Nightmarket – Where to, Gumshoe?

Taipei (Day 28): Movie Monday

March 28, 2016

This morning, we were woken up by Tim’s Taiwan cell phone ringing in the other room at 8:30am. It felt good not to have any set plans until later in the day. Taipei is 15 hours ahead of Vancouver, so when woke up, it was perfect timing to FaceTime with my family who were at Uncle Barry’s for Easter dinner.

It was nice to see everyone together and it felt like we were there too! They had finished eating dinner, but I saw all the plates of turkey leftovers and it made me really want a home cooked turkey dinner. We will have to have a turkey dinner in the summer when we’re back. There is a Canadian restaurant (Whalen’s) down the street from us that has a turkey dinner on their menu, but it’s quite expensive, so we’ll just wait.

We decided to go for breakfast and have a nice walk since it was sunny out today. It was about 20 degrees with a warm breeze (pretty ideal weather). We headed back to King Soy Milk and had the same meal we had the very first morning we were in Taipei. We shared a sao bing with egg, rice roll and a cold soy milk for 85 NT = $3.45 CAD.

After breakfast we decided to walk towards Taipei 101 and watch the movie, “Batman v Superman”. There is a movie theatre in the mall right beside Taipei 101, called Vieshow Cinemas. The walk to Taipei 101 took about 20 minutes. The weather was very pleasant so it was good to walk off those carbs we just had for breakfast. When we got to the theatre, we saw that Batman V. Superman was playing pretty much every half an hour (they have a lot of theatres). At the ticket counter, they asked if we wanted popcorn and drinks. The cashier said that if we bought the package with the tickets it was cheaper. He told us the price and for some reason we had miscalculated the conversion in our heads and thought that for two tickets and a popcorn combo (two drinks and a popcorn) was $20 CAD, but after we paid we realized we divided it wrong and it was actually $37 CAD! Each ticket was 270 NT = $11 CAD and the combo was 369 NT = $15 CAD. It wasn’t outrageous, it was North American prices.

When we first went into the theatre, we sat there and thought we should’ve double checked that the movie was in English and subtitled in Chinese (i.e. not dubbed). Tim spoke Mandarin to the cashier so he never would have told us if it wasn’t in English (Tim: that’s a pretty big compliment to the quality of my Mandarin I guess). We had only thought about this after since a Canadian family behind us were told that the Zootopia time they wanted was dubbed and was in Mandarin. As soon as the movie started, we were relieved to hear English (Tim: Ben Affleck’s sweet voice) and see subtitles in Chinese (phew!).

The movie wasn’t the best, that’s all I’ll say. When we left the theatre at around 4pm, there was a huge ticket line up wrapped around the entrance, so we’re glad we decided to watch an earlier movie.

We headed back to the apartment and walked down Tonghua St. to look for something quick to eat for a very late lunch. Tim found some oyster vermicelli (soup) and decided to have that. I just had a few spoonfuls since I was still full from my healthy lunch of pop and popcorn from the movies.

Our bubble tea for the day was from Ten Ren, a Taiwanese store known for their tea. We had passed by so many locations but hadn’t tried it yet. We ordered pearl milk tea and it was 50 NT = $2 CAD.

We headed back to the apartment and rested for about two hours before dinner, which was at 7pm. Dinner tonight was with Tim’s relatives (Tim’s Dad’s cousin’s family) who I had met during our 2013 trip.

After a big dinner, we met Austin at the Raohe Night Market to walk around. It was Austin’s last night in Taipei before heading off to Hong Kong so it was great we got to see him again on his Asia trip. Raohe Night Market is located north of where we are staying but very close to the airport in the city, Songshan. It’s one of the more popular night market’s in Taipei after Shilin.

It was a great night being able to spend time with Tim’s family in Taipei and seeing Austin while. Obviously family is very important to both myself and Tim and we know we are very lucky to have such amazing people in our lives – we don’t take any of it for granted.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Taipei before our Korea and Japan portion of our trip. We’re planning on meeting another one of Tim’s second cousins for dinner and use the rest of the day to pack and prepare.

