Taiwan: Taipei

   

Taipei, similar to other big Asian cities, yet also quite livable and surrounded by big green hills and mountains. We enjoyed all the things Taipei had to offer, except maybe the loud streets and bright lights shining into our Airbnb windows all night! :)

On our first morning in Taipei we checked out the National Chian Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which is a beautiful area with a temple dedicated to one of the controversial leaders of Taiwan. The National Concert Hall is also located there, and we enjoyed the morning wandering around and admiring the beautiful architecture.

We also hiked (aka climbed a lot of steps) Elephant Mountain for the iconic view of Taipei 101. We spent a few hours at the top, so we were able to see the skyline in daytime, sunset, and night time. Despite a fair number of other people at the top, there were enough places that we could find our own spot for some awesome views.

 

 

We ate a lot of food in Taipei. And I mean a lot. Taiwan is known for its street food and night markets, and its a unique mix of food not seen anywhere else in Asia. We started at Raohe Night Market, which is most famous for it's black beef pepper buns. We got there before the market officially opened and thus only had to wait in a short line for these buns. They were my favorite thing of the whole night. We also enjoyed beef cubes cooked with a torch, candied tomatoes and strawberries, and bbq chicken sticks. By 6:15pm, it was started to get super crowded, so we made our way home for bed. The following night, the girls had McDonalds, and I went to Ningxia Night Market to get food for Nick and I. Even narrower than the Raohe market, and I basically just shuffled along looking for some food. Our favorite thing from this market was the custard filled fried dough balls!

A traditional Taiwanese breakfast had been on my list of things to try. Luckily, we found one just down the road from our Airbnb that had good reviews, and somehow we managed to get there before the crowds started. Although, it wasn't anyone's favorite meal, it was a memorable experience. No one spoke English, and we were left to fill out our order form (in Mandarin) using an English translated menu that didn't have items in the same order as the order form! Ha! In the end, we got mostly what we ordered, and Emmeline was a big fan of the warm soybean milk!

Taipei invented mango shave ice, so of course we had to try this, after a morning of playing in the park. The shave ice was so smooth, like no other we had ever tasted before, combined with ice cream and fruit, we all thoroughly enjoyed it!

We did a few day trips outside of Taipei city. The first was to Juifen and Shifen, which we had read was super touristy but worth it. We should have known better, as that it's not our style to like hoards of tourists, but we went for it anyway. When we lost Cora's pacifier a few hours into the trip, it should have been a clue at how the day would go. Although Juifen was beautiful with lanterns on hilly streets and pretty buildings, it couldn't outweigh the crowds of people and repetitive souvenir shops. After lunch, a bit of walking with a screaming overtired toddler, we decided to head toward Shifen.

Shifen is known for the lanterns that you can decorate and let go from the train tracks. Although this was less busy than Juifen, there was still quite a few people here, but we managed to find an area that was a bit quieter. We had fun decorating all the sides of the lantern; Emmeline even did some nice artwork. After we were done, we let the lantern go into the sky from the train tracks, and ran off when the train was going by. Shifen redeemed the day for us, though I think we wished we had just gone hiking in the national park near Taipei instead. Oh well!

On our final day, we took the cable car (again, cheap!) 30 minutes up into the hills to the village of Maokong where tea is grown. We had a delicious lunch overlooking the city and then wandered the streets admiring the beautiful views until we found the tea education center. Emmeline and I tasted lots of different types of tea. It was a great way to spend our final day before our late night flight back to the US.