The only reason I decided to go Taiwan was because it was free of Zika. My friends with an infant and my pregnant wife wanted to take a trip to Asia together and for one reason or another, Taiwan logistically made the most sense. Many of our Taiwanese friends have raved about the delicious food, beautiful nature and vibrant culture. Of course being a natural cynic, I dismissed their biased opinions as nationalist non-sense. After all, I’ve been to China, Japan, Korean, Hong Kong, neighboring countries that, in my mind, have better infrastructure, richer history, and better food. I went into Taiwan holding onto these biases, not expecting to be easily won over.

Day 1

We arrived in Taipei after a 12 hour flight from San Francisco and was greeted by our pre-arranged driver near the airport exit. The poor guy had waited for over 2 hours for us to arrive, only to take us on a 30 minute car ride to our hotel in Ximending, the Westgate Hotel. Conveniently, Westgate Hotel is located on the border of the Ximending Night Market so when we headed out in search of dinner, we did not have to walk long before hoards of people and street-side shops appeared all around us.

I followed a trail of people holding bowls of steaming noodle soup to Ay Chung Flour Noodles, a popular street side shop that I immediately recognized as having seen before in a Mark Wiens’ street food video. We lined up in anticipation and after about 10 minutes, were presented with 2 large bowls of brown sludgy broth filled with soggy noodles and floating bits of pig innards. After my first bite, I decided the taste was most similar to overcooked instant noodles in a mildly pungent and fishy broth. However the addition of several spoonfuls of garlic, chili, and vinegar made the noodles more palatable and towards the end, I feel like I was almost enjoying it. I think the main issues were 1) soggy noodles are an acquired taste and 2) the broth was relatively bland without additional condiments and 3) pig intestines are smelly and bland, an unworthy substitute for oysters (which they supposedly used in the past).

As we ventured further into the night market, more and more food stalls appeared all around us. Our next stop was at a meat shop where a welder turned chef cooked up chunks of beef with his trusty blowtorch. Apparently a flamethrower cooks meat quite well and we devoured the deliciously tender morsels of steak in record time.

We continued walking around the night market eating dumplings, onion pies, scallion pancakes, and fried chicken. Most things were acceptable but the overabundance of star anise flavor in several items was slightly off-putting. Our first night in Taiwan came to an end in fairly unmemorable fashion (which I considered a victory for both me and the cleaning lady given the amount of street eats we consumed)

DAY 2

After jet lag ruined my sleep for the night, my wife and I ventured out at 530AM in search of a traditional Taiwanese breakfast at Yong He Soy Milk King (A popular breakfast chain). This brilliant idea suggested by some random travel blogger was a major fail as the shabby looking restaurant didn’t officially open till 6AM and the slackers didn’t have fresh soy milk ready until closer to 645AM. We wandered around the district in the dark and arrived back at the restaurant closer to 620. We ordered scallion omelet, salty soy milk, sweet soy milk, and radish cake. It took 30 minutes to get our food, which tasted thoroughly unimpressive (The sweet soy milk was good though).

Because we are gluttons, we ate breakfast number 2 at the hotel (included in the cost of the room). They served a decent selection of both traditional Taiwanese and western breakfast items.

Our first non-eating activity was a short walk to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, a national monument located in the Zhongzhen District of Taipei. The monument was erected on the eastern end of a large plaza (then named Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Plaza) after Chiang’s death by his party to commemorate his legacy as one of the island’s founding fathers. As Taiwan has become more democratic, people became less enthusiastic about celebrating a defeated general who fled communist China only to establish his own authoritarian regime. As such, the plaza has been renamed from Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Plaza to Liberty Square with ongoing efforts to rename the memorial hall itself.

The massive square reminded me of Tian An Men square in Beijing – not only in magnitude of size but also its symbolic meaning. To me, the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial draws parallels to the portrait of Mao on the Forbidden Palace – both idolize dictators under the guise of “the party” who unified their respective countries (for those who consider Taiwan and China separate countries) but carried out ill-conceived policies detrimental to their citizens.

We were all still full after walking around the memorial but with nothing else to do in the area, we decided to go eat more anyway. Jing Fen Lu Rou fan is a nearby hole in the wall recommended by locals and tourists alike for their Lu Rou Fan (braised pork over rice). A rather simple dish, the fatty pork is braised in soy sauce, rice wine, sugar and spices, and then ladled over a bed of steamed rice. I thought the dish was good but inferior to the shanghainese hong shao rou (red braised pork), which carries far more depth and savoriness.