Steps for today: 20,000

Taipei (Day 26): A Near Perfect Day

March 26, 2015

Today was our last day with my sister, Noel, and Nate here with us in Taiwan. We woke up to sun shining through the window blinds – which made for a good start to the morning and a perfect last day with them.

We walked to Daan Park one last time to play in the playground with Nate. I think we went there four times with them during their twelve day trip. It would have been more if not for the rainy weather and going to Kenting for three days. After the playground we walked through the park towards Yong Kang St. for lunch.

The plan for lunch was to go back to Yong Kang Beef Noodle since it was Noel’s favourite meal of the trip. We made our way to Yong Kang St. around 10:45am and headed for the restaurant. There was already a line formed and the restaurant was full. They hadn’t opened the upstairs section this time so we had to wait about 10 minutes before we were seated. Since we were on the first floor, there were no high chairs available and all the tables were way more cramped. Sitting downstairs is where all the “action” is but also made for a very different dining experience. My sister had to hold Nate while they both ate, which was a bit trickier, but Nate loved their noodles so he was happily slurping it down and wasn’t fussy.

Next up on our agenda today was to visit SunnyHills pineapple cake shop. Pineapple cakes are the most common souvenir people buy when they’re in Taiwan. There are so many shops around Taipei it’s hard to sift through which ones are actually good. On our first trip to Taiwan, Tim’s aunt bought us both Chia Te and SunnyHills to bring back to our families. Chia Te is the most internationally known pineapple cake shop and is often the only place people will buy their pineapple cakes from. After trying both of them, our favourite was SunnyHills. They use real pineapple rather than jelly or melon (which most places use), so depending on the season the cake filling may be tart.

At first, my sister and Noel weren’t planning on buying any pineapple cakes since Noel isn’t a big fan of them. He talked about how the first time he had a pineapple cake, it was so dry and turned him off from them. We tried to convince him that the SunnyHills pineapple cake were different than all the other ones he’s had before.

I did a bit of research on the SunnyHills store as it’s about a 15 minute walk from the closest MRT station in a residential area. Luckily we had google maps loaded on Tim’s phone because you can easily miss the subtle signage. When we found it, it looked like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

When we walked in, the very friendly and pretty ladies (Nate kept waving and saying “ni hao”) at the store led us to a table to sit down. The front room was full so they brought us to the back room and we got to sit at our own round table for four people.

The ladies there were so kind and kept pouring us more tea, which was nice of them. Noel, the former pineapple cake hater, had a change of heart after trying them here. After sitting and relaxing for about half an hour, we went to buy some pineapple cakes. Each pineapple cake is 42 NT = $1.70 CAD, and buying them in boxes of 10 or 15 doesn’t change the price per unit. Along with pineapple cakes they sell pineapple juice, honey cake (Castella cakes), and tea.

I would highly recommend anyone traveling to Taipei to go here for pineapple cakes. I have yet to try a better one. I haven’t been to Chia Te yet to look around but I can only imagine it would be a gong show of a store as Trip Advisor reviews all say to go early to avoid massive line ups. SunnyHills was seriously such a calm and relaxing experience that I wouldn’t mind just going there to have some tea and reading a book if they let people do that.

We headed out and decided to walk to our next destination – Breeze Shopping Center. The walk was about 30 minutes and it was nice because we were in a more residential area of Taipei. The streets were tree lined and very quiet. One of the major streets had multi-coloured pinwheels lining it, which gave it a community feel.

As we were walking along the “pinwheel street”, we found a Cama Coffee (I call it Taipei’s Starbucks). We have seen locations all over the city but my sister and Noel (who are coffee drinkers) hadn’t had a chance to try one. Interestingly, as much as Taiwan is a very tea-centric country, Taipei has a lot of really great coffee shops all around the city. Tim and I don’t drink coffee, but according to my sister and Noel, all the coffee places that they’ve tried were very good. Their iced Americano from Cama was 40 NT = $1.60 CAD.

