Taipei Pig Home Apartment (台北猪窝) @ Taiwan

When I got into Taipei in October 2012, I got super lost looking for Pig Home.  As I can't really read/write Chinese and my Mandarin sounds garbled (Mandarin was never part of the school system), I had expected that I will have difficulties looking for the meeting point based on the instructions sent in the reservation email. 

The stars were definitely not in my favour. Some landmarks shown in the email were removed as upgrading works were being done once you exit the HSR and another landmark had 2 different exits! Taipei underground is not very friendly to big trolley bags either. Stairs everywhere! My heart ache for my poor trolley bag. I was alone until my friends reach the next morning so my trolley bag suffered numerous bumps and tension on the hand straps as I heaved it over the steps.

When I asked a couple of local high school kids for directions, they got lost as well. After taking a 20 minutes detour, we finally managed to find 新東陽 (Hsin Tung Yang) mentioned in the email.

A big shout out to James! Thanks for leading the way to 新東陽!

Directions to Hsin Tung Yang ( 新東陽) QSquare Mall from Taipei HSR stop

• Alight from the HSR and take the escalator up 1 floor.
• Follow signs that say "Civic Blvd"
• Follow "Civic Blvd" until it starts to show "K Underground Mall", "QSquare" or "Taipei Main Bus Station"
• If you follow signs that say "K Underground Mall" or "Taipei Main Bus Station", continue until you reach the sign "Qsquare"
• If you are following "QSquare", you will come across a sushi shop on your right. The sushi shop is those where you pick and choose your sushi, pay and leave. If you don't see the sushi shop, concentrate on the words "Qsquare" on the overhead boards.
• After the sushi shop, there will be a short flight of stairs on your left through a door. This door is normally kept open and it leads directly into Qsquare. 
• Follow the crowds and you will see an escalator past a row of vending machines and colourful lockers. Take that escalator to the 1st floor and you will face Hsin Tung Yang ( 新東陽), Watson and Hi-Life convenience store.  
• If you cannot find Hsin Tung Yang, ask for Watson, the bus counter to buy tickets or the information counter. Or you can ask anyone around, the Taiwanese are really nice people.

          For those who needs some help in Mandarin, you can write this down and show it to those who has  

          difficulty understanding English:

         - 在QSquare, Watsons 在哪里 ("Where is Watsons in QSquare")?

         - 在QSquare, 新東陽在哪里 ("Where is Hsin Tung Yang in QSquare")?

• Make a call to PigHome and their staff will come get you shortly.

I didn't take pictures of the path I traveled to the Pig Home. I was carrying a huge luggage bag, balancing my handbag and backpack while trying to get my bearings in the huge underground complex. Grr...

A Pig Home staff called Yuán Yuán (圓圓) came to pick me up. She is really nice, bubbly and you could ask her anything about Taipei. She will try to answer like where to take the bus, what is good to eat nearby, where is good for shopping etc. She even helped us to carry our luggage when we changed rooms later during the trip. Yuán Yuán is not like 6 feet tall lean mean machine but a sweet, typical, cute Taiwanese girl look. 

Hsin Tung Yang - the meeting point

Information counter of Taipei Bus Station

If you are a single female traveller, rest assured. There is 24 hour security at the lobby, you require a key card which only accesses your floor and your door has a password that PigHome changes after every guest leaves. You only get 1 key card. A little inconvenient if you have a few people staying in a room but great for the lone traveler.

Oh and every room at Pig Home has a different theme. So you won't know what will you get. After I settled in and checked the rooms, I was expected to pay off the remaining amounts outstanding for the rooms.

Word of advice: If you book and pay the deposit through PayPal, you have to have an additional 5% for transaction fees! So use your credit card.

There is a few house rules when staying at PigHome.

