Second Day in Taiwan: Maokong Mountain and Taipei

Taiwan Trip Day Two

After waking up rather early, we headed out to search for breakfast before making our way to the Maokong Mountain. We found this little stall selling pan-fried buns right around the corner from our hostel and decided to try a few. The guy did not speak a word of english... and so we just picked a few with different fillings hoping they would be delicious...

We ended up with ones with black sesame and vegetable filling! They were both really delicious and different from the ones we had last night! There seems to be quite a lot of street vendors selling these around Taipei, so next time you see one make sure to try out the black sesame one (it's marked with a black sesame on top of the bun) as they are small enough to be a guilt-free afternoon snack!

We woke up extra early as I had though that the MRT ride to the bottom of Maokong Mountain would take quite a while!!! But the whole journey lasted only 30 minutes or so, and we soon landed on the bottom of the mountain where we walked just a little to the Cable Car station or 'gondola' station as they would call it.

There are two types of cable cars, one was the 'special' one with the glass floor and the other one being just a normal cable car. The line for the 'special' cable car is usually much longer but as we went in the morning it was short enough for us to bear the extra wait... :)

The view is rather scenic, with the city of Taipei clearly visible from the cablecar as well as the endless tea fields scattered over the mountains.

When we reached the top, we got to walk around the 'village' which consisted of many tea houses, restaurants and homes of the residents. It wasn't overly touristy or crowded and it turned out to be a very enjoyable stroll in a breezy spring morning.

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Although the place had more than enough restaraunts and tea-houses to choose from, the food was rather expensive and over-priced! Plus my friend wasn't a big tea-person unlike me so we decided to ditch the tourists and join the other local families and students by eating street-style food at a shabby canteen by the cable-cars!

I got to have my favorite food though!! :) I love sweet corns!!! And this one that I got from the old-lady on the street was so fresh, juicy and sweet that it totally made up for the bizarre lunch I got next...

Even after eating this.. I was still not sure as to what it was that I had ate.. I thought it was liver and tofu.. but it was DEFINITELY not liver. It was most likely blood-jelly.... even with my high-tolerance and appreciation of strange food and organs, this was a tad too much and stranger to enjoy.

My friend was a little more succesful than I was by going with a much more safer and generic choice of Fried Chicken... Needless to say I mooched off his lunch.... :(

Afternoon: Longshan Temple

After finishing our morning + lunch up in the mountains we came back down to the city to go visit the Longshan Temple ALthough the temple is far from 'breathtaking' or spectacular (I've been to way too many temples living in Asia), it was definitely worth the quick-visit.. I had more fun staring at the people praying, and the beautiful ornaments and carvings statues scattered around the temple.

     

Night: Endless (and I do mean endless) eating at Street Markets
We firstly visited the one closes to the Longshan Temple, which was the Tonghua Night Market. We were warned beforehand that this market is infamous for selling 'exotic meat, but that did not prepare for the strangest food being sold there... Ranging from 2m snakes to alligators to unknown creatures.. this market seemed to have it all... We ended up getting watermelon juice from one of the stalls whilst watching snake being sold in the shop opposite us. 

But near the entrance of the night-market there are many generic stalls selling 'normal' street food as well as cheap clothes and t-shirts as well! 

We then headed to Shilin Night Market where I met up with my friend studying in Taipei to try out some of the renowned street food that Taipei is famous for... :)

Chicken Kebab in a Bun? YES it was delicious. 

Random dried squid(?)- Check :)

Quail Egg Skewer? - MY FAVORITE! 

Fried Milk on a Stick? Best Dessert :) 

Instestine Noodles! THey were suprisingly 'ordinary' tasting! Plus now I get to say I've had intestine noodles hehe :) 

'Gold Medal Taiwan Beer'

We ended the night on a slightly 'healthier' note by trying out guava in a bag sprinkled with brown sugar! I've only ever had guava juice, and although they had a slight twang that I was unfamiliar with, it was a definite 'refresher' after all the heavy eating we did throughout the night! :)

First Day in Taiwan: Taipei

Taiwan Trip: Day One

As it is my last semester and being still clueless in figuring out where I will end up, I was determined more than ever to make the most of the luxury of being a student. So, when my industrial training had finished I scrambled to organize a trip at the last minute! After a mess of a planning from switching from Cambodia to Vietnam to Japan to Myanmar (they are ALL going on my to travel list!), we finally settled on Taipei two days before the actual departure i! Even my to be companion had switched from my two Korean friends to a last minute Danish one, but in the end I was up in the air on my way to Taipei.

