close, even closer when we move to the Airbnb) and saw it was a lot busier today and then realized it was because it was the weekend. The line up went really quickly and we ordered a couple of things to share: rice ball wrapped in a green onion egg, pan fried lo bak go (turnip cake), XLBs and a cold soy milk. Tim made me order this time because he thought it would amusing since I can’t speak Mandarin. I just took the pictured menu and pointed to things, it was pretty anti-climatic.

After lunch we walked to Zhongxiao Fuxing area and walked through SOGO- it’s basically like a Japanese Bloomingdales. We went to every floor walking around and taking advantage of their free wifi like hobos. We gawked at the prices of some of the items, like their Barbour jackets. My Barbour jacket was 22,000 NT, which is like $900 CAD!

Oh right, I forgot to mention that when we walked into SOGO, being that we were part of the first wave of customers to shop/browse this morning we were greeted by 10 people standing in a row (expressionless) bowing to us. Before we walked into the store I saw them and thought they were mannequins for a second. The girls were wearing Japanese school girl like outfits (Tim: not really) and the fact that they were expressionless made me think that they belonged in a Japanese horror movie. Tim and I will probably go back another day right when SOGO opens to record it.

After browsing through SOGO, we walked along Zhongxiao Road towards a shaved ice place that was recommended by a few people. The place is called “Ice Monster”. I think it’s in all the Taipei guidebooks because most people we saw there were Japanese or Korean tourists and they had their guidebooks turned to a page where all I could see were pictures of shaved ice. We got there around noon (just in time for lunch…), and ordered the mango shaved ice with strawberries. Mango isn’t in season right now in Taiwan so no fresh mangos, a bit disappointing (I know, more first world problems). Tim and I shared one order since we knew it would be quite big. As we looked around it seemed like everyone was ordering their own, it was lunch time after all.

The shaved ice was good, but it was pretty expensive for what it is. But I guess Ice Monster is in all the guide books and they are clearly milking it!

After our “lunch” we ventured back into the sun and made our way back to the apartment. We wanted to spend some time planning our next week, as we want to go around the island and visit other cities before my sister and Noel get to Taipei.

We’re planning on heading down the west coast to Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung and come up the east coast to Taitung and Hualien. We won’t have as much time as we had hoped to go around the island since our time in Taiwan is split up as to when we need to be back in Taipei.

I was feeling a bit frustrated this afternoon about not having had planned things out better and “wasting time” in Taipei when we could be seeing other cities since we have plenty of time here later. But I know I have to keep reminding myself that it’s okay if we aren’t going to see everything and that “seeing everything” isn’t the point of this trip. Those of you who know me well know that I love to plan things out – especially trips and figuring out the logistics of everything. So to wing something like this is a bit foreign to me. I know it will take some time to adjust and maybe at the end of it I’ll be a different type of traveler.

On that note, I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of Taiwan even if it’s just for a day or two in each city we visit. We plan on leaving for Taichung tomorrow morning and will be back in Taipei next Sunday.

After a bit of planning and hotel research for Taichung, we booked a place on Expedia. It was the #1 rated hotel on Tripadvisor, close to the Taichung train station, and it was only $68 CAD! I booked using Expedia for TD, since it gives me 9 times the points on my visa. Basically this was the only thing we booked for the week, I was looking at other accommodations for the other cities but decided to hold off just in case plans change (see, I’m learning!).

So after a couple of days of not having any greens besides cilantro and green onion garnishes, we vowed to have some vegetables in our dinner. My favourite type of hot pot is Japanese/Taiwanese shabu shabu individual style, like Pearl Hot Pot in Burnaby. Basically they give you a big bowl of vegetables and assorted items like fish cakes, tofu, meat balls (it varies) then you pick your meat. Usually they give you an iced tea and a dessert all included in your meal.

There are a ton of shabu shabu restaurants in Taipei, but English material online for them is limited. There are only so many shabu shabu places that the “Hungry girl in Taipei” (food blogger) can go to and the majority of them don’t have English names which makes it hard to find online. We found one that was fairly close to our apartment, but when we got there the menu was pretty expensive and it looked too fancy for us. We decided to just continue down the street and see what else we could find. A few blocks down we found a restaurant with exactly what we were looking for! The restaurant’s name is 佶田日式涮涮鍋, which means, “Something… Japanese Style Shabu Shabu” (Tim: Ji Tian Japanese Shabu Shabu).

I was really excited because I had been craving hot pot and it had vegetables! We sat down and looked at the menu, the prices were less than half of the expensive shabu shabu place and also similar in price to our shaved ice from earlier. Tim asked the waitress if they had an English menu, she kind of giggled and politely said no. Tim told her we wanted beef and she pointed to the section on the menu that had beef (Tim: I know how to read beef in Mandarin… I pointed to the beef section and she and the waitress helped us pick out 2 different cuts of beef), we picked two different types (we still don’t know which one was which).

