Extreme budget travel! Can 50,000 yen ($370) go to Taiwan for a good weekend? – Part 2 – SoraNews24 -Japan News-
Part 2 of our low-cost adventure in Taipei.
Our Japanese reporter Hatori Tsuyoshi loves traveling very much, but his travel budget is not much. Go For just 50,000 yen ($370), challenge yourself to find round-trip airfare from Japan to Taipei, a night in a hotel, and still have enough money to enjoy the amazing sights and delicious food. Day 1 went well, visiting Spirited Away for rumored inspiration and the best fried rice in Taipei, but will Go’s luck/budget run out on Day 2? Read on to find out!
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Go offers complimentary breakfast in your room at Morning Wing Ocean Hotel.More specifically, it comes with A NT$60 (US$2) voucher for nearby restaurants, so head there to start his day. Funny enough, this place looks like a burger restaurant.
One look at the menu and you know Go can get The most popular sandwiches under 60 yuanso he ordered.
it is Sweet Pork The lettuce was sandwiched between toasted bread. It’s quite tasty and just the right amount of food for breakfast.
Go then walks the neighborhood before heading back to the hotel.
He knew that once he left the hotel, he would never go back. His flight was scheduled to leave that night, so he was carrying his backpack all day. After mentally preparing himself for this reality, he checked out early and set off.
Since his Easy Card only has about 80 yuan left, He decides to add another $100 give it. He suspects he might need to recharge it before he gets home, but he’s on to that for now. After all, once you add money to your card, you can’t get it back.
Then, Go hopped on the train and headed to…
More food! This time he decided to eat a dish that fellow reporter PK Sanjun strongly recommends: stewed pork rice, or Braised Pork Rice Bowl. He went to one of the two largest braised pork restaurants in Taipei, Jin Da Braised Pork Rice.
Go ordered the set meal recommended by PK, NT$85.
Very good, To think he might melt into a puddle of slime!
One bite, and our food journalists knew it had to make it into the article. Pork absorbs every molecule of flavor. Braised pork rice on a whole other level, far surpassing anything he had eaten before. As soon as you bite into it, the meat melts in your mouth. Super delicious.
Go’s next goal is a bit different: remove corns from his feetHe did some research in advance, found a place with good quality and low price, and a good reputation. He took the MRT back to Taipei Main Station and walked over there.
The fee for this process is NT$500. After a short wait, Go was greeted by a man who looked like a professional. He examines Gao’s calloused feet with a deadly serious expression, then snips off Gao’s toenails with a sharp device that looks almost like a knife.
Then it’s time to remove the corn!
to find it It’s kind of fun to watch such a professional up close.
Seeing the joyful expression on the man’s work, Gao couldn’t help taking a look. at the same time…
The man peeled off a large callus from his foot! They become smooth and soft afterwards.
Stepping on freshly scraped feet, Go’s next destination is Machi Machi, Boba Cafe.
It’s a very trendy place and very busy with lots of customers. Went to order a boba NT$95…
which Topped with a dango-style dumpling skewer!
Not sure how to eat this, Go asked the staff, who told him, “First you soak the dumplings in the drink, you can eat them when they are soaked. Once you’re done with them, you put the lid on and enjoy your drink. “
The dumplings were very springy and the drink actually had a cheesy taste. Go looked it up later and found out that Machi Machi is famous for the highly rated “Gods Cheese Tea”. No wonder!
At that time, it was already two o’clock in the afternoon, and it was time for another meal. Go makes an effort to hit restaurants during slightly off-hours so he can avoid lines at the most popular places he visits.
This time, Go stopped at a restaurant that PK Sanjun recommended to him over and over again, called Acheng Arou, a restaurant that serves goose. to order Set meal with meat, soup and riceThe order is all in Chinese, Go can’t read it, but he has a photo of PK for reference, show it to the restaurant staff, and they help him fill out the form.
After a while, the dishes will be served!
That’s it! ! Go has been wanting to try this for years. Ever since he heard PK rave about it, he knew in his heart that one day he would give it a try. By the way, the price is NT$315 (approximately JPY1,396).
Absolutely delicious!
It was just as delicious as he had expected. Go was surprised that the goose was cold, there was something in the soup that looked like heart meat, but it was really tasty. The rice topped with goose fat was outrageously good.
Time is ticking, so Go doesn’t waste a moment thinking about what to do next.The next item on his list is buy souvenirhe has decided He wants to give everyone Taiwanese soap.
The store he chooses: supermarket! There are so many different kinds of soap that Go has never seen before. They have some that are also sold in Singapore and Malaysia, but Go wanted something exclusive to Taiwan, and he bought 18 pieces for TWD 447.
Thinking of how excited all his co-workers and friends will be as he bounces down the sidewalk, he found another supermarket“Might as well check this guy’s soap too…” He decided to go inside.
There were more soaps he hadn’t seen before! They come in a beautiful box! I really had to buy it, so I bought two kinds, one box of six boxes, a total of 204 yuan.
