Day 1 -- Tainan, Taiwan

12/25/2013 Wednesday

We arrived early morning in Taipei airport (TPE) after a 12 hour direct flight. First, we took a bus to the high speed rail station in Taipei so that we can take the high speed rail to my hometown of Tainan, which is in the south of Taiwan.

In the past, we used to take the bus as high speed rail was not available at that time. The bus ride is a little over 4 hours. With the high speed rail, it takes a little over 1 hour to reach my hometown.

I have already pre-purchased our tickets as you can get 35% discount if you pre-purchase early. Normally, it cost ~US$40 for one way ticket, with the pre-purchase, it cost only~US$26 which is quite cheap. The only con about pre-purchasing is that you have to select the time that you want to go and make sure that you don't miss your time. If not, you wouldn't be able to get a refund. Since I wasn't sure if the plane will be on time, so I selected a later time to make sure that we won't miss the train.

Our plane arrived on time, so when we arrived at the high speed rail station, it was too early for our ride. We saw a 7-11 store inside the station, so decided to buy some breakfast there.

The 7-11 in Taiwan is very different than the ones in U.S. There have so much more varieties of food and drinks. You can even microwave your food and put hot water in the instant noodle cup.









Soon after breakfast, it was about time to leave. About 1 hour and 15 minutes later, we were at Tainan station. My cousins were there to pick us up. We had to have 2 cars as we had several luggages.

After we arrived at my parents home, we stopped by to visit my grandma. She has been counting the days for us to arrive.



After visiting her, we went for lunch. It wasn't anything fancy, more like homemade food that I missed so much. Anthony wasn't into this kind of food and was looking for his burger. I was like "You are in Taiwan, you need to try their local food!!".




Then we went home to rest and catch a little nap as we were jet lagged. After we woke up, it was late in the afternoon, so we decided to walk to the closest mall.




It was actually a long walk, so we passed many different places before we finally reached the mall. The malls in Taiwan are actually pretty nice and clean.




We had some dessert made of soybeans. It is quite cheap. NT ~$30 = US$1



Since it was Christmas time, there were a lot of Christmas decorations around the mall.






Then we headed home as our relatives were waiting to have dinner with us.

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