If you're curious about recommendations for a visit to Taipei (from a Taipei novice), and would rather skip the details scroll to my Taipei short list at the bottom.
Taipei is a food lovers paradise. I guess we're considering ourselves food lovers now.
side note: Recently a friend emailed a group of us and addressed us as "fellow gourmands" (she once lived in Taipei for a year, go figure). It was the first time I confronted that fact. Hello, my name is Meagan, I am a food lover.
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| fellow gourmands- taipei is for you! |
We really only sat down for 2 meals out. We filled up on breakfast at our fabulous little boutique/budget hotel each morning and then grazed from snack stand to snack stand every few hours. We averaged a large pearl milk tea every day of the trip since Taipei is the birth place of this delicious drink. I wish I was drinking one now. C'est la vie.
For lunch on Friday we ate at
Din Tai Fung (famous the world-over with restaurants in Seattle(!), and soon Chengdu(!)). If I'm honest I've never quite gotten what the big deal about Chinese dumplings is. I guess to me, they're like mashed potatoes. Sure, they're good, and I want to eat lots of them, but how can I rave about them?
Three words: Din. Tai. Fung.
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| delicious dumplings |
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| mango shaved ice- heaven in your mouth |
I liked everything they served both the traditional dumplings and the unique twists (truffle pork dumplings- yum). Everything was exceptional and well worth the wait. Especially since while waiting, we wandered down a block and R ordered a mango shaved ice. He proclaimed that it was the best thing he ate the whole weekend (which is saying a LOT). It's the perfect treat to cool you off amidst the island humidity.
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| R trailing me at the Shilin night market's underground food court |
We were told by nearly everyone that we must go to the night markets. In four nights we made it to 3 of them which I was pretty proud of. Although similar, they definitely had a different feel to each of them.
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| we did not try the frog eggs |
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| but I did let them put cilantro in my chocolate ice cream and I can see the appeal |
After we settled into our hotel on Thursday night, we started off at one of the largest in the city - ShiLin Night market. We liked this one a lot. Lots of people (and thus ideal peoplewatching), lots of yummy snacks and it has a decent sprall so we could keep strolling and snacking and people watching. We took a couple laps around the underground food court which had every type of fare in one spot instead of interspersed between t-shirt stands like the rest of the market. R dared to try the oyster omelet and enjoyed it. A double scoop of chocolate ice cream with ground peanuts and cilantro in a tortilla warp pleasantly surprised me and proved very refreshing in the heat. Pretty much as our eyes landed on something we liked the looks of, we tried it. Each snack was under a dollar and there was no way we spent more than $15/meal.
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red bean or banana filled pancakes
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| not sure we ate any of this but it looked interesting! |
The next night we went over towards the universities and explored their night markets. A younger crowd but much of the same. Kitchy souvenir shops, all sorts of food stands lining the streets. Kind of a hipster paradise (we are not hipsters but can appreciate the aesthetic).
Our last night in town, R indulged me because we were both kind of over night markets at that point, but the guide book said "snake alley" awaited! Now I never imagined I'd live the type of life that would have me seeking out a place called "snake alley" in Taipei. Who am I, seriously? Still I couldn't resist.
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| one of only a handful of snakes on snake alley- a bit overrated |
The HuaXi night market was rumored to have lived snake shows and more good food. Unfortunately this was one of our biggest let downs during the trip. Upon arriving our cabbie told us this area "used to be" the red light district but had been turned around. Maybe this tainted our experience of it but something just didn't feel right. People seemed a bit rougher. We turned down a parallel alley and I hesitated to ask R about what types of establishments he thought we were passing (he reads traditional characters much better than I do).
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| foot massages on snake alley |
Still we found some good food (no snakes for us), marveled at the pythons on display and got foot massages. For Asia, the foot massages were nothing special but after days of pounding the pavement, we were due. Next time we will skip Huaxi Night Market (Snake Alley) and advise others to do the same.
