Nuya's Travelogue

Day 10 Itinerary
- Ximending
- Taipei -> Singapore (Home!)

Time to check out today (sob). After packing our luggages, we deposited our luggage with the consierge and proceeded outside to look for our brunch.

We found this 'wu di jia' thai italian shop. The restaurant was packed! Luckily we only need to wait for another 10 min as there is a space for table of 2, just nice for us!

Overall the lunch was enjoyable. Very filling but it's a happy last meal before we headed back home :)

We collected our luggages from Amba and headed to Ximen station towards Taipei station.

The previous night we already recce the place where we will be taking our Guo Guang bus to Taoyuan airport. We even look for all the escalators and lifts around that area to avoid lugging our luggages up the stairs lol.

Note to self:
- From Amba to Airport -
Take the MRT from Ximen station to Taipei station. Take exit M5. Walk towards exit K12 (near Chengpin bookstore). The Guo Guang bus which goes to Taoyuan airport is just outside of exit K12. The cost is NT125 and can be purchased from the ticket vending machine. Yo yo card can also be used to pay for the ticket.

The bus trip took about 1 hour as it was raining and traffic is a little heavy. I would suggest to allocate more time in case the airport clearance is slow due to the large crowd. We were just in time to reach our gate even though we allocated more than 3 hours to reach the airport.

Bye bye Taipei! We will be back really soon! ^^

Day 9 Itinerary
- Zhong Xiao Fuxing Station (忠孝復興站) Surrounding Area

We randomly walked around and spotted this coffeeshop breakfast area.

A queue is forming outside the shop so we decided to join them as well :)

The breakfast is quite basic. I didn’t understand what’s the hype about the place.. oops.. Maybe their coffee is nice but the eggs looked quite clumsily put together.

Decided to go explore Zhong Xiao Fuxing station and go visit DongQu Di Xia Jie. Turned out there is a Sogo right at the MRT station exit, so we decided to go check it out. And guess what, it is their Zhou Nian Qing!!! I felt as thought I just striked some lottery lol There is already a long queue forming at the entrance all ready to go in to shop! lol. Mood was great even though there was light drizzle.

We didn't walk to queue, so we went straight to their basement to check out the food stalls and supermarket. It was our first supermarket visit on this trip. ho ho. Very rare occurence :P

We went up towards the cosmestic area at the 1st floor to check out the Zhou Nian Qing crowd when it opened at around 11am. There were A LOT of staff standing by to greet customers. The energy and atmosphere was great! We each bought a set of Kose basic set. We were given a sample set as free gifts as well as a pouch and a handbag. We also had free eye mask samples along the way.. kekeke.

It was getting more and more crowded the day the goes by. But luckily Sogo staff did the crowd control really well! Very experience with such madness day lol

We had our lunch at the basement food court. Ordered a veg bibimbap and a hotpot.

Sogo very caringly provided an area to deposit your shopping bags so that we can shop more! lol Love it! Our shopping bags. Had a blast!! What fun!

After lunch, we each bought a pair of sandals from Sanuk. The staff there is very friendly, high energy and approacable. She even gave us 2 candies after our purchase. Great customer service experience. Btw, the sandal I bought is suppose to be able to just wash in washer machine. How cool is that??

After Sogo, we walked out towards DongQu Di Xia Jie. The shops there is disappointing. You can completely skip this area unless they somehow manage to revamp the shops there. It was so quiet and completely different from the high energy I felt at Sogo lol

We decided to go visit ChengPin DunHua branch which is near ZhongXiao DunHua station at the other end of DongQu Di Xia Jie. I love that their bookstore is a little like a library where you can just sit anywhere on the floor to reach your books. This is quite unthinkable in Singapore.

We bought some korean basic books and drawing book there :P Show them your foreign passport or IC and they will directly deduct 5% off your total bill.

Our Kose purchased!

Very tired but a super happy day! ^^

On the way back, we tried to figure out how to take the bus from Taipei station to the airport.

We also recce the famous Liyi BingDian so that we can purchase some cookies to bring home.

Taipei station K12 exit to the Guo Kuang bus terminal

The bus terminal

Starbucks near K12

- Self Notes -
From Amba Hotel to Airport: Take the MRT from Ximen station to Taipei station. Take exit M5. Walk towards exit K12 (near Chengpin bookstore). The Guo Guang bus which goes to Taoyuan airport is just outside of exit K12. The cost is NT125 and can be purchased from the ticket vending machine. Yo yo card can also be used to pay for the ticket.

Back at Ximending!