Taipei

Sun 28 April

Upon arrival at Taipei Airport, the first thing we noticed was how busy it was. Lots of people seemed to be arriving from other flights. Before reaching border control, we had to go through meat and veggie screenings to ensure we weren't bringing anything in. We then walked past a dengue fever and illness screening desk. Although I had researched that we didn't need a visa to enter Taiwan, waiting at the border made me nervous that I'd missed something or that we needed to fill in some form in advance. Thankfully, we didn't, and they just gave my passport a pretty cool stamp, and off we went.

After retrieving our bags, we picked up a pay-as-you-go card for transportation and a phone SIM card. We were super surprised by the fast data speeds we were getting.

After taking a beautiful train ride into the city, which carried us high above the lush hills, we decided to grab some food before checking in. James found us a highly-rated but fairly traditional restaurant where we ordered a traditional Taiwanese beef noodle soup. It had the softest beef I'd had in ages and jelly bone marrow as well, which I personally wasn't as big a fan of. Then we checked into our private room at the hostel, which was wonderful for the price. Even without a window at £37, it had a private bathroom, towels, shower gel, a tea/coffee kettle, and it was very clean and well-maintained, which is a lot more than I can say for some places we've stayed.

We then spent a wild night doing ALL our laundry and basically washing everything because it all now had a whiff of the Hong Kong dungeon on it. Like an answer to my prayers, the hostel had washing machines and dryers. I forgot how long dryers take though, even at low heat, and even though we started at 7 pm, it didn't finish until 10 pm. I was so tired I fell straight to sleep.

DAY 2

I awoke with a headache and didn't sleep as well as I thought I would, considering how tired I was, but I took a painkiller and it went away. Our free breakfast was the strangest medley of things I've ever seen on offer. I think it was all more traditional Taiwanese breakfast stuff, but it was all savory, such as chili chicken pasta in a white sauce, veg and sausage in gravy, what I thought were hash browns but were actually a creamy cron thing, and more. It was all pretty delicious though, and I tried everything. James was boring and just ate the toast and jam, boo. The tea here is super milky and sweet too, so I'm in paradise.

We then headed off to a free walking tour of the old city. It was a pretty big group of mostly 27- to 40-somethings who all seemed neat and were traveling around East Asia. As we were listening to the guide, something tickled my foot. I looked down thinking it might be a fly or something, but to my horror, it was a centipede! I flipped, shaking my foot and jumping around and throwing off my sandal too. It went off pretty quickly, but I got the fear of it now and had to put James between myself and it. Of all the people's feet it could have crawled on, it had to be mine, who has the biggest fear of them, FFS.

The rest of the tour was lovely. The guide was really good at simplifying the complicated past of Taiwan's many invaders and people, and I definitely came away knowing so much more than I did upon arrival.

It was about 33°C out, and even in the shade, quite hot. In the middle of the tour, we stopped at a local stall and had a mixed fruit water drink that also comprised of a jelly, which was delicious! After that, James and I lost our concentration a bit, but we did chat to a guy from the UK who grew up in Catford (where we live) and now lives in Singapore. We ended the tour in the younger neighborhood, where the LGBTQ community also gathers. We then headed to a nearby cafe and got some lunch, and as we were tucking in, what seemed like a practice procession of floats went by banging drums and in a dragon costume.

After our lunch break, we headed to Monument Square, before going back for a nap in our room. After crossing the roads, which take five minutes because they're so big, and picking a bus to take (they only come every 20 mins), we arrived at the square and were immediately struck by how HUGE the buildings were. We walked around admiring them for ages, craning our necks to see the beautiful decoration of the roof and sat on the steps of the National Opera to admire the whole scene while nibbling on some traditional biscuits we picked up on the way. We then headed to the furthest monument of Chiang Kai-shek, sitting on a chair, very similar to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The scale of everything was pretty stunning. We read the style had been brought over by Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 when he came over from China. After wandering around the building, we headed back to our room where I napped for two hours.

At 7 pm, we headed out to Shilin Night Market to get dinner. The area is famous for its many food stalls and night shopping, and it did not disappoint. We got out roughly £35 cash but only spent half of it and managed to eat about six different things plus a drink. We started with a Taiwanese sausage in a rice wrap, which set us up with unique flavors for dinner. We then had fried crab leg, which was delicious. I didn't realize the texture of crab meat was so soft. We then had the longest, straightest potato chips (aka French fries) ever, with mayo and seaweed, so crispy and delicious. I got a very tasty cranberry drink. Then we had a bun with pork filling, which was so good, but the bun was more bready than I was expecting. We then moved on to dessert, starting with an ice cream sandwich and then shaved snow (frozen condensed cream) with fresh mango on it. It was huge and a real showstopper. It was a delicious evening, and as we left, we were discussing coming back to try all the other things we missed. Overall, a fantastic first day in Taiwan, which is making us fall in love with this country a lot.Read more

Arrive into Taoyuan airport to a massive queue at immigration. But thankfully the processing was quick with no verbal communication, only hand gestures.
Tried our luck at the lucky draw but no game fish.
Took the express MRT service to Taipei Main Station, then 400m walk to Rich & Free Hotel. Affordable and clean hotel, with decent people at reception. Free small packet snacks also.
Went to Liu Shandong Beef noodle, ordered clear beef soup and braised beef soup. Nice and can taste the difference between the two. Also had salty vege to put into soup. Had boiled peanuts (yum) and pickled Cabbage also (weirddd). Had peach black tea with yakult afterwards, very nice.
Then walked to Bopiliao Historical Block to explore a bit of the history of Taipei, the people and the architecture of the buildings. We passed by yongfu ice cream accidentally on the way, so had longan, limei and taro ice cream. So so la. Longan was probably the nicest.
Then went to Bangka Longshan temple, one of the biggest and most famous temples in Taipei City. There were pillars with small Buddha icons and names of peoples ancestors on them. So many!! And saw people trying to discern the will of the gods with the red moon blocks.
Went to Guangzhou and Wuzhou Street night market after. Had:
Taro balls
Stinky tofu(!)
Aiyu jelly drink
Oyster omelet (disappointing)
Bought some cut fruits
On the way back stopped by at Carrefour to buy a bunch of local beers for the week
At the night market saw some uncles playing tetris on the sidewalk on Arcade machines. Very cool la! And old uncle got young auntie girlfriend.Read more