We tried to see and document as much as possible!
April 15, 2023
We spent the last month in Taipei, Taiwan. Another country (and city) that we really wanted to visit! And it has been awesome! While in Taipei, we made a point to try to see and film as much of the city as possible. This made Alan very happy because he loves to see as much as humanly possible in a city, and we ended up covering as many neighborhoods as we could.
I don’t really feel like typing a super long update again, and we feel like we documented Taipei extra well on video, which you can see below.
Unfortunately, while transferring over to a blog… the highlights lists don’t work quite as well, but it’s what I have written, so I am sticking with it! Here are our highlights from Taipei!
- We made a day trip to Yangmingshan National Park. There, we experienced spring for the first time in YEARS! Got to finally see cherry blossoms (in full bloom!!) and it was just… WOW! We also visited again to see the calla lily festival we found out about and hiked up to Xiaoyoukeng & Mount Qixing! These were volcanically active mountains, so we got to see tons of steam vents and springs. While up there, we also briefly ran into a friend from Japan!
- We stayed next to the Shilin night market and got to try sooooo many good foods! We especially loved the Taiwanese fried chicken, xiaolongbao, tomato beef noodle soup, and sweet potato balls!
- We went over to the Xinyi District to go up Taipei 101! It was cloudy, but it almost made the experience more unique because it felt like we were really up in the sky! In this district, we also hiked the trails near our Airbnb and trekked up Elephant Mountain for views over Taipei!
- We made our way to the hot springs in Beitou, on a super hot day. Still dipped our feet in and had fun dressing up in aboriginal Taiwanese costumes at the cultural center. Also, Beitou is extremely naturally beautiful and located near Yangmingshan, that we just mentioned.
- We got to explore tooooons of temples. Our favorite was one that was covered top to bottom in elaborate hand-carved sculptures. Another favorite was a dragon-themed one we found on a hilltop.
- We visited the Taipei Zoo (which was only $2 and IMPRESSIVE?!)! We spent the entire day there after a storm canceled our later plans… and highlights include seeing a live pangolin and the butterflies which loved Alan, or rather… his sweat. Lol.
- We caught the gondolas up the mountains… they were long and had the most incredible views. Eventually, they ended up at a stop with some cool temples and finally up at some tea plantations where we had some fancy home-grown and processed tea and snacks in a beautiful valley.
- Maybe the most important thing we have ever done… we got to visit the world’s first cat cafe!!!
- We ate our way through the night market in Daan that had ammmmmazing food, including pineapple Hong Kong rolls stuffed with butter and tofu/soy ice cream with the literal best texture ever.
- We discovered Tang Yuang… I think that just may be my new favorite dessert ever.
- We took a day trip to Juifen which is rumored to have inspired the movie Spirited Away! It was rainy, but so beautiful and we got to wander the alleys and try all sorts of snacks!
- We made our way out to another district and a popular tourist neighborhood called Tamsui. It was just such a relaxing day, nothing too exciting.
- We tried stinky tofu on our last night and had the best photoshoot ever. (Spoiler… We did NOT like stinky tofu.)
Anyways, we have some more exciting plans in Taiwan and beyond ahead! Stay tuned!
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