11 Days in Taipei

We’ll post more about our experiences in Taipei and thoughts about the city soon. We’re currently having a blast in Tokyo, so a few pictures and videos will have to do. Enjoy! -Eryn

Thursday January 19

Our first day! We caught our 14-hour flight to Taipei. 225 more days to go.

1. Mom, dad, Kat and Thomas all joined us at the airport to say goodbye! Can’t believe we won’t see them for 8 months. Tears may or may not have been shed. | 2. Riley got us roomy seats in the back of the plane. Brilliant! Except for the most aggressive snoring we have ever heard from the man right behind us. Not much sleep was had. | 3. Yummy (or not) airplane dinner. Pork and rice was a theme during our stay in Taipei.

Friday January 20

Our first day exploring Taipei! The theme of the day was jetlag and wandering.

1. We arrived in Taipei at 6 AM. We were a bit tired but so excited to start our amazing adventure! | 2. Eryn just outside of our first AirBnB. There was a nice little park and night market.

| 1. Taipei Main Station, where we got dropped off to take the MRT to our AirBnB. | 2. Riley in front of the Da’an Forest Park. About a 10 min walk from where we were staying.

1. More wandering around the neighborhoods in our area. We very clearly aren’t in California anymore! | 2. Our first lunch was fantastic — tea, noodle soup, beef stir fry, and tofu. Yum!

Saturday January 21

More jet lag and becoming accustomed to the Taipei way of life.

1. Eating noodles at YongKang Beef Noodles. About 10 min after this picture was taken, a rat scurried across the floor. They have now been renamed to “rat noodles.” | 2. Wandering through the Shida Night Market right next to our apartment. It is packed with street food and clothing stores. Tons of fashionable Taiwanese teenagers come to these markets.

1. The view outside of our apartment. | 2. Riley’s attempt at using the Google Translate app to translate the buttons in our apartment. We kinda figured it out?

Sunday January 22

Jet lag had not defeated us! We were feeling better and wanted to get some exercise. What better way to do that than wandering through Taipei to the mountains that surround it!

Mo-peds were abundant in Taipei. Riley was fascinated by the number of drivers that would accumulate at each intersection and speed off as soon as the light changed. (Bonus points: Find which mo-ped rider is flashing the peace sign.)

1. Taipei 101 in the distance and the old neighborhood that leads you to Elephant Mountain. This dichotomy between old and new was a constant throughout our experience in Taipei. | 2. The street where our apartment was.

1. I was SO excited to see a Dominos. American fast food, YES! | 2. The view of Taipei 101 and the surrounding area once we made it to the top of Elephant Mountain.

1. Riley looking for directions. With all of the signs in Chinese and numerous trails to take, we weren’t always quite sure where to go. | 2. My husband is quite handsome — and he loves the outdoors :) | 3. Time for some sunscreen!

1. The view of Taipei 101 from the ground. You can’t even see the top it’s so tall! | 2. Obligatory picture on our way back from the hike.

Monday January 23

A day of stumbling upon grand shrines and hole-in-the-wall food joints.

The view as we walked across the street near the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.

The National Concert Hall to the left and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to the right.

The view of the Memorial Hall Square, with the National Concert Hall to the left and the National Theater to the right.

1. Hi Riley!

Lungshan Temple

Pig brains soup! Frozen Winter Flesh! Google Translate is at it again. Thankfully they had an English menu, which was handed to us as soon as they saw how desperate we looked.

BURGERS AND TEMPLES

We had NO idea what was going on here.

Tuesday January 24

A long, damp and breezy hike to the highest peak in Yangmingshan National Park.

It was a BIT breezy on our hike. Not to mention a brisk 40 degrees out!

Warmer times at the bottom of the trail on the left, colder times at the top of the peak on the right.

1. Luckily we found our way to a small cafe that had hot water. I was freezing and couldn’t warm up for an hour! If you look closely, you can see that my fingers resemble corpse fingers. | 2. We finally completed the hike and were stronger for it!

“Oh it’s cold, my hands!”

