Taipei trip day 4

Taipei Trip Day 4

View of Jiufen from the tea house

Today is a day trip to Yehliu, Shifen and Jiufen. 

I picked to depart later at 11am hoping to catch sunset at Jiufen. But it was too rainy and cloudy which is a pity. 

Also, this is the last weekend of Chinese new year and it's a holiday on Friday. So it's really crowded for the trip especially for Jiufen as locals and tourists flocked to the same spot =) 

The guide 巧巧 who really did a great job helping my mum with the tour all day as there's a lot of challenging steps and sandy areas involved. 

Tea with Qiao Qiao the guide

Helping my mum navigate the steps

On our way to Yehliu we pass by the local beaches. There are places for seafood and hot springs along the coast line which would be great if you can drive and do a weekend trip there. 

Seaside town with crab and hot springs hotels

Yehliu is a geopark with the formation of rocks from geological volcanic actions. The black area are corals, with the sandy base. 

The queens head is the famous one but it's getting smaller every year! 

The Queen's head

There's are all kinds of shapes like Cinderella shoes,  peanut, candles holder, mushroom, ice cream etc. 

The Park

The different rock formations

Shifen is an old town that's geologically unique for lighting the lanterns as it's humid and rainy most of the time. And there's less risk of house catching on fire from the lantern. Write your wishes on the lantern and they will light it up to raise it in the sky

It's popular with locals who like to go there with a slow train without worrying about driving. 

Lantern lighting at Shifen, writing our wishes on the lantern

It also has one of the biggest waterfall park in Taiwan 

Waterfall park in Shifen

On the way to the waterfall we went through a suspension bridge next to the train tracks. 

Suspension Bridge

Had an interesting snack at Shifen which is a rice paper wrapped with ice cream and peanut candy. A very typical Taiwanese flavor of mixing sweet and salty again. 

Yummy peanut cracker ice cream roll

Jiufen is a gold mine town that reach a peak of wealth. Hence it has the oldest cinema in Taipei. 

Is also super popular with tourist due to the Japanese animae Spirited Away as there is a tea house that looks like the structure in the cartoon. Phil also came here for "somebody feed Phil" series recently that created more attention. Plus it's a 3 day holiday so even the locals went there for tea and snacks. 

AKA IT;S SUPER CROWDED!

The crowd in Jiufen!

We had yuyuan at one of the famous place and it's nice and chewy. 

Yuyuan which is balls made with tapioca flour and yam 

Sweet bread roll that reminds me of churro except less crunchy

We also went to take picture of the famous tea house and quickly came out from the crowd

It's really pretty with all the lighted lanterns that makes it looks like a old Japanese house

Ah Mei Cha Lou which is the old tea house

After that we visited the oldest cinema in Taiwan

Sheng Ping Xi Yuan which is the oldest cinema in Taiwan

Due to the crowd the guide brought me to the tea house via a short cut through an old mining tunnel

Mining tunnel

We finally settled at a traditional tea house with an ocean view and had some tea and snacks to close out the day. 

Finally away from the crowd

3 of the tea house in Jiufen. The wood one is the oldest at 150 years but has no sea view

Next day is a travel day so I finally had my Ah Zong Mian xian and concluded my trip to Taipei. 

Ah Zong Mian xian and You tiao

With the guided tours, I have more knowledge of the city and the food. 

Things have not changed too much since I was last here except housing have greatly increased. 

The people is extremely friendly and it's very safe to walk around. 

Lots of Japanese and Korean tourists still flocking to Taipei and I truly enjoyed the trip to get to know Taipei again!

Taipei Trip Day 3

 Taipei Day 3

Today is the Yangming shan and food tour day

First a rant. I won't do the yangming shan tour again nor book a tour from "get your guide". I took this tour to fit the time before the food tour. But it was disappointing with both the service and the places that we went. 

I know there are better views on the mountain than the places that was in the tour. 

Also the guide is not professional and they send me a wrong meet up address. 

Also all the more interesting villas and buildings require pre book for viewing but the info was not shared. 

Is better and cheaper to take the local bus to the highest peak and hike down. Alternatively book a Viewing of the villas yourself and make your own way there. 

First stop is Xiao You Keng which is really a steaming sulphur pits. As Yang Ming Shan is a dead volcano, there's still activity producing lots of steam. We were lucky that the sun came out sufficient for us to see it but it's so windy and cold that we both escaped quickly. 

Xiao You Keng

The 2nd stop is the Shu Wu which should be the villa of Chiang Kia-Sek. But truly what we saw was an unimpressive exhibition in a hall that is disappointing. 

The 3rd stop is the Yang Ming Garden that still has some sakuras so we took some pictures before calling it a trip. 

Yang Ming Gong Yuan

The food tour in the PM on the other hand, is a very enjoyable one. 

Food tour with Garen at Yong Kang Street

Garen is very professional and gave us a lot of info on the agriculture and food knowledge of Taipei. She touch on the history and awkwardness of China and Taipei relationship and her own view of the situation. 

It also gave me an insight on how the situation evolved to this current awkwardness. 

It's not easy doing food tours for Taiwan as the QQ mochi texture is what they love. But that's a very challenging texture for Caucasians. Also sweet and salty is what Taiwanese love as well but again, not an easy flavor for non Chinese. 

But she tried to stick to the soul of Taiwan food and introduction of real Taiwan food to the clients which is admirable. It's a lot easier to sell fried chicken and beef noodles but she choose not to go that path. 

First stop is a famous scallion pancake that sells easily 2000 of those a day. The boss rented out an old shoe shop to a Vietnamese pho restaurant and cut a corner to sell the pancake. It's crispy on the outside and very soft and tender on the inside. 

