One Day Tour from Yehliu to Tamsui (野柳到淡水)

Journey from Taipei to Yehliu

We knew that it will be a long day and therefore we left early from our Minsu (home stay, 民宿) near Ximen Station (西门站／西门町). We took a train along Bannan line (板南線, also known as Line 5, blue colour) from Ximen Station to Taipei Main Station (台北車站). The train is very frequent and a train comes every few minutes. The train ride cost ranges from TWD20 to TWD70. Our ride is the cheapest at TWD 20 per person since it is only 1 stop away. Children and adults pay the same fare and it is free for children below 7 years old (i.e before primary school). This applies to all the intra-city lines under Taipei Metro trains (台北捷运).

Taipei Metro Map 

Train Fare Table at Taipei Main Station

Taipei Metro schedule

It was a Saturday morning 8.30am and the train was not crowded at all.

Jonathan's hair standing up straight, since it was still early in the morning.

After reaching Taipei Main Station, look out for the station map and look for Exit Z3 (
站前地下街Z3出入口) which brings you to West Station A of Taipei Main Station (台北西站A棟). Purchase bus tickets (Adult: TWD96, Child: TWD48) for bus 1815 from the Kuo-Kuang counter.  The bus will stop at 40 bus stops along the way and the journey is about 1 hour and 30 minutes. It is good to wake up early to catch the bus and then take a nap in the bus. Alight at Yehliu bus stop and walk for 15 minutes towards the Yehliu Geopark (野柳地质公园).

Yehliu (野柳)

Yehliu Area Map, showing the walk from bus stop to Yehliu GeoPark Visitor Centre

We were very lucky to witness a bridal car arrived with fire crackers.  My wife said that the bride was very beautiful but I didn't get a good photo of the couple.

Bridal car arrived with loud fire crackers

The bride alighting from the bridal car

Yehliu GeoPark Visitor Centre

These are the tickets.

Yehliu GeoPark Adult Ticket

Yehliu GeoPark Child Ticket

Yehliu Map, a very mall map printed on the reversed side of the ticket

It was a sunny, windy morning.  We entered the park at 11am and there was already a big crowd of tourists.

A good view on Yehliu after 100 meter walk from the entrance

Nice weather with strong wind and wave.

There was a queue of about 15 people waiting to take photo with the Queen's Head (女王頭).  It was smaller than what we imagined.  We chose to walk around the Queen's Head and took a photo from the other angle.

The Queen's Head(女王頭)

Dragon Head(龍頭)

There is a small shop selling coffee, tea egg(茶葉蛋).  We went to the washroom next to it and ate the delicious tea egg.  It was reasonably priced at about TWD10 per egg.  After the break, we walked along the staircase and noted a unnamed interesting looking rock.  We had great fun there using our imagination on funny looking rock formations.  For instance, we imagined the following rock as a monster face :-).

Monster Face - use your own imagination

After visiting the park, we had lunch along the shops near the exit.  Most of the shops were selling cuttlefish, preserved sea food and prawn crackers.  We managed to find one shop selling simple lunch.  We ordered my sons' favorite braised meat rice (滷肉飯), which is a bowl of white rice with braised meat topping.  Each bowl cost TWD40.  We also ordered fried mee hoon, various soups and the total cost is TWD320 for 2 adults and 3 children.

Braised Meat Rice (滷肉飯)

After lunch, we waited for Crown Northern Coastline （皇冠北海岸線）.  There seems to be no signboard showing that it is a bus stop for Crown Northern Coastline bus.  Since we were going towards Tamsui (淡水), we waited near the big carpark, opposite the 7-Eleven shop.  If you want to go to Keelung(基隆), then you should wait just outside the 7-Eleven shop.

Children are ready with tools to kill time

The bus ticket cost TWD90 for an adult and TWD48 for a child.  The funny thing was that I asked the bus driver how much does it cost for 2 adults and 3 children and the driver kept silent for a long time.  After that I asked him what is the cost for adult and child and then he told me the cost.  I realized that he is not good at summing the 3x48 and that caused him to "hang" for a long time :-).

The ride was 1 hour and 30 minutes although the driver told us 2 hours.  I think he drove quite fast an there were only 7 passengers in total.  Most of the journey is along the north coast and very scenic.  It detour to Juming Museum (朱銘美術館), and that is a narrow hilly road which I think took at least 20 minutes in total.  If you hire a private car, you should be able to get to Tamsui in about 50 minutes.

Tamsui (淡水)

We reached Tamsui about 3.10pm and walked along the river side.  There are many food stalls selling snacks.

We were lucky to see a nice sunset.

After the sunset, we explore Tamsui Old Street(淡水老街).  We found this shop selling fish ball and wanton(雲吞) soup (可口魚丸)。

Nice fish ball and wanton

The Tamsui Old Street is very lively at night.  It is very easy to spot the popular shops by checking the queue length.  There was a shop selling freshly toast bread with cheese (源味本鋪古早味現烤蛋糕淡水二店).  We would have bought some if not for the long queue.

