Taiwan

Check in at Via Hotel Taipei Station (No. 60, Sec. 1, Chongqing S Rd) — ~5 min walk from Taipei Main. If the room isn't ready at noon, drop bags with the front desk. Rest, shower, gear check — put the drone and lenses in the room safe. You're a short walk from 228 Park and Ximending for an easy first-evening orientation stroll before the night market.

Raohe Street Night Market (饒河夜市) is one of Taipei's oldest and most photogenic. Covered, so it runs even in afternoon rain. Must-try: pepper buns from the famous Fuzhou stall at the temple gate (NT$55 ≈₱95, queue worth it), oyster omelette, grilled corn. Great intro vlog segment — busy, colourful, authentic.

Blue (Bannan) Line westbound to Longshan Temple station BL10, Exit 1 — one stop from Ximen, two from Taipei Main, NT$20 (≈₱34), trains every 3–7 min. Exit 1 surfaces at Mangka Park facing the temple. Sunday means heavy local worship plus tour groups from 10 AM — arriving by 9:30 beats both. Incense-smoke light shafts, shoot from the sides, respectful of worshippers. Free. (If you loop back late afternoon: the 3:45 PM chanting ceremony in the Main Hall is strong Pocket 4 material.)

Your first bullet train — a committed slot, not a maybe. From Ximen, one MRT stop to Taipei Main, follow signs down to the HSR (高鐵) level. Buy a NON-RESERVED ticket at the kiosk (cash or card, no booking needed) — your EasyCard does NOT work on the HSR, that's the classic trip-up. Ride to HSINCHU (新竹), ~30–34 min: go this far, not just to Taoyuan — the Taipei–Taoyuan hop is mostly tunnels, but the Hsinchu leg is where it opens up to 300 km/h (watch the in-car speed display, and film it — that's the vlog beat). YES — you get off at Hsinchu: the non-reserved ticket is a single one-way journey, so you tap out through the gate, stretch and grab a photo for ~15 min in the station, then buy a return non-reserved ticket straight back to Taipei (you can't stay on the train — it continues south to Zuoying). Non-reserved cars are 10–12; trains every 10–15 min, so there's nothing to miss. Round trip ~NT$580 (≈₱1,000), back at Taipei Main by ~2:45. Doubles as the day's AC break — and it runs rain or shine.

Green (Songshan–Xindian) Line one stop from Ximen to Beimen G13, then a 10-min walk to the southern end. Qing- and Japanese-era baroque shopfronts, Xiahai City God Temple, Yongle fabric market, tea merchants — the heritage shot Bopiliao only hints at, with a fraction of Jiufen's foot traffic. Work the arcades with the 16–35, details with the Tamron. If the light is good, walk out to Dadaocheng Wharf for the riverside golden hour.

Green Line back, one stop. More stinky tofu, oyster omelette, bubble tea, and Sunday-evening buskers. Grab the neon blue-hour crossing shot around 7 PM if the sky cooperates — no hard curfew tonight, so stay out as long as the light's good.

Protected block. Be back on hotel wifi by 10:15 with the eSIM hotspot as backup — room wifi beats mobile for a call. This is the reason the charter came off the day; everything after it is deliberately close to base so an overrun costs you nothing.

~10-min walk south. EXTERIOR ONLY, and that's the right call: interior tours run Mon–Fri 9 AM–12 PM with last entry 11:30 and need advance booking plus your passport — impossible against a 10:30 meeting. No ticket, no queue, no time limit outside. The shot is the red-brick Japanese-Baroque facade and its 60 m central tower, framed head-on from across Ketagalan Blvd where the full symmetry fits — 16mm handles it easily. Built 1919 as the Japanese Governor-General's office.

~15 min on foot from the Presidential Office. Open daily 9 AM–6 PM, no Monday closure, free. The ceremony runs hourly on the hour, 9 AM–5 PM, lasts ~10–15 minutes, and since 2024 happens OUTDOORS on the plaza rather than upstairs in the statue room — so you can circle it instead of shooting over shoulders in a stairwell. Be in position by 1:55 for the 2:00 (3:00 is the backup). The guard rotates between Army, Navy and Air Force, so the uniform depends on the month: chrome helmets, white gloves, bayoneted rifles. The sequence is a lockstep march-out, then the synchronised rifle drill — spins, tosses, the metallic crack echoing off the stone, which is the clip — then a slow handover where the relief sentries freeze into place. Shoot it off-axis rather than dead centre, get low for the march-in, and keep rolling through the drill for the audio. Then the Liberty Square arch, the koi ponds, and the red-and-gold National Theater and Concert Hall facing each other across the plaza.

