Trip to Taiwan

A trip always starts with a tour around the airport. Post-pandemic a few restaurants have been added to the departure side of Hong Kong. There's now McDonalds and Meng Wah offering a bit of a viewing deck onto the tarmac.

Perhaps most notably the brand new bridge to the north sattlelite concourse rather than a bus. It's high enough for A380s to pass with a bar, a bit of a glass walkway and a lookout.

Catching a HKExpress flight today to Taipei (Taoyuan). The airline is undergoing a livery change from the old cityscape to the new "e" design. Also the new Greater Bay Airlines founded during covid, now just being another short-haul low cost carrier.

onboard today's A320 for Taiwan Taoyuan. Once the busiest air route on earth passenger numbers are still recovering from covid. In future we might see as many as 8 operators competing on this route. Greater Bay Airlines is one of the new operators and from the Taiwanese side, Starlux and Tigerair may join the competition in future. The closure of Dragonair in covid sees its slots reallocated, some to Cathay and some to HKExpress, a Cathay subsidiary.

Taxiing along the hangers towards south runway for takeoff. Always some interesting planes at HAECO. 

And shortly takeoff. Plane flies out south of Tuen Mun towards Tsuen Wan.

Tsuen Wan, Container Port & Shek Lei

Mong Kok, Hoi Lai and Cheung Shan Wan

Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin and Kowloon Bay Business Area

Lastly Kwun Tong, Tseung Kwan O and off to the sea. Choi Hung & Ping Shek Estates, Richland Gardens, Shun Lee, On Tai and Tseung Kwan O's cross-bay bridge.

Cool-looking clouds along the way as the plane flies up to Taiwan over the ocean. 

Approaching the island near Hsinchu. Flying over the fields over the western coastline, where the elevated motorway is Western Coastal Expressway, a key grade-separated route along the coastline. The plane soon reaches the settlements in Taoyuan near the airport before landing into the airport.

into Taoyuan right at sunset time. A lot of freighters operated by China Airlines along with Eva Air's hello kitty plane.

First time into Taiwan with an airport MRT. The airport train opened fairly recently and finally gave the airport a rail connection to Taipei via the Linkou area. The express trains run every 15 mins alongside local all-stops trains.

Trains were short with just 6 cars and are at capacity from the very first stop. There's very limited seating in each carriage and travellers made to stand in between seats and on the doorways. The metro has been in capacity constraints with limited rolling stock to deliver adequate frequency. The design of the track was not optimal either with too many curves and steep sections, yet a 40 min ride is still decent. With infrastructure flaws being hard to correct it should at least focus on delivering a frequent service where commuters are not squeezed like sardines.

Taipei Main Station is reached after walking through a long corridor. We took a south exit into an area much known for having a lot of tutoring centres. Not just high school tutoring but tutoring for government or professional exams. Our first bubble tea was in Nap Tea, founded by a YouTube influencer known for teaching English on YouTube. While we didn't learn English from them we did watch a few of their videos detailing how the brand was established. A lot of effort in product development, tasting and shop deco. Still, great milk flavour and the bobas were soft.

With little time to spare we dived underground for a metro ride to Taipei 101, trying to reach the lookout before it closes. Still the same old metro, great aesthetics and good rolling stock.

On top of Taipei 101. A few main carriageways can be seen from here where metro trains run underneath. Super wide roads built by engineers returning from America and importing their car-centric planning. Perhaps the most notable road is Civic Blvd, built on the old Taiwan Railways alignment which has since moved underground. The elevated roadway provides an important throughfare between the new areas in the east and old city in the west.

The massive damper ball above the lookout is not to be missed, countering movement from earthquakes or typhoons. Getting super hungry we headed up to Raohe St Night Market with a northbound bus, crossing through the new area of Xinyi towards Songshan.

A lot of people in the night market yet not uncomfortably crowded. People move at a comfortable pace and we did some decent exploring before deciding on where to have dinner. What we decided was a restaurant-like stall offering oyster omlette and tiny portions of braised pork rice.

Having all we need we took a Taiwan Railways (TRA) train back to Taipei Main Stn for our hotel. Very new rolling stock unseen before. The train station looked a bit like my local shopping centre in Hong Kong.