We finally made it to Breeze Center, a mall filled with high end luxury goods as well as other stores. We were there for the other stores, like Muji, Uniqlo, and they even had a Maison Kayser (Paris bakery).

After a pretty full morning and afternoon, we made our way back to the apartment so they could do a final pack up before dinner and the airport. We planned on going to the Tonghua Night Market for dinner, since Noel wanted stinky tofu for the last time and my sister hadn’t tried an oyster omelet yet.

We went to the night market around 6:30pm and it was already really busy (it’s a Saturday night after all). Since Nate needed more of a sit down dinner place, we took them to Formosa Chang’s on Tonghua St. first. Formosa Chang’s is the fast casual chain restaurant that serves a good braised pork on rice. We ordered two large rice bowls, a stewed egg, a plate of vegetables and a pork chop for 242 NT = $9.80 CAD. After we ate at Formosa Chang’s, we got our night market eats and headed back to the apartment with about 45 minutes to spare before Uncle Albert came by.

We’re very fortunate that Uncle Albert has been so kind to us and to my family. Without even meeting them he offered to pick them up from the airport and now has dropped them off for their 11:55pm flight back to Vancouver. My sister and Noel said he parked and saw them off through the security gates.

Saying goodbye to loved ones, especially when we’re away from home for 4.5 months is hard. As most people know I’m extremely close to my family and see them more often than the average person, so being away from them for so long is harder on me – that and I’m a pretty emotional person. Saying goodbye was a teary affair for me and my sister. I think Tim was worried about how much I was crying when they left (I’m better now).

It was great having my sister, Noel, and Nate here. Things started off a bit rocky with Noel and Nate not feeling 100% but after that initial hurdle, the days couldn’t have been better (despite the rainy weather). It was awesome that they were able to come visit us in Taiwan and be able to meet some of Tim’s family and learn more about Taiwanese culture. I’m happy that Taipei was so baby/toddler friendly and we actually learned a lot about what it would be like to be a parent in Taipei (I’ll expand more on that in a future post). We all said we would come back in 10 or so years when we have kids – hope that happens!

Steps for the day: 24,000

Kenting (Day 23): Catching Some Rays

March 23, 2016

Today was the first day in over a week that we all woke up after 8am – even Nate! I think it was a combination of comfortable beds, silence and blackout blinds. Nate started to call out for my sister around 8:15am and we were surprised that it was so “late” – we woke up to get ready so we wouldn’t have a rushed breakfast (breakfast ended at 10am).

I think it’s always exciting to see what type of free breakfast hotels offer (or is that just me?), especially Asian hotels. I find that Asian hotels offer the best breakfasts because they always have an assortment of good Western and Asian options. You could have a plate of bacon and eggs then have a plate of noodles and stir fry – it’s the best of both worlds.

After reading a lot of very mixed reviews on Trip Advisor about this resort, I continue to be very skeptical about American’s reviews about Asian resorts and hotels. There were multiple negative reviews made about how Chateau Beach Resort doesn’t have a good breakfast and how there’s not enough Western options (come on, you’re in Asia…). As soon as we walked into the breakfast “hall”, the food and beverage area was extensive. I’ll try to take pictures of the food tomorrow – I was a bit overwhelmed this morning.

There were a lot of Western options – bacon, sausage, eggs, and even an omelette station. Tim was really happy about the Taiwanese food options like – danzi noodles (the noodles we had in Tainan) (Tim: they were so-so), stewed pork belly, and a green onion pancake station. Noel (and Nate) were most excited about the fruit bar – it had guava, pineapple, water apples and watermelon. Thanks to the breakfast buffet, Noel didn’t have to buy guava during the day.

