Taipei

Throughout Japan and South Korea (and on social media) there is an enormous advertising campaign to promote Taiwan as a holiday destination—the Taiwanese government are keen to make as many international friends as possible, in case of a threatened Chinese invasion. It's not as famous for tourism as many of its regional neighbours, but many people we've met this year have raved about it, so we were excited to finally see the island for ourselves.

We knew it was going to be a hit immediately, when there was a big slide right outside the train station exit 🤡

Since Hong Kong was a bit of a disappointment, we were keen to get moving quickly and make the most of our trip here. It's still extremely hot and humid (all the travel blogs say to avoid coming in August!), but we compiled a long list of Taipei attractions and got moving immediately. These included:
• Da'an Forest Park
• Shida student neighborhood
• Nanmen indoor market
• Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
• Jianguo flower and jade markets
• 1914 Huashan Culture Park
• food tour at Monga Night Market
• National Palace Museum
• Dalongdong Bao'an Temple
• Taipei Confucius Temple
• Ningxia Night Market

😳 A lot crammed into 2 full days!

Some first impressions of the city: it's clean and efficient, with great public transport and signage, and an excellent network of dedicated bike lanes. Chelsea is extremely impressed with how much greenery there is on the streets, which helps to cool down the temperature and is also just aesthetically pleasing. The food is more oily and less spicy than other places in Asia, but the variety of street food is great and there are night markets everywhere.

We've been really impressed with the temples here, and the historic art and sculpture we saw at the Palace Museum was perhaps the most incredible we've seen anywhere in Asia (which is a very high bar).

Our hotel, despite being vehement about their non-smoking policy, smells very strongly of old cigarettes 😅 but it's a small price to pay for great location and cheap laundry.

We're now off on a whistlestop tour around the island for a week, and then will be back in Taipei later. We'll give our final report on the city and the country then!Baca lagi