Week 55.10 – Taipei 台北/ Penghu 澎湖: Magong 馬公

How: by air via Songshan Airport

Why: Fireworks at Penghu

The next morning, I dragged my 20+ KG suitcase to the Taipei Main Station in order to store it for the days I am in Penghu.  The baggage center was very difficult to find .. it was at the East 東 exit … except it is outside the building and across the street…. I spent an hour inside the train station looking for it ….

It only costs 17 dollars a day to store luggage there but when I got there … it service was suspended because they had no additional room and the employee “shu” me out of there.  I am not sure if there are baggage storage at Songshan or Nangang Train Station either because the stations look fairly new and may just direct you to a locker (which is 30 dollars for 3 hours for a maximum of 3 days for a small locker … any time longer and the locker will be ‘locked’).

7-11 at Songshan

I went to Wanhua Train Station 萬華火車站, the next station over and there was PLENTY of room to store my luggage. The guy working there was quite nice too and he didn’t ask for anything except for the 17 dollars for the first day and gave me a receipt.

I ate lunch there before heading back to Nangang Train Station, stocked up on sun screen and walked back to my hostel.  The owner at the hostel was super nice and gave me a phone number for a person they knew at Magong in Penghu (my next destination).

7-11 songshan airport

My flight was in the evening so after checking in, I had enough time to hang out around Songshan Airport 松山機場.  The airport is accessible by MRT and International and Domestic terminal is in the same building.

view from observation deck

There is an observation deck on the 3rd floor.  It also has a Mr. Brown Coffee. When I was there, it was smothering hot but there were still a lot of people there and anyone can go to the observation deck.  FYI: there is also a MOS burger on the second floor.

view from observation deck

EVA Air also has a Hello Kitty plane that flies from Taipei to Haneda Airport (Tokyo) ! I don’t know how much it costs but it looks so cute!

Eva Hello Kitty plane!

After I checked in, the sky opened and started pouring and my flight was delayed due to bad weather.  Luckily, there was also another Mr. Brown coffee near the gate …

afternoon tea

Odd weather continues …the rain stopped and you can even see bits of the sun … I probably shouldn’t have opened my camera to take this shot, but it was quite a site … Taipei 101!

view from above

Arrived at Makong Airport after a short 50 minutes ride!  It turns out my hostel had free pickup .. so I didn’t have to wait for the bus to pick me up … which comes once every hour and doesn’t even go to my hostel >.<

馬公機場

I got to the hostel around 7PM and the hostel owners already started to help plan my 5 days in Penghu.  I didn’t have transportation, which was a big negative because Penghu is actually not very transport friendly …. The first thing he told me to do was to get on a bike and bike 30 minutes to Guanyin Ting 觀音亭, which is a park across the Rainbow Bridge 彩虹橋.  There was fireworks that day!

the front of the stage

It took me a long time to ride there because my bicycle skills were atrocious and I avoided all the main roads in case I get ran over.  There were lots of people so I knew I was in the right place 😛

stage and people

They had a stage which had performances from 8PM to 9 PM.  They were fairly unknown acts but there was one group that was quite talented :p.  There were also a lot of marriage proposals … I guess it would be quite an unforgettable moment … although there was this girl who had a difficult time saying ‘yes’ and he had to use the crowd to rally her on.

Rainbow Bridge 彩虹橋

The fireworks would be above the rainbow bridge ….

Fireworks

It was hard to take firework photos and there were a lot of people in front of me.  I didn’t even think to set up my tripod but many people did.

Fireworks & happy couple

The firework lasted 15 minutes  … .  The girls behind me said these fireworks were much better than at Taipei 101 during new years 🙂

I rushed out of the park after 15 minutes in order to beat the traffic … I was the first of the residences to get back so I got to use the washroom (there were only 2 washrooms in the entire hostel).

… got to bed early for my early private tour tomorrow!