Day 1 of our trip to Taiwan consists of the flight over, our first destination, that being dinner at Raohe Street Night Market, and then our hotel, Yunoyado Onsen Hotel. Given we landed in Taiwan around nightfall due to the flight time being approximately 4 hours, it’ll be a rather short day with most of the time spent on the airplane.
Note: This is an excerpt from THIS post, hence the Day count
Read to know more about our 7D6N trip to Taiwan and the other days we stayed 🙂
Arrival, Liftoff and Touchdown.
Our flight with the best (and only) budget airlines I’ve ever taken, Scoot, leaves at around 12.pm. Reaching the airport slightly earlier at 10am gives us some time to meander about and have our brunch consisting of some Nasi Lemak. Leaving Singapore at such a in between time does not make for a good experience, but thankfully I live in Singapore and we have Changi Airport.
The flight does not provide much to discuss. I’ve never really like flying and me not getting any sleep on the flight did not help. Spent 2 hours raw-dogging it and the other 2 hours getting progressively more concerned about a book’s protagonist as he spirals into genuine depression, Tian Guan Ci Fu Book 3 is not for the faint-hearted.
This photo was taken after immigration at Taoyuan Airport. As you can probably tell, everybody in the airport is dressed in a jacket and its nighttime, 6pm to be exact. Something we should address before we move on is the difference between Taiwan time and Singapore time. There’s no timezone difference, however, the sun sets much faster in Taiwan. In Singapore, you may still see daylight at 6pm. In Taiwan, it’s pitch black at 6pm. Jet lag isnt applicable in this scenario, but it sure feels like it should be
As mentioned in the master post, we weren’t stupid enough to take this Taiwan trip solo. We were following a tour guide recommended to us by a family friend, going by Ah Kai. By extension, this also came with transport. The exact model of which Im not sure of, but if I had to venture, I’d assume it was a Toyota Alphard. Ah Kai is the one who’s going to be driving us around, taking us to destinations and providing recommendations.
Destination 1 – Raohe Street Night Market
Located in the Songshan District of Taipei City, Raohe St Night Market is one of the many night markets in Taiwan and one of the more famous ones. It’s a 1 hour drive from Taoyuan Airport on Google Maps including traffic and loading onto the car. Free admission and plenty of food to eat, given the night market stretches 600m long and opens at 5pm.
For us, this proved to be a first-hand introduction to night markets in Taiwan. Contrary to those in Thailand, night markets in Taiwan are far more packed. Your space to walk is limited by whether a stall to your left or right has a queue or not or if people are simply browsing items. It proves helpful to be a Singaporean in situations given our average walking pace is rather high (and we’re always walking like we want to catch MRT). Unable to handle the crowd? Thats fine too, there are usually sit-down restaurants along the side of the night market.
Accomodation – Yunoyado Onsen Hotel
Finishing up with the Night Market at around 10pm, after a long day in and of itself, we were pretty tired already. Accomodation was approximately another hour away at Yunoyado Onsen Hotel in the Jiaoxi Township of Yilan County. Each hotel only had us stay for one night so if you’re looking for people’s opinions on the hotels, I may not be the best person to ask. However, as a refresher after a long day, I find it satisfactory.
As you can tell from the room, the main selling point about this point is in fact the Onsen. I don’t know if it can be called a Onsen given it looks like a bathtub, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. To be specific, we stayed in the “Japanese Room Type B” as listed on Klook (that’s what you adults use yes?)
Conclusion – Welcome to Taiwan
I can envision myself using that saying far too much than I should be
All in all, for a Day 1, there’s not much to complain about even if I wanted to be cynical. The night market’s food and experience was good and the accommodation was nice and comfortable. Of course, flights are painful, but Changi Airport is as good as it always is (Majulah Singapura~). An ideal first day and night.
Make sure to refer to the post link HERE to have a look at the other days we stayed during our 7D6N trip to Taiwan. That’s all from me, make sure to drink your food and eat your water.