MAY 6 — The best time to fly to Taipei, or even Tokyo for that matter, from Kuala Lumpur is 6 or 7am in the morning.

You arrive early enough in the afternoon with plenty of time left to explore.

It is also my least favourite time to fly.

As it's impossible for me to sleep the night before an early morning flight, I usually just head to the airport at midnight and kill time at a cafe.

Airport food is terrible and expensive but missing my flight is worse.

I'd daydreamed while I was stuck in bed during my cancer treatment about visiting Japan but my budget would only stretch as far as konbini meals and shared dormitories for the moment so rather than suffer, Taipei seemed to be the more affordable option.

An uneventful journey

My fairly affordable travel package included return flights on Batik Air. I upgraded my seats to ones with more legroom because I still struggled to get in and out of chairs (less so now) and the added expense was worth the comfort for my stiff legs.

I find Batik Air for the most part fine for a no-frills airline, nothing really stood out for me about them, which is, with my lack of tolerance for terrible service, a point in their favour. 

Taipei's Taoyuan Airport, travel guides will warn you, is quite a distance from Taipei proper.

Malaysia and Taiwan have a reciprocal agreement to allow each other's passports to go quickly through the e-gate, no uncomfortable lines and (possibly) surly immigration officers to meet.

It's not automatic — there are signs that direct you to a little kiosk where you register your passport for e-gate usage and once you're done, just head to the nearest passport e-gate and boom, you're in Taipei.

Weeks before, I had bought from Shopee an EasyCard, Taiwan's far more useful version of our Touch N Go travel card, but decided to wait until I was in the city to top it up and use it.

At the airport there's a kiosk where you can just buy your airport train token, the quickest and second-cheapest way to get to Taipei from the airport, the cheapest being the buses.

You get your little purple coin, tap it at the entry point then find yourself a seat. 

The trains are wider than our KLIA Express trains and brighter too but locals, I found, were quiet. If you heard someone talking loudly, you knew it was a foreigner.

Right across from me was a group of Americans whose plans for the next hour were foisted on my ears against my will.

Anyway, kids, this is why noise-canceling headphones exist.

The train would stop at Taipei Main Station, the hub for trains and buses as well as a central connecting spot for various malls. 

My hotel Hua Shan Din was just a few stops away from the station but I needed to change to the Bannan line, also known as the Blue Line. After I figured out where it was I then made my way to my hotel that I chose primarily because the reviews stated their rooms had very good bidets.

I am Malaysian; I like having the option to clean my bum with water and not just toilet paper.

Hua Shan Din also happened to be right next to Huashan 1914 Creative Park, that was formerly a winery and sake distillery but is now a creative arts centre and events hub, becoming the blueprint for other creative parks that came after it such as Songshan Cultural and Creative Park.

My hotel was charming; it had art on the wall as well as a guided tour you could sign up for where you would have someone explain the art on display and there was also art that you could purchase.

Alas, neither my wallet nor my one medium backpack would allow me an art purchase but it was nice to have an art gallary right within the premises.

The hotel itself used to be an old bank warehouse and right outside was a statue of their bank vault mascot "Baobby", its name a very cute play on the Chinese term of endearment 宝贝 (baobei, meaning treasure or precious one).

Hua Shan Din also has its own boardgame, which sadly I also had no room in my luggage to purchase my own copy. 

As for the rooms themselves, mine wasn't particularly large but I didn't feel too hemmed in. I liked that the shower and toilet were in separate enclosures, which I think people traveling with companions would appreciate.

What is with all those transparent bathrooms in hotel rooms these days, honestly?

Yes, the bidet was fairly modern though not as fancy as the American Standard bidet I encountered at a Bangkok hotel. 

The best thing about my hotel was how central it was, with a train station and bus stops just five minutes walk away and, I would discover later, that there was plenty to eat in the vicinity as well as a coffee bar that still haunts my daydreams.

We'll get to all that next week, dear reader, but in more current updates, I can finally lift my left arm over my head again and I can write my next column in a far cheerier mood than of late.