Long ride on suburban trains back to Taipei. Trains are new yet the train station is still the same as before. 

In our hotel room, we switched on our TV and started watching. Taiwan has a lot of broadcasters with dozens of news channels and purpose-specific channels like these run by Buddhist organisations. The most interesting Buddhist channel might be BLTV, a Chinese name ironically named human satellite TV. This made its news sound more like aliens catching up with what's up in Earthlings. We've got several sources on what BL means, some say Buddha's Light, and some say Beautiful Life.

First stop was the presidential office building just next to NTU Hospital Station. Ketagalan Blvd runs towards the building and the ultra wide road is a popular site for mass protests. Next to the metro station was a peace park commemorating the 228 massacare in Taiwan, featuring a few monuments.

This place perhaps best demonstrates ROC aesthetics. The buildings should have looked nice when they were first built but a lack of maintenance led to its dusty outlook. This is not helped by the banners attached, all in different shapes and colours and lacking uniformity. The gloomy sky didn't help and made the dusty appearance even more prominent. 

Shortly across was Ximen (West Gate), Taipei's prime shopping district in the old downtown. We were way ahead of schedule to meet a friend and decided to hop on the metro for C.K.S Memorial Hall, 2 stops down the metro line.

Cheng Kai Shek Memorial Hall, with the music theatres on both sides and a large banner stating Freedom Square at the end. 

Back underground we went back to Ximen, met our friend and went for lunch. 

Wandered around the area and got our boba drink. The pride Taipei installation is a popular photo spot but wasn't a pleasant one either with vehicles constantly crossing it. The octagonal Red House did have some nice exhibitions and souvenir shops.

Heading north to the palace museum, one stop to Taipei Main Station then onto the Tamsui Line. Our friend bid farewell with us going back to his home at Xindian. The Tamsui line turned above ground for a while as we got off at Shilin.

A bus connection from Shilin to the museum

National Palace Museum, housing artefacts from the Forbidden City which were shipped over to Taiwan amid the Kuomintang defeat. 

There are a lot of interesting exhibits, from documents to tableware. Great thing is the presence of translations from ancient Chinese text to modern ones, unseen in any museums elsewhere. The museum has a good focus on the historical significance of things, unlike Hong Kong's Palace Museum which focuses on the artistic element. 

Another metro ride further up north. We got off at Beitou, changing onto a one-stop branch line to Xinbeitou. The line while being connected to the main line runs as a separate line, using a shorter version of the rolling stock. 

Xinbeitou Station has its old station preserved. Tamsui Line used to be a suburban rail operated by Taiwan Railways but has been converted to metro. One of the carriages was preserved and the old station building is used as a souvenir shop. Xinbeitou is known as a hot springs resort and limited expresses used to run (a long time ago) bringing Taipei people up to the resorts.

Tamsui's old street is nice but not much to see. The station sits next to Tamsui River and a view to Bali on the opposite side.

Back to Shilin where the well-known Shilin night market is. There's a few crowded streets lined with food and some less crowded ones focusing on retail. The food street leads to a temple which also has a few very well-known stalls. We discovered around before eventually finding somewhere nice for the main meal.

From Taipei Main Station we caught a TRA train eastwards to Ruifang. The train calls at a few tech hubs and suburbs, curving along Keelung River, before arriving at the town of Ruifang. This is generally considered the end of the greater Taipei area as population drops significantly past this point.

TRA Aesthetics as everything looked like coming from the 80s. 

Station cat and the streets around the train station. The bus from Jiufen departs from a nearby public square which we were walking to.

Jiufen Old Street. The bus stop is on the main road which is terrible in pedestrian walkability. The only pavement is the green stretch of paint on the side of the road. Fortunately the old street begins just round the bend from the bus stop and from there it's a pedestrian only area.

Most shops were still closed early in the morning. We got into the post office to get some things sorted and progressed along the main street.

End of the old street is this scenic lookout with views over to nearby Keelung. Houses built on slopes and there are walkways leading to nearby train stations on the other side of the hill. Hostels run offering scenic rooms for tourists.

