Originally Stef and I were going to stay in Cosmos Hotel, which is near Taipei Main Station. But upon telling Colin this he asked me why not try a hostel, it’s cheaper, and that his cousin had previously been to Star Hostel Taipei Main Station and heard good things about it. Obviously, going to a place that someone else has recommended is a lot more safe (on the heart) than just going to someplace new, plus the reviews about Star Hostel were quite good, so we decided to give it a try.

Star Hostel is (like it says in its name) located near Taipei Main Station, and it’s only a 7 minute walk away from the main station. There are exits located a bit closer to the hostel itself, and you can walk through Taipei City Mall to get to the station. You can exit through M1 or Y7 for a shorter walk outside.

On our first day, we had to lug our suitcases over to the hostel (a feat for two girls like us) and we weren’t the smartest, and decided to use the overhead pedestrian bridge to cross. The next day, we realized that we could have just used the crosswalk instead of lugging our suitcases up and down the stairs. Thank goodness there was an elevator leading up to the hostel, which is on the 4th floor and has rooms on te 4th and 5th floors; there’s a hotel on the 3rd floor of the same building. There’s a huge banner on the side of a building that’s closer to the main street, making the hostel itself easier to find.

Once you get inside you see this really pretty… treehouse like thing in the lobby, for people to sit on.

The receptionists are all really nice, and the outside is completely lined with information about Taiwan; there are also souvenirs and snacks for you to buy. I (for whatever reason) thought that check in was at 11, but turns out check out is at 11, and check in is at 3! We had already been wandering around Taipei with our suitcases since 9am so we decided to just leave our suitcases at the hostel for now and return at 3pm. They have a suitcase room to store suitcases for people like us, who haven’t checked in yet or are leaving at night.

Make sure you have NTD to pay them! They also give you a cute sheet of paper outlining the rules they have in the hostel. Everything is super clear.

You first head inside, and have to change your shoes into slippers which are provided by the hostel in different sizes. Each room gets their own shoe cupboard to store their own shoes/slippers in, and when you’re done your stay you just put your slippers back.

You use your key card to open the door into the rest of the hostel.

If you go straight from the entrance, you go to the common eating area and common kitchen. Turn right for the rooms, there are 2 floors (I pity the people who had to lug their suitcases up the stairs).

The common area also had this huge treehouse like thing inside for people to sit at; there was also a platform for people to sit at, as well as 2 long tables. (Apologies for poor lighting!) There’s even computers!

The common kitchen is equipped with pots, pans, everything you need to cook your own meal in the kitchen. You can store your own food in the fridge, provided that you label it with the labels provided (with your room number and date of check out); otherwise it becomes free food for the other guests to eat! The kitchen is also very clean, and the guests are also asked to wash the things they use, which I think is fair.

In the morning, they provide breakfast for the guests from 8am to 10am. Every day has a different menu. There’s also bread and jam outside on the island in the kitchen.

There’s a coffee machine with different options; Stef and I tried the milk tea, and it tasted exactly like a sweet Taiwanese milk tea.

           

We ate breakfast three times at the hostel (we missed breakfast the first day, went out for breakfast at World Soybean Milk Magnate the second day, the sixth day we went out before breakfast was ready).

               

You just tell them how many breakfast you need, and if they’re not ready yet they’ll ask you to take a seat and they will bring them to you. All the breakfasts were good. I don’t even like egg or egg salad, but it still tasted good! It was also very clean as the guests were asked to replace their own dishes (something that I think should be done at Mango Yummy.. but I’ll save that for when I go home).

For one breakfast we had leftover chicken cutlet from the night market and also some bread, so we heated that in the toaster oven and had it with our breakfast. Needless to say the smell made everyone smell at us (I like to think in jealousy).

At night, the kitchen becomes a bar. But the bar scene isn’t really our thing so we don’t have any pictures of that…

 The room itself is really nice as well. Stef and I booked a private ensuite with a double bed, meaning we get our own washroom and own bit of privacy, so it was more like a hotel than a hostel for us.

The bathroom is really great because the shampoo and soap are already provided in a dispenser, not bottles like normal hotels. So I ended up not using any of my own at all! The water pressure is also really strong, which is something that I like. And, of course, there are hooks in the washroom. The only thing I didn’t like about the bathroom was that the shower head, when propped up, would spray the water against the wall instead of on me.

The outside sink was very spacious and clean, but the only problem was that there was no hand soap so we’d have to go inside and get body soap to wash our hands every time.

There’s a desk with a chair (which we ended up moving to the sink so we could hang a hand towel on – something else the sink didn’t have) and then the double bed is right next to the window. At the foot of the bed, there’s  a TV which we didn’t really watch since we were out a lot of the time.

The window is really weird in that there’s a bug net, but you can’t close the bug net when the window is closed. And sometimes I would forget to close the bug net when I opened the window again. Which leads to the next problem.. I got a total of 8 bug bites while at the hostel. I can’t confirm whether I got them in Jiufen or from the hostel, but my mom said the definitely weren’t bed bug bites (so don’t need to be worried) but the window design could be improved for sure.

There’s also (supposed to be) cleaning every day but a lot of the time our bed wouldn’t be made when we came back at night, although our towels would always be replaced.

For whatever reason neither Stef or I have pictures of inside our room. But it was definitely very clean and modern!

Overall, the hostel was really clean and the staff were really friendly and the food was good. The entire place was also really orderly and didn’t seem chaotic at all, and was very calm. There was a surprising amount of Korean people living at the hostel- I barely heard any English or Chinese in the hostel at all! Would definitely recommend if anyone is planning to go to Taipei anywhere soon – its clean, the people are nice and knowledgeable, and it’s in a very convenient spot as well.