~10 minutes on foot west of CKS, free, open daily 6 AM–8 PM with no Monday closure. Timed for the one thing that only works in July: the Lotus Pond (荷花池) is at peak bloom, pads overlapping edge to edge with flowers standing above the water and Qing-era buildings behind them. Beyond the pond it's a real botanical collection — 2,000+ species in themed zones under deep banyan shade. Shoot it low from the pond edge so the blooms sit against the far bank rather than a blown-out sky; late-afternoon light comes in soft and side-on, much kinder than midday. Telephoto isolates a single flower, 16mm takes the whole pond. Chosen over Da'an Forest Park because it's walkable from where you already are and the lotus is seasonal — Da'an (🔴 R06, ecological pond, herons and egrets) is the swap if you'd rather have the bigger canopy.

Walk back to CKS Memorial Hall (R08), then 🔴 Red one stop to Dongmen (R07), Exit 5 — the street starts at the exit. Yongkang Beef Noodle (永康牛肉麵), the original Din Tai Fung branch, Kao Chi for pan-fried buns, and Smoothie House (思慕昔) for mango shaved ice, which is the correct end to a 34°C day. NT$300–600.

Dongmen (R07) → 🔴 Red to Da'an (R05) → cross to the 🟤 Brown (Wenhu) line → Linguang (麟光), about 15 minutes. Then a 5-minute walk to the trailhead at Fuyang Eco Park (富陽自然生態公園) and 15–20 minutes uphill through thick jungle to the Fuzhoushan Park Scenic Platform (福州山公園景觀平台) — search that exact name in Maps, the park has several lookouts and only one is the good one. Budget 45–60 min return from the MRT. Free, no gate. IMPORTANT: this is NOT a sunset spot — the platform faces north/northeast at Taipei 101, so the sun goes down behind you. Come for blue hour and city lights instead: sunset 6:43, and the window is ~6:50–7:30 as 101 lights up against a deep blue sky. Worth it over Elephant Mountain for the same skyline because there's no crowd to fight and the jungle gives you a foreground. Bring the mini-tripod for the long exposure, a light for the walk down, and repellent — it's dense bush. Alternative if the legs are done: Liberty Square is floodlit at night and one MRT stop from dinner.

Don't pin 'Yangmingshan National Park' — that resolves to the visitor centre at the park entrance, a long way from the vents, and you'd need the 108 just to reach the start. ~45–50 min from central Taipei. One-way only: signal is patchy up there and drivers are scarce, so don't count on an Uber back — the 108 out is the plan, not a fallback.

Your arrival point and the reason to come. Steaming vents, yellow mineral crust, open ridgeline. Do the easy loop from the visitor centre, NOT the 2–3 hr Qixingshan summit push — that would eat the whole loop. 16–35 at 16mm for the full vent-field scale; the Tamron zoomed in for steam texture; the Osmo Nano tucked low beside a vent gets a POV the A7C2 physically can't. Free.

The signature Yangmingshan landscape and nothing like the rest of the park: a rolling green volcanic terrace with water buffalo grazing on it. Wide open, so it reads best with weather in the frame — low cloud dragging over the ridge is better here than clear blue. Keep your distance from the buffalo; they're semi-wild and they do charge.

A pale, milky sulfur pond and a public hot spring — and there's a FREE footbath here, which after Qingtiangang is very well timed. Bring a small towel for it. This is also the natural last real stop if the day is running late.

Be here by 5:00 at the latest. The last 108 leaves the terminal at 5:30, and missing it up a mountain with no Uber coverage is a genuinely bad evening. Bus 260 runs from the terminal back into the city.

Door-to-door, so no transit legs and no EasyCard today. Confirm the pickup time and the driver's number over LINE the night before, and give them the run order below — most drivers default to Jiufen first because that's what group tours do, and that is precisely the mistake to avoid. It's only ~50 minutes to the coast. Cash for the driver; agree the total up front including any parking and tolls. Make sure the driver knows drop-off is Via Hotel by 6 — that sets the 4:50 departure from Jiufen and they can plan around it.