In retrospect it would have made sense to do the Shilin night market right after the National Palace Museum (which is a bit north of the city but accessible by bus from the ShiLin MTR station). We relied on the Taiwan Rough Guide for the trip and while it helped out some, it definitely had parts that I wished were different. If I were to write a guide book, I would organize it geographically instead of topically but I'm not writing guide books.
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| National Palace Museum- Taipei |
The National Palace Museum was a must-see for us. Basically when the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan in 1948 they took LOTS (over 650,000 pieces-most in storage) of amazing national treasures that were originally part of emperors' collections from the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace across the Taiwan Strait. Fifteen years later they realized the Taiwan thing was probably a longterm situation, and they unpacked the crates and built what is now known as the National Palace Museum to display some of the most beautiful Chinese relics gleaned from thousands of years of history.
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| technically you're not supposed to take pictures... |
We set aside a whole day to see the museum and while what was on display was amazing, we didn't end up needing the whole day. Maybe if we were Chinese art connoisseurs or anthropology scholars or if we had listened to the audio tour (I just have a hard time with those and would rather read the signs) it would have taken the whole day. If we were to do it over again I would try to go to the museum in the mid afternoon and wind up at the ShiLin night market afterwards. I'd also go on any day except Monday because the Song gardens aren't open at the museum that day. We do recommend the 4th floor restaurant as an escape from the throngs of tour groups, and there will be throngs.
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| Forgive the terrible iPhone photography, please. |
For weeks we'd been looking forward to seeing a movie in Taipei. In China, it's sometimes hard to find English movies that haven't been dubbed over in mandarin or edited by the government so a real American movie is a treat. After enjoying the last Star Trek so much (R may have seen it 3 times in the theater in China) we were glad to the sequel. Plus it was a good activity to rest R's knee after so much walking.
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| Taipei 101 |
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| so tall! |
We chose a theater near the Taipei 101 building which when built in 2003 was the tallest building in the world. We chose not to go up to the top of it, but I don't think the price was outrageous to do so. As it turned out, Sunday we attended church on the 56th floor so we got a pretty decent view anyways. It's a gorgeous building and worth standing nearby and gawking at for a little while. It's also in the financial district of Taipei so you see a different side of the city.
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In front of the gate to the CKS memorial- gorgeous
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Speaking of gawking at buildings, if you go to see one sight in Taipei- go see the Chiang Kai Shek memorial. It is gorgeous. Because it was built in the 1980s it's in amazing condition and many say it is the best example of classical Chinese architecture. It reminded us some of the Lincoln memorial in DC.
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| CKS memorial |
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| the CKS gate flanked by the national theater and national concert hall |
We made it up to the top of the memorial just a few minutes before the changing of the guard which is pretty cool to watch. Lots of real bayonet twirling.
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| CKS and guard |
I was actually so impressed with the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial that when we saw the signs on the subway for the Sun Yat Sen Memorial, I insisted we stop and we were subsequently disappointed.
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| lanterns at the qingshui temple |
I think that's most of the highlights of our incredible weekend. We did stop by the QingShui temple and shuffled around in the Wanhua "old city" district some but mostly just enjoyed getting a feel for Taipei there. Taipei has it's share of temples, but the last few years in Asia has lowered my temple-tolerance. So we didn't try to see the rest of them.
Would encourage anyone with the ways and means to make a trip to lovely Taiwan. Since there are direct flights from Shenyang we hope we'll have a chance to visit again!
Taipei Short List: |
| grilled chicken and Taiwan beer |
EAT:
SEE:
- Chiang Kai Shek memorial- beautiful beautiful beautiful classical Chinese architecture. Stunning & grand buildings. Changing of the guard on the hour is fun to watch too. http://www.cksmh.gov.tw/eng/index.php
- National Palace Museum- incredible collection of pottery, bronzes and everything else that used to reside in the Forbidden City. Just prepare yourself for the tour groups http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/
- Maokong tea plantations (we did NOT get to go but plan to next time) http://tcgwww.taipei.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=122034
- Taipei 101- great views from the top (though we gawked from about half way up where church was being held). Plan to see a movie at vieshows theater (http://www.vscinemas.com.tw/) while you're in the neighborhood.
Great Taiwan tourism website:
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/
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