Our stopover in Taiwan was mostly due to viewing "The Layover: Taipei", Anthony Bourdain's spinoff show on the travel channel. I had also had some ESOL teaching offers from here a whole back, and when booking flights I figured it would be worth a visit. It was only a few weeks before arriving that I realized we had booked for 10 days, when I had it in my mind that we had booked 5 for the longest time... I wondered what we would do in this "off the backpacker trail" destination for that amount of time..
This was another "must do" in Taipei.. Din Tao Fung.. It's a Michelin star restaurant, but is also a chain. It's amazing. They have these "soup dumplings" which are made with pork or shrimp. The chefs put soup concentrate into the dumpling with the meat, so that when it is steamed the solid turns to liquid and when you bite into it, it basically creates a dumpling explosion in your mouth. They were pretty good, I must say.
I began researching Taiwan and soon learned that outside the bustling capital, there at surf breaks, hot springs, mountains, hiking trails, and many other places we would be interested in visiting. When we flew into Taipei, I soon realized that Taiwan is beautiful, friendly, and awesome.
We arrived to one of the nicest immigration officers I've ever come in contact with, and then hopped on a bus to the city that dropped us right near our hostel. We were exhausted from our travel from HCMC via Shanghai, so our first order of business was to make our way to our room for a power nap. I definitey needed it!
I had read that English was not widely spoken in Taiwan, but we found quite the opposite. One barrier we did recognize after a few hours in the country, however, was that most of the signs were in Mandarin. And the menus. And pretty much everything else. Definitely a barrier that we were not prepared to overcome! I hadn't even thought about Chinese symbols and how different it would be.. Even though we have seen so many different languages so far, there was something exotic about all the Chinese symbols everywhere.
Our first food experience in a local restaurant was interesting. You walk in, take a picture menu and a little piece of paper where you write your order. It's all in Chinese, so we had to match up the symbols on the menu with the symbols on the little piece of paper and hope that you got it right when your food arrives. This was a matchup game we often played during our stay in Taiwan. I was just thankful they had pictures and sometimes broken English words describing the dish, because while there were some yummy foods in Taiwan, there are also some dishes that those with a wide palate would enjoy... Things like tripe or other kinds of "awful" that I'm not so sure I would enjoy.
We spent our first 3 nights in Taipei, in the Ximending district.. This area is a wonderland of cheap accessories, clothes, phone cases, and shopping. It's almost like walking around with perpetual ADHD because the streets are filled with pumping cheesy asian techno, bright lights, and goods all over the place. It's pedestrianized, which is a good thing, because it would be quite easy to be looking at one side of the street and walk straight into a car or something... It is sensory overload in this shopping district. We spent our days walking around and seeing all the cool parks and monuments dotted around the city. Even though taipei is huge and has it's share of skyscrapers and concrete, it is surrounded by lush green trees and mountains. It makes you feel like you aren't in a big city.
After our southeast asian tour, we were pretty burned out on travel. We decided that while we were in Taiwan, we would just relax and stay put in one place for at least a week. We found a bookstore in Taipei called Eslite, and it's basically Barnes and Noble on steroids... 6 floors of books, stationery, reading accessories, electronics, food, and even housewares all in one place! It's even open until 2am! We figured since we had a week of relaxing, we would buy the Hunger Games trilogy because it was on sale and we could read all the books during our stay in Taiwan.
The train system in Taiwan in amazing. Pretty much the whole country is connected by trains, and what's not is connected by buses. I found a surf hostel just an hour away by train in a beachside town called Wai Ao, and booked for 6 nights to stay in the Yilan county area.. This way we would get away from the city but not too far away, stay in one place, and we could rent surf gear and get in the ocean! Yilan is right outside Taipei, and has a few small towns with stops on the railway line where you can hike, shop, or visit hot springs. It also only costed us $11 total to get there via the train!
We stayed at this place that was basically a surf shop on the side of the road with a few mattresses (luckily they were very comfortable) upstairs. Our first 2 nights we had other guests there, and met a couple, Marie Claude (another "MC") and John. The other MC was a teacher in an English school in Taipei and after a few years of experience began running the school! She couldn't even find a job in Quebec and now she's running a school! We had some good talks about teaching, the education system, and teaching in Taiwan. They were only staying for the weekend, and after they left to head back to the city we had the whole hostel to ourselves.
Our first night in the hostel, we were introduced to genuine Taiwanese hospitality. It didn't take us long to realize there is basically nothing in wai ao but a few surf shops, bed and breakfasts, and a coffee shop. I thought we were going to starve. Johnny, the owner of the surf hostel, asked if we wantd a ride to the next town with his friend to have some dinner.. After seeing the absence of food or places to buy food or anything besides surf gear, we were keen to take his invitation.
