Time for a two day update! So the weather here has lightened up a bit in terms of humidity thankfully but the temperature still remains the same but that we can live with. We have also worked out now the public transport system a bit better to get around Taipei (outside of Taipei is another story all together) and as such we have managed to keep ourselves in air conditioning most of the time.
So what have we gotten up to? Well we’ve hit up the famous Din Tai Fung dumplings restaurant (and now we want to go to the others dotted around Taiwan) for an incredibly affordable meal of some of the best dumplings we’ve ever had. Following the best lunch we moved onto The National Palace Museum, one of the must see attractions in Taipei and boy are are we glad we didn’t go on a weekend, the crowds were insane and that was on a Thursday. After wandering around the exhibit halls and looking at a lot of jade (we didn’t see much else besides jade) we headed outside and into the gardens for a bit of piece and relaxation before heading back to the hotel to cool down and get ready for the night markets.
The night markets we went to are the ones near by to our hotel called Shilin Night Markets. The place was absolutely packed with a vast array of foods and stalls (photos attached of the various foods on offer) all for very low prices. It was great fun just to browse around and do some quick shopping.
As for yesterday our plan was simple, head out to Jiufen (a town built onto the side of a hill over looking the pacific) to wander around. Our original plan was to tackle the Taroko Gorge but with the heat and the humidity none of us felt like the very early start required or proceeding to do the hiking trails through the area (we wanted to avoid the tour buses if possible) so we decided on Jiufen instead. To get to Jiufen we headed out from Taipei main station and took the train line out to the near by Ruifang. From here it was meant to be a simple hop on a bus and proceed out to Jiufen. Of course though we jumped on the right bus number but heading the wrong direction and ended up in Keelung, a port side town that was rather lovely but not quite our destination.
Eventually though we headed in the right direction and made it to Jiufen and proceeded to check out the old streets filled with their various stalls of food and other goods. We ate well and enjoyed tea with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean whilst the sun set and then grabbed some more food in the form of rice pancakes with grounded peanuts and ice cream inside (absolutely delicious). Eventually we headed back into Taipei where we dined on a lobster and Peking Duck for less then $30 Australian Dollars a head. All in all a pretty good day.
As usual images beneath. I’ve also fixed up the headers on these posts so they should now show up properly.
