Taipei, Taiwan
Coffee and breakfast sandwich in hand, we headed to the train station for a quick 2.5 hour ride to Taipei. I kid you not when I say as soon as we boarded the train, it started moving. We hadn’t even made it to our seats yet. You miss a few trains, planes, and automobiles and I guess start to get really good last minute transportation!
As we walked out into the city of Taipei, we instantly noticed it was about 10° cooler than the southern areas of the country. The weather forecast also predicted rain for our entire stay…so that was uplifting 😒, but we stayed positive.
After we checked into our hostel, we went outside to explore the area around us. We were in a pretty great location just a few blocks from the Taipei Main Station. There were quite a few restaurants, shops, hotels and even a couple Korean beauty stores to help ease my transition! We also stumbled into some adorable little parks with a pond and some unique pieces of architecture mixed right into the city. (Too big to be a statue, too small to be a building? I’m sticking with “pieces of architecture.”) Unfortunately, it wasn’t too long until the rain started but we grabbed our rain jackets and an umbrella and we prevailed!
We headed to the Red House in the Ximending District which was filled with really incredible handmade crafts. Right behind it was a cool LGBTQ bar series of like 10 different outdoor bars and restaurants all linked together that had a really unique vibe. It was kind of like a Catholic picnic with tent after tent, table after table, all with a slightly different but ultimately very similar purpose. We weren’t quite ready for beer and there wasn’t much of a crowd at the time so we continued on and figured we could always come back. All of a sudden, the clouds parted just enough to shine a light down on no other than…a Coldstone Creamery. No, no…it wasn’t a dream. Of course we splurged on some ridiculously priced ice cream! This was a treat I hadn’t had the pleasure of indulging in for 2 years! Okay, I digress. We found a spot on the second floor that had a couple of perfect window seats so we could people watch for a while as a continuous sea of umbrellas passed by.
We made our way closer to the hotel and stopped in at a highly recommended bar, Driftwood. It was local craft beer that was super good! Again, it was still a bit early for a crowd but we got the very beginning of some live music and a small audience right before we left.
And last but certainly not least of the evening, we went around the corner for some Taiwanese Hot Pot! At this point, we’ve already had a few hot pot dinners in other countries, but each one is a little different. And this time we didn’t have anyone to give us step by step instructions. So we did a bit of asking the server, casually looked around to watch other people, and then just went for it. Hot Pots are one of the best parts of Asian cuisine—especially on a cold and rainy night. We threw seafood, vegetables, and meats into the pot to cook, while we drank ORANGE JUICE for dinner. Ha! That was a new one for us. We did not expect our choices to be water, orange juice, or alcohol. The popular choice around us seemed to be OJ, so we did as the locals do and went for it.
Thursday…
we had a big day ahead of us so we started our morning by heading to Taipei 101 to eat and drink at the highest Starbucks in the world (located on the 35th floor). Only come to find out we needed to make a reservation the day before. When we tried to make a reservation for the next day, they were already full so unfortunately, we couldn’t go up. We could have paid big bucks for the actual observatory but the weather was a bit gloomy and rainy so we passed and enjoyed the view from outside.
Our next attempt was brunch at Din Tai Fung, a very famous Chinese restaurant. We ordered a variety of dishes to split but my favorite was the Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings)! It was delicious and the service was impeccable - a definite win in our book. In spite of the rain, we trekked on to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall where we learned a bit about Chiang Kai Shek who was a Chinese politician and served as the president of both China and Taiwan! The outside was cool to look at, but the rain made it a little less appealing and difficult to take pictures.
After getting some pictures we went back to the hotel, napped for a while, and then headed out to Taiwan’s biggest night market, Shilin Night Market. This market was huge and the perfect way to end our day. I tried a kimchi filled bun, Luke tried some Short Arm Octopus Takoyaki - basically, small octopus that is blow torched, with cheese, sauce and seasonings. He loved it! We had a good time at this market but eventually decided to head back to the hostel.
Did I mention the hostel was my pick? Being on a budget, I was looking for something just in a good area with good reviews. It was a bit more hostel-y than ones we usually stay in. There were a few different rooms. And each room had about 20 “closets” in them. Except the closets were individual rooms, aka one bed. You could store stuff underneath the bed, but you had to open the door. The “closets” as I like to refer to them, didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, so if you stood on the bed, you could look over into the person’s space next to you. For 3 rainy days, this was less than ideal. But I also found it hilarious haha.
The next day…
we grabbed breakfast at a famous little cafeteria style restaurant called Fuhang Soy Milk for a typical Taiwanese breakfast. The line wrapped down a set of stairs and around the block but it only took us about 15 minutes to get our food. We ordered their signature thick bread sandwiches - one with egg, one with a donut stick in the middle, and one with both! And if you think that’s a lot, we also each ordered a bowl of warm soy milk to drink and dunk our donuts in. We had plenty to eat that morning and even a little leftover for a mid-afternoon snack! But it was scrumptious!
After breakfast (or really...brunch) we briskly walked through a botanical garden and made our way to Elephant Mountain, a very popular viewpoint destination. We walked up many stairs trying to beat a potential rainstorm. It was raining off and on but we made it to one of the main viewpoints and watched the city lights flicker on in the misty air. After about 5 minutes at the viewpoint it started raining pretty heavily but we waited it out for the sake of the time lapse...and the city lights were still pretty cool.
The rain finally died down and our last night in Taiwan ended by us walking through the Ximending district once more (and in clear weather!) which reminded us a bit of some of our favorite places in Seoul and Tokyo. There were so many shops, restaurants and street vendors, let alone all the people and music playing throughout the streets.
After one week, we had seen some amazing things in Taiwan but were excited and ready for the next and biggest leg of our trip...Vietnam!
