After a simple breakfast provided by the hotel, we set off for our 1st destination in Taipei - The Taipei Zoo located at Muzha.
Travelling in Taipei is really easy especially via their MRT. We bought an Easy Card MRT ticket at NTD500 (Adult) NTD300 (Child) (which can be topped up when the value runs low)
This made our travelling the next few days so much hassle-free (except for the one time where we had to top up at a 7-11 in Danshui)
The Taipei Zoo is located at Muzha (the last station on the brown line ). On the MRT, we encountered a friendly young lady who asked Weng what animal would he like to see at the zoo. We were often mistaken for Singaporeans and when we replied that we were Malaysians, Taiwanese seemed surprised that we could converse in Mandarin.
The Taipei Zoo has one of the cheapest entrance fee at NTD60 (Adult) and NTD30 (Child).
The zoo has an aviary, an insectarium, amphibian and reptile house, penguin habitat, koala habitat (which was closed for renovations at our time of visit), nocturnal animals display, and a panda exhibition.
Most of the exhibition areas were not packed except for the panda exhibition. We were given a special ticket to visit the panda house (ie we could only visit it once). After waiting in line for almost half an hour, we thought we could see the pandas but all we saw was their sleeping backs. What a disappointment!! 
A tip which we obtained from other bloggers was to take the zoo bus up the hill and start from there. We could use the EasyCard to pay for the bus fare, which was really convenient.
A tip which we obtained from other bloggers was to take the zoo bus up the hill and start from there. We could use the EasyCard to pay for the bus fare, which was really convenient.
The amphibian and reptile house was right at the top of the hill. Lots of interesting animals, especially tortoises.
Next up was the Penguin house.
After the penguins, we walked all the way down passing by the African animals and Rainforest Area. (which was quite similar to the ones we have at Zoo Negara)
Another interesting place was the insect house which has a big area for butterflies as well.
In many parts of the zoo, there are interesting pictures of "oink-oink" like the ones below:
After spending about half a day at the zoo, we proceeded to our next destination - Taipei 101.(located at Xinyi district) We took the MRT to Taipei City Hall. Instead of waiting for the free shuttle bus, we decided to walk towards the 101 building. Which was great cos on the way, we saw lots of flowers in full bloom. Also, there was a big Eslite bookstore (one of the largest bookstore chain in Taiwan) which was very impressive. There are some interesting figurines in front of Eslite worth taking some pictures.
When we reached Taipei 101, we went to the 5th floor to purchase the entrance tickets,NTD400 (adult) and NTD 370 (Child). As we were not allowed to carry any bags/knapsacks, we stored them at the lockers provided FOC. However, the queue to go up the escalators were super-long as we waited almost 45 minutes.
Taipei 101 has 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. It features an Indoor Observatory (89th floor) and Outdoor Observatory (91st floor). The super-fast escalators to reach 89th floor travel at a speed of 16.83m/s. It takes about 30 seconds to go from bottom to up.
When it was time to leave, we had to queue again (almost half an hour) to get down. On the way back to the MRT station at Taipei City Hall, we saw the trees lighted up (just like Xmas). After a long day, we had a simple dinner at the food court at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi and went back to the hotel.
