Taiwan Wedding Photo Taking Trip - Day 2

Woke up early in the morning about 7am and it was already bright and shiny.

Sheraton does not provide breakfast cos of the rate we got. :(

Made our way to MeiLiHua (Miramar) which was famous for its Ferris Wheel.

Wrote a little review on google maps

Ate breakfast at Mos Burger which was relatively cheap for 2!

The typical small MOS Burger but nice :) 

Comes with a drink

 This is where we had our lunch - Saizeriya! 

Singapore also have in Liang Court - cheap and good and filling!

Tasty hot plate meat patty!

Ferris Wheel pose

Jianan MRT toilet is so much cleaner than Singapore's MRTs.

We left the place at about 1pm to go to our Bridal Studio.

Stopped at ZhongShan Jr High school MRT Station and walked like hell..

Reached the venue @ 230pm - ShaLuoManTing at MingQuan East Road. 

It was quite easy to find along the main road.

Had a quite a bit of adventure including going to Landis to "ease my stomach"

The whole street was full of such bridal boutiques akin to Tanjung Pagar in Singapore. 

Had to go down 2 streets to get to France Paris, the other shop.

Met with the peeps. Cannot take photos then. :(

We took 2 hours selecting addy's 5 gowns

Then we proceeded to GEM to select my outfit.

Spent about 1hour here. 

Quite an atas place

They tried to upsell but at least they were nice

Even took a photo with them

We had to go back to France Paris at 8pm to meet the photographer

Went walk walk 1st.

An illegal roadside stall selling really cheap shoes

NT$200 per pair

Outside Mingquan East Station

Took MRT to Taipei Main Station intending to go Ximen Ding but changed our mind

Walked back up from Taipei Main Station towards NingXia Street, a night market

The bestest guojiao ever. cheap cheap!!!

The steamed version

The stall from inside

Bread Galore at NingXia night market

Reached France Paris and spoke with the photographer for 1/2 hour

Decided to go Shilin night market to shop again

Had this lady who persuaded us to buy her hairpin so much

Could have driven the price much lower but she was so nice

Even took a demo video on how to use the hairpin summore

Reached back hotel close to 12

Sheraton pampers us so much - arranges our toiletries so nicely

The bathroom version :)

Expenses for the day:

Taiwan Wedding Photo Taking Trip - Day 1

Our trip to Taiwan was from the 22-27 March 2010, Monday to Saturday.

 The day began with us lugging our luggage to the bus stop between our houses to catch bus 53. It's our attempt to save if we can so we can "splurge" in Taiwan.

Above is Addy with our 2 luggage on the bus stow area. Spent our journey to the airport planning our routes and timetable in Taiwan.

Heavy breakfast was in T3 Kopitiam in fear of yucky food on the aircraft.

The newly launched Changi Rewards Card that we applied for the fun of it. 

And given that I visit the place so often, it's probably a good thing since I am quite a card freak.

http://changirewards.com/index.aspx

 This is Addy's first time on Singapore Airlines, SQ878.

She is holding up our lunch menu and the KrisWorld magazine with all the fantastic programmes. 

Flight departed at around 12pm

Had yummy chicken rice for lunch and an ice-cream as well!

This time for me, the pillow was nice and puffy which i like.

 Here's a nice photograph taken with the Chief Steward and a Taiwanese Stewardess. 

She speaks amazingly good english.

 Arrived at about 430pm. 

Taiwan is the same time as Singapore.

Temperature then was about 25 degrees Celsius.

A photo from our Air Bus on the way to the hotel. It's a picture of TaoYuan International Airport.

I have no idea why there are so many such sleazy pictures in the suburbs on the way to Taipei city centre. There are like so many mini shops with just a long table, a chair and a shop owner sitting on it facing out of the glass windows. 

I wonder what they sell. hmm...

 Checked in at about 7 plus.

The inside of our Sheraton Hotel Room with a super king size bed! 

The room was sure clean and large. G

ot a huge discount off the listed price though it is still more expensive than a number of decent hotels. 

Well, i guess we paid premium for this special trip.

