We’ve been traveling for 5 weeks and finally I have time, and physical space, at night to document our trip. Rather than start from the beginning, I thought I would just go forward and then back date when I get to them.
Note that all prices are in NT unless otherwise specified.
Today marks the first day in the whole week we’ve been here when it is not raining. So we stopped homeschooling for a day and brought the kids to the Children’s Amusement Park (TCAP), otherwise known as 兒童新樂園.
Getting There
We’ve only been to the old version of the park. The new park is located somewhere else. We took the MRT to Jiantan 劍潭, then took the special TCAP #2 bus to the amusement park.
Alternatively, you can try to bus as close as possible to the amusement park.
The park operates totally on Easy Card system. Entrance fee is only $30NT for adults and $15 for kids. Though one gotcha was that even though Astroboy has to pay to ride the MRT, children 6 and under don’t have to pay for TCAP.
Enjoying The Rides
The rides were either $20 or $30 each, all swipeable by Easy Card. So easy! There are 13 rides total, each numbered and with height limits all clearly labeled. The first thing we did was determine that Thumper can go on 12 rides unaccompanied by adults and Astroboy 8. He can be accompanied by me on rides #10 to #12. I then gave them each a limit of 9 rides total to go on.
This of course led to 30 minutes of poring over the map, planning which rides to go on.
We then went to a bunch of rides, most of which I can’t show pics of cuz I didn’t take any! The kids went on the Ferris Wheel, bumper cars, the Disneyland Dumbo-like ride, Merry-go-round, spinning tea cups. Your typical amusement park rides.
There was basically noone at the park because kids are in school! One of my favorite reasons for homeschooling. My favorite was the bumper cars since we basically had the whole place to ourselves.
Lunch
We had lunch there. Originally we were going to pack a lunch because you know, amusement parks, expensive lunches. But we forgot to stop by 7-eleven. In any case, lunch cost me $10 USD for the kids and me, for 2 sets of pot stickers + soup + appetizers + soy bean milk.
I even had Astroboy buy a 3rd cup of soy milk himself. Getting the kids to be more independent on the daily living front is one of my favorite things about traveling in Taiwan.
Ball Pool
After lunch, we went to the free ball pool area. It has a giant pool full of plastic balls plus a huge play structure. You have to “reserve” a 50 minute session and can go a maximum of 3 sessions. It was amazing. There are obviously better ball pool places in Taipei, but for $30 park entrance fee, it is CHEAP.
We definitely want to come back again. At the end we learned that we should have just bought a monthly pass. It’s only $250 per person or $450 for 2 people, and it offers unlimited entrance and plays at all the rides. I estimated I probably spent $200 total today just on the rides, so the pass is totally worth it. You can even apply with a foreign passport!
Oh so the only annoying thing is that there was one woman who was surreptitiously taking pics of some of the kids. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, random people taking pics of the kids. We finally had to tell her to stop. The kids definitely draw attention because they’re mixed and oh-so-cute to some people. I need to have a talk with them about saying no to pics when they see people taking them.