After lunch, the baby needed to go nap so my friends returned to the hotel while my wife and I took a taxi over to the National Palace Museum. Not one to care about most museums, the National Palace Museum did pique my interest as it houses the largest collection of Chinese cultural relics in the world. These artifacts were owned by the last Qing Emperor and transported to Taiwan for safekeeping during the Chinese Civil War by Chiang Kai-Shek. The Chinese government claims that these items were unlawfully looted and demands their return to the mainland. On the contrary, the Taiwanese maintain that these important cultural relics would not be safe in China pointing to the mass destruction of cultural relics carried out by red guards during the cultural revolution.

The National Palace Museum has such a large collection that it is only able to showcase 1% of its collection at any time. My only knowledge of the relics prior to entering the museum was the oracle bones, which are ancient animal bones and turtle shells with inscriptions that represent the first known Chinese writings. Unfortunately no oracle bones showed up in any of the exhibits, but we did see many impressive ceramics, jadeite carvings, paintings, and calligraphy.

For dinner, we took the subway to the Raohe St Night Market, located in Songshan District. Thousands of tourists walked down one long narrow alley lined by hawker stalls and returned via another alley with even more hawker stalls. There must have been hundreds of stalls selling wild boar sausage (wild boars to be endangered soon?), stinky tofu, flamethrowered beef, grilled seafoods, steamed dumplings, and various other street eats. I caught myself searching for an escape route in the event an unexpected fire before resigning myself to an agonizing death should that occur. For a moment I forgot that I was in Taiwan and not China, until I realized that these people were actually not pushing, shoving, yelling, spitting, and cutting in line (Nor walking around in the infamous Beijing Bikini). We ate several things at this night market, the best of which was a black pepper bun baked in a tandoori oven (Fuzhou Black Pepper Bun).

DAY 3

I was not hungry but wide awake at 3AM, I felt a pressing need to try an authentic Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. Fuhong Beef Noodle Soup, a local 24 hour hole-in-a-wall, seemed to be a favorite for taxi drivers and jet lagged tourists alike. We walked there and within minutes of being seated, were presented with 2 bowls of doughy looking noodles with generous chunks of tender braised beef. The addition of lard and preserved vegetables from the giant communal bowls made the noodles extremely tasty.

Once again feeling the effects of overconsumption after breakfast number 2 at the hotel, we took the metro to Xiangshan for a hike up Elephant Mountain. Elephant Mountain, one of the “Four Beasts of Taipei” (Tiger Mountain, Leopard Mountain, Lion Mountain), consists of several hundred steps leading up to various viewpoints overlooking Taipei. We walked up slowly, moving to the side periodically to allow groups of mostly senior citizens to pass us. A pregnant woman and a guy with a baby strapped to the chest can only move so quickly. At the upper most viewpoint, we had a nice junk food picnic while watching a gentleman channel his inner qi infront of the sprawling city below.

After descending Elephant Mountain, we took the metro down 2 stops to Taipei 10, which at one point in time, was the tallest building in the world. It has since lost that distinction but the tower still might contain the highest ice cream shop in the world. My travel companion sniffed out the shop like a shark smells blood and soon enough, we were chomping on mango and green tea ice cream floats 400 meters above ground.

We basically spent the entire afternoon in Taipei 101 which offers endless shopping and eating. None of us cared for shopping much, but we focused on exercising our pancreases as we consumed multiple snacks from the food court before sitting down to feast at Ding Tai Fung. Personally, I have never eaten at Ding Tai Fung but coming from a region of China renowned for their soup dumplings, I dismissed most of the hype. After trying several types of soup dumplings at Ding Tai Fung, I do admit they have done an excellent job in replicating the light fluffy skin and scalding broth that defines a great soup dumpling.

DAY 4

On our last day in the Taipei region, we took a guided tour out of Taipei City itself. Our driver picked us at our hotel and drove us to Yehliu, a coastal town approximately 40 minutes by car from Taipei. Known for its unique geological rock formations, the Yehliu Geopark sits on a promontary off the northern Taiwan coast. A row of sea food restaurants with tanks of live lobsters, crabs, and fish almost tempted me to abandon the geopark to feast on crustaceans instead.