After breakfast we were all set to swim. It was about 28 degrees Celsius today, a bit overcast with the sun coming out once in a while. It was nice to feel the heat – it was the weather we were hoping for in Kenting. We hung around the pool for a bit and then went down to the beach. The waves got pretty big so was not ideal for swimming in the ocean, though there were a bunch of people who were. Also, there was a warning that there were jellyfish in the area, which kind of psyched me out, so we just stayed close to shore.

Since we are in Asia (where most people want to be pale) there aren’t many sun bathers, therefore, there isn’t an abundance of lounge chairs around. We didn’t find this to be a problem since there were still quite a few free. We found most people liked to stay in the shade or in the covered jacuzzi pool and only the North Americans were out laying on the beach in the direct sunlight (with tanning oils).

For dinner, we headed back to the night market – it seems like that’s the best place to eat since a lot of the restaurant close by seem overpriced. We decided to try the “Taiwanese three cup” stall, which makes the traditional three cup chicken as well as other options: squid, mushrooms, duck tongue, and prawns (all made to order). We both ordered the chicken – it was really tasty, but would’ve been even better if we had a bowl of rice to go with it.

Our night at the night market got cut short by a sudden downpour. We were ordering bubble tea from Presotea when we felt a couple of rain drops, then suddenly rain was coming down like crazy and all the vendors quickly rushed to get their stalls under cover. We stood under Presotea’s cover until the rain died down. We still had about an 8 minute walk back to the hotel without an umbrella. You could tell no one was prepared – everyone was soaked.

An observation about Kenting is that it’s like the Thailand of Taiwan. Kenting Road (where the night market is) resembles any street in Koh Samui or any beachy Thai town. There’s a lot of street vendors, clubs, girls and lady boys dancing outside, and alcohol (we haven’t seen alcohol at any night market in Taiwan before here). Although the one thing Kenting doesn’t seem to have (or openly show) is prostitution, which is good.

Tomorrow is our last full day here. I imagine it will be somewhat of the same type of day we had today. I’m happy everyone is having a good time. It’s a nice way to end our leg of this trip with my sister, Noel, and Nate. We head back to Taipei on Friday and have one more night with them before they fly back home to Vancouver on Saturday night – just in time for Easter Sunday.

Total number of steps today: Around 10,000 steps but it wasn’t that accurate today since we didn’t have our cell phones with us at all times.

Kenting (Day 22): Finally Feels Like a Vacation

March 22, 2016

Today started off a bit hectic as we were busy packing up everything and making sure the apartment wasn’t a mess when we handed it back (Tim: Not sure why that was necessary since we pay a cleaning fee for AirBnB). We left the apartment at 10:30am and made our way to Taipei Main Station to catch the high speed rail train to Zuoying (Kaohsiung).

This was our first time taking the high speed rail (HSR) long distance. We had taken the HSR to Taoyuan (15 minute ride) for the lantern festival but were only taking the normal railway for our loop around Taiwan. Our train left Taipei at 11:24am and was scheduled to arrive in Kaohsiung at 1:00pm. Taipei to Kaohsiung is approximately 360km, so to get there in about an hour and half (Tim: with two stops) is pretty awesome!

As scheduled, we arrived at the Kaohsiung’s Zuoying station at 1:00pm on the dot. We bought our tickets for our return trip back to Taipei and walked around before heading to the hotel shuttle that picks up everyday at 1:50pm. Zuoying Station is very modern with an assortment of food options and even has a Muji and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi attached to it.

The shuttle from Zuoying to our hotel in Kenting took two hours for about 114km (which included a 15 minute rest stop break). If only there was a train connecting Kenting to other cities in Taiwan, it would make traveling here so much easier. Long bus rides are pretty painful, I prefer train rides.