Wednesday January 25

A more slow paced day spent in a cafe and eating some amazing Taiwanese food.

1. Yaboo Cafe in the Da’an district was amazing — comfortable, great coffee, and a cute little cat that kept us company! We noticed that there is a huge cafe scene in Taipei. | 2. We had heard that Din Tai Fung was a “must” in Taipei. We lucked out with a 10 min wait. It was well worth it! The Xialongbao (soup dumplings) were incredible! I finally found Taiwanese food I really enjoyed!

Riley tries Xialongbao for the first time, as directed by the waitress and the helpful “how-to” card. “Puncture it…puncture it…puncture it.” He did a much better job than me though!

Thursday January 26

We spent the day at the National Palace Museum (full of Chinese treasures) and the night at the Shilin Night Market (full of street food, fashion, arcade games, and people!)

The Jade Cabbage, basically a cabbage sculpture made out of jade, is highly treasured. There was a rooster themed exhibit, seeing that it is the year of the rooster. Lastly, the ball on the right is made entirely out of ivory. It was incredibly intricate.

The arcade at Shilin night market.

Street food at the night market. Lots of fruits and meats.

The gardens surrounding the National Palace Museum.

1. Riley eating steak wrapped asparagus, which was quite good. | 2. Selfie in front of the National Palace Museum

Friday January 27

We moved to a new AirBnB in the same part of town after 7 nights in our other one on Chinese New Year. We soon found out that almost all of the shops (except for McDonalds and Starbucks) were going to be closed for the next four days. Apparently, people celebrate Chinese New Year similarly to how we celebrate Thanksgiving — with lots of home-cooked feasts and time spent with family. Not the celebrations we were expecting, but an experience nonetheless!

1. The view outside of our new AirBnB. | 2. There were little cartoon cat decals throughout our new apartment. Riley has been saying this phrase often now.

Because nothing was open, we decided to spend the afternoon at a park on the National Taipei University campus. Listening to music, reading, looking at the clouds, and drinking a few beers was the perfect way to spend the day.

We weren’t lying about everything being closed on Chinese New Years. We resorted to a McDonalds feast.

Saturday January 28

Day 2 of everything being closed for Chinese New Year. We were getting desperate and decided to try a local fast food spot. It was terrible.

Sunday January 29

Day 3 of everything being closed for Chinese New Year. We decided to go on another hike to pass the time.

1. This was someone’s house. Riley thought it was a temple and walked right into it — they weren’t too thrilled that we trespassed and shooed us away. | 2. We found the correct trail that didn’t lead us into someone’s house. Go us!

As we were walking up to the trailhead, we heard people blasting music. We quickly realized that they were singing some amazing karaoke for all to hear.

There were a few times that old men stopped us to tell Riley how lucky he was to have a pretty lady like me (cue my blushing). One of them stopped us on our hike and after telling Riley how lucky he is, he suddenly said that he would sing a song for us as he continued hiking. You can hear him in the background scream singing “You Are My Sunshine.” People were very friendly in Taipei!

Monday January 30

We unfortunately didn’t take too many pictures on our last full day in Taipei. A few nights prior, we had overheard some travelers talk about Mukilteo, WA. For anyone that knows of “the Muk”, this was thrilling stuff and we had to talk to them. We introduced ourselves and learned that the couple had been traveling for 5 months out of a year long trip, and were from Tennessee but currently lived in Seattle. What a small world! We decided to grab lunch with them and had an amazing time — the conversation was so easy and it was nice to talk with other english-speaking travelers. As it was our last day, we were only able to meet up with them once. Maybe we will see them in Seattle some time? We hope so!

After some more wandering, we ate dinner at a great burger place called KGB Burgers and spent time at a trendy cafe/bar called Cafe Libero to work on our blog.

We were excited to head to the airport the next day, as we were flying to Tokyo!

1. Enjoying some tasty burgers and fries. I was quite a happy lady. | 2. These little packets of crackers were our life savers. We loved them so much that we wanted to take a picture so that we don’t forget them.