The drinks, sauce and dessert (ice cream) were all self-serve which was great. We made our sauces and Tim went crazy on the garlic. Taiwanese people love raw garlic on a lot of things. My mouth actually tastes like garlic at the moment…gross.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment. We both felt super full. Despite all the food that I’ve been posting on our blog, volume wise we haven’t eaten as much as you may think since we share one portion of everything. But today was our first high volume meal that we had to ourselves. It was the first time we felt uncomfortably full since being here. But it did feel good to eat some veggies…

Now it’s time to pack up and get ready for our journey down to Taichung tomorrow. Our friend, Daniel, is originally from Taichung, was just there last week (we missed him by a day) and gave us some ideas on where to go. We’ll definitely check out his suggestions, the Miyahara store looks really neat.

One random note, I’ve decided that the most popular dog in Taipei is a miniature red poodle (I’ll take a picture next time I see one). I think I’ve seen over 20 different ones in the past couple of days. I’m going to start a count on them starting next week when we’re back in Taipei. Also, on another dog note, people in Taipei don’t like to let their dogs (mostly white dogs) walk. Most of them are held and others have their own doggy stroller. Even the stray dogs that we see are extremely clean for strays. Dogs are living the good life here!

And our step count for today is only 18,600. Our chill out day meant we didn’t even reach half of what we walked yesterday.

Taipei (Day 4): Rise and Shine

March 4, 2016

So we did what we said we were going to do. We woke up at 4:15am (without an alarm), got ready and left the apartment around 5:30am. It was about a 30 minute walk to get to the base of Elephant Mountain (which has the best views of the city and Taipei 101). As we were walking to the base, some food vendors were prepping food for the day. We noted which vendors to go back to for breakfast. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that a lot of people start their days at 5am, I’ve just never been one of them.

We got to the base of the mountain around 5:50am. We read online that if you’re in good shape can get to the top in 15 minutes. I think if you’re in good shape you could actually get to the top viewing point in 10 minutes or even less if you sprinted up. We got to the top in 15 minutes, which, shouldn’t be that impressive because a man that looked like he was in his 80s with a cane was inching up on me as I was huffing and puffing up the stairs (Clearly I’m out of shape). FYI, we beat him up the mountain.

After taking a bunch of pictures at the viewing point we walked around other trails. There are a few other trails around Elephant mountain, called the Four Beasts Mountains. We didn’t do any of them, we just walked around a few other trails and saw a lot of seniors working out. The majority of them were super fit. This guy in his 70-80s was consecutively doing curl ups while chatting up the ladies close by. Another interesting thing to note is that there were a lot of old men who would perch on viewing points and yell. Then other men from other viewing points would “call back”. I wanted to join in too. I just “roared” at a squirrel that got scared and ran away.

After we made our way down from the mountain, it was about 8am. We went back to a fairly busy area called Wu Xing. We walked past a “rice ball” breakfast stall that had a line up. We decided to try it out and were not disappointed! This was exactly what I was craving while huffing up the mountain.

After we finished eating, we walked down “Wu Xing Square” which was an open market full of everything: meat, poultry, seafood, produce, dumpling makers, clothing, pretty much anything you can think of. This was place was bustling for 8am!

We walked up and down the block and decided to have “oyster vermicelli” soup. The soup is a thick starchy broth with thin noodles, oysters and large intestine. I mostly just drank the soup with noodles and oysters, Tim ate the large intestine. I really enjoyed the soup, I could probably do without the large intestine.

After resting at the apartment for a few hours. We decided to check out “Lin Dong Fang”, a beef noodle restaurant that was suggested on CNN’s Taiwanese food list (also vouched by other friends). It did not disappoint! I don’t have the same nostalgic feelings towards beef noodle as Tim does, so usually I don’t order it; but I have to say this one lived up to the hype. The noodles were nice and chewy (which is the way I like) and the meat was very tender. I ordered just beef and Tim ordered beef and tendon.

We heard from Uncle Albert that there was a lantern festival going on in Taoyuan and he suggested we check it out as it was ending this weekend. We decided to make our way to Taoyuan tonight so after lunch we walked toward Taipei Main Station to catch the high speed rail train.

On our way to the train station, we came across a huge Disney Tsum Tsum statue in front of a complex called Huashan Creative Park. We decided to check it out and saw there was an exhibition going on. We were lucky to have been drawn in to check out the area because we had no idea what this “creative park” was. It was a pretty unique place with different exhibits and independent artist boutiques and hipster restaurants inside old buildings. The feel of the area reminded me a bit of the Distillery District in Toronto.

We made our way to the Taipei Main Station area and ventured around the area with the intent to get back to the station around 4pm to take the train to Taoyuan. We were craving shaved ice since we haven’t eaten that yet. We found free wifi at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store, so we stood there for a while seeing if there was anything close by. Tim found a highly rated place on trip advisor that was about a mile away. We walked there only to discover it was closed. It was pretty disappointing. We’ll save that place for another day!

We walked back to the train station slightly disappointed (first world problems) and bought our train tickets to Taoyuan. Taoyuan is where Taipei’s international airport is, which is about 45km from Taipei. We bought the high speed rail ticket which costed $6 for a round trip and would only take 20 minutes.

