Typhoon Rocks!!!
Hello everyone, and happy birthday to yuyuan as well! I just came back from taipei and as expected, great food and cheap things to buy there. But what's most exciting that i wana share with u guys was the experience I had with the typhoon Haitang. Its been 5 yrs since Taiwan got hit by another typhoon, but i got it on my 5th day (which is the day when im about to leave for home) Actually on my last night(4th day) there, my group of friends were planning to go ktv and sing till late night, till 430am and take our planned transport to the airport for our flight. So we headed out to shop in ximending to tie up some shopping loose ends and stopped by to watch 2 stars holding a mini concert street by street in ximending (Ping Guan and Wilber Pan). But then it started to rain on and off as the typhoon approaches.
Rain started to get heavy as in the late afternoon, so we decided to go back to the hotel to get ready to relax and head out again to taipei's 10 lvl ktv party world. However, the damn typhoon was getting nearer by the min and weather was real bad. News channel frightened us more as reports of the Eastern most taiwan were hit. Furthermore, tour agency did not fax us the details of whether our transport will coming to pick us up at 430am anot....Used hotel phone and could not contact the tour agency, and taiwan's SIA was also not responding. So we decided to scrap our plans and stayed in the hotel and bid our time. Made a mad dash braving the storm to the 7/11 near our hotel and stocked up on cup noodles and drinks, and went back wathcing the news show even more discouraging events(floods, trees drop, poles drop, signboard crushed) At hotel lobby, we met 2 SG couples (same age, one whom was an ex colleage of mine) who coincidentaly, in same hotel, same flight as us and also had same ktv plan cancelled at night. But wats diff was they already checked out in the morning and hotel was full now. So we decided to let them have our room (need to pay hotel some money) but in the end they were too paiseh and decided to rush for the airport as they found one lucky taxi willing to drive them there.
Few hours later of mellowing in our room, we finally received a call from the driver picking us up tmrw. It seems like the travel agency already hired them beforehand, but did not confirm with them and left us in the lurch. So tats y the driver was worried and decided to contact us ourselves (good news). Managed to contact SIA too, and found out they were still flying to our rejoice.
Morning 430am....packup and boarded our pickup van. Driver made a mad dash towards the airport, avoiding lanes which were full of tree branches and stuff. Small van also tended to veer to the sides abit if wind got too strong, but driver was skilled ah peh so no prob^^ We were so grateful we even tipped him NT 400 = S$20 equi (we were already hard on taiwan currency so cant tip too much haha) Reached airport and found out SIA was the only flight taking off, so abit skeptical. Flight suppose to be at 710am takeoff, but it seems like something was wierd as the connecting tunnel to the plan was not even attatchd to it at 650am. Next thing we knew, our flight was delayed as the wind so strong that the door to the luggage cabin could not open. But lucky it was SIA, so the next few events turned out to be blessings in disguise.....
Around 8am, SIA gave us refreshments and further confirmed the situation tat flight was delayed and compensated us by relocating us to hotels to stay till able to fly. That was when we hit the jackpot....we were transported to Taiwan's Hyatt Hotel!! Omg, compared to my old 3 room hotel, that 5 room Hyatt Hotel was soooo big and grand!! (It beats most of the 5 star hotels i've stayed elsewhere last time) Furthermore, They even treated us to free lunch buffet and provided free 5 mins overseas call for each person. So happy, my friends and I were all cheering for the typhoon for the 1st time (kinda bad but haha....) Went to have a good soak in the tub and slept thru the whole waiting time (1pm to 6pm). We were told beforehand to assemble at 620pm at lobby, so we did and boarded coach back to airport(Could see some of the destruction caused by typhoon on taipei's streets) Proceeded to take the 810 flight back to Singapore and reached changi at 1230 midnight. Had to say that that was one hell of a trip.....we were even more delighted to find out that we could claim 100 bucks from the travel insurance due to flight delay hehe....
Thanks for reading my long rantingm but to sum it up, Taipei was a very nice place which we will fit in perfectly. Their MRT was easy enough to navigate. Langguage wise was a piece cake as they dnt have any irritating slangs, and we can also understand the Hokkien which they spoke. (Many locals were puzzled and surprised when they heard me speaking a mix of hokkein, chinese as well as english. Many wondering where we came from or mistook us as locals) So if u guys want a place to shop and eat, Taipei will serve u well with its wide range of cheap to exp stuff to eat and buy (To ladies, Wu Fen Pu has thousands of queenstown like shops and 80% of them sells female apparels at a crazily cheap price) .
I forgot to add in my name haha....Kian here....