The geopark consisted of several kilometers of paved trails leading through various rock formations with imaginative names that describe their shape. The most notable formation, “The Queen Head”, looks like an Egyptian Pharaoh and took 4000 years to form. A long line of tourists waited for their turn to pose next to “The Queen Head” which apparently could collapse within the next few years due to the neck of the rock eroding away. Overall the geopark was quite scenic and a worthwhile visit although I still wonder whether a seafood feast would have been the wiser choice. On the way back, we passed by a group of Koreans who proclaimed they were now ready to die after seeing such beauty! My sensitive wife whispered she would also be ready to die once she slapped them up side the head for uttering such non-sense (not her exact words).

After leaving Yehliu, we headed towards Jiufen, stopping by the Golden waterfall along the way. The waterfall was not only NOT golden but toxic due to heavy metal contaminants from nearby abandoned mines.

Jiufen is a decommissioned gold mining town in the mountains that apparently achieved fame through its similarity to a town in some Japanese anime. The town was established by the Qing Empire then occupied by the Japanese who brought over prisoners of war to work in its gold mines during World War 2. The town has been largely unchanged since the end of the war (except for the labor camp part) and is now a major tourist destination. The Walk through Jiufen Old Street’s winding narrow roads felt like the march through Raohe St Night Market in a more confined setting and would probably give a claustrophobic person a panic attack . The architectural style and layout of the town was quite charming but the sheer number of tourists crammed into its tiny alleys did not make for an enjoyable experience.

After leaving Jiufen, our next stop was the Shifen Waterfall, also known as “The Little Niagara” of Taiwan. We marched behind a crowd of tourists for 10 minutes, passing through a suspension bridge and then a row of shops selling wild boar sausage. The waterfall failed to live up to its nickname – has the person who named this ever been to Niagara falls??? To be fair, it has become harder to appreciate waterfalls after visiting places like Iceland, Canada, and Hawaii.

We arrived at the outskirt of Shifen, in the late afternoon. As a railroad town used in the past for transportation of coal, Shifen’s Old Street has now become a busy tourist destination for its sky lanterns. The wax paper lanterns can be purchased at one of the many lantern shops, adorned with your wishes (or hexes), and released into the sky like a hot air balloon. Used in the past as a method of signaling among railroad workers, some clever entrepreneur has commercialized this process drawing in thousands of tourists to Shifen daily to release or watch others release the sky lanterns.

We walked down to the Old Street with our own decorated lantern in hand looking up at the waves of glowing lanterns dotting the overcast sky. Soon we were at the release point, a railroad track sandwiched between two alleys lined by lantern shops and food stalls. Looking around at the various lanterns that were about to be released, most people wished for good health and lots of monetary wealth – exactly what we was written on our lantern!

After our lantern floated into the clouds, I felt somewhat bad about contributing to environmental degradation – the remains of burnt out lantern parts end up in the nearby forests, mountains, and rivers where they sometimes sit for months before breaking down. Apparently the government has tried to control the damage by offering its citizens payment for returning intact lantern parts. It would seem a better solution would be to limit or outright ban flying sky lanterns, but that would probably erase Shifen off the map.

The drive back to Taipei took about 1 hour. Exhausted after a long day, we ate ramen noodles for dinner at a restaurant close to the hotel. The ramen was better than expected, a good conclusion to our time in Taipei.

Conclusion

My writing above, although seemingly quite negative, do not actually reflect my true feelings about Taipei or Taiwan. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed being in Taipei even if the food was generally not to my taste and nothing was extraordinarily impressive or memorable. I am not sure why that is although there are certain things that I can identify – an example would be that compared to Shanghai, Taipei is much less chaotic, more structured and overall more pleasant due to being less crowded. People are also more westernized in terms of habits and mannerisms and not once have I see someone spit on the street or cut in line. Compared to Seoul and Tokyo, Taipei felt more accessible, homely, and affordable. Getting around via subway, ordering and receiving your food, walking through the night markets, hiking up Elephant Hill – it all seemed so easy and natural that it is no surprise that people consider Taipei a great retirement destination.

After 4 great days in Taipei, we moved on the Hualien and the eastern coast to explore the more rugged areas of Taiwan. Read part 2 here.