Taiwan Trip 2016 – Taipei

Ahh, it’s been a long hiatus again, sometimes I just wish I’m still studying full-time with a lot more free time to create entries. Nowadays I’m struggling to just get enough sleep week by week. The perils of growing old, lol.

Anyway, this shall be the last part of my 2016 Taiwan trip, I probably will have a post on some of the things I bought that I think is nice.

Anyway, the city of Taipei is pretty easy to navigate with its robust metro system. Here’s a metro map with places of interest at the station. For a more comprehensive map you can also grab a free copy upon your arrival in Taiwan.

My usual go-to places in taipei:

• Houshanpi: Wu-fen Pu wholesale market & Raohe Night Market
• Jiantan: Shihlin Night Market
• Danshui: Old street at north of Taipei, kind of like a big park
• Ximen: My choice of stay! Love Ximen cause I can always grab some supper snacks back to my room to munch on ;p

I’ve also been to:

• Xinbeitou: Hotsprings
• Xindian: A smaller park near south of Taipei
• Guting: Shida Night Market
• Taipei Main Station: Shopping at the underground station
• Danshui: From here I can also take a bus to Yang Ming Shan (mountain), but I remembered walking for what seemed like ages and still didn’t reach the top before I gave up and went to Xinbeitou for some hotspring instead lol.

As you can see, I’m more of a shopping, laid-back traveler. I actually don’t mind staying in hostels if I’m traveling alone (though I would prefer those capsule type that I can draw up a curtain or close the door to have my own space). To save cost when I travel with my other half, I’ll go for Airbnb (inspite of his complains because hotel > Airbnb LOL).

My favourite location to stay is at Ximen for reasons as above, though I guess it’s not bad to as long as I can stay nearby night markets as well (because supper!). If you’re not picky it’s very possible to find an okay listing around SGD 50 (USD 35) in Ximen.

For this trip we actually went to a couple of new places:

I read that this place is where people visit for fresh seafood. It’s easier to walk from the station, but do prepare an umbrella in case it rains as there’s no shelter along the way. This place is also located within a wet market and I was a little disappointed as there’s nothing to see nearby. The seafood is fresh and recommended to go there with more friends, I had a hard time trying but failed to finish the box of thick sashimi that my other half absolutely hated. lol. there’s also cooked food in its premises that we didn’t try as I was too full from the sashimi.

Another place we went was a cat cafe. It’s the oldest cat cafe in Taipei but it’s actually a very normal restaurant with not many patrons when we went. And most of the kitties were napping hence not very keen in playing. Nevertheless they were very cute!

Well, most of our Taipei itinerary was very very laidback. So to end off I’ll just post some of the night market scenes:

Pepper Buns – yum yum!

Omelette in many ways, Ah Zhone meesua, plum fried sweet potatos are my favourite! 

Apparently these 2 beef noodle shops are highly raved, but we didn’t get a chance to try them. So if you are in the area do try it out!