Taipei (Day 29): Last Day in Taiwan

March 29, 2016

Today is our last day in Taipei until May, when we’ll be back for a couple of days before going down to Australia. We slept in this morning for the first time in a while which was nice. We used this morning to plan for Seoul – how to get to the hotel from the airport and researching DMZ tours.

We decided to go for lunch at this noodle restaurant that we passed by on our way to Daan Park multiple times. The restaurant was pretty much a hole in the wall (with no signage), the kitchen at the front with a “Mom” and “Dad” making noodles. Each time we passed by during lunch they always had a line up – which is usually a good sign. We ended up having a late lunch at around 1:30pm, which worked out because we avoided the work lunch crowd. This restaurant specializes in noodles – both dry and soup noodles (milk seafood broth and miso broth).

We picked the dry pork noodles and the milk seafood broth. The noodles were nice and chewy (the way I like them) and the milk seafood broth was surprisingly tasty and had a lot of seafood in the soup. The seafood soup bowl was a lot deeper than it appeared to be and was very filing. After we had this carb heavy lunch, I felt like falling asleep, so it was good we went for a walk after. While we were eating, the owners closed the door and were eating their lunch too (at the same table as us).

Noodle restaurant we had passed by almost every day
Noodle restaurant we had passed by almost every day
Dry noodle in pork sauce (60 NT = $2.40 CAD)
Dry noodle in pork sauce (60 NT = $2.40 CAD)
Seafood broth with noodles (160 NT = $6.45 CAD)
Seafood milk soup with noodles (160 NT = $6.45 CAD). It tasted like a watery chowder broth (tasted better than how I’m describing it)

After lunch, we went back to SunnyHills to buy pineapple cakes for Tim’s Great Aunt, who we will be visiting in Osaka. We got to sit down and have a pineapple cake and tea again – delicious!

We got seated in the front room this time
We got seated in the front room this time

Our only other plan today was to meet Tim’s second cousin, Janiss, for dinner at the fish market, “Addiction Aquatic Development” (AAD). The English name is a bit weird, but it’s basically a large Japanese food market with individual restaurants inside. They have sushi, sashimi, steamed/boiled seafood, grilled fish, BBQ, and hot pot. We decided to get a bunch of take out dishes and eat outside.

Us with Janiss outside of Addiction Aquatic Development
Us with Janiss outside of Addiction Aquatic Development
Fresh seafood area
Fresh seafood area
Inside the food area - it's like a Japanese "Eataly"
Inside the stand up sushi area- The AAD is like a Japanese “Eataly” (Tim: What’s an Eataly?)
They even have a flower and plant section
They even have a flower and plant section
Seafood counter
Seafood counter
Sashimi take out section. Very reasonable prices, 20 pieces of sashimi for 240 NT = $9.70 CAD
Sashimi take out section. Very reasonable prices,  20 pieces of fresh sashimi for 240 NT = $9.70 CAD
This is what we ended up getting for the three of us, we could've done without one of the trays. We were stuffed. Sashimi trays were 240 NT = $9.70 CAD, 6 pieces of nigiri 150 NT = $6 CAD, Egg wrapped dynamite/futomaki-ish roll for 225 NT = $9 CAD, salad was $4.45 CAD
This is what we ended up getting for the three of us, we could’ve done without one of the trays. We were stuffed at the end. Sashimi trays were 240 NT = $9.70 CAD, 6 pieces of nigiri 150 NT = $6 CAD, Egg wrapped dynamite/futomaki-ish roll for 225 NT = $9 CAD, salad was $4.45 CAD.

Everything was really fresh and delicious. I’m really looking forward to going to Japan now! It was great catching up with Janiss over a nice meal, she’s such a sweet and bubbly girl. The last time we saw her was 3 years ago in Taipei when she took us to the Shilin Night Market. She’s now graduated university and is working full time. She’s fluent in Mandarin, English, German and Taiwanese – very impressed and wish I was multilingual. After dinner, we walked to the MRT station and said our goodbyes. Hopefully we’ll see her again soon in Taipei or even Vancouver.

We’re flying out to Seoul tomorrow at 1:25pm, so we’re getting everything packed up and ready. We’re both excited to go somewhere we haven’t been before, and experience new adventures in a place where neither of us can speak the language (I can only say “hello” and “thank you”). As much as we’re excited to go to Seoul, we’ll miss being in Taipei and feeling like a “local”, especially in the Daan area where we’ve been staying. I’ll write more on Taiwan summarizing some of my thoughts from the past month in a future post!

Total steps: 19,500