May the skies be clear: Taiwan Day 0: Changi Airport → Taoyuan Airport

So.... This trip is a family trip (just my parents and myself). Itinerary was planned by my mum (I have zero say). I helped with the booking of flights, accoms, and driver. My mum wanted to visit the entire Taiwan in 10-11 days. It's a really short period of time to tour the entire country but she insisted on it (and also blames me for not wanting to take more leave from work for this trip 😐). I didn't want to drive and it's hard to take care of both of them + luggage if we were to take public transport hence the decision to hire a driver.

12th Apr 2018, Thursday

We were informed on the day itself that our flight was delayed by 1 hour 10 mins. It was originally scheduled for 15:10. Nevertheless, we still decided to have lunch at the airport. Went to Dian Xiao Er for lunch and that's when I discovered that my favourite charcoal tofu is made with egg. 😞 It's not the first time that I accidentally ate something that is non-vegan... It just didn't cross my mind to ask if there's egg in the dish until my mum tasted it and said there has to be. Oh well, one less available option.

It was still early by the time we were done with lunch so we went inside the departures area to walk around.

My mum likes plants so she asked me to take a picture of this 😅

And this....

She also found this pretty.

My mum bought some duty-free chocolates for eating when she's home. I found it weird that she'd want to bring it all the way to Taiwan and back again just to save a few cents. Luckily I convinced her to just buy 1 bar instead of 4 bars. 😅

While wandering around, we chanced upon the Butterfly Gardens. It's funny that all these while that I've been departing from T3, I had no idea where that is. My dad had a good time taking pictures. 😀 Me too!

WARNING: Butterfly pics ahead. If you are squeamish about them, please skip the pics.

We waited at the gate just to be informed that the flight got delayed again by 15 mins because the plane arrived late and it takes a while to complete the preparations for departure. My parents must have used the toilet for the 4th or 5th time by then that I was thinking to myself "oh no, what if this happens in Taiwan too?" Does that mean that every 30 mins we would need to stop the car to find a toilet for them? 🙄

Decided to book EVA Air (長榮) because there was an ongoing promotion which led us to pay about S$400 per person for the return flight. It costs nearly S$400 anyway for Scoot with meal + luggage, so it was not a difficult choice to go with EVA Air.

On board the plane, I decided to sit in the middle, letting my parents have the aisle seats since they seem to need the toilet so often. I fell asleep only to be awoken by my mum asking me how to get the in-flight entertainment going so that she can watch Korean movies. 😑 Hais.

We were given snacks and menu (no menu on return trip though) for mains and drinks.

I pre-ordered vegan food for everyone (I did ask my parents whether they wanted non-vegan but they were OK with vegan food).

My mum complained that the vegan food is not tasty. I found it nice so no surprise she thought it wasn't. We seem to have very different taste buds. My dad thought it was not bad.

Near 5 hours of flight time

Upon landing at 台灣桃園國際機場 (Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport), we were the first few to get out of the plane for Economy class because I got us the seats nearest to the exit. 😆 However, we were still faced with the long queue at immigration. We weren't given arrival cards to filled on the plane (I wonder why), so we had to fill them on the spot. Took at least half an hour to get through immigration. By the time we cleared immigration, our luggage was already taken off the belt!

We met our driver 小许 (or Roger, though we never called him that) who had been patiently waiting for us. It was already 10.30pm. I think he was there since 9.30pm lor although he said he didn't wait for long.

We went straight to the car which is a nine-seater (damn big) and chatted all the way during the journey to our hotel at 新竹 (Hsinchu).

We took the highway to our hotel and here are some pics along the way. They are blur because I couldn't (and have no patience to) figure out how to use my new camera for this case of moving vehicle lol.

Looks like Singapore's highway, but then again highways all look quite similar... Taiwan has something like our ERP. Theirs is toll though and the fee applies 24/7 although on certain days of the year they might get discounts. The highway's toll collection is completely automatic. Each car has a chip on the front and the chip is linked to a bank account. So when a car is driven through the electronic gate, money is deducted directly from the account.

The car ride took about an hour!

Once we got to our hotel - 卡爾登飯店 (The Carlton Hotel), the staff welcomed me by my surname. I was shocked that they knew who I was. Am I a celebrity?? 😁Most probably we were the last guests they were expecting though.

Here are some pics of our hotel! It's really nice and spacious for the price I paid - nearly S$100. At that time I felt that it's probably going to be the nicest hotel on this trip for its price.