Review of Christmasland in New Taipei City 2018 - Updated


Hello readers,

Merry Christmas! If you're a foreigner living in Asia then Christmas can be a bit different. Especially in Taiwan where it never snowed for Christmas and you're someone who is used to that all your life. But there are festivities here if you know where to look. So without further ado, here's my review of Christmasland (the organizers combined "Christmas" and "Land" together if you're wondering if one's English deteriorates in Asia) in New Taipei City, one of the major things to do for Christmas in Taipei from a mom's perspective when you have to little kids on hand.

Christmasland is located in New Taipei City and the station is Banqiao on the blue line on the MRT (Taipei metro). The English version of their official website is here: https://christmasland.ntpc.gov.tw/en/zone.php

The website lists events, transportation and map of the area which are all very helpful when you have to plan with kids. Once you get there this map will also be at all the different areas:



Unfortunately the day I went it was sunny all week so the AQI was off the charts for Taipei so you'll have to excuse the pollution/fuzziness and random finger in my photos. We headed out at 11 and didn't get there until noon although the festivities will start at 11 in the morning usually.

I choose to try to go to city hall plaza first, that's the one with a giant metal Christmas tree. Also unfortunate is that it was not very stroller friendly. To get there via stroller you'd have to follow all the signs for city hall:


Go through to the exit and you'll eventually reach the giant metal Christmas tree:



The difficulty level triples here as you have to go around the tree to the signs for the elevator which takes you to the motorcycle parking garage. Then you have to think about where they would put the elevator, and yes, next to the handicap motorcycle spots. This was really tricky as I kept on thinking I was at the wrong place but just keep going and you'll reach it. Don't take a double stroller though as the elevator is small in size and it gets crowded in there.




The city hall plaza is there once you get upstairs. Because the Saturday we were there was the government make-up day (where the government gives the calendar New Years off but deems that one of the Saturdays in the month everyone has to go to work to make up for it as that seems to be the workaholic nature of most Asians) it was not too crowded when we got there.



The main stage will be here and the events website will show who is performing.



There are different sponsor booths around this plaza but our kids liked the Line friends the best (will write another post about the importance of Line messenger in Taiwan).


We then went back down the elevator to check out the other parts of Christmas Land. The next one we went to were the metro station plaza, it's there right when you get out of the handicap accessible exit 3. There are some kids play areas here so I wish we would have gone here first.


Then there's the stations to take pictures with Poli near exit 1 of the MRT. It's just a bit to the west of station plaza.




By now it was 14:00 and my kids were tired and hungry so we didn't check out the rest of the festivities. However, if you go later in the afternoon at 17:30 the light shows will start but I'm not sure if we'll head back as my kids were not too impressed.

Update: we did head back for the light shows as the official website's photos of the light shows at night time looks fantastic and here are some of our photos:




So Phil found a way with the stroller through the shopping mall's elevators to get up to the government plaza levels. The light shows were very high-tech as you can see especially with the giant Christmas tree. There were cute cartoons played on the big screens but it was way too long for our kids' attention spans. Overall we thought it was a good experience for the kids at night and for those who are missing Christmas at home.







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