Day 279: Taipei City Hall

We were overdue for haircuts so beauty day in Taipei was the plan. Mary located Eddies Hair Salon who specializes in English; Eddie himself was from Malaysia and lived in London for 20 years before moving to Taiwan with his wife. You could tell he lived in the 90s London with spiky black hair, band t-shirt, rolled up trousers, and really cool red sneakers. It was super punk. Kieran found a random walk in place and scraped by with pictures lol

We met up at the Taipei 101 building for original Din Tai Fung Michelin Star Soup Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao)!! They were so amazing that Mary teared up reflecting on Gap Year and how lucky we were to be eating actual soup dumplings in Taiwan and not Philly, San Diego, or St. Louis (similar to sushi in Japan).

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Lungshan Temple. The temple was built in Taipei in 1738 by settlers, and was accidentally bombed by the US in WWII….ANYWAY, the temple got rebuilt.

It’s a multi-denominational temple where the following religions can be practiced: Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and folk religions. Everyone is welcome to the temples as long as you don’t get in the way of worshipers, and there were so many worshipers here!

Furthermore, it’s a donation center for the homeless and they congregated outside. So inside you could buy food or bring food as an offering that would be donated to those without shelter. It was a very cathartic and beautiful place; amazingly peaceful in the middle of a city and we loved the colors and wind blowing the lanterns back and forth.

Food:
Xiao Long Bao
Onion Pies
Meat skewers

Spots:
Taipei City Hall
Taipei 101 Building
Lungshan TempleRead more