Once we got to the resort, I was pleasantly surprised. We are staying at the Chateau Beach Resort in Kenting. It’s a popular destination because of a movie (Cape No. 7) which was filmed around the area. The hotel and grounds are very nice and our room is quite spacious with very high ceilings (our room is $200 CAD/night for a “Mountain View” family room). The hotel is very family friendly with multiple shallow pools for kids, a playroom, and the hotel’s private beach has super soft and pristine sand. This is the only hotel in Kenting that backs on to its own beach – which was a major selling point for us, especially with Nate.

We were excited to explore the resort once we settled in since it was actually sunny and warm (about 26 degrees celsius). We walked down to the beach and walked along the shore for a bit – the water is a bit too cold to swim in but it’s perfect to wading in. The sun was starting to set so we decided to head out and grab something to eat, since we didn’t really eat much today.

The Kenting night market is located just up the street from the resort – which is a pretty ideal location. We snacked on some green onion pancake, fried milk, sausage, and chicken. For dessert we went to McDonald’s and tried their black sesame sundae (it was really good, and I don’t even love black sesame). The main street in Kenting is very touristy and it reminded Tim and I of Thailand (Tim: Koh Samui) more so than any other place we’ve been to in Taiwan.

We headed back to the hotel and went to the rec room to let Nate play (and Noel and Tim played ping pong).

It’s nice to sleep in comfortable beds for the first time in a week or so. It’s also so quiet here compared to being in the Daan apartment. I know that this part of our trip is a luxury and Tim and I will not be traveling like this for other parts of our trip (unless it’s really cheap), so I’m definitely savouring every moment we have here for the next three days.

Looking forward to doing nothing by lounging and reading by the pool tomorrow. The temperature is supposed to be 28 degrees.

Steps today: 15,000

Taipei (Day 17): First Full Day and Night

March 17, 2016

It was the first day that was forecasted to have sun (a little peaked out but at least it was a lot warmer – around 26 degrees today), so we decided to take Nate to the Taipei Zoo. Noel was feeling back to normal, but Nate was still having a hard time adjusting.

The Taipei Zoo is on the south end of the brown (Wenhu) MRT line and about 7 stops away from our apartment. We headed out to the zoo around 10am. We heard the zoo was a great place to bring kids and they have pandas – which are their main “attraction”. The entrance fee to the zoo is only 60 NT ($2.40 CAD) for adults and Nate was free.

When we walked in, there were a lot of groups of school children on field trips, all with different coloured sweat pant track suits (school uniforms). The zoo grounds were great, and we were all very impressed by the variety of animals and the way the park was laid out. They had a good selection of food stands and stores (Family Mart, 7-Eleven, McDonald’s to name a few) sprinkled around the park that had the exact same prices as they would have outside the zoo. The zoo is surrounded by lush mountains which gave it a very “zoo like” feel.

There are a lot more pictures of animals that we saw, but I think everyone gets the idea. I just kept hearing they had pandas (two), but I was surprised at how many other animals they had. Nate fell asleep half way through the zoo, so it was really just for the adults at this point. We walked around the whole zoo and enjoyed it!

If we had more time and it was a nicer day (visibility wise), we would have considered taking the Maokong gondola up the mountain – the gondola base is right beside the zoo.

We left the zoo around 4:30pm, and headed to Lin Dong Fang for beef noodles. This was the place Tim and I had previously gone to our first week in Taipei, and it’s still my favourite one (so far). Nate was sound asleep so we thought it would be a good chance to go to a not so child friendly restaurant. He slept through loud traffic and a jack hammer (there’s construction beside our apartment) but as soon it was dead quiet in the restaurant, he wakes up!

We got back to the apartment around 6pm, and planned to go to the Shilin Night Market (the largest one in Taipei) to meet up with Tim’s cousin, Karen, who is also in Taipei for the week. I first met Karen during our trip to Taipei in 2013, and she has since moved back to the U.S. (Austin, Texas) and is just here for less than a week. It was great getting to see her for even a short period of time here.