The cheapest option for flight was Eva Air at 1750 HKD round trip!

It was one of the most pleasant flight I have recently taken with reasonable food and very attentive and polite stewardess! I'll always remember to check out the Airline when i'm flying other places in Asia too :) 

The flight itself was roughly 2 hours, and soon after we arrived at the Taoyuan Airport in Taiwan.

The aiport itself is roughly 1 hour away from Taipei by bus and costs around 140 TWD (taiwanese dollar) and the tickets can be purchased at the airport itself!

We also got 5-day unlimited dataplan for only 300 TWD which helped us out greatly with navigating around town and especially with figuring out what to do as neither of us spoke chinese!

Oh and look at these fancy Taiwanese Dollars :)

After arriving at the Main Station (in the city centre) by Bus, we headed down to the MRT where we found our first street food! It looked like pancakes of some sorts, and for some reason it got better and better as we ate it! 

We finally figured out the MRT (which is pretty cheap at around 20 NTD - 0.7USD per ride within center) and arrived at our Hostel: TaipeiTaipei!

I strongly recommend the hostel to anyone travelling to Taipei! Great location in my opinion, as it is quite close to main attractions without it actually being in the DEAD center of the night-market (which is way too crowded and loud)

The neighbourhood around the hostel was really peaceful as you can see in the photo below, and after dumping our bags we walked (only 10min) to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall

I can imagine this place literally bursting with crowds, but when we went it was pretty much deserted an it was nice to see the sunset and take many silly photos whilst the chinese around us laughed at us... :)

We went into the memorial hall as well and although i was most impressed with Chiang's towncars.... the place was actually a lot more interesting and informative than I had guessed it would be! Plus it was also free and you could see lots of interesting uniforms and photos!

After the sunset, we headed towards the Taipei 101 and encountered many other interesting buildings during our walk... :) However we decided NOT to go up to the top of Taipei 101, for numerous reasons including the overflow of chinese tourists clogging up the queue and it was rather expensive....So instead we pretended we did by taking the silly photos as shown above.... ha.

Dinner: Din Tai Fung
Due to its popularity all over Asia, I've seen this eponymous shop literally everywhere from Singapore, Hong Kong to even Korea. However, I've never actually been to this famous establishment until I got the chance to visit it in its original 'home-town' Taipei.

I had expected the prices to be rather high due to its popularity and fame, but it was surprisingly cheap! It's not like street-food cheap but we paid around 100HKD each for quite a number of dishes! (Although we did not get the expensive 'chinese-dinner dishes' so that might be it)

Don't get scared by the queue, it shrunk really quickly as the place (well at least the Taipei 101 branch) was HUGE! But I would think if you come as a big group there might be a slightly longer waiting time but it's definitely worth it! While you wait, you can go try out the samples of the famous Taiwan Desserts being given out in the shops near-by.. they're too good to refuse to make sure you leave enough room for dinner :) 

The most famous dish is of course the Xiao Long Bao, and although the ones I've had in Shanghai are slightly better, these were still delightfully succulent and juicy. AND in case you're clueless as to how to eat these mini-bombs that can literally explode either inside your mouth or all over your shirt, they had a cute instruction sheet showing you how to eat it! 

We also ordered couple of other dishes randomly such as the noodle shown below, and potstickers and then some desserts.

I have to say that my FAVORITE dish of the night was not the xiao long bao but these amazing black sesame buns and black sesame xiao long bao. They are amazing. Seriously... if they had these in Hong Kong I would be eating these all day and every day until my teeth becomes stained black.

I mean look how happy I am!!! 

Night Market at Ximen
After stuffing ourselves to the maximum with buns, dumplings and little bit of noodles we waddled our slightly heavier selves to Ximen to take a look at the night-market at 'downtown' Taipei.

In addition to the street shops, the place was bursting with endless shops, restaurants and most of all PEOPLE! I loved the contrast between the huge imposing neon-signs of the shops with the little carts selling fruits, skewers and keychains! This place was such a bizarre mix of time-periods, crowds and interests around every corner on every street! 

Afterwards, we were so exhausted and tired from our long day out in town that we quickly headed home and crashed in our beds instantaneously.... ALthough people did say there's not a lot to see and do in Taipei, I had a lot of fun eating my way through Taipei!