The trip to Taipei was one of the rare flights on this jaunt across Asia that wasn’t a red-eye, so we were properly rested getting into the city – the only problem however was my overconfidence in how quickly we could make it from the airport to the Airbnb. We lined up a dinner with some colleagues for our first night in the city, and it may have been a bit too early as it was quite the rush to get to Taipei 101, especially after a longer than expected customs line… In any case, I’m so glad we had a chance to catch up with Jovi, Rick and Jerry – thanks for a wonderful first night in Taipei and look forward to seeing you again soon!

After settling in for the night, we got ready for a pretty jam-packed first day – first order of business, movement. Since we were staying close to the famous Taipei 101 tower, we planned a day around this area to start – a very close and popular hiking spot is Xiangshan where you climb stairs for about a mile straight (flashback to Korea’s Namsan hill…) before flattening out to a great view over Taipei and very close to the tower itself. This was a great way to start the day and justify the need for the various foods to come later in the day as well… Since we were so close to the tower, we also decided to pop up to the 100th floor while experiencing the world’s fastest elevator – I can’t describe what it feels like to ascend at 1 km/min, so you’ll just have to take my word for it being a unique experience… definitely try it if you’re in the area. The top of the tower itself though isn’t more than just a small shopping center (with incredible views obviously), so not much more to talk about here – the bottom however has a tea shop with hundreds of different tea types, so this is where we spent just as long (if not longer) to enjoy a pot of tea!

In the afternoon, we made our way over to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, to wander the grounds and learn a little more about Taiwanese history. While we successfully achieved the former (and saw an excellent guard changing