The plane from Sg to Taoyuan International Airport took 4h 15mins. To get to Hua lien, we took the gao tie. Tixs can be booked at http://twtraffic.tra.gov.tw/twrail/English/e_index.aspx. You need to get to Taipei Main Station to get on the train and you can take the bus 1819 Kuo-Kuang from the airport. Freq is about 10-15 mins and the journey should take about 55 mins. Orginally, that was what we wanted. However, we were late because of the flight delay so we decided to take a cab for 1000 TWD, takes about 40 mins [not really a cab driver, but more of somebody who wanted to earn some quick cash.] .
It didnt occur to me to book the tickets until the day before. Wow. Panic -.-" I booked the tixs at about 2 40 since i thought there would be enough time if we reach at 1:10pm. Well, 人算不如天算.. And in the end, we still missed the train. LOL. It was crazy, we quickly hopped down from the cab and started rushing to the platform, but the person said that we had to get the tixs first, I couldnt just show the booking from my hp. To make things worse, when I got to the ticketing counter, we didnt realise there was 2 types of railway. One is gao tie, the one we were supposed to take, and another dunno what tie. So by the time, we got to the correct ticketing counter. 2:50pm. It was definitely a gone case. No chance the train could still be waiting for us. Luckily, the lady allowed us to change to a later train at about an hour later. So we slacked around, ate some warm stuff at the 7-eleven. The train was even more comfortable than our plane ride. hahaha.
Another shock awaited us as we finally reached hua lien and started looking for our hostel- Taroko 18. We asked around before getting to the place. The whole place was dark. [It gets dark very early, by 5 plus it already seems like 7-8 + in sg] It seemed deserted. We stood there for a while stunned. We thought kena scammed. The downpayment was cheap.. only about $S20 plus. haha nvm, we tried to cheer ourself since we saw several other min-su while walking here. Again.. LUCKILY somebody drove a van and stopped nearby. AND.. he was the owner. An angmoh called damien. haha. He apologised and said he was having lessons elsewhere. After passing us our keys, he went out again.
Our dinner was at ZiQiang Night Market. Its a small place but the food is nice. There is 棺材板 and do try 第一家烤肉串. There is also a pizza shop and i ate 牛肉麵.
There was also a small arcade and because we are still young at heart, we played the games there. haha, the toy machine cheats money. We put in lots of 10 TWD coins but we didnt win anything. if only xp's mum was there. I played bball too. Lu and wee were tian cai! Wee threw the ball and it got stuck on top of the machine. Lu threw hers to knock it down but her ball got stuck too. oo. ** claps hand. And wee and me discovered how bad our sense of rhythm was while playing the drum game. lol.
