Taipei 2010 Day 2-Part 1- Martyr's Shrine (忠烈祠),Beitou (北投)

Rise and shine at 7am, I damn kiasu kk? And it took us nearly an hour b4 we went down for breakie at the hotel. Hubs is the 1 who takes long to get ready while I go back and sneak a small nap again. Breakie was nothing fantastic but we just make do with what they have as there isn't much shop opened for business in Ximenting at this early hour of the day..


Super empty Ximenting at 8am on a workday...

Our 1st stop for the day is Martyr's Shrine（忠烈祠）。Nothing special, just wanna catch the hourly guard changing period that hubs is telling me when he 1st went there 3yrs ago. From the notes I got, it states that there is a straight bus from Xi Men area but then after 15mins of walking around, we could not find the bus stop that have the stated bus, and when we tried asking others, they were aso not sure where to find the bus stop for the bus we were looking for. In the end, we gave up and decided to take the train to YuanShan Station（圆山站） and from there, transfer by bus to Martyr's Shrine. Hope we will have better luck there.

Since it is a working day, therefore we are caught in the morning peak hr rush but I was impressed by the citizens of Taipei, they really form nice queue on the platform while waiting for the train and they will automatically allow the passengers to alight 1st b4 boarding. Tell me, when do you see this in SG? Shame on us Singaporeans!


Plp in Taipei queuing up patiently while waiting for the trains..

Yuan Shan Station（圆山站） is 4 stops away from Taipei Station on the red line(Danshui line淡水线). Upon reaching there, we exit through Exit 1 and navigate our way to the bus stop, it is suppose to be quite near to the station de but because of some construction going on there, we took a big detour before reaching the bus stop. From there, it is easier to find the bus we wanna take. And b4 tapping my card, I asked the driver whether the bus will be going to Martyr's Shrine and asked him to alert us when we are approaching.

The bus stop outside Yuan Shan Station, Exit 1

Another thing I like about Taipei's bus driver is, all are very helpful, and at every stop they will announce through a speaker to alert you the place you are at now. It is pretty useful for us and the good thing is, we understand Mandarin.

We finally reached Martyr's Shrine after 15min, and alighted oppposite the Shrine. Man, the traffic was scary, no traffic lights in sight and we have to jaywalked over to the Shrine and the worst thing is, it is a 2way traffic with no middle intersection, which means to say, we gotta wait for the coast to be clear on both sides before dashing over.

In front of the Shrine, weather is too hot for Hubs' liking

The weather today is hot, real hot at 32 degrees. We nearly melted under the sun and Hubs totally hate the weather there at this time. We were just in time for the 9am show and a huge crowd is already forming outside the door, blocking all access to the entrance.

Check out the crowd, I cannot even get near to the entrance!!

The parade starts at exactly 9am and the as the guards move inside towards the Shrine, the crowd follow suit too except that we have to keep a distance from them, there are some other guards who will make sure the crowd will keep a distance away from the marching guards.

The Navy Guards marching towards the Shrine..

I got bored halfway through the marching, dun understand why the crowd keep following them. It is just slow march, the more interesting part is the start and the guards changing part only. I got bored after a while and dropped off the procession and start to take pictures of the surrounding. It is only now then I realised that Hubs is not by my side and I freaked out. There was such a big crowd and I caught no sight of him anywhere.

Gave him a call and realised that he is in the toilet having diarrhea. It turns out that he is feeling uncomfortable ever since eating the smelly tofu from last nite. But then, I was the 1 who ate most of the tofu, not sure why is he suffering from diarrhea and I am perfectly alright. 

Maybe his stomach is not use to it. Although I have brought medicine with me, but I have left them in the hotel room and hubs do not want to go back and retrieve, therefore we continue with the day's program but with a slower pace. For the rest of the day  he did not eat much but the good thing is, his diarrhea stopped after awhile, but still, I can see his face turning a shade paler.

Camwhoring while waiting for Hubs to bomb the toilets..heheh



Posing with a guard, took me quite awhile to be able to get this photo.

The whole parade lasted for 20mins and I waited till they finish the guard changing ceremony before proceeding inside the Shrine to walk about. There was nothing much there, its all the history stuff about the revolution times, some if not most of the things mentioned, are alien stuff to the both of us, we have limited knowledge of history of Taiwan and Chin.

The guards as they were marching out,they are the off duty guards...
with 1 of the guards on duty..