The Shilin Night Market is huge and a bit overwhelming. There’s a lot of shopping, food stalls and carnival games to play. It was my sister and Noel’s first Taiwan night market, so we for sure had to get fried chicken cutlet and stinky tofu. We also had ai-yu jelly drink, a cranberry lemon juice that Karen bought for us (this was really refreshing), “big sausage wrapped in little sausage” (outside sausage is sticky rice), and bought some Taiwanese fruits at the end.

We got back to the apartment close to midnight – we were all exhausted, especially my sister who had to carry had a 30 pound toddler strapped to her for 4 hours. I don’t know how she does it, she’s superwoman!

Steps today was 30,000 ! No wonder we were pooped.

Taitung (Day 10): We’ll be back

March 10, 2016

Today was our first full day in Taitung. The weather didn’t really improve much from yesterday, it was still overcast with no sun in sight (Tim’s going to say, “stop complaining about it being overcast!”). The reason why I wished the sun would come out is because I know that Taitung would be amazingly beautiful with the lush green mountains and ocean on either side of the city. But with an overcast sky, the city wasn’t able to really shine through. I suppose I had high hopes for Taitung because it is Tim’s favourite Taiwanese city. I wanted to love it here like he did, but I didn’t. I would like to come back when the weather is nicer (which is usually 90% of the time), to experience the city the way it should be.

We started off our day with a nice and hearty breakfast… at McDonald’s. We like to try different McDonald’s around the world because they always have unique menu items and Taiwan was no exception to that. We ordered a chicken and egg breakfast sandwich meal (which is like a McChicken with an egg in a muffin (Tim: and without lettuce)) and an extra sausage and egg McMuffin. The meal came with a hash brown and instead of coffee we ordered corn soup. I enjoyed everything in the breakfast – especially the corn soup (Tim: I love how corn soup is a substitute beverage choice).

After our breakfast we picked up bikes from the apartment and started a trail that wrapped around the city. We headed towards the mountains and the bike path was pretty clear. It felt good to ride and feel the breeze – it was refreshing and freeing! (Tim: It wouldn’t be as refreshing if it was sunny and hot… Thankfully it was overcast). After we passed the 2km mark, the bike trail emptied and we were the only ones on it. It was nice that was it just us, fresh air, (away from all the scooter exhaust) and some small low flying birds.

Tim has fond memories of the time he spent in Taitung in 2009. He likes to recount how while biking along this same trail, a stray puppy rode along side him for a couple of kilometres until he got to a larger street intersection that he needed to cross. The puppy was too scared to the cross the street and Tim never saw it again. When he thinks about it, he gets a bit sad. (I think he regrets not keeping the puppy). I make it worse when I tell him that the puppy chose him (just like how elephants choose their mahouts (owners) in Thailand) and he just left him. Later on at the beach, a stray dog was attracted to Tim and followed him around while he took pictures. I thought it would make for a pretty epic story if that dog turned out to be the same dog from 7 years ago (too bad this dog was brown and not black).

When we reached a split in the trail we decided to head back so we could go back towards the beach. We ended up walking to the beach instead because I was too scared to ride on the street alongside all the scooters and cars. I get a bit anxious when I’m on a bike or scooter in traffic and I feel like in Asia it’s even more chaotic (although, it’s likely more of an organized chaos).

After dropping our bikes off, we stopped to get bubble tea a “Presotea” which advertised a “Panda” bubble (black and white pearls!). We also attempted to Facetime my family for my Mom’s birthday. Taitung County has free wifi (TT-Free) throughout the city if you register your phone number. Unfortunately, my family was only able to hear us, but we were able to hear and see them.

We walked to the beach area that we visited shortly yesterday. This time we walked down to the actual beach and watched the waves crash on to shore for a while. The east coast of Taiwan is very beautiful. In the summer, Taitung has a hot air balloon festival that looks awesome, maybe next time we’ll come for that. Although, I’m sure then I’ll probably wished the weather were like how it was now- mild rather than really hot.

