skip to main  |skip to sidebarHomeAbout PeiruFacebookRSS FeedTwitter  BookmarkBlue MountainsSingaporeSydneyTaipei>>France,ParisParis Weekly Metro Pass - The Key to My Unlimited Train Rides..PeiRuTuesday, June 4, 20130commentsMy Paris trip is mainly from Wed till Sun and I only need a 1 way ticket to the airport on Monday morning. So I decided to buy the Paris Weekly Metro pass as that's quite a lot cheaper than getting a 5 day pass + 1 way ticket. According to what I had read so far, the latest day of the week that you can get the pass is Wed, so even if it's cheaper, you can buy the ticket / topup after Wed. Also, this weekly pass is just flat pass from Monday till Sun last train.The pass itself cost about EUR $5 and the weekly pass around EUR $39 if I remember correctly. Which is still way cheaper than the 5 day pass which costed about $57. If you ever buy this pass, keep it for the next trip as the card itself is non refundable anyway. Also, I came to realized that the best way to buy a one way ticket, especially if you stay near the airport is via the ticket machine. As I checked with the machine and found out that if I had bought from the machine it only costs about $8+ for 2 pax but because I bought it from them, it's $9.50 per ticket.Reference: http://parisbytrain.com/paris-metro/ - here's where I got all the necessary information for price comparison.This pass worked in the exact same way as our Singapore's EzLink card where we tap to go in and tap to leave the station. But not all station exits requires us to tap the card to exit. As visitors, it's best to abide by the rules, although I do observed that a number of their Paris "foreign talents" seems to by pass all the rules and enter station via all the loop holes possible. So keep your eyes open and look around for "interesting" sights.As they also have many street and train performers around, if you don't plan to tip them for singing songs that we don't even understand, avoid them and look away, as they'll take some cups and walk around the train / bus or wherever they had performs for "tips".Read more » >>Taipei,TaiwanFrom Taipei Airport to Taipei Main StationPeiRuSunday, May 20, 20120commentsFor my past 2 trips, we had been taking this same bus Kuo-Kuang (国光客运) 1819 from the Taipei Airport to Taipei Main Station and I find it pretty value for money. After all it's only TWD$125 per person which is < SGD$6. This bus is similar to a tour bus as it has this luggage compartment and they tagged every single luggage which means, we will need to exchange our tags for our luggage to prevent mistakes.So far, the bus had served us pretty well. After all, you can get to anywhere from the Taipei Main Station.However, only when we took the Hi-Speed Railway that we realised that Taipei was on one extreme end and Kaohsiung on the other. Which means, if our first stop after arrival is not Taipei itself, take a different bus to the Taoyuan Hi-Speed Railway Station might had b