Model of Martyr's Shrine

We left Martyr's Shrine at 10am just before the next guard changing parade is about to start and took a bus back to Yuan Shan Station. Along the way, we passed by Yuan Shan Da Fan Dian, which looks like an imperial palace from far, heard that it is the most atas hotel in Taipei, and it is located on top of a hill, and seems like there is no bus service to it, guess those who are staying there would be rich or important enough to be driven around ba..

Came back to Yuan Shan Station to continue our plans for the day. We will be travelling along Danshui line today, to Xin Beitou（新北投） where hot springs are located, Danshui（淡水） to visit Danshui old street（淡水老街） and Fisherman's wharf（渔人码头） finally stopping at Shilin Night Market（士林夜市). 

Our plan is to travel on different colour lines each day so as not to waste time going back to Taipei station to transfer. Hubs says he wanna drink Yakult to ease his tummy ache and off we went, in search of it at the convenient store located within the station.

Taiwan version of Yakult

The journey to Beitou took quite awhile as the station is located at nearly end of Danshui line, and we have to travel for 45min to reach Beitou and transfer to Xin Beitou. The waiting time for Xin Beitou's train is pretty long as compared to other lines. So while waiting for the train, we camwhored a bit on the platform.

On our way to Xin Beitou at Beitou station

For Female passengers at night, guess there are more CCTV at this entrance

Check out hubs' face, izzit it a shade whiter?

The train to Xin Beitou came and it is different from the other trains in serving the different lines in Taipei. It was nicely painted with the aborigines of the Taiwan tribes. The train was fitted with interactive map on a bathtub model. Very nice and innovative I should say. It keeps us occupied throughout our wait for the train to move out and to Xin Beitou.


Train to Xin Beitou, nicely painted rite?

Inside train to Xin Beitou,this bathtub is actually an interactive map.

We exited Xin Beitou MRT station and realised that will need to walk quite a distance into the area where the hot springs hotel are located. Hubs is having some difficulty in walking under the hot scorching sun and the long uphill route. But he still presist on as we travelled quite a long way here.

The long walkway into Xin Beitou hot spring.

The 1st stop was Beitou's Hot Spring Museum(北投温泉博物馆）, went inside to see see look look. A walk around the museum shows the history of the hot spring in the early years. This museum was once a public hot spring, with the pool now empty and the bathrooms now serve as a display to the guests visiting this museum. The design of this museum is inspired by the Japanese culture, the tatami rooms and all.


There is actually nothing much inside the museum but we did spend sometime inside camwhoring again. Whahah actually is me who love the camwhoring part. Oh ya, forgot to mention, there is no entrance fee for this museum. So its worth to go in n take a look enroute to hot springs uphill.


Xin Beitou Hot Spring Museum
The sickly guy who still noes how to pose

The pipes who used to transport the hot spring water to this hot spring

Posing inside the bathroom...


After visiting the hot spring museum, we continued our way uphill with no particular hot spring in mind. To be frank I did not do any research on the hot spring as I thought there will be a lot here for us to choose from. But on the contrary, we didnt see any other hot spring even after walkin for 5min.


We came across a public hot spring after walking for another 5min and decided to go in. The rates were also pretty cheap lo. I tink is 40NTD per person which is equivalent to less than SGD 2. But the thing is, you must bring your own swimsuit or you have to purchase 1 from them.


As this is a public hot spring, you will share the pool with all others. We nearly fainted when we went into the hot spring. There are 4 pools there with different temperatures of water which is in the open area, meanin to say we will goin to the hot spring under the hot sun in the middle of the hot summer.

Also, the changing rooms and bath rooms seems to be run down, so are the lockers. The best thing is, all of the patrons are elderly!!!There is only another group of 3 guys who I overheard that they are from Malaysia who were of our age. Guess they are also like us. Enter the 1st hot spring they see on the way..whahah..

Hubs say he was expecting to see hot gals in bikinis parading around the hot spring, not old ah mas in swim suits going for a dip in the pools. Whahah realli damn funnie. The thing is, we could not take any pictures in the hot spring, we went to take dip in each different temperature and quickly bath and leave the hot spring.

We left there at around 12.30pm and decided its time to go for lunch instead of finding another hot spring to visit. Besides, the weather is too hot for us to enjoy dipping in the hot water which makes hubs even more sick. Off we went to our next destination for the day, Danshui where we decide to take our lunch there as we couldnt find anything to eat in Xin Beitou. 

After hotspring and getting ready to go lunch....