Taiwan vs Hong Kong

February 05, 2015

Planning to go Taiwan or Hong Kong? Let's see the points below.

1.Transportation

Transportation in Hong Kong is quite impressive. The MTR which is mass transit railway is being provided and the tourist can purchase their card easily at the counter. The information about the next destination is clear and there are announcement being made at every station to remind the passengers about the drop off. One thing you need to bear in mind is most of the MTR stations require you need to climb up a lot of staircases, maybe this is also the reason why elders in Hong Kong are so healthy. Changing one station to another station require you to walk some distance if compared with Taiwan railway transit. To me, Taiwan owns a much more simple transit station structure, if you intend to change station, most of the time, you just have to walk to the opposite side, rather than waling to another area for changing station. Note that the transit railway is only available in Taipei, For some regions they are using trains and other transportation.

If you don't want to use their transit railway, you can go for their Taxi or buses. Personally think that the taxi in Taiwan will be cheaper and their services are excellent.

2.Shopping

Shopping in Hong Kong is shopping mall and night market, while shopping in Taiwan is night market. Hong Kong offers a variety of products, branded or non-branded, genuine or non-genuine. The shopping experience is great in Hong Kong as you can choose to go shopping mall at daytime and go to night market at night.

Whereas shopping in Taiwan is much more towards buying things in night markets. Don't look down at night markets. They have quite a number of night markets in Taipei, offering foods, drinks, snacks as well as all the shirts, pants and bags.

Both offering great shopping experience but personally prefer to shop in Hong Kong more than Taiwan.

3.Attractions

Both Taiwan and Hong Kong has a lot of attractions. In Hong Kong, you can visit their Disneyland (MTR to Disneyland is different with normal MTR). In Taiwan , you can enjoy the crystal cable car and so on. The only difference is the price. Price for entering those attractions is cheaper in Taiwan as compared with Hong Kong.

the crystal cable car

4.Food

Hong Kong's food? Taiwan's food? Both of them is nice and some of the foods you have to line up to get the foods. Stalls which have long line are those offering good foods? I'm not sure about that haha. For Hong Kong, some of the restaurant is offering promotion or happy hour which give a great discount at certain time. This is why sometimes you see people lining up outside the restaurant even at the midnight time. lol. In Hong Kong, there are quite a number of old restaurants where the business commenced very long time ago. I bet the taste of the foods from those old restaurants will be tastier. Taiwan's food can compete with Hong Kong's food as well. The foods at Taiwan night market is quite famous.

But, personally think that if you go travelling is just because of the foods, then i would recommend to go for Penang in Malaysia.