A Short Vacation To Taiwan (2005-04-15)
KL has accrued over a month of annual leave at work, so he decided to take a couple of weeks off in March/April. We were just gonna stay home and have a relaxing time when he suddenly decided to make a quick trip to somewhere close. Once we came up with a destination--Taipei--, I spent long hours on the internet researching the city and scouring for the most inexpensive air fare and good accommodation. This was our very first trip where a travel agent was not involved. Instead of booking a package tour at a travel agency like we always did, we bought our plane tickets and hotel room online which ended up saving us quite a bit of money.
By doing homework before we took off for this trip, we had a trouble-free holiday in Taipei. There is endless information about Taiwan on the Internet that helps one work out an itinerary, locate tourist spots and their access routes, or find restaurants etc. I was even able to decide on which "must-try" restaurant to go to on which day before we left Tokyo. I happened to have had picked up a detailed map of Taipei city in Tokyo last year and I marked all the places we wanted to go on it, thus saving us valuable time getting lost and looking for places in Taipei, something we didn't have a whole lot of time doing.
I went to Taiwan with a tour group with my dad in my early
teens. The tour cramped many cities and sightseeing places in a
relatively short time making the trip feel very rushed. This time
we would follow our own itinerary and eat at restaurants of our choice.
It's also
KL's first trip to Taiwan, so we were
both very excited about our little vacation. We were there from
April 4th to 9th. I'm going to record our trip in the style of a
journal, breaking it down day by day. This way, it will be easier
for me to sort out the pictures I want to post since they are already
in sequence. Also, all the prices quoted in the text are in US
dollars for ease of understanding.
Tomorrow will be Day 1 of our trip.
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