DDR: Taipei is a beautiful, chilled out city with amazing food, cool people and lots of art and culture. We had a great time, bar some London like weather.
Landing in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, was an unusual experience as neither of us had any idea of what to expect. Despite hearing a lot of concerning chip & China related news over the past year, we had very little to go on as far as Taipei itself was concerned. 2 of my friends had left glowing reviews of Taiwan as a whole, but that was it. Neither of us had preconceptions of the feel of the city or too many ideas for how to fill our time here. We landed on a very grey morning, and quickly realised we were in a proper metropolis. Nik described the city as "lived in" and "feels a bit like London". I will translate this to the city has a lot of cool looking young people, clearly has money and a thriving business sector, it's not immediately obvious what to do as a tourist but you get the feeling it's very fun to live here, oh and the weather is a bit crap. This last impression may be a bit unfair as 1/3 of our days we had stunning weather and it's only March, but we can only go on our experience. As such we switched from island mode to city-slickers and would spend the next few days eating a lot of incredible food, walking, enjoying art, culture, some of Taipei's impressive sites and visiting some of the many foot massage parlours.
First thing first, I had a small melt down on my lack of cool (looking), warm clothes. We were now in an East Asian capital, fashion is a serious business. My trusty yoga leggings and puffer that had done me so well in Rishikesh and New Zealand simply wouldn't cut it for the streetwear scene of Taiwan. Luckily the Taiwanese look seems to include a lot of oversized clothes, so I quickly raided Nik's wardrobe, treated myself to some fresh kicks and we set off to enjoy the city. As a cheat sheet for Taipei dressing you are looking for trainers, there are an incredible amount of Adidas and Nike stores around, either baggy jeans or slightly cropped cargos with good socks, layers of oversized t-shirts, hoodies and jackets, finished with a cap.
To continue cosplaying as Nik, and also as I was feeling a little guilty from the fish extravaganza I enjoyed on Tao, I decided to try and be mainly veggie in Taiwan. The concept of veganism isn't really a thing, but Taiwan does have lots of Buddhists so asking for monk friendly food is a top vegan hack, you may even garner some respect from the locals for your piety. The default milk here is also soy and there are 7elevens/ Family Mart on every corner so it was surprisingly easy for us to eat well. Our best meal in Taipei was at Hoshina, a vegan Japanese noodle restaurant. The food was impeccable, the setting stylish and, as with most of the food we had, incredibly cheap. Highlights included the seasame greens, house broth and popcorn tofu. The restaurant also has its own vegan bakery next door, Nik described the chocolate bread as something so good he hadn't tasted since going vegan. For the non-vegans, it tasted a bit like a very fluffy and light chocolate brioche.
Next in the rankings Yang Shin, a superb vegetarian dim sum spot, FJ Veggie, a local take-away spot in Tamsui with great spicy noodle soup and dumplings, getting the Taiwanese typical breakfast of hot soy milk and friend dough sticks from unnamed vendor for breakfast and Soypresso for refreshing soy ice cream. At any time of day, inari from 7eleven/ Family Mart also hit the spot and drinking tea is an art form here. Tea is available from dedicated shops or any restaurant, hot, iced or bubbled, and is delicious. Really you can get incredible food everywhere, however it is strictly prohibited to eat/ drink on public transport, and there aren't many bins. The people of Taiwan are clearly very tidy, as you don't see litter anywhere. There are definitely aspects of Asian culture that the UK would do well to adopt.
To soak up the local culture, we spent an evening wondering around the Ximending district. The area reminded me of Japan, lots of neon lights, busy shops, street food and Taipei's youth enjoying their evenings. I also managed to get Nik to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. My favourite piece was Raed Yassin's China; a series of porcelain vases created using traditional Chinese craftsmanship depicting scenes from Lebanon's civil war. From a distance they looked just like regular, beautiful antiques but up close told a powerful story. Nik's involved a photograph of revolutionaries enjoying balloons in the 90s. Similarly moving I'm sure. Reverting more to street culture, we also enjoyed Huashan 1914 Creative Park. One of several locations where old warehouses have been converted to modern cultural hotspots with art installations, restaurants, bubble tea and a market.
For larger scale sites, the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall is one of the most impressive and beautiful monuments I've ever seen. This spotless, enormous monument is surrounded by gardens and looks onto a large square, with the beautiful theatre and opera house flanking it. All are in a traditional Chinese style and in very good condition. If these sites were in Europe they would be rammed. Perhaps due to all of the chip-war related news, there are strikingly few western tourists in such a vibrant capital city. You'd think this would make it difficult to get by, but all signs include an English translation and lots of people either speak English or are well versed in using GoogleTranslate. Whatever faults people may have with Google, Translate and Maps are the most incredible (free) resources when travelling, we would have been lost without them. Anyway, the monument was empty and we took to walking past daily just to enjoy this epic piece of Taiwan's history. Our various photos reflect the range of weather we experienced in our short trip!
Fittingly for Taipei, where old & new are always comfortably side-by-side, our other large scale highlight was Taipei 101. At one point world's tallest building (I believe now at 11), we had fairly low expectations to go up "another sky scraper". More fool us, Taipei 101 is incredible. For the engineering nerds, Taiwan sits between a number of tectonic plates. As such it boasts some of the highest mountains in this part of Asia and most of the island is characterised by dramatic peaks. It is also famous for earthquakes and typhoons. Yet they have successfully built this beautiful and enormous building that is specifically designed to be earthquake proof, with a large dampener ball suspended near the top. From the top you can take in the city and the stunning surrounding misty mountains. As views go it's hard to beat, and there is a nice post box at the top for sending postcards. Your ticket gets you access to both an open air platform and floor with wall to celeing windows. It's so high I got very squiggly going near the windows to look down below, people looked like tiny ants.
Massage and spa, but especially foot massage, is a big part of Taiwanese culture. There are neon signs of feet everywhere, altering you to the foot massage parlours within. In these places rows of arm chairs are lined up and you find people of all sorts enjoying a 40-90 minute foot massage. They are busy at all times of day, and we went to 2 of them. It was heavenly. One of my biggest surprises about Taiwan has been just how chilled and friendly everyone is, there is so little hint of the mass panic that fills our news, just lots of very nice people going about their daily lives. Even people who don't speak English always try and help us out and I don't think I've seen a single person even get annoyed. Whether is the tea, the massages or something else, it's an amazing culture and Taipei is well worth a visit.
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