We drove to the next town Toucheng, which was 5 minutes down the road. We went to this restaurant that served Taiwanese style noodle soups and sushi. Taiwan is a melting pot of Chinese and Japanese culture, so their food is influenced by both.. Taiwanese sushi is pretty amazing. Our friend (his name now escapes me, which makes me feel awful) spoke perfect English and helped us order some typical Taiwanese dishes to try. We had a feast of kimchi, noodle soup, and different kinds of sushi, and enjoyed talking with our new friend about what life is like in Taiwan. When it was time to pay and head back to the hostel, we were surprised when he told us that our bill was taken care of.. After knowing this guy for literally 5 minutes, he paid for our meal! Granted, he put it on his business account, but still! We were blown away at the kindness of this guy.. This type of genuine kindness was a trait of the Taiwanese people that we encountered time and time again during our stay. We bought him dessert, he dropped us back to the hostel and then he made his way back to Taipei. What a great guy.
We spent our time in Wai Ao catching up on sleep, frequenting the coffee shop, surfing, running along the seaside, doing yoga, and getting ourselves back to center. We also caught the train to surrounding cities, where we ate (since there was no food I wai ao) and found some cool hiking trails to explore. The coast and mountains in this area is so beautiful, even with the cloudy/rainy/misty weather that hovered over us for most of our stay. We also headed up to Yilan town, and Jioaxi, which are both known for their hot springs.. We didn't end up hopping in one, because you had to book a room in a hotel in most places to enjoy them. There was, however, many little hot spring areas scattered around the city where you can dip your feet in for free. :)
After our extended stay in a place where theres not much going on, we were happy to get back to a little more excitement in Taipei. We really enjoyed being surrounded by beautiful nature and having not much to do... but there was a lot of things we wanted to see in the capital. We booked at the same hotel we stayed at before, but ventured more outside of the Ximen area to see other parts of the city. Taipei is extremely easy to get around and well connected by the metro system, so you can see a lot in one day. We only had 3 days left in Taiwan, so we wanted to make sure to hit up a big night market and see the "must do" sites to get the full on Taiwanese experience.
OUr first day back in the city, the weather was really rainy so we decided to visit the movies! This was the 3rd movie we have seen abroad. There's something about going to the cinema that makes you forget you are in a foreign country.... Except for the chinese subtitles that were on the bottom of the screen. There were only 4 movies playing, so we picked 'Noah", which was probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The one cool thing about the movie was that it was filmed in beautiful Iceland and we saw places we have been to while we were there! That and the crazy lady who kept applauding and cheering during the film. She sure loved that movie... We however, thought it was laughable. If you haven't seen it, it's basically depicting Noah as a crazy lunatic who has weird dreams and because of that he wants to kill his family. He is also protected by rock people. That's what I got out of it, at least.
The great thing about Taipei is you can walk a few hundred yards from one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world and find yourself on a hiking trail up a mountain with great vistas. This mountain is known as "Elephant Mountain", and is just outside the main financial district of Taipei. Paul and I made the trek up hundreds of steps to the top and were able to see Taipei from above. I just loved how there is green everywhere here.. It makes you feel like you aren't in a big bustling city.
We also planned to do a Gondala ride over the Taipei zoo, but after we finally made it there in the afternoon, the line was way too long and it would have been dark by the time we boarded a compartment. :( We were both really bummed! If I had known before, I would have booked in advance, but I was not aware you could do that. I think it was a special free day for kids too, as it was a holiday weekend, so needless to say it was packed full of people.
When we were in SE Asia, we went to many night markets where we could get a full tummy on a small budget. The Shillin night market, although not Taiwan's largest market, was bigger and crazier than any other one we have been to yet. We arrived via the metro, and as soon as we got into the market we were squeezed together like sardines as we tried to manuever through the crowd. There wer vendors selling clothes, goods, and of course, food. THere is an underground food court where there is stall after stall of food vendors, that shout out to you as you walk by... It is loud, crazy, but pretty tasty. I didn't try the stinky tofu, because it smelled like sewage..... But I did try steamed buns and fried seaweed. Paul opted for some pork pie thing.... We finished it all off with the Taiwanese delicacy, mango shaved ice. It was all really good, but afterward I felt so full I thought I was going to pop. One thing I've learned from speaking to locals is that they love to eat....a lot. I don't think I could hang with them.. haha! With our bellies stuffed and senses overloaded, we made our way back to our room to recover. Night markets are exhausting!
Taipei has lots of bike paths, parks, and really neat chinese influened architecture dotted around the city. It's a really cool city that reminded me somewhat of Bangkok, but with a much more laid back attitude. Taiwanese people in general seemed really friendly and relaxed, which made it a place that was easy to visit.. It must be because they are all "island people". It also has one of the lowest crime rates, so you can walk around the streets at night and not feel scared or on your guard that someone is going to try and rip you off. I was really impressed with Taipei and the other places we visited... It definitely makes for a culture shock!
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| Panda Train! |
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| Taipei 101, from outside Eslite Bookstore |
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