Famous Chong You Bing

Then we tried this fruit freeze shop that has a yummy strawberry yoghurt and freeze dried strawberries and wet strawberries. Everything is grown in Taiwan and it's their way to ensure fruits can last

Freeze dried and fresh Taiwanese food store

Next one is a boba tea shop call 50 Lan which has the small boba options. I tried the boba the next day and it's still soft and chewy which is unusual. Garen mentioned they do it without chemicals so it stay soft and digestible. It's the 2nd oldest boba store in Taiwan but the first to reach fame

Boba tea with small boba made with natural ingredients

Next stop is Tainan food. It's the first time I tried it and it's interesting how sweet it is. It's due to sugar cane being a valuable crop during the older days and hence it's a luxury and comfort to put sugar in daily food by the locals. Tainan was one of the castle states in the olden times and the richest. 

Tainan food of shrimp meat balls, fried oysters and Taiwanese sausage with raw garlic

 

After dinner she cut up 2 fruits for us to try. Mi Zhao and Shui Ong. One of them is a plum and the other is a spongy fruit. She said that Taiwanese don't like sweet fruit for daily consumption like pineapple. So these are not too sweet and can be eaten every day when they are in season. 

Fresh fruits after dinner

There's also the craze of Japanese and Korean buying nougat crackers. She showed us a picture of folks carrying atalier blue shopping bags which has the crackers. And it sold out initially for 6 months in half an hour. Till they increase the capacity and have everyone queue in the park. 

The craziness of atelier

She also showed us a body shop that has ginger products made in Taiwan. Jiang xin bi xin. 

The funniest part of the street is the liquor store at the end of the street. Apparently Koreans flocked to Taipei to buy Kavala whiskey after it was shown in a Korean show. And the old grandpa suddenly find queues showing up at his store to buy the whiskey as he's famous for cheap booze =)

After that we are too full for more food so we cancelled the Ba Fang Potstickers. But she mentioned the store at DongMen is made fresh daily and recommended the spicy and corn flavors. Next time! 

Next is a dessert store and it's very nice too. The base is done with fruits and red dates instead of white sugar. And they have a nice place. I would go back there again as it's freshly made and not too sweet. 

https://share.google/hEwutgL5OrggOjzKF

Great dessert

Taipei trip Day 1 and Day 2

Taipei trip Day 1 and Day 2

Time for another Chinese new year visit back to Singapore. 

I planned a 5 day trip to Taipei as it's been more than 30 years since my last visit. Wanted to familiarize myself with the city again and brought my mum too for some bonding time. 

Yeh Liu View

I booked amba Ximending for a convenient location and it's really close to the MRT and lots of eateries and shopping. It reminds me of the Bugis street in Singapore with lots of little alleys and trendy shops. 

Amba Ximending Hotel good service but minimal amenities

Got the super card on the first day in the 7-11 for our metro rides in Taipei. There's a usd4 card purchase price with a value to be added for metro rides. 

Cute Easy card design

We were told the 7-11 and family marts are essential for daily life like utilities payment and quick snacks or even to use their trash cans. 

Apparently the older apartments do not have common connection trash cans. Trash collection is done with a trash truck using trash bags that's purchased from the government. 

So it's frowned upon to throw trash in shops that didn't belongs to them. 

And i noticed they truly do recycling and composting which is great to see another country making a real effort.

After landing at close to 7pm, we went for potstickers and a feet massage before going to bed. 

Ba Fang Pot stickers

Foot massage time!

Day 2: City tour 

I booked a 9 hour city tour with a small group.

our small city tour group at Taipei 101

It ended up being 4 of us in a mini van going to multiple places. The guide Qiu Xiang is very professional and did a great job explaining in English and Mandarin so that my mum and the aussie lady both understand what she's explaining. 

Breakfast before heading to the meet up point. Chong You Bing Scallions pancake

First stop: National Palace museum Gu Gong

The outside of the museum with the Royal Garden

I was told that there's lots of priceless antiques in this museum. 

We went for the jade exhibition first followed by Copper and then Porcelain. Unfortunately the jade cabbage is out on a tour. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadeite_Cabbage

Jade exhibition

The Bronze exhibition

The porcelain exhibition

Tang San Cai exhibition

Revolving designs

Next stop is Chiang Kai Shek memorial Hall. 

We saw a guard exchange and it has 2 other buildings that became a Concert Hall and a Theater. 

I was surprised to see sakuras in Taipei but apparently this is the season. 

The memorial

Guard Exchange

Next stop is Longshan Temple

There's a huge temple with all kinds of Taoism gods in there. Fun assortment. 

The fun part is the God of Love are no longer being used for relationship but for concert tickets. 

So i took a picture of one that has the pop group that they are praying to get the ticket =) 

Long Shan Si

As the group is small, we had options for lunch plans. Next to the temple is Wan Hua Alley which is famous historically for snake stew. 

We went for 2 Michelin Bid Gourmand places for braised pork buns and port belly rice. Yum. 

Good Gua Bao .. Yum

Good Pork Belly rice

Next stop is Ximending which is near our hotel. We were given some time to walk around and we shopped around the Red Building that has cute shops. 

Ximending

Next stop is Di Hua Jie which is meant for dried seafood etc. It's an interesting old area but too similar to places that we can find in Singapore too. 

In the temple there's also a Yue Lao which is the god of Love.

Di Hua Street

After that we alighted at Taipei 101. we went for the observation deck before going for dinner at shin yeh. 

Observatory of 101

The balancing ball

Documenting the elevator journey

Dinner at A9 Shin Yeh with Jeff and Tracy