I bought a total of 30 bars of soapHe was very excited about it, but what excited him the most was the boxed soap, which, judging by the characters used on the packaging, had a “brown sugar” scent. He couldn’t wait to try it and see what it smelled like.
With thirty bars of soap stuffed inside, Ge’s backpack now feels much heavier than before. The weather in Taiwan was also much colder than Go expected.
He was about to get something like hot pot to warm his body, but he didn’t expect that what caught his eyes outside the supermarket was…
Super famous shaved ice shop This is even mentioned in the guidebook!Of course Go had to go and of course he had to order their famous “Brown Sugar Shaved Ice” (NT$90). He left the ingredients to the chef.
It’s huge! The photo doesn’t even do justice to the sheer volume of the dish. The bowl is about the size of a ramen bowl and is densely packed with shaved ice. Probably enough for two or three people, but Gao had no choice but to eat alone.
A little digging reveals There are many different ingredients hidden in it, which makes it super tasty. Sadly, it does nothing to warm Go’s icy body. In fact, it made things worse.
He had to do something about how cold he was, so he tried walking around to warm himself up until he found a massage place According to reviews, it’s “so big you don’t need a reservation to get in”
It was a little more expensive than removing the corn, but Go was bone cold by then, so he didn’t care. He just needs to be in a warm place for a while.
he asked Full Body Shiatsu Massage, as the comment says, he can go right in. Unexpectedly, massage was exactly what he needed. The masseuse uses not only her fingers, but also her elbows (or something of that size?) and it feels really good.
They also often drape a steaming towel over him, which helps thaw him out considerably. In fact, he was sweating profusely when he finished. The staff at the massage parlor also understand Japanese and Go cannot be recommended highly enough. Massages cost NT$1,100 (approximately JPY 4,874).
By the time he finishes at the massage parlor, night has fallen. He has eaten three meals and two candies, and his stomach is already full, but there are still a few hours before the plane, so he thinks he should eat something first.
He chose to stop at another night market.this is called Raohe Night Market, Very close to MRT Songshan Station. Roadside stalls are everywhere, but Go knows what he wants from all that’s on offer…
Fuzhou Black Pepper Bun!
The food stall with the same name is actually Michelin recommendedso there was a little queue, but the action was fast. In just five minutes, a black pepper pack was in hand (60 Taiwan dollars).
It was as delicious as imagined! As you might guess from the name, it’s quite spicy, but the crispy toasted bread has a wonderful balance to the meaty filling. Definitely worth a try!
Now all Go has to do is return to the airportHe only had NT$50 left on his Easy card, so he added another NT$100, and boarded the same train he took from the Airport MRT to Taipei and back. When he gets to the airport and checks his Easy Card balance…
Only TWD 17 (approximately JPY 75) left! OK
In the end, Go finally used his Easy Card to recharge 600 yuan, the first recharge was 400 yuan, and the two recharges were 100 yuan each. If you subtract the remaining $17, that means he spent a total of $583 (about 2,573 yen ($19.07)) on transportation around Taipei. For all the travel he’s done, that’s not too bad.
In fact, all in all, Go’s weekend trip to Taiwan is very reasonable. Let’s look at the breakdown of the totals:
Cheap Flights from Narita to Taiwan – 25,117 JPY
Hotel room – 4,222 yen
Transportation in Taiwan – TWD 700 (JPY 3,102)
Taiwan Railway Bento – NT$80 (354 yen)
Taro ball red bean curd pudding NT$60 (266 yen)
Peanut ice cream roll NT$50 (222 yen)
Double Crown Shrimp Fried Rice – NT$100 (443 yen)
Wonton Soup – NT$50 (222 yen)
Soup Dumplings – NT$100 (443 JPY)
Braised Pork Rice Bowl – NT$85 (377 JPY)
Corns without feet – NT$500 (2,215 JPY)
Mochi bubble tea TWD 95 (JPY 421)
Goose set meal – NT$315 (1,396 yen)
18 Souvenir Soaps – TWD 315 (JPY 1,981)
Souvenir Soap 12pcs – TWD 204 (904 JPY)
Brown sugar shaved ice TWD 90 (JPY 399)
Full Body Massage – NT$1,100 (4,874 JPY)
Michelin Recommended Black Pepper Bread – NT$60 (266 JPY)
Total: 47,224 yen
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Remaining: 2,776 yen
It turns out that you can travel all over Taiwan for less than 50,000 yen! Go can eat a lot, go shopping in Jiufen, and even enjoy luxuries like massages, and still have money. If you plan your trip carefully, you can do it too!
Where should Go go next? Sadly, airfares seem to be going up across the board, so it may be a bit of a wait and see before his next 50,000 yen travel challenge, but you can be sure he’ll be looking for opportunities. Maybe when he gets to his destination, he’ll follow the SoraNews24 tradition and ask the local taxi driver for advice!
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(Japanese reading)
