I have made a few contacts and thankfully the response was positive and very quickly, a few hosts were confirmed.
There are couple of things to communicate with the host before you leave on the plane.
- Date - it's important to communicate your arrival date accurately so the host can get prepared prior to your arrival.
- Time & place - while the arrival date is important, it's also crucial to know what time and where is the place to meet your host. The meeting place could be a famous landmark or MRT station located nearby your host's house.
Communication is the key, grab a local sim card with data plan from the many service providers, start communicating with your host either through voice call or there are a lot of handy apps you can use to make sure the couch is available.
While email is usually good at earlier stage of communication such as brief introduction between you and your host, and a check briefly if the dates are available for hosting, I use mostly Whatsapp and Line messenger to communicate directly with my host on further arrangements.
It's essential to check with the host a day or two before your arrival to avoid miscommunication. You don't want to end up without a place to stay.
Yi-chun, our host in Shida, Taipei - 师大, 台北
It's unthinkable that Taiwanese have such lovely characters with them, they are extremely friendly and polite, Yi-chun is no exceptional! |
| The classic beatles photo frame nicely hung on the wall |
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| The fragrance pot, whatever you want to call it =) |
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| Yi-chun and friends are seemingly well-organized persons |
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| A view into the dining area and the kitchen, the couch was ours for the night |
It's clearly having an advantage to stay with the native host, the excitement of meeting new friends and understanding their cultures aside, they are usually very helpful when comes to giving you some travel advices.
Their suggestions are very helpful knowing where to go, when to go, and how to go about the local travel hotspots, sharing things you can't miss. It's going to be really interesting and fun.
Exchanging cultural and travel experience are always the most fun part in our first meeting. We got a lot of travel information that night from Yi-chun and her boyfriend.
My mom was very shy at first, but she settled down quickly feeling the warmth reception from our lovely host.
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| Yi-chun, our Taiwanese native host in Taipei in Shida |
The Next Day
The next morning we were up early for Yangmingshan national park and National palace museum at the north of Taipei city. |
| Morning walk on the street to the Technology building station |
As we walked towards the nearest Technology building station, we found our little wonder at the cross of the housing areas.
Resting at the garden, yeah resting before we even started our trip haha, this cup noodle, 面线, together with pork sandwich enlightened our day for only $NTD 60!
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| Sweet time at the relaxing garden |
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| Mianxian 面线, irresistible noodle soup |
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| The unforgettable pork sandwich! |
They were just two of the many irresistible and humble-looking food we'd definitely recommend anyone to try it, it's unbelievable!
And we could defnitely use a little time for planning our route to our next destinations.
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| Rock n' roll! |
It's a quiet morning, it's always good to start the day slow to enjoy every moment of the details before we got busier later.
Next up, The colour of Yangmingshan national park.
