Taiwan Trip in the Southern Part after 12 years... with friends and kids

Taiwan is not very big, about the size of Pahang, Malaysia (~36,000 sqkm) but there are many different type of geological features such as mountain, river, seaside, lake, cliff, rocks etc. Each County has it's own unique attractions & experience. So this year 2024 we had our first family trip in Taiwan for 8D7N. 8-15 Mar. Celebrated my birthday, too.

General itinerary
Day 1,2: Kaohsiung
Day 3,4: Kenting
Day 5: Maolin
Day 6: Tainan
Day 7,8: Taoyuan

Took EVA flight for the first time from SIN-TPE. Also first time taking B-777. The plane is new, big, spacious and comfortable. The kids enjoyed the journey because of free flow juice and non-stop in-flight cartoon. Half way through H. spilled some orange juice, wet her clothes and changed into rapper style outfit.

The flight touched down on time at 6pm. Cleared immigration in about 30min. But the transit from Airport > MRT > THSR > MRT plus all the walking, we finally checked in to our first hotel at Yanchengpu at about 1030pm. Everyone slumbered into deep sleep almost immediately. 

Except of the little one... Already in her dreamland while on the road

leepy...

Kaohsiung local transport is convenient. The MRT system is similar to SMRT. Distance-based fare system. Each trip cost us about NT20-30 per person. We keep reminding everyone that H. IS STILL 5-YO so all public transport is free. No seat though.

This time we only spent 1 day around the Southwestern part of Kaohsiung city along the Green LRT line places like Hamasen, the pier area and Dream Mall. We stopped by to witness the turning of the Great Harbor Bridge for the kids to learn a bit about civil engineering, for free.

At Dream Mall, we took the Ferris wheel and played at the mini tiny theme park for a while. 

From Kaohsiung to Kenting

Auntie E. pre-booked the local transport from 橘子猫 tttrips.com. The package include a local driver drove us around and provide tour guide service. Total cost shared between 8 person. We paid $584+$42 tips.

8人提供九人座VAN (中文司導) 費用共 NTD33500

2 Days in Kenting
a lot of walking in the mountain, park, lakeside, seaside, old town, night market.

Pingtung
Tandem paragliding at the age of fabulous 40-ish is something that I didn't plan for. When there is an opportunity, just seize it. 

Tainan
Guided by a local is totally a different experience. He brought us to places where we have not heard off. 

Taoyuan. Getting ready to go home
Before heading to Taoyuan, we visited the Kaohsiung Train Station currently under construction. The train station seems like located in the middle of a very big roundabout. 

Year 2024

Will look like this when completed in Year 2025

We can't really see anything beyond the hoarding, but the site is definitely quite big. We walked some more, ate some mos burger and went back to hotel to check out. 

Formosa Boulevard metro station 美麗島站

Learning from the first trip, our return trip on THSR was much more pleasant with food and drinks fully prepared. By noon, we checked in to our last hotel, Novotel at Taoyuan Airport. Purposely choose that place to catch the early flight on the next day. 

The hotel is chic, cozy but not cheap. 1-night is already more expensive then 2-night at Chateau de Chine. Room is quite small. 2 single beds must park together to fit all 4 of us. Sofa also serves as fall protection. Luckily everything is moveable. A giant panda took up some space, too.

After dropping off our luggage, we went back to the THSR train station for lunch and some shopping. There is a Gloria Outlet Mall. Walking around the compound already made me feel like spending. Exactly the same feeling I had at Genting Premium Outlet. Cooling weather always entice people to spend. But before that, we need food! There are many choices and non of the shops are crowded. Could that be any problem with the food? No... food is delicious, affordable, service is good. Completely opposite of Singapore food scene.

Hotel lobby is equipped with 3 iMac for guests. 2 young guests were spotted hoarding the iMac playing online game after a cheap Ippudo takeout meal. 

The next day is again a mad rush. Woke up at 6am. Packing up and left hotel at 730am. Good thing that Novotel provide complementary airport transfer. Once reached the Terminal 2, get tax refund. The process is very seamless. The staff just need to check the form completed by Gloria Outlet then we can tap our credit card at the kiosk. Less than 5 min we are done. Next stop, check in counter. Taoyuan Airport is very busy, full of people, long queue everywhere. Luckily we checked in online the day before otherwise how can we look so happy at the bag drop counter?

The remaining of the journey is basically relax, eat, drink, watch movie and play game on the flight. Vacation cannot be too long 6-8 days is just nice. 

New Year Eve in Batam 2017/18

2 day 1 night with nanny’s family. Parked our car at office season carpark and then took cheap Uber to HBF ferry terminal. This is the second time bb took ferry. There was no Tom and Jerry show onboard. So she still prefer taking aeroplane.

Hired a van for the whole trip. The driver brought us to all the usual places. Hotel is not bad. Bb was entertained by both 三姐 & 四姐 almost all the time. Swimming in hotel pool, shopping at Nagoya, visiting The Illusion Batam.

