Our third day in Taiwan was mostly spent walking around parks. We started at the Taipei Expo Park where there was a weekend market going on. Before this, we stopped by Starbucks for a quick breakfast.

Parks

The long walk started and so I don’t really have anything else to say so I’ll be sharing some of the photos I took instead.

I don’t quite remember if this is still the same park or it was just near to the Expo Park but we went here to see a rose garden and a “labyrinth”.

After we had our fill of flowers, plants and greenery, we started walking towards the nearest bus top to get back to Taipei station. Apparently, we were still a long way from the bus station because this park was really big!

Finally, we got to the bus stop! After a few minutes wait, the bus arrived and it was so good to finally have air conditioning hit your warm, sweaty face. By the way, if you get confused about when to swipe your card to pay for the bus ride, check out the sign when you get on! It took me at least 3 bus rides to realize this. (In Japan, you had to swipe when you ride and when you get down)

Lunch at Sukiya!

At Taipei station, we went to a nearby mall to have lunch. While looking around for a restaurant, I saw that there was a nearby Sukiya, which is one my favorite chain restaurants in Japan! I wanted my brother to try real gyudon (apart from the Yoshinoya gyudon we have in the Philippines) so we left the group to eat at Sukiya!

After eating, we decided to walk around the area while my friends went to shop for souvenirs. Some of them were already flying back to the Philippines that evening. We were taking it slow, walking around alleyways and just taking all of Taipei in.

Finally, we went back to the hotel for a well-deserved rest. Our feet we tired. My entire being was tired. We decided to chill until it was dinner time! We also said goodbye to our friends who were leaving ahead of us.

Ximending Fun!

For dinner, we went back to Ximending. The night before, we didn’t really get to explore the place properly so for tonight, this was our only itinerary. We were free to roam around and do whatever we want.

And then it started…after dinner, we were energized. While walking around, we noticed how there were so many claw machines in Ximending. After “trying them out”, we immediately got addicted. I cannot remember how much money we’ve spent that night, but it was worth it because it was so much fun!

There was one claw machine shop near the Toilet Restaurant which had great items so we stayed for almost an hour maybe! The claw machines were not expensive to play (compared to Japan) so you can really enjoy all the feelings of frustration, anxiety, anger, excitement, surprise, and pure joy with a few coins!

We were quite lucky to have won so many things (except for Ralph who is frowning in the photo below). I was enjoying playing so much I didn’t really get to take any photos!

We got to the hotel tired but satisfied. I haven’t had so much fun and laughed that much in the longest time! So, presenting my haul for the night (together with my brother’s) –

Day 3 in Taiwan, I started to have separation anxiety already because I really enjoyed this day a lot!