The 8 AM start earns you Shifen ahead of the tour groups, whose peak here runs roughly 1–3 PM. Order matters: the WATERFALL PARK GATE OPENS AT 9:00 SHARP (June–Sept hours 9–6), so walk straight there on arrival — ~20 min on foot — and you get Taiwan's widest curtain with the platforms empty and the morning light over your shoulder. Then back to the railway street ~10:15 for the sky lantern (天燈, NT$200 single-colour), still comfortably before the buses; launch from the quieter end near the train station — the guided groups all cram the far end. Eat an early lunch on the old street before rolling — chicken rolls, peanut ice-cream rolls — because the next three stops have nothing to eat and Jiufen food is the afternoon meal.

This coast is the trip's ONLY legal drone airspace, and this is the main flying block: open coast, daylight, no national-park permit zone. Rules — keep it under 120 m, in line of sight, and check drone.caa.gov.tw THAT MORNING before you fly, because the restriction map changes; one check covers Yin-Yang Sea, Bitou and Nanya alike. Nanya's banded sandstone formations are the shot from the air — low slow slide along the striped rock with the Yin-Yang Sea behind. Bitou Cape has a proper headland walk (30–60 min) with sea-cliff views — you have a genuine two-hour block here, so do the walk. Wind on that cape is real — if it's gusting, don't argue with it.

Still last, and still for a reason: it's the closest stop to the highway home, and by 3–4 the tour groups are starting to drain out — you get the emptiest version of the old street your window allows. Work it in this order: A-Mei Teahouse (阿妹茶樓) sit-down FIRST, ~3:15 — oolong on the view terrace, and the stacked-teahouse facade with its red lanterns photographs well in daylight too — then the old street and the terraces above the Shengping Theatre, which look back over the rooftops to the sea. Eat here before the drive: taro balls (芋圓), fish ball soup. Narrow, wet, crowded stairs: the Osmo Nano earns its place. No dusk shot this trip — that's the 8-to-6 trade, and the teahouse hour is what you get instead of the queue everyone else stands in for it.

The hard time of the day. Jiufen to Taipei Main is 60–70 minutes at this hour, and the 10-hour clock includes this drive — leaving at 4:50 lands the drop-off at 6:00 with a small buffer. Linger past 5:15 and the driver eats the overrun or you do. Set an alarm for 4:35 so the walk down from the old street doesn't make you late.

Weekday early morning is the empty version of Tamsui: the boardwalk to yourself, fishing boats, Guanyinshan across the water in morning haze. Walk the riverside west — Customs Wharf (open, free, 24 hr), the bronze Mackay statue at the Zhongzheng Rd roundabout, the Mackay church lane behind it. This is the Osmo hour: gimbal glides along the boardwalk rail, the wide river at 16mm on the A7C2. Skip Fisherman's Wharf today — the ferry doesn't start until 11:00 on weekdays and the wharf is a sunset venue anyway; you have a better sunset booked.

NT$80 cash/EasyCard — and the one ticket also covers the Little White House (Customs Officer's Residence) just below it. Getting up the hill: bus R26 or 857 from the bays outside Tamsui station — NOT 836, which runs weekends only — or the 20-min riverside walk, then the short climb up Zhenli Rd. Mid-morning means some tour groups, but the compound absorbs them; the red Dutch walls against blue sky are the frame. About an hour does it. 17th-century Dutch fort → Spanish → British consulate, layers in one compound.

The geography gift of the day: the Tamsui line passes Minquan W Rd (R13), which is an Orange-line transfer — so the cat temple sits ON the ride home, not on a detour. Off at Minquan W Rd, 🟠 Orange toward LUZHOU (the branch matters — not Huilong), two stops past Daqiaotou to Sanhe Junior High (三和國中), Exit 1, 4-min walk east. ~45 min from Tamsui, zero backtracking. THE FRAME: cat on the offering table of a 1965 Mazu temple, gold and lantern-red behind, 85–100mm, no flash, let them come to you. An hour is plenty — out by 2:15 either way; if the cats aren't posing, take the dragon pillars and go.

From Sanhe Jr High: 🟠 Orange back to Songjiang Nanjing, 🟢 Green three stops east to Nanjing Sanmin (G18), EXIT 2, walk straight ~2 min, shop on the left — about 30 min. The most respected pineapple cake in Taipei, from exactly ONE store in the world — no airport counter, no station branch, no second chance. Weekday mid-afternoon queue is minutes. Buy the classic pineapple and the pineapple-egg-yolk; boxes are sealed, flight-proof, and cards are accepted.