After the beach we headed back to the apartment to grab our bags that we left there. We were moving to another place to stay because the apartment was booked for tonight. We walked down the street and checked into our hotel, “Traveller’s Hotel”. We read good reviews about it for being a clean and friendly hotel. The room is very basic and clean (the only important thing), which works for us! The only “bad” thing is that the internet is a bit slow.

Once we checked in, we headed to grab a late lunch and walked to the Taitung Forest Park to wander around. We thought that on our way to the park we would pass by a lot of food options, but that didn’t happen. I think we underestimated the effects of a small town/city. I kept thinking, there’s got to be a lot of places surrounding the park or even a snack stand inside the park. We were wrong, there’s no vendors inside the park. It was about 3:30pm and we were both pretty hungry (Tim: Kaitlyn was pretty hungry). We walked around the park for like 15 minutes and then left to find something to eat.

We decided to walk down a different street on our way back. There were a few bento lunch options and we decided on “Woo Ricebox”. We’ve seen a bunch of these types of Taiwanese fast food restaurants around, mainly at train stations. The wooden bentos are filled with rice, pickled vegetables, cabbage, sausage, chopped bok choy and a meat of your choice. I had a pork chop and Tim got pork belly. They were a good lunch option and I can see why people would order them to take with them on a train.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to settle in and get ourselves organized for tomorrow. We booked our train tickets from Taitung to Hualien (we’re heading north on the east coast). This was our first time booking the train ticket online – we didn’t want to risk the train we wanted to be sold out. We also booked our hotel for two nights in Hualien – “East Town 26”. The hotel has really good reviews on Trip Advisor so I’m looking forward to it (hopefully I won’t be disappointed).

Tonight for dinner, we met with Tim’s relatives at “Showtime Plaza”. This mall was built a few years ago and is one of the newer building complexes in the city. It has a movie theatre, a couple of clothing stores (Uniqlo and Nike) and a few restaurants. Tim’s relatives made reservations at a Japanese Tonkatsu restaurant (I couldn’t find the translated English name). It’s always nice to meet with family and friends while traveling. It’s a nice familiarity and comfort knowing that loved ones are close by. The tonkatsu set meal and was delicious – it was my first time having tonkatsu where you have to crush the sesame seeds with a mortar to make the sauce. (Tim says now we don’t have to go to one in Japan…). Tim’s relatives are in the middle of moving so we caught them at a hectic time. They were very hospitable to us despite this and I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet them on this trip.

After dinner, Tim and I decided to check out the night market, which was down the street from where we were staying. The night market here is only opened from Thursday-Sunday (the majority of night markets in Taiwan are 7 days a week). Tonight it started to rain, and apparently when it rains no one in Taitung goes out. This was evident in passing by the night market. This was the saddest night market we had seen so far. Many of the vendors were closing down and some didn’t even set up. There were no crowds at all. See? This is what happens when the weather isn’t good in Taitung.

Now we’re back at the hotel, getting ready for tomorrow. Tim’s aunt is going to pick us up tomorrow morning to drive us to the train station at 8:30am, our train to Hualien leaves at 9:39am.

There’s still a lot more of Taitung that we haven’t seen, but we know we’ll be back one day.

Steps walked: 24,300 steps
Biked: 11 km

Taipei (Day 2): Let’s eat!

March 2, 2016

After our day of travel, we woke up at 6:30am, feeling refreshed and excited to explore! The first thing that came to our minds was, Taiwanese breakfast. We’re staying around the Daan and Xinye Anhe MRT stations so we decided to pick something close by. I googled “The best Taiwanese breakfast in Taipei” (I know, my google skills are top notch).

永和豆漿大王 (English translation is “King of Soy Milk”) came up as one of the top picks that was only about a 10 minute walk from us. We left the apartment around 8am, and made our way to the breakfast place. From the looks of it and the amount of locals inside, it looked promising.