We went along the road a bit and didn't see much- all same view, different angle. There's a plum wine place which we stopped by and had a taste. Discovered this really cool wine that doesn't come with a medicine syrup taste, a common thing found in plum wines in hong kong. We got a bottle to finish off on the trip, explored a very narrow alleyway and went back to the main street, now full of tourists.

We took a bus back to Ruifang and then a train to Shifen, on the single-track, unelectrified Pingxi Line, running using old diesel multiple units. The interior of the train still has a lot of old signages indicating its old purpose as an express intercity diesel train. Shifen Station has a small station building right across the track and sits next to the old street.

More TRA aesthetics. The station doubles as a passing loop and we waited a bit to see the other train coming from the other direction.

Our walk to the waterfall continues past this railroad crossing and over a couple bridges. We didn't make it all the way and returned just as we were about to get there. A nice cafe is situated next to the railroad crossing.

Nice to see the railroad crossing activated on the way back. The main street runs very close to the track yet tracks are open to public when not in use.

The track is where these sky lanterns are released. It's been such a massive tourist business with many shops offering the same service all at the same market price. Large tour groups roll in on tour buses and it's not hard to see multiple lanterns released at the same time. Cool cultural experience but once is enough- the environmental impact sounds like a disaster.

The train gets a lot quieter as we headed down the line to Jingtong, where it terminates. 

Being away from the scene Jingtong offers a much nicer vibe. We had lunch at one of the restaurants and visited the cool souvenir shop right across the station. The station block is also well preserved and kept the old Japanese wooden architecture.

As the train rolled off we discovered a few nice spots for pictures. Always very rare to have the opportunity to walk onto tracks next to an active rail line. This is often off limits but here's one of them where it can be done safely.

Train track appreciation (and the station building)

Cool stuff from around the station building before we head back to Ruifang, catching our express train down to Hualien on the east coast.

Onboard the Tsz-Chiang train to Taitung where we get off at Hualien. This is the brand new EMU 3000 imported from Japan, featuring sleek white aesthetics and a business class car. 

Enjoying our plum wine and catching some sleep on the way down. The train seats are good-looking but feel very hard to sit on. They are essentially an ironing board like new British train seats and get painful after hours of sitting. These new trains are no longer tilting, favouring a larger capacity than the mere 15-minute time-saving. This is perhaps the reason for the rough riding of the rolling stock.

Reaching Hualien shortly after Yilan. The section from Yilan to Hualien passes through rugged coastlines. This train speeds through with multiple straight tunnels hitting max speeds of 130 km/h. 

The road, Suhua Hwy, curves along the coastline and its steep curves and gradients made it one of the most dangerous roads to drive on. Safety improvements and tunnel bypasses on the road has massively improved road journeys down to Hualien, as back then mass transit relied heavily on railways and there has always been capacity constraints.

Not much to see at night but during the day the track runs along the pacific coastline and there's always great scenery to be seen. In the middle of the night, the train speeds down Qingshui Tunnel, one of the many long tunnels along the coast, at full line speed, where it's hard to imagine how an easy cruise down the tunnel was once the site of a fatal derailment back in 2021. 

Hualien's train station isn't centrely located in the town centre. It was 8 pm and buses were running at 30min frequencies. We simply didn't bother and caught a taxi to our hotel. The hotel is luckily just a 15min walk away from the night market. Along the way we went past the main streets of the city, round a confusing roudabout and down an unnecessarily wide boulevard. They've got this tree which looks like Christmas tree but is filled with veggies.

Freedom Street- you're on camera. Went into this supermarket as well which is quite interesting to see.

The city of 100,000 people feels oddly quiet at night. Perhaps it's nearly 9 pm but shops were still open serving no customers. The area is known for a french-toast like dish with savoury filling, which we tried and was quite ok. The city has too much open space and gives really creepy vibes at night, feeling like a ghost town.

We proceeded along the night market towards the Pacific coastline. There's a massive park with beaches and lookouts to enjoy. At night it was all empty, the pavilion looked as if it was about to collapse, and all the graffiti felt really scary. Pedestrian access was limited and we found ourselves crossing through many streets without proper crossings. Without anything else to do we returned to our hotel and watched TV for the rest of the night.