Enjoy the cool Tamsui Old Street

The sky turn dark about 5pm and we left Tamsui via the Tamsui-Xinyi Line (Line 2, 淡水信義線).  We paid TWD70 per person for the train ride to Ximen.

Finally letting our legs to rest after a long walk

Overall, I find people in Taipei very friendly and graceful.  Our children were given seats many times in the train journey.  We also took to the chance to return favor by giving up a seat to a young girl.

How nice to have 4!

It was a great day and we rest early that night.  As usual, the children was eager to return to Minsu to watch the cartoon (我們這一家) in Taiwanese language (台語).

Total Daily Cost

This is the total cost for the day, for 2 adults and 3 children.

No	Item	Cost (TWD)
1	Breakfast	295
2	7-eleven: 2x heat pack	28
3	4x Taipei Metro from Ximen to Taipei Main Station	80
4	Bus 1815 tickets Adult: 98; Child: 48	336
5	7-Eleven: 10x heat pack	140
6	7-Eleven: coffee and drinks	177
7	Yehliu GeoPark entry tickets Adults: 80; Child: 40	280
8	Yehliu GeoPark: 5x tea egg	50
9	Lunch at Yehliu (野柳特産街)	320
10	Cuttle Fish (魷魚)	300
11	Crown Northern Coastline bus Adult: 90; Child:48	324
12	Sushi at Tamsui Station (TWD10-20 per piece)	70
13	2x Barbeque Bird Egg Stick (烤鵪鶉蛋) 4 eggs per stick	40
14	Chicken Chop (豪大大雞排)	99
15	3x Ice Cream	60
16	One box of Ah Po Iron Egg (阿婆鐵蛋)	100
17	4x Fish ball and wanton soup (可口魚丸)	120
18	3x Amazing Helicopter (children toy)	200
19	4x Taipei Metro from Tamsui to Ximen	280
20	Metal Wire Keychain (handicraft from Ximending stall)	190
21	Lodging cost	2500
		5989

Useful References

• RoamingPotato's Yehliu
• The Avid Photographer's Taiwan – Yehliu Geopark (野柳地質公園)

Free and Easy Taiwan Tour Tips - Luggage Deposit

Luggage Deposit at Train Stations

Luggage deposit (行旅寄存) service are available in most train stations.  Most of them offer daily rate on a per piece basis.  It is especially useful if you want to area that are harder to access. For example, I plan to stay in Jiufen (九份) for 1 night and it is famous for narrow and hilly path, some small path are not accessible by car.  I decided to deposit 3 pieces of luggage at Ruifang (瑞芳) station. I deposited my luggage on 16-Dec and paid TWD170. One piece of big luggage cost TWD70 and two small pieces cost TWD50 each.  On 17-Dec, we collected our luggage at 1pm and paid another TWD170.

Pay attention to a few things:

1. Luggage deposit counter close quite early.  Most of them closes at 8pm.
2. If you deposit luggage overnight, if is counted as 2 days.
3. Measure your luggage dimension in advance.  It could be useful if you want to "challenge" the operator's classification.  According to the rule, a luggage is classified into big, medium or small depending on the sum of 3 dimensions (see here).  However, in practise the operator classify them into big (cost TWD70), medium (TWD50) or small (TWD30) by subjective judgement.  No measurement was taken for classification.  For example, my luggage was classified as small when I deposit on arrival day.  A few days later, I deposited the same luggage at the same counter but it was classified as big by another operator.  I mentioned to the operator that it was classified as small a few days earlier and she gracefully accepted it as small.

Luggage Locker at Train Stations

Luggage lockers are available at most bigger train stations. It comes with various sizes and range from TWD50 to TWD70 for every 3 hours.  Some can fit very large rolling suitcase and others can fit an handbag or backpack. This is ideal for relieving your burden when you make a short visit to nearby attractions.

For example, on my departure day, I have several hours to kill and I have decided to keep my 3 pieces of luggage and a backpack into 2 big lockers at Taipei HSR train station.  There were about 3 clusters of lockers near the HSR train ticket counter.  Each locker cluster offer about 20 compartment with different sizes.  After putting in my luggage in compartment marked with Door 10, I slot in TWD70 worth of coins and indicated the Door No and press confirm.  The locker is locked and the system printed a receipt.  It is very important to keep the receipt since the CODE to unlock the door is printed there.