🔴 Red Line from Taipei Main direct to the Xiangshan terminus R02 (~25 min — ride to the end of the line), Exit 2, 10-min walk through Xiangshan Park to the Lingyun Rd trailhead, then 15–20 min of steep stone stairs. On a Thursday, be ON a rock at the Six Giant Rocks ledge by 5:30 for the ~6:45 sunset. Fresh legs, empty hands — that's what the 3:20 drop bought. Escape hatch if the rocks are taken: Chaoran Pavilion further up.

Sunset ~6:45, then stay 15–25 min for the city-lights version — the stairs are lit for the descent. 16–35 for the skyline sweep, Tamron at 200mm to compress 101 against the clouds, Pocket gimbal pan, Osmo Nano locked off for the day-to-night time-lapse. 101 is a drone exclusion zone — the Mini 4 stays in the bag tonight. Plan B if the platform is mobbed: Fuzhoushan Park via Brown Line to Linguang.

Red Line from Xiangshan to Taipei Main, then the 8-min walk into Ximending — the finale now lives 10 minutes from bed instead of a Shilin detour north. Four things in a 400-m radius: (1) dinner — Ay-Chung flour-rice noodles (阿宗麵線) standing in the crowd, or a proper sit-down; (2) 🍧 3 Siblings Snowflake Ice, No. 23 Hanzhong St, open to 11 — the MANGO one, peak season, your legal send-off to Taiwanese mangoes; (3) the 24-hr hypermarket on Guilin Rd (No. 1 Guilin Rd — Carrefour until July 2026, now renamed 萬家福 / Prosperity Plaza, same building) for bulk pasalubong: DRIED IRWIN MANGO (愛文 from Yujing/Tainan — Sunnygogo unsweetened is the premium pick), nougat, 77 chocolate, Kuai Kuai, supermarket pineapple-cake boxes at half tourist price; (4) last street set — neon, rain puddles if you're lucky, the mini-Shibuya crossing at slow shutter. Home by 10.

Close the bags calmly — flight's at 10:20 AM, not midnight. Power banks OUT of the checked bag, into carry-on (Cebu Pacific rule). Back up the week's footage twice — laptop + spare card. Paper Pack (eTravel QR, e-tickets, return proof for the Manila BI counter) into the camera bag. Iron eggs, Chia Te boxes and dried mango where you won't forget them. Airport MRT from Taipei Main starts ~6 AM; you're on it at 6:10.

Light start, slightly earlier than feels necessary — that's the point. Room sweep for chargers, batteries, and the ND filter (easy to leave stuck on a tripod). Critical re-pack check: every spare battery and power bank OUT of the checked bag and into carry-on, terminals taped or cased — Cebu Pacific wants power banks on your person, and a bag pulled at check-in for a battery is how people miss flights. Boarding pass on the phone, water bottle filled.

Don't enter the railway station — the Airport MRT's A1 station is its own building west of Taipei Main, next to Beimen, with street entrances. Pin 機場捷運台北車站 and walk ~8–10 min at surface level; no underground maze with luggage. Board the PURPLE Express (~every 15 min from ~6:00), 36 min to T1's A12, NT$150 EasyCard tap. (Why 5:50 and not the old 7:00 draft: departure immigration is a MANNED counter for PH passports and 8–10 AM is T1's peak bank — plus the tax-refund stop below needs to happen BEFORE bag drop. Leaving at 7 lands you inside the wave with errands still to do.)

Arrive ~6:50 with the hall quiet. In order: (1) the Foreign Passenger VAT REFUND counter/kiosk in the departure hall — passport + the store's Tax Refund Claim Form + the goods themselves, unused and inspectable, which is why this comes BEFORE bag drop; NT$ cash on the spot. (2) SunnyHills landside counter from 7:00 if any pasalubong gap remains. (3) Cebu Pacific counters open ~7:20 (3 hrs before, close 45–60 min before departure) — bags dropped at open, and ask for BOTH boarding passes, TPE–MNL and MNL–CEB. Then straight through immigration ahead of the 8 AM bank — clear it first, THEN relax airside. Spend leftover NT$ coins on snacks; coins don't convert back home.

Depart Taoyuan 10:20 AM, land Manila 1:05 PM. You have a comfortable connection: 5J 571 Manila → Cebu departs 4:15 PM, lands Cebu 5:55 PM. Enough time in MNL to clear the transfer without rushing — but don't wander far from the terminal. Home by early evening, not wrecked by a red-eye.