Everything hit the spot. The Chinese doughnut was super light and just out of the fryer which made it super delicious. I can see us going here multiple times during our time in Taipei. I have to keep telling myself that we’re here for a while, so we don’t have to eat everything in the next two days.

After breakfast we went to Daan Park (Taipei’s “Central Park”) and walked around and checked out the children’s playground area. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew (20 months) will be visiting us in Taiwan in two weeks so I wanted to check out to see if it was “Nate friendly”, and it was!

I always love to visit parks in the middle of the city, to escape the hustle and bustle. Although Taipei is a pretty laid back city, there wasn’t that much crazy hustle and bustle to get away from, but it’s always nice to have that option. Tim and I said we could go running around the park together, we’ll see if that actually happens…

We continued our walk to Taipei 101. Last time I was in Taipei, we went at night so we didn’t really get any good views or were able to go inside. When we got to Taipei 101, they had just opened the doors to the mall at 11:00am, it was like we were waiting for it to open like the several groups of Chinese tourists. The mall is filled with multiple floors of luxury brands and free wifi!

Din Tai Fung also has a location at Taipei 101, so we decided to just go and have some xiao long baos. We know we’d go again (likely to the original location) with my sister and Noel. We didn’t have to wait for a table, which was good but when we left the line ups looked outrageous (Tim: Actually, the sign said 5 minute wait).

We ended up ordering 10 XLBs (200 NT), Green beans with minced pork (110 NT), and Beef Noodle (230 NT) = 540 NT + 10% Service Charge = 594 NT = $24 CAD (Tim: Current “priciest meal” champ). Everything was good and the service was excellent – my tea cup was never empty.

After our early lunch we walked around to the neighbouring malls and checked out Eslite 24 hour bookstore (8 levels) which was also filled with so many cool boutiques and restaurants within the store. If this wasn’t a backpacking trip for us, I would probably buy a lot from here.

On our way back to the apartment, we passed by the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and decided to check it out. It was filled with Chinese tourists – which was reminiscent of some of the temples we saw in Bangkok with all the tour groups being dumped there at once. Inside, they had the changing of guards in front of a huge statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

At this point in the afternoon, it was about 25 degrees celsius and we were both wearing t-shirts and jeans. With the sun beating down on us, we were warm (Tim was obvs sweating)! It was funny because we passed by so many people wearing parkas, wool jackets and 80% of people had scarves (it is winter I guess..). Even when we got back to the apartment, a lady talking to the doorman looked at us and said “they hardly have any clothes on, it makes me feel like I’m wearing too much” (this was Tim’s English translation for me). Maybe we’ll start to acclimate soon.

It was nice to relax in the afternoon – I started this blog and Tim caught up on the Walking Dead. We started to get a bit sleepy but we had to get ready for dinner with Uncle Albert.

Uncle Albert picked us up at around 6pm and we headed to the Ningxia Nightmarket for dinner. I was pretty excited for this because last time we were here, I was only able to eat one thing (stinky tofu) at the Shilin Nightmarket because we had a huge dinner beforehand. We ended up starting off at a Taiwanese chain restaurant called “Formosa Chang” for their stewed pork on rice and a couple of other sides. We ventured back out to the stalls and Uncle Albert ordered us a bunch of things to share – BBQ steak bites, bacon wrapped chives and a shrimp paste patty wrapped in a spring roll but presented like a pancake. We also ordered a chicken thigh that was fried, grilled and glazed (delish!) and I got my favourite ai-yu jelly drink.

After our non-stop eating, Tim and I were fading. It was 8pm and we both fell asleep in the car ride back. We washed up and Tim tried to finish watching the end of Survivor and we fell asleep at 9pm.

I got woken up by a phone call and couldn’t go back to sleep – it was 4:30am. I started to write this blog post and catch up on what happened on the Bachelor on Monday (I knew Ben didn’t love Caila… poor girl)

To offset everything we ate, we walked 24,761 steps yesterday. Yay!