Ate some seafood, bought some groceries and layer cake. Batam is good if massage is the main purpose of visit and some cheap groceries and jersey.

Dinner gang BKK trip 2017 . Revisit BKK after 8 years

my first trip flying cathay pacific. Bkk is quite interesting and vibrant. Stayed at phrom phong. Next time will bring bb to kidzania bkk. Enjoyable trip with big elite group and good food.

Bb now has a seat and it's comfortable. Bb likes flying

Asean open skies have enable more 5th freedom flight that is killing budget air

First Road Trip in Borneo (Brunei & Miri)

Borneo may not be the first choice for most travelers and our last trip to Miri was 7 years ago. However a road trip with not much planning can be quite exciting, too. Without exceptionally high expectation, we took our first road trip in Borneo.

Before our AK flight, we enjoyed the complimentary lounge service at Changi T1. Courtesy of Krisflyer Amex and SATS. There are lots of food and lots of magazines to kill our time.

Touched down in Miri on a weekday after a 2-hour flight. Got our rented car from the workshop and there began our journey to find kolok Mee, dry curly noodles with little oil and some minced meat. A simple yet delicious noodle dish that Singaporean entrepreneur tried hard to penetrate the foodies' stomach but hardly succeeded. The best is still to be found only in the original place, Sarawak!

We drove around Miri city to familiarize ourselves with the road signs, road condition and drivers behavior etc. Generally they are courteous and not in a hurry. At night, dinner is settled in Bintang Plaza adjacent to Meritz Hotel. This stay-and-shop concept is quite common here. I got my hubby a 小礼物 & he was thrilled.

Day 2 (Miri - BSB)

Buffet breakfast fueled us up & our 150km drive to Bandar Seri Begawan began. We reached the Sarawak-Brunei connecting bridge at Sungai Tujoh and paid a whopping RM10 toll. At Rasau, the toll is only B$3.

Sarawak ICQ is not far from the toll and we cleared Malaysia check point quite smoothly. But after that we were stuck inside a "ruin" and don't know where to go. 

A few cars came from the opposite direction shed lights on our way forward. That ruin is the old checkpoint, which is no longer operational. That explained the extremely rundown state. We drove through a police post and then got our first ever Brunei stamp on our passport.

2-hour journey is not that long but it's still quite tiring. Fortunately Hotel Radisson didn't disappoint us. Things are not expensive in Brunei. No service charge, no GST, B$0.53/ltr petrol and amazingly there is no traffic jam! Malaysian car can only pump petrol at selected stations. There is special lane for Malaysian cars with special price of B$1.10/ltr.
Not forgetting to mention that movie ticket is only B$4 on weekday. We had real good laugh watching The Internship by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaugh.

Vacation is all about food and we had soooo~~~ much food.

We had (D1) Sushi King, (D2) hotel breakfast, pasta, Excapade Sushi (again),

I'm so full

(D3) hotel breakfast, 烧鸭白鸡饭&蒸羊骨, KTM Thai food

Steam lamb ribs. No pork in Brunei.

(D4) hotel breakfast, 明财seafood (Jalan Merbau, very near to Meritz & Imperial Hotel)

(D5) noodles, Dynasty Chinese restaurant, 明财seafood again.

Huge lala RM30/kg

thick Marudi (hand made) Kuey Teow

Day 3

As part of this lawatan sambil belajar (learning trip), we headed to Brunei international Airport for excursion. The main building is currently under major construction. It should ready is another say, 2 years?

Kampong Ayer

Highlight of the whole trip gotta be our stay at The Empire Resort and Country Club. This place is huge. Facilities include a golf club, club house, theater/ cinema, villas and a few blocks of guest rooms. Buildings are far apart and the guests need to take buggy. Upon check in, desserts are readily served in the room for Mr. Dining!?!? Pampered like royals for once. There are also salt and fresh water pools in the resort compound. Impressive!

Surprisingly, Jerudong Park is the exact opposite. B$1 entrance fee. Very few visitors and the place is very badly maintained. One side of the park across the road looks like a jungle full of knee height bushes and infested by mosquitoes. Although some children rides have been added but it can never bring back the charm. 

Day 4 (BSB - Miri)

Back to Miri. A section of Brunei highway is still under expansion works. Judging by the life pace, the road works should be completed by the time we return for the next visit, in 2 years perhaps?

Throughout this trip, we "hotel hopping" almost everyday. At The Imperial Hotel, we changed from room to apartment so Yes, we changed room everyday. I cannot imagine dragging our luggage around in public transport. Because of Hertz (RM180/ day), we managed to cover more places in shorter time such as Luak esplanade, Sea Horse Light House (from afar), Lambir Hill etc.

Day 5

The highly anticipated Borneo Tropical Rainforest Resort cost RM70 per pax so we patah balik to Lambir Hill National Park (RM10 entrance fee). Many locals come here for family outing picnic. We had a good time at the Latak Waterfall. Fun can be as cheap as RM10. 

欢乐的时光过得特别快，又是时候讲bye bye. Once again we are convinced that cuti-cuti Malaysia (or SEA) rox!