Wandering Fel

This is actually a throwback post which old pictures I just found on my phone. Hahaha. Last time, I went to visit Hualien with my happy-three-friends. Since we were going to explore the city, we spent two nights at Classic City Resort (courtesy of my friend who managed to find a good deal from Tripadvisor here). We booked this hotel because it's within walking distance to the train station. So we wouldn't have to call a cab to go to train station for our ride back to Taipei.

After hours of driving from Chiayi, we have finally reached our hotel in Alishan, Alishan Gou Hotel. For more reviews on Alishan Gou Hotel, you can go to this link.

If you are looking for an accommodation at Cingjing Farm, you may want to consider staying in Misty Villa. It's one of the better minsu (i.e. villa) at Cinjing Farm. After you make a booking with them, they will arrange someone to pick you up at the terminal (more like empty space) where E-go Bus drop you (see my previous post on E-go Bus).

The distance from the drop point to Misty Villa is not that far but the way is uphill. If I have to drag my luggage up there, I'm going to die. Really.

After a really short drive (less than 5 mins), we have arrived and a parrot welcomed us.

	觀景雅緻四人房 Luxury Family Suite
	5200元
	5850元
	6500元
	7150元
	歐式經典壁爐、ADSL、古典浴缸、有線電視、(獨立更衣間、獨立陽台)

You can see above the price is divided into 4 categories. The 5200 NTD is the price from Monday - Thursday, 5850 NTD for Friday and Sunday, 6500 NTD for Saturday and 7150 NTD for public holidays (e.g. tomb sweeping holiday, Chinese New Year holiday, etc).

The last sentence mentioned that there is a fireplace in the room, internet, bathtub, cable TV and private balcony.

I didn't see the bathtub in my bathroom but I probably did not really pay attention to it because I did not even feel like taking a bath at all. It's super cold at night. Brrr~~~

Thanks goodness for a fireplace!




Have a great stay! ^^

Few days before I arrived in Taipei, the school informed me that I could not stay in the dorm because I merely came for studying Mandarin. Does that make me "half-student?" Geez. I suppose they don't have enough rooms to provide all students studying in Shida. =(

Anyway, no point in grumbling. The only way out is to find a room near the school so that I can save both money and time in commuting.

Oh man, where should I start? Well, good thing for you, as I've been going through this hassle, now I can share with you on few places to find information about accommodation while you are studying. =)

1. Ask the school

When your language school tell you that you cannot stay in their accommodation, it does not mean that they cannot help giving you suggestion on where to look for outside accommodation. One of the helpful staff in Shida's office asked me to go to level 7 of Mandarin Training Center building to see the notice board. And she's right, there are a lot of adverts offering rental and most of them are located quite near to the school. In fact, I got my place now from this notice board. Cool!

2. Online house hunting

These days, most of information can be found online and that includes adverts about rental. You can go to www. tealit.com and go to the apartment/ rental category. In short, you can click this link -> http://www.tealit.com/ad_categories.php?section_id=31

Most of the landlords who offer the place in the above website can speak at least simple English. So there should not be any problem when you call them to inquire further about the place.

There is another site called http://www.591.com.tw/ where the Taiwanese often posts their accommodation adverts on. But the hardest obstacle in browsing this website is it is written in Mandarin. If you have zero-ability of reading Chinese character and zero-patience of using Google Translate, then I suppose this website is not for you. =P

If you have tried the above and still has not found an ideal place to your liking, you can try to get the help of Tsuei Mama (http://www.tmm.org.tw/english/). It is said that they can help you to find accommodation but you have to pay certain fees (which I heard is not that high). Not sure about their efficiency as I did not use this method to find mine.

Good luck with your house hunting!

Unless you have relatives in Taipei, most likely you will have nowhere to stay when you first arrive here. I have relatives in Taipei but I came with my friend and my relatives don't have spare rooms big enough to accommodate both of us. So we booked a hotel room near our school.

If you are studying at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shida) or National Taiwan University (NTU or Taida), you may want to stay at the hotel which we picked, Li-Yuan Hotel.

We booked the room via Tripadvisor and you can find out about the hotel's price here. The bedroom is quite spacious for two persons.





















If you book the hotel via agoda, the price is inclusive of breakfast (not sure if there is an option to book without paying for breakfast, but the breakfast is quite nice).

Home-made version of braised pork rice (Lǔ ròu fàn滷肉飯).






















And there is a 7-11 nearby the hotel. Which is pretty convenient if you are lazy to walk far to get food.

The complete address of Li Yuan Hotel is:

Li Yuan Hotel
98, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Rd, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan

Nearest MRT station to the hotel is Taipower Building MRT.