Day 5 in Taiwan

Looks like this is a wasted trip to Taiwan. We saw nothing much except its non-stop rain and strong winds. As planned, we walked to Taipei Main Station to take its High Speed Rail to Tainan. A return trip (reserved seat) costs NT2700 for an adult, which is about S$135. I wanted to buy a train bento but J said we could save that money since we had a heavy breakfast.

There was a waiting area for HSR passengers. When the train arrives, passengers will take the escalator down to the platform. Since Taipei Main Station is the terminal station, the train is already at its platform. We snapped some photos with the train before hopping into the train. The train left punctually. The average speed was about 300km/hr. The ride was smooth, comparable to Japan's shinkansen. The seats and toilets were new and clean.

HSR makes a brief stop at Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchiu, Taichung, Tainan and then Zuoyin. The ride from Taipei to Tainan is only 1hr 45min.

From Taichung onwards, the land becomes quite flat. By the time we reached Tainan, it was still raining. The HSR Tainan Station was quite a distance from the downtown. There is free shuttle bus service. In the same train, there were many Japanese students occupying a couple of cars. The ride was quite noisy as the students were chattering happily.

The free shuttle bus left before 11am. The bus driver Mr Wu was such an extremely friendly and helpful man. He advised us not to make a trip to Qigu Salt Mountain under such weather conditions. Instead, we could make a trip to An Ping Old Street to have a good meal and some shopping. This place is famous for fried pawn crackers. The shuttle bus brought us to Tainan City Hall. From there, we took a cab (NT120) to An Ping Gu Bao. We had our lunch at Zhou's Shrimp Rolls which later D mentioned that it was one of his intended destinations. We went to this restaurant because a staff at one of the 7 Eleven told us. In Taiwan, there are many 7 Eleven, Family Mart and OK Mart. Getting simple food such as a bento is never a problem at all.

The fried shrimp rolls were 2 pieces at NT50, slightly pricey but delicious. We had a good warm meal despite the cold weather. Today the temperature dropped below 10C. We were simply not prepared for such cold weather. Our hands were freezing and we were almost shivering.

We gathered we could not continue to stay outdoor for long and took a bus (NT18) to Tainan Railway Station. There is a big shopping mall, enough to kill our time there before we returned to HSR Tainan Station. This mall called Yuan Dong Department Store has many storeys. We had some hot drinks at its McDonald. We were just too uncomfortable being cold and moist. We took the shuttle bus (about 45min) back to HSR Tainan Station. We were glad that we could change our 2015hr to 1815hr tickets. We could return to Taipei at about 8pm. Before we bought the train, we went to the 7 Eleven and bought 3 different bentos. Here, the availability of bento is similar to Japan except that the food served is taiwanese style.

Everybody enjoyed their food on the return trip.

Our trip to Tainan is not a very fruitful one. We experienced its HSR but did not have a good walk around An Ping and not to mention, we did not manage to go to Salt Mountain as planned, though many said it was just a huge mountain of salt.

At Taipei, it was still raining lightly. We bought food from 7 Eleven again. This time, it was a bowl of 6 pieces of Yong Dou Fu. Each piece was selling at NT10 and we have seen people buying it as a bowl of hot Yong Dou Fu. On our way back to the hotel, we saw Family Mart was selling at 4 pieces at NT39!