台湾春天之旅 2013- Luo Dong(罗东），Kapok Hotel (木棉道美学商旅）

We left for Luo Dong (罗东）at 9am from the hotel, as there are 2 places we have to cover today before nightfall.

As mentioned earlier that I do check the train schedules, thus I am able to estimate the time for checking out and have a rough guide on time allowed for places we intend to visit.

Train tickets from JiaoXi to LuoDong

Plantations

 Luo Dong station (罗东站） is a much bigger building as compared to JiaoXi and Yilan. The most happy thing here for hubs is that there is lift here in the station and thus he need not carry the 19kg luggage up n down the stairs.

There are 2 exits here too, rear and front station. Front station is where you will exit to get to Luodong town city area, our hotel is located not far from here, or so they claimed.

There is a bus station at the rear exit of Luodong station. Buses that ply between Luodong Town and the connecting towns as well as coaches that you can take back to Taipei can be found here.

Public phones in Luodong station

A near empty Luodong street on a wednesday morning

 The hotel that I choose for this leg of the trip is Kapok hotel & resorts(木棉道美学商旅）.

From the research I did, it stated a 15min walk away from train station and 5min away from the very famous 罗东夜市.

Prices were around SGD120 per night for a weekday stay.

We relied on my phone GPS again to get us to this hotel. Man, it was a long walk, sun were shining brightly, streets were narrow and we had a hard time getting thru the streets.

Though the streets infront of the train station seems empty, it suddenly spring to life as we enter the street where our hotel is located at the other end. Seems like their morning market is located here. As usual, along the 2way,2 lane street, vendors lined up along to set up their stalls. Scooters, cars weaved in and out, there is practically no traffic lights to be found except at the main junction. Many a times, hubs and I did not know how to cross the busy streets.

Wanted to walk at the inside the pavement but soon gave up as scooters were parked along it and we had trouble walking thru with our luggage. Hubs was angry at me for booking this hotel and miscalculating the distance from the station. I wished we had used a cab instead.

After 25mins or more of walking, we finally reached the hotel. Relieved that we did find it afterall, else I cannot imagine hub's face oredi.

From Station to hotel map

We reached the hotel at around 10 am, way early than check in time by a little bit hehind my planned scheduled. The staff here were very polite and friendly. They verified our booking 1st and proceed to help to keep our luggages 1st.We were told to come back after 3pm for check-in.

We came back ard 5 to check in. The room is pretty spacious and hubs noted that this is the 1st time he sees a hotel room not having carpet flooring. Not that we mind or anything, just an observation.

The bed

We did not like the bathroom design. Its too open concept for our liking. Though you are able to draw blinds down, but somehow they left out the door area. Thus, if you are doing business on the the toilet bowl, your room partner would have to be sitting at the writing area or the bed so that you can protect your modesty. Even sitting on the bed would not help as you can still see the reflections from the tv. Same ting goes for bathing area.

Its lucky that we are husband & wife, had it been me sharing with my friends, I tink its gonna cause alot of inconvenience.

Open concept bathroom

We took a room on the 8th floor, there is nothing to rave about for view. Can only see the narrow streets of Luodong. This is the busy street we came by this morning.

Street view from room

Other than the bathroom, we quite like the room. It has a comtemporary, modern feel to it. Bed is comfortable to slp in.

Writing table

Breakfast is located at the cafe on ground floor. The chef is of India origins if I am not wrong. A friendly guy too and he took pride in this cooking. Checking on the amount of food left, the way the food 's been place etc.

The food served here has a little more variety than tradional Taiwanese breakie. Imagine my delight when I saw carrot cake being served here! Hur hur..

Carrot cake, bacon and sausage

You can still find the usual stuff here, fried noddles, fried cabbage, eggs and bacon.

Cabbage, broccoli and eggs

 Besides coffee machine which serves Latte, American Black coffee, cuppa, hot cholocate, tea, they also prepared fruit juices and milk.

More selection of drinks

The salad bar here has quite a vast selection as compared to our previous homestay.

Salad selection

 We were delighted by their breakfast spread, took 3 serving before we call it a day. Hehe. We always start a day with heavy breakie so that we will have more energy to last thru the morning activities till lunch. But 1 thing we learnt in Taiwan is, you will neber go hungry no matter where you go, there will always be street vendors somewhere at any time:)

Round 1, fight!

Fruits

Our stay here has been pleasant, the hotel is near to Luo Dong night market though not as near to train station as we tot. Cost of taking taxi from hotel to train station is NTD100, tell the counter staff and they would gladly help you to arrange for a taxi. There are no bookin fees or whatsoever. Also, informed the staff of your destination and they will help you convey to the driver during booking. I also found that the taxi here are not metered run and thus the hotel staff will tell us the pricing. If you are agreeable, they will then proceed to call for the cab.

Staff here are very helpful and friendly too. While we were checking out, the staff helped us to carry our luggage to the taxi despite us saying we are able to manage on our own. On seeing our heavy luggage, the chef, who is about to leave the hotel, helped us to load it onto the cab before riding off. We were touched by their kind gestures :)