After coming back from our trip to Hualien County and visiting Jiufen and the New Taipei City Districts we still had two days in Taiwan to spend in Taipei.
Back to the city
This time we wanted to stay downtown so we booked the hostel Here x There, (get some discount here for booking.com!) which is located very near the Taipei Main Station. The area around the guesthouse has everything a big Asian city center usually has: plenty of convenience stores, fashion stores, cosmetics shops, fast food joints, local food restaurants, street food, electronics stores, hotels and guesthouses (a big range of prices) and of course, souvenir shops.
We arrived quite late to Taipei after visiting Shifen in the evening. So, found the hostel (located on a 6th floor) and checked in. It was a peaceful and quiet hostel. We stayed in a double bed in a 12 beds dormitory. It was very new and modern, with nice views of the busy street, but not noisy at all.
Beef Noodles: You can't miss them!
Since we didn't eat for a while, we went out to eat some food. We realized we were not far from Ximen District, and walked a few blocks to Fuhong Beef noodles: a small restaurant with great beef noodles soup. There were not many foreigners there.
We know we are going to eat well and not overpriced food when a place is frequented by locals.
We went back and took a good shower and a good sleep to be ready for the next day trip: Yehliu Geopark. you can read the full post about it here.
Back in Taipei city, we stepped by Guanghua Digital Plaza to finally get a new smartphone and get rid of that old piece of...that served us well for many years. Time to move on. We got a Xiaomi Mi A1, which was a recent release, but very nice low price. And we loved the fact that comes with Android One.
TaipeiEYE, enjoying some Chinese culture and arts performance
We walked back to the hostel and tested the phone camera on the way. In the evening, we had booked tickets to see a traditional Chinese performance in the TaipeiEYE theater. They have many programs to choose. We wanted to see some cultural arts and enjoy some performance (not everything in travels has to be walking and hiking!).
The play we saw was called "Legend Of The Eight Immortals Crossing The Sea". The Eight Immortals of Chinese Taoist mythology each represents humans of different gender, age and social class. All of them were born mortal and went through their own extraordinary journeys to immortality. Therefore, these mythical characters have the manners of everyday people, and thus are quite popular amount the audience. After the celestial peach banquet held by Mother Goddess Madame Wong, Dong-Bin Lu goes with the other seven immortals to cross the Eastern Sea. Lu suggests that they show off their special powers, and the Eastern Sea is suddenly covered with splendid magic and lights. The Coy Fairy who lives in the Eastern Sea is disturbed. After some unpleasant exchange of words, the fight begins...
Before the performance, the audience can see the actors putting on their make-up and interacting a little bit with them.
The performance was mainly music and dance, but it also included some acrobatic performance and fights. All the talking and singing had subtitles in four languages on side screens. Personally, we thought the translation could be improved. Some sentences didn't sound very natural.
During the performance, it is customary for the audience to applaud in appreciation for outstanding demonstration of skill by the actors. But we felt that the actors didn't interact as much as they could. Probably because the audience was a mix of nationalities and could be hard to understand for some.
After the performance it was a bit late and not many restaurants were open. We were going back to the hostel with the idea of getting some street food or even something from a convenience store. But we were too hungry and we were leaving the next day, so we thought it was better to search a bit more for some nice local food.
Back to Ximen District
We ended up again in Ximen District. It was still very alive and we went to a place that caught our eye some days before. It was a place famous for their oyster omelette. We had to try that, and we also ordered some meat and egg soup and a very delicious dish of seasoned bamboo shoots. We totally recommend you to try those! But unfortunately, we forgot the name of the place. Anyway, oyster omelette joints are all around Ximen District, and they probably serve similar dishes. So, just follow the crowds and expect to enjoy a tasty meal for a very good price!
After dinner, we felt it was time for some craft beer. We visited The 58 bar and had some nice IPA's and a chocolatey stout. Read more about the best craft beers in Taipei on this blog post.
Last morning in Taipei: Discovering more food!
The next morning was our last in Taipei. We were a bit sad to leave, but happy to have a very sunny day and excited for the idea of being in a total different country a few hours later.
We left our backpacks in a locker of the Taipei Station to pick them up later on the way to the airport and headed to Dongmen Station, where had a placed to eat marked on our map. But, unfortunately, there was a long waiting line, so we ended up in another place called Kao Chi. We had some delightful steamed dumplings and tried some sticky rice.
The Dongmen area is full of traditional Chinese restaurants with a big range of price. Do your research and you won't regret!
Another reason we went to Dongmen was Smoothie House: A Taiwanese Mango Sherbet and deserts restaurant. We arrived at the place but it was full. What we didn't know is that they recently had opened another one very near, so we went to that second location. We felt the place wasn't crowded as the previous one, it was rather empty. So we could chose a comfortable table, actually we sat outside to enjoy their refreshing outdoors water misting spray system. We had one of the classic items on the menu, the Super Mango Snowflake Ice with Panna Cotta. It was very yummy! And of course, refreshing. Taipei can get very hot, better stay fresh and hydrated!
Memorial Parks
After all that food we felt energized to walk around and explore the city. We went to the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall : a national monument, landmark and tourist attraction erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. The majestic building is surrounded by a large park and gardens. The ground level of the memorial houses a library and museum documenting Chiang Kai-shek's life and career and exhibits related to Republic of China-era Chinese history, and Taiwan's history and development. The upper level contains the main hall, in which a large statue of Chiang Kai-shek is located, and where a guard mounting ceremony takes place in regular intervals.
For being one of the biggest tourist spots, it didn't feel crowded. People can take good photos with the whole park or building on the background.
After that, we still got some time before taking our train to the airport. So we took a nice stroll along the 2/28 Peace Memorial Park. A complex containing the Taipei 228 Memorial and the 228 Memorial Museum: Memorials in respect of the victims of the February 28th incident in 1947. When an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang-led Republic of China government, which killed thousands of civilians.
We stopped some times to play with bold squirrels before getting marveled by a beautiful pagoda in the middle of a pond.
Lastly, we went to Taipei Station, picked up our backpacks from the locker, and headed to TPE Airport to take our flight to...Hanoi, Vietnam!