Our tickets for the HSR was really pricey tbh. 3000 each... which is almost 160 sgd? But I cannot believe how fast it took to cover such a large land mass of Taiwan.
We bought the tickets within Taipei Main Station itself. There were a lot of counters in orange colour (which I forgot to take a picture of :() but it is quite obvious so no worries! Also buy your tickets in advance as they can run out.
Note also: we wanted to change the timing of our return journey to be an hour earlier and realised we could do it for free as long as we did it early. Any further changes and reissuing of tickets will cost 30 twd per ticket.
Soooo we took the 8.30am train and reached KaoHsiung at about 10am!
Here's the squish at the platform of taipei main station. Go there early AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT PLATFORM. There are about 3? And it is certainly possible that you did not go to the right platform. Always check carefully ok.
The sign '8' actually stood for our carriage number.
I loved the train ride and staring out for 1.5 hours. The train also had a fold out table just like those at airplanes so I could write.
I HAVE NO STILL SHOTS OF THE SCENARY SOBS. ONLY MOVING SHOTS.
And the pic below... shows the queue we had to conquer to change the timing of our trip back to taipei. Yikes.
Their 7-11 ultra cute please, even have this?
We went to find a famous shop called 兴隆居 at City Council Station...
and realised it was closed.
Wow guys, of all the days in the month of July. The sign below says in the dates in the month of july that they are closing. All mondays. So idk from aug 2017 onwards what is it going to be.
Wandered around and randomnly got some food from a store nearby.
Then went to the Love River coz it was within walking distance. Nothing much, just a river to me. O_O but still a refreshing change from the hot sun and concrete jungle as always
We then took a train to Sanduo Shopping District Station coz there is a lot of malls there.
We went to sogo coz my parents wanted to shop there. my goodness it was 13 stories but very small. Like a small BHG standing on its own.
I did buy a pair of shoes in the basement tho, this brand the salespersons not bad.
And there is surprisingly a daiso on the like top floor. Tax Refund was good at sogo though coz it was a direct refund.
Beside Sogo there was this stand alone shop that was like a Miniso + Convenience Store + Sasa combined into one. It's called POYA. And we spent 1 hour there buying so much items lol. From cup noodles to skincare to tupperware haha.
Here's the interior
And even cosmetic lenses?! I a bit scared la. Of all the senses, sight is most important to me so I'm taking no risks with this.
We then checked out another mall called FE21 and unfortunately we only had time to eat there. There were a couple of floors with food. but I went to the one with the food court concept and had a central seating area (11th Floor)
Here's the food we got!
So far all the bubbletea I bought does not suit my taste. I think I am too used to gongcha?
We then departed to take the train to Central Park to look for Xin Jue Jiang. Due to the limited time we had, I suggested an abrupt change of our agenda, abandoning the Liuhe Tourist Market for this instead.
AND IM SO GLAD.
We chionged to this place at about 5pm. Most stores were open by then, and the streets were not so crowded
Although this place is much smaller than the night markets in Taipei, this place had the BEST RATIO OF GUYS STUFF AND GIRLS STUFF. I was really glad that my dad could get some shopping done here as there were a lot of shops catering to guys, rather than just girls only.
I also really liked that it was well-organised and easy to walk through without feeling overwhelmed. I bought quite a bit from here in terms of accessories, no more new clothes coz I got loads from Korea already.
We finished walking this place in 1 hour and left, we saw the street food and decided against it coz the hygiene in terms of food handling... yikes
After that we went to Formosa Boulevard Station to see the light installation/painting/art/mural/idk/icannoteven yep. WORTH IT TOO. I like how pretty it looked and how majestic it was because of its large scale.
Here's the schedule of the light show
We then headed back to Zuoying Station to catch our HSR back to taipei. We made a quick last stop at another Shing Kong Mitsukoshi just beside the station to see if we can grab some food (HOW MANY SKM ARE THERE?!)
See that cute dinosaur shop at the background? We only manged to buy 2 shirts from ther ebefore we had to go :((
And there we were, back at the HSR station waiting to get on the train! Surprisingly, the train was already at the platform 30 minutes before waiting to depart. So we headed down the CORRECT PLATFORM and hopped onto the train.
Note: the above picture just reminded me. THERE ARE DIFFERENT GANTRIES DEPENDING ON YOUR CARRIAGE NUMBER. I have no idea if it makes a difference, but let's not risk anything and just make sure you enter the right area ok?!
I AM SAD. I wished I could stay here longer. I really did enjoy exploring this place. I want more time sobs. We barely had like 9 hours sobs. Next time then!