1. Housekeeping is every alternate day
2. No cooking 
3. No smoking
4. No chewing betel nut in the rooms
5. Tie up the rubbish bags that you want them to dispose of
6. Do not trash the room otherwise you lose your deposit. You get your deposit once you leave.
7. Toilet rules (refer below)
8. Luggage could be stored at their office if you require to travel out of Taipei or if you have a few hours before you go to the airport. If you have 1-5 pieces of luggage, it is free of charge, if more than 5, a fee of NT200 is charged. 
9. Call to inform PigHome at least 1/2 hour before 12 noon to inform them that you are ready to check out. 
10. If you check out late, NT150 is charged for every 30 minutes you are late or if you run in the service cleaning crew after your appointed check out time.

Many people gave me the impression that Pig Home was a "minsu" or homestay/ B&B but it's not as you can see from the photos. Pig Home's management actually rents out studio apartments, which is why Pig Home's office is a couple of streets away.  Oh, in Chinese, 猪窝 actually means pig sty. The rooms were the opposite of how a pig sty would look like. Oink oink.

Girls' room.

The bed and couch

English Cable TV and a small wardrobe

Bathroom and kitchenette

Washer on balcony.

Day view from the apartment

Night view

Kitchenette

Girls' room after Jiu Fen. The guys got the same room.

Kitchenette

Washer on the balcony. We faced another building so no view :(

Here is a breakdown of what you get in the apartment:

1. Washing powder for clothes
2. Shampoo and bath shower gel
3. Heater in the washroom/toilet. Great for drying clothes. If you want to turn the heater lights on (which makes the bathroom a whole lot brighter), you have to turn on the heater first. There is remote panel in the toilet so fiddle around.
4. Kettle
5. Hairdryer
6. Filtered water from the tap
7. Fridge
8. Plates and cups
9. Chopsticks
10. Towels. We were surprised by the towels as the confirmation booking form states that towels cost extra so we brought our instead. Check your booking form and bring it just in case!
11. Cable TV
12. Free wifi
13. House slippers
14. Coffee and tea
15. Each room have its own security system. How cool is that!

For those travelling to Taiwan for the first time, you will notice wastebaskets next to the WC throne. It's not the normal wastebaskets that you see in toilets in hotels around the world. The reason is that if you need to use a big clump of tissue after you do your No 1. or No. 2, you are to throw it into the wastebasket and not the toilet bowl itself. The 1st thing that came to my mind is that, "Won't it stink?" 2nd thing was, "I do not need to see your stomach waste!"

The stinky factor is surprisingly not prevalent. They clean the toilets quite frequently. Either that or they don't use the tissue much. As for the 'stains', I guess you just have to be responsible to the next person who uses the toilet after you.

Taiwan practices this method as their waste pipes are not as big as the ones used in other parts of the world so no one wants to clean a back flow right?

Pig Home does housekeeping every alternate day so be responsible!

Pig Home is an ideal spot for tourists who want to make it as their base as they travel about Taiwan. It is located next to Taipei West Bus Station (where you can take the bus to Jiu Fen), on top of the Blue, Green and Red MRT lines and on top of the HSR station. There are about 3 underground malls where you can stay in and walk to on rainy days. The Watsons is 24 hours so you don't have to worry in case there is an emergency at night.

There isn't much local street side to eat in the mornings around Pig Home though. So you have to go to the cafes located in the malls. For all you coffee drinkers out there, coffee ain't cheap in Taipei! T^T

Here are a few ways to contact Pig Home and this is a pain for non-Chinese speakers like me. They do not reply to any messages sent in English. It must be in Chinese! They ignored my English email and replied to the exact same email my friend sent in Chinese.

Taipei Pig Home Apartment (台北猪窝)
Address: No.211 Section 1, Shimin Avenue, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan
Tel: +886972904249 (If you are calling from a Taiwanese line, call 0972904249. Yes, you have to key in the ZERO [0])
 Email: qqyqqy8888@yahoo.com.tw
 Website: http://www.wretch.cc/blog/a0913337379
Price: $$-$$$ a night (depends on the rooms you pick)