Taipei Throwback: First Night in Taipei

My travel posts kept being thrown back. Some of you might recall that I had a few photo story posts on winter in London, summer in Venice and Florence and then they simply stopped. Then, I flew to Taipei in May this year and you saw pictures of the trip from my Instagram feed with no other mention here on my blog. Well instead of trying to keep up with my travels in Europe, I decided that perhaps I should shorten the throwback time and blog about Taipei which is more current (5 months ago! o_O) instead. The Europe travels could be thrown back further.


[Photo credit]






~*At Changi Airport*~


I do love our airport so much. Changi Airport has a reputation for setting standards in airport service quality, being the world's best airport in 2014, 2013, 2010 and 2006. Before flying, we visited the Butterfly Garden which is located at the Departure Transit Lounge in Terminal 3. The Butterfly Garden officially opened in 2008 and but May 2014 was our first visit there. I'm so glad that I dragged the hubby in. I felt like my holiday had already begun in this fascinating world of butterflies prior to our holiday.




My favourite butterfly of all is this black and blue one. But wait, is this a butterfly or moth? Do you know how to differentiate? This is actually a moth. *Gasp* Now who says moths are ugly and scary?




Even though this is called Butterfly Garden, there are both butterflies and moths in there. I guess many people's perception of moths is that they are dull-coloured and just not so pretty. Whoever heard of a moth garden? All these pictured in this collage are actually moths. They are quite beautiful, aren't they? It was easier for me to capture pictures of moths than butterflies. Moths tend to be still at rest whereas butterflies love to flutter their wings, resulting in many blurred shots which couldn't be featured in the collage.




How about this collage? Could you tell which are butterflies and which are moths?
Ans: All are butterflies except the last one (bottom right). It is amazing how the insects at the bottom have similar wing patterns but the one on the left is a butterfly and the one on the right is a moth.




Still confused about the difference?
♥ Wings - When at rest, butterflies tend to fold their wings vertically up over their backs. Moths tend to hold their wings flat.
♥ Body - Butterflies have thin and smooth bodies while moths have thick and fuzzy bodies.
♥ Antennae - Butterflies have club-shaped antennae while moths have feathery antennae.
♥ Colour - Well we have been taught in primary school Science that butterflies are brightly-coloured while moths are dull-coloured. However after that day at the Butterfly Garden, I now know that some moths could be so pretty too.
♥ Pupa stage - Butterflies typically form a chrysalis while moths form a cocoon. See if you could spot the difference in the collage below.








~*Rainy Night in Taipei*~


It was a rainy evening when we touched down at Taipei. It was 10+ °C with strong winds; we were wearing thin summery clothes. When we finally hopped onto a cab and told the driver where our hotel was, he told us that there had been street protests along the street of our hotel the past few days. I braced myself for an adventure which never came.




On a cold rainy evening, I had craving for hot soupy food for dinner. After checking in, we walked around the vicinity of our hotel and ended up in a stall selling steaming hot beef noodles. Despite staying in Asia, we haven't been travelling to Asian countries for a while and was surprised at how cheap the food was. The price of our noodles converted to about SGD$2.30 and SGD$4.80. You could never get a bowl of noodles for $2.30 in Singapore except in school canteens.




I was expecting 红烧牛肉 (braised beef) noodles but mine tasted nothing like that. It was a tad bland. The hubz was very satisfied with his 麻辣 (ma la: numbing spicy) noodles though and insisted that I could not always dislike something just because it isn't the taste that I expect. Well, he's right but isn't it human nature to expect and be disappointed (especially when it comes to food for me)?




There were Asian and Western shops around our hotel. You could see from the 2nd picture in the collage the reminiscence of the street protest.




Beauty Hotels Taipei -- Hotel B7 was where we put up for our stay in Taipei. There were several positive reviews online ranging from 3.5 to 4 stars but we hadn't quite expected the room to be so TINY. Well I guess the price was good for its accessible location.




=) Service was good, or maybe expected from most hotels. The lady counter staff for the afternoon shift resembled Cyndi Wang, A Taiwanese singer. I don't like Cyndi Wang but that's some eye candy for us.

=( The room only had a few feet of floor space around the queen-sized bed. There was no wardrobe, only a clothes rack at the corner. We were perfectly fine with that as we usually live out of our luggage when travelling. Meanwhile, our luggage were stashed under the bed to keep out of the way. This room is definitely not for big-sized people or claustrophobes. Even tiny Asians and non claustrophobes like us found the room too small.

=( The room had no windows at all... which was BAD! It was the rainy season and I needed a window to plan the itinerary for the day. We woke up every day in the dark wondering how the weather was. Google wasn't always accurate and sometimes we did not plan and dress appropriately for the weather.

=) The room was really clean. The tiles were shiny and smooth and we didn't get those dusty feet feeling. There was a day when we headed back to our room after breakfast and we saw a kindly old lady getting down to her knees to wipe the floor with a wet cloth. So that's how they mopped such a small room.

To see how small the room is, view my 15 sec instagram videos here:
Hotel B7
Hotel B7's room
Hotel B7's toilet




=) The ratio of the toilet to the room is 1:2. They could probably allocate more space for the room but I do appreciate a spacious toilet. I love the heater function most.




=) Everything was free at the mini bar which really wasn't anything much but that was fine as Taiwan is well-known for its cheap and good street food. We were issued breakfast coupon which could be redeemed at the bakery next door every morning.




I hope that I could keep up with my Taiwan photo story posts. Stay tuned for more Taiwan adventures!