Mirrors are everywhere in this hotel room toilet. The amenities are nice too though there are some other hotels (in Singapore) that uses branded stuff like BodyShop and better.

Taiwan turns dark very fast at this time of the year. (But it turns bright very early too)

Here's a picture of the Taipei Main Station where you can take the High Speed Rail to places like KaoHsiung.

At about 8pm, we were on our way to Shilin Night Market. 

Look at their train station - Taiwan people really do queue aside for people to come out!

Shilin Night market buzzing even on a Monday night.

 After we stuffed ourselves with their local Teppanyaki, we lumbered around the place.

Above is a huge long queue of the Cui Ji Pa (crispy chicken patty) which is famous in Singapore as well.

 Their fruits are so colourful, not to mention very sweet to eat too!

 Women and their habits (don't hit me addy!)

The games are so much more attractive than Singapore!

I am so glad i was armed with my new DSLR.

Ended the day by going back to the hotel at 11am.

Expenses for the day

Preparing for Photoshoot in Taiwan - Travel Arrangements

Image by John&Fish via Flickr

Several months back, we had already purchased our photoshoot package from a Novena roadshow. If there was a downside, it's that the package was not full - no AD gowns and peripherals and that we had to make travel arrangements ourselves.

The cost of the package seems quite reasonable in comparison with Singapore boutiques and the agency did not hard-sell to us. Quality-wise, forums mentioned that service was great. Well, only the trip will tell.

The AD preparations are on the way - will survey them tomorrow at Sattine, keeping in mind Zann&Denn. Addy wants me to see the gowns for myself first before deciding whether to custom-make.

Well, this post is supposed to be about the travel plans anyway.

The reason why getting the tickets so late was because I wanted to ballot and see whether we could have gotten a cheaper deal if I had balloted for my ticket. At this point of time, as we are not formally registered, Addy had to pay for a single ticket. This worked out to be about SGD1100 all inclusive. Moreover, I had to pay for my own free ticket surcharges which amounted to nearly SGD300.

This did not seem very worth the while, given that there's SIA sweet deal 2-to-go at SGD688/pax. However when I tried to book online, the offer did not have our available date. You see, as Addy had very small window for our trip, there are only selected days we could fly.

So we went to NATAS Travel fair on the 26th Feb 2010 weekend. Sometimes this is better than DIY because of the bulk discounts travel agency commands. And like fairs in NATAS, you get free stuff like luggage and lucky draw coupons. After a long survey at the fair and due to the quick uptake of air-tickets, we decided on New Shan, paying SGD748/pax all inclusive. Luckily I mentioned that I was an airline staff to get further discounts.

If you do not have the luxury of having a travel fair at the time you would like to fly, try WEGO. There's a banner on the right of this post. Love it cos it pulls out the best deals from other websites like Zuji. Amazing stuff!

For accommodation, it was a hassle initially because New Shan said our choice hotels were overbooked. After a long arduous search and asking, I managed to book 5 stars Sheraton Taipei for 5 nights at a special staff rate. I expect it will cost less that SGD900 for the accommodation. Since it's a holiday of special significance, why not splurge a little. (My close friends will lamblast me for saying that this trip can help me go Phuket 5 times).


We estimate a total budget for a wedding photoshoot overseas in Taiwan to be around SGD5,000, approx, all in.


A summary of what I learnt doing all these:

There are always hiccups and there is a large chance you might blow your budget.

How hard it is depends on you whether you are picky

Doing things together esp when it is hard often makes it fun but it can make you argue too. There's where we learn about each other's expectations and character.

Total time spent( approx 6 weeks, 2 hours a day, 2 days a week)

1. Planning, researching and choosing the photostudio overseas
2. Planning the themes and where to take them
3. Emailing the studio in Chinese (#$^$#&##) 
4. Fitting the prep, 1 day shoot and collection day into the 6 days of itinerary 
5. Working out timetable of our holiday there
6. Settling arrangements for air travel and accomodation
7. Packing the clothes and accessories to bring

Will write more when we are back. :)