Ever since I made my first Taiwanese friend, I've always wanted to travel to Taiwan. All of my Taiwanese friends have been telling me how beautiful Taiwan is, and my friends who traveled there all told me how amazing people are in Taiwan. After seven years of wanting to go to Taiwan, I finally decided to make a move last summer. I applied for a 16 days visa, as it was the longest time I could stay there, and I wanted to spend as much time as I can in Taiwan to travel around the island and experience the culture. I considered myself not being good at making friends sometimes, as I find it hard to start a real conversation with people I've just met. For a long period of time though, I've been wanting to improve my skills of making friends and making people feel comfortable around me, so in order to push myself out of the comfort zone and get better at this, I purposely chose to stay at hostels through out my whole journey.
Day 1
I'm a traveler who's not too keen on big cities, as they are all very similar, and that is why I flew into Taipei but decided to only stay for one night before my next stop. After we landed, it only took me thirty minutes to fall in love with Taiwanese people. I was so amazed by how polite and warm-hearted everyone was, especially my driver. He was very curious about my trip to Taiwan alone and shared with me places that he liked before we got to my first hostel. He also told me that he has passed by the hostel I was going to stay at quite q few times, and it seemed really nice, and he was right.
Flip Flop Hostel it is called. What an interesting but homey name. The design of the hostel was as cute as its name as well. There are paintings by children hanging from the ceilings. I've always loved looking at artwork by children, as I truly think that they're real artists with the best imagination.
The common area was a reasonable size and the design of it was very friendly and comfortable.
(Outside of the Common Area)
("Grass Field" with Hanging Clouds)
(Painting in the Common Area)
(Print Artwork in the Common Area)
(Public Laptop in the Common Area)
I dropped off my luggage after a quick tour around the hostel and headed off to look for some food. I walked for about ten minutes from the hostel and found this Japanese food place. I wouldn't call it a restaurant because all of the tables and seats are on the pavement. They have a few different choices of sushi or don. I could not decide which one to order, and the man in the cue before me pointed one out on the menu and said, "This one is really good," as he saw me struggling with making the decision. Another lovely Taiwanese. So I ordered what he recommended. It was a big bowl of different types of sashimi and rice, which was less than six pounds!!!
My first night of sleeping I have to say was not great. I was not used to staying at a hostel, and the guy who was sleeping above me ( it was a bunk bed) was snoring for the whole night. However, I really appreciate the cleanness of the room.
Day 2
I got up early in the morning as I had a train to Taitung to catch, had some simple but tasty breakfast provided by the Flip Flop Hostel and left for the train station.
(Kitchen)
(Breakfast at the Flip Flop Hostel)
(Interesting Graffiti at the Flip Flop Hostel)
(Taipei Train Station)