First things first: if planning a stay in Taipei right before the Christmas holidays, book in advance! The choices of accommodation were quite limited for our stay in mid-December 2015, thus we were very happy to have found a reasonably-priced (100CAD/night), well-reviewed and adequately located room in the city. The pictures online are rather fool-proofed: the room is exactly like it looks…we just had not noticed the absence of a door to the bathroom.

Needless to say that we found it very useful to have noise-cancelling headphones for the stay! Jokes aside, the open-ceiling and walls design has obviously brought on major privacy issues but also the humidity of the shower spread all over the room. We also had a very hard time adjusting the water temperature, it was freezing for a whole 10 minutes before turning boiling-hot instantaneously.

Otherwise, the room itself had no major problems. Cleanliness is top-notch, the bed is comfortable and the size is very generous for a room in such a dense city.

The Location:

The underground MRT system is extremely efficient in Taipei so being near a station is a must. Citysuites Nandong is right in the middle of two stations on the green line: Nanjing Sanmin and Songshan, which are both around a 10 min power walk away. Perk is Songshan is also a train station, which makes it even more convenient for side trips to Jiufen and Hualien.

Taipei is most famous for its street food and Citysuites is also a 10 minutes walk away from one of the busiest night market of the city: Raohe Night Market. Walk over with an empty stomach and taste everything! Except maybe the stinky tofu…

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d8105.0076727791065!2d121.56644853844269!3d25.049539884507556!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x3442ab974b297ceb%3A0xb047e7f08fa52728!2sCity+Suites!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sca!4v1456972595861&w=600&h=450]

Overall, we could not be complaining about the room we got, as the most important elements on our usual checklist were ticked off: location, cleanliness and price. (We also had good headphones). However, we most likely will not return due to the door issue (or lack thereof) and everything was just sooo orange in the decor!

CitySuites Taipei Nandong [6/10]

No. 411, Section 5, Nanjing E Rd,

Songshan District, Taipei City

Phone:+886 2 2742 5888

http://en.citysuites.com.tw/ec99/ushop1080/ShowCategory.asp?category_id=60