My Singapore Adventure – My Next Chapter

Let me first start with saying Gong Xi Fa Cai or Gong Hey Fat Choy or 恭禧發財 or 恭禧发财 – in short, Happy Chinese New Year to one and all. I hope the Year of the Snake brings you years of joy, happiness, success and good fortune – I think we need quite a bit of all of this, based on the challenge environment we find outselves in.

This year, I was invited to spend time with a school friend and his wife in Southern Taiwan, so I duly accepted the invitation. I always wanted to visit him last time in 2011, but never managed to find the time to do so, so this time, I wanted to make more effort to visit them both.

This was also my first time flying Scoot, another low-cost carrier, and I must admit it’s not a bad airline. They are like the others in that ‘everything is extra’, but it was a comfortable trip.

As I was only there for 5 days, and due to the challenges to get a seat on the high-speed bullet train from Taipei to Kaohsiung, we decided that I should stay around Taipei for the first part of the day, and then head down on the 19.30 train. My mate, Sam, was kind enough to come up to meet me, as I was scheduled to arrive around 05:40, yup that’s right, with the flight duration of 4hrs 50mins, that meant my flight left 00.55 on Saturday morning – ouch! Anyway, I got some brekkie, found a cafe with free wi-fi, and just cruised until Sam arrived.

As it was Chinese New Year, most of Taipei was shut, but we walked around, chatted, stopped every so often to get a drink (to keep warm, cos it was ‘cool’ here (versus the 31°C of Singapore)). We head to Taipei-101 as we were intending to up and see a fantastic panoramic view of Taipei City, so we stopped off first at Sogo to get some food – at least we knew that this food court would be open – haha. When we arrived at Taipei-101, we entered the shopping mall on the ground floor, and it reminded me very much of Orchard Road in Singapore and the many high-end shops that exist…we breezed around and eventually went up to the fifth floor and joined the ticket line. After we got to the desk, the clerk advised us that it was quite foggy, so the view could not be guaranteed if we went up. Ahhhh…what a shame, but alas we decided to save our cash for another time to see the views. I will be back again at some point, anyway – hopefully over the summer months!! 🙂

We continued our walk around Taipei and then finally arrived at the main train station where we joined the high-speed train. It was very efficient, arriving and leaving on time, it was smooth, with VERY fast. We arrived in just over an hour, and Joy, Sam’s wife, was there to greet us both. It was a bit of a drive to where they live, as we had to go further South and around the coast tip to the South-East side. I felt very relaxed already. I was advised that most Taiwanese people would be down to the Southern parts, so I would expect it be quite busy. We had a relaxing few days, visiting some lovely scenic beaches and walks, a fantastic waterfall off the beaten track, and visited some great eating places, even visiting a night market in one of the nearby towns.

The highlight was to spend some quality time with some great friends, and also enjoy the company of their lovely dogs, Chino and Shao Bai – both were delightful, but I must admit, I had an affection to Shao Bai – she was sooo cute…hahaha!

I took the return train on Wednesday, 13th at 10.15, and arrived back in good time to pick-up my flight which was scheduled to leave at 15:45, and arrived back at 20:10 ready to go back to the office on Thursday – luckily it was just a 2-day week before the weekend – haha! 🙂

What a lovely island, a lovely Couple, their lovely dogs and a very relaxing and lovely break! It was also good to talk about some of the current challenges I am facing at the moment, so thanks to them for listening too 🙂