Pay attention to a few things:

1. Get ready your coins and small notes (TWD100). Some lockers have automated coin changer machine next to them. 
2. Since the CODE (password) is printed in big font, keep it from any nearby onlooker.  Anyone who know the password can retrieve the luggage.
3. In the case that you lost your CODE, you need to pay additional TWD200 fee.
4. When we collect our luggage, we notice that there are people around us waiting to use our locker.  Apparently there may not be enough locker compartment for all customers.  So I advise you to deposit luggage in the early part of the day to avoid all lockers being used up.  It is unlikely for people to use the locker overnight since it is quite costly (TWD70 for 3 hours) to do so.
5. The locker rental rates could be different at other train stations.

References

A few good write up on luggage deposit:

1. Taiwan Itinerary Blog : baggage storage
2. Taiwan hi Formosa: List of Left Luggage and Locker
3. Magic Travel Blog

Free and Easy Taiwan Tour Tips - Pre Book HSR Train Ticket

High Speed Rail Booking

The HSR (High Speed Rail, 台灣高鐵) train ticket booking opens 28 days in advance.  There are early bird discount (早鳥票) up to ranges from 20% to 35%.  For example, we booked our 17-Dec HSR ticket from Taipei (台北) to Taichung (台中) on 20-Nov with 35% discount (六五折).

You can book the HSR ticket online with a few simple steps:

1. Search for your train.  Look out for the traveling duration as it varies with different train even for the same From and To stations.  Goto the Taiwan High Speed Rail and use the Time Table and Fare Finder.
   
2. After you have identified your Train No.  Then you can search for the ticket price by clicking on the "Online Booking" on the same website.  For example Train No 705 comes with early bird 35% discount for adult tickets only.  There is no discount for children.
3. Choose your Train No and click next page.
4. For this example, 2 adults (35% discount) and 3 children cost only TWD2,130 compared to regular price at TWD2,670.  With this early bird discount, you have a good saving of TWD540.
5. Click through the next few pages and fill in passengers name, passport numbers and make payment using credit card.
6. Print out the booking receipt and bring along for collection of actual ticket.

High Speed Rail Ticket Collection

You can collect the ticket at any HSR train station.  Each booking can have multiple tickets and the main person's passport is to be presented at the HSR train counter with booking reference number.

HSR Train vs Chartered Car for Inter City Transfer

For some remote destinations, it could be easier to charter a car instead of relying on public transport.  For example, if you are planning a trip from Taipei to Cingjing farm and travel in a group of 4 persons, it could be better deal to charter a car instead of taking HSR train followed by bus or taxi.  

1. A chartered car cost about 5500 daily.
2. HSR Train tickets cost TWD1,980 (after 35% early bird discount) + taxi about TWD2,000.
3. HSR Train tickets cost TWD3,060 (assume no early bird discount) + taxi about TWD2,000

Chartered car is slightly more expensive option but it offers flexible schedule and stop-over.

Intra City Chartered Car

This is a nice option if you choose to stay in a city for a few days.  We met very nice drivers in Hualien, Yilan and Taichung.  These are some contact numbers if you happen to visit these cities.  Generally daily rate for intra city chartered car is range from TWD3000 to TWD3500 for 8 hours a day.

1. Hualien(花蓮) - Sam Tean(小田) 0917-207411.  Chinese and English speaking.
2. Yilan(宜蘭) - Mr Liu(劉福壽) 0933-103873.  Chinese and Taiwanese speaking.
3. Taichung() - Mr Lin(林隆泉) 0989-743972. Chinese and Taiwanese speaking.

If you need to call them from overseas, add +886 and remove the zero digit.  For example, dial +886-917-207411 for the local number 0917-207411.

Safari Boo - A Merry-Not-Scary Kids Event

We arrived about 6.10pm and there is already a long queue at the entrance. There are hundreds of people in front of us.

This is our first visit to River Safari. We can see many beautiful aquariums. We are just happily taking photo in the cool evening. It is a bit crowded so we have to wait for the crowd to clear up.

This is Trick o Box, a station for children to guess what is inside the box by touching. I queue 15 minutes while they explore the other stations.

Nice night view of Mandai Reservoir. A kind soul who walked passed us graciously offers to take a family photo for us when he saw me taking picture.

There are many trick or treat station, each with a unique character. Jonathan and Jessie love them so much since they gives away tiny toys and sweets.

The unicorn lady ask them to feel her blue hair.

We took a family photo with Spike, a green iguana. We took turns to feel it's skin.

A fairy, who ran away from us when it was supposed to be our turn. We are totally lost but fortunately she came back to us. She was actually just wanted to replenishing her gift.

A mermaid, who is stucked to a desk for the whole night.

A lady on stilt. We were so worried that some kids may just push her accidentally.

This is their loot. My left and right pockets became Jonathan and Jessie's treasure boxes.

We celebrated birthday at home after the fruitful Safari Boo event.

As an afterthought, I am happy with the decision to sell off my WTA Final tickets (Session 4 - Ana Ivanovic vs Eugenie Bouchard). I didn't watch the Live match but spend a wonderful day with my family.