As soon as we stepped outside the train station in Taoyuan, we were surrounded by the Lantern Festival’s exhibits. It was about 4:30pm when we got there so it was still bright out. We went to the food areas to eat an earlier dinner so we didn’t have to fight the crowds when it got dark. I won’t go into too much detail about the food, I’m getting a bit nightmarketed out. We had Taiwanese sausage, some BBQ’ed pork belly, squid and this drink with two scoops of this slushy ice in it. The drink and BBQ pork were my favourite. We went back for one more drink at the end of the night! We spent 275 NT or $11 at the food stalls for dinner.

We were planning on staying at the festival until the fireworks at 8pm. As soon as the sun set, the lights all came on and the whole area came to life. I loved all the hanging lanterns and I’ll share some of the lantern displays I liked the most.

We were worried that there would be a mad rush to get back to the train right after the fireworks ended so we made sure to stay close to the exit. We estimated that there must have been over 50,000 people there (the grounds were massive). After looking at the majority of the lantern exhibits (we didn’t look at all of them, there were probably hundreds), we were feeling pretty drained. It was 8pm and no fireworks came on, Tim asked one of the security guards when the fireworks were starting and he said they were cancelled for tonight but would be on tomorrow. That was let down as we were waiting until 8pm for the fireworks! Every half hour the huge monkey in the middle of the festival “came to life” and lit up and did a slow 360 degree rotation to everyone’s excitement (except mine, the monkey creeped me out).

I wished the festival was on for another few weeks, I think Nate would have really like it! This was the first time that we saw so many kids and strollers.

After discovering there were no fireworks we left and feeling more drained than ever. Luckily leaving the festival was super organized because at that point I don’t think we could’ve handled it. This was the latest we’ve stayed up since being here and we didn’t really even have an afternoon break! We both fell asleep on the train ride back to Taipei. When then had to transfer and take the MRT back to the apartment. We both decided that tomorrow is going to be a chill out day and my post will likely be a lot shorter. I’m finding it hard to be able to just relax and adjust to the fact that we’ll be here for a month.

Tim checked our steps for today, and it’s an all time high 44, 500. No wonder we’re beat!

Making the Most of Aeroplan Points

The “backbone” of our current leg of travel is an Aeroplan Rewards booking. This booking is a round trip flight from Vancouver to Melbourne, Australia, with layovers in Taipei on the way there, and in Ho Chi Minh City on the way back. This cost us 80,000 points each plus $596.21 in additional fees. Aeroplan changed their redemption costs last December, so North America to Australia is now 90,000 points. Now, the additional fees weren’t ideal, but they were by far on the lower end of things when we looked at different itinerary options, and more importantly, if we wanted to reduce the surcharges further, we would end up with less than ideal flight options.

Before I get into too much detail, let me first say that in my experience, talk of travel and rewards bookings online are either too complicated and advanced (and only understood by people who spend all their time on FlyerTalk Forums) or too simple without concrete examples and advice. Hopefully I strike a balance between the two, so you can understand what Kait and I did without knowing ICN > HND is going from Seoul to Tokyo.

There are just 2 things you need to do to maximize the value of your Aeroplan Points when making a redemption:

Book a round trip fixed-mileage flight reward with 2 layovers
Choose flight segments on airlines that don’t have surchages

1. Layovers

One of the best things about Aeroplan flight rewards is that you get to have 2 layovers (i.e. Stops in cities for longer than 24 hrs) added to your itinerary for free (or for the cost of the additional surcharges on the extra flight segments, see #2). So, in our case, booking a round trip reward flight from Vancouver to Melbourne costs the same amount of points as booking reward flights from Vancouver to Taipei to Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City to Vancouver. So always add 2 layovers to a reward booking to maximize value.

(There are rules about total distance you can fly, and thus, what cities are viable layovers. This gets into the advanced stuff. Try to pick your destination city for the round trip to be as far from your starting city as possible for a given rewards booking, and most reasonable layovers on the way there and back should work).

2. Minimize Additional Fees

Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, so Aeroplan points can be used for reward bookings on flights with any carrier in the Star Alliance. Each airline and their respective rewards programs differ from one another, and each have their own policies with regards to additional surcharges for reward bookings. In the case of Aeroplan rewards bookings, if the carrier airline charges additional fees for reward bookings, Aeroplan passes those fees on to you. If the airline doesn’t charge additional fees, then Aeroplan does not charge you additional fees. So, the trick to minimizing additional fees is to plan your route in such a way that all (or most) of your flight segments are on Airlines that don’t charge additional fees for rewards bookings. Which airlines are those? Here’s the list:

Air China
Brussels
EgyptAir
Ethiopian
EVA Air
Scandinavian
Singapore
Swiss
Turkish
United

Value of Points

Conservatively, for our booking it would have cost around $2600 to book flights to all the cities in our itinerary. Taking away the $600 we paid in surcharges, our 80,000 points was redeemed at a value of approximately $2000. This gives a value of 2.5 cents per Aeroplan point.

General rule of thumb for Aeroplan points, anything better than 1.5 cents per point is good value. Don’t use your points if your getting less than that.

So that’s a quick overview of how to maximize the value of your Aeroplan Points. I’ll have another post in the future on how to actually plan out your itinerary trying to follow these 2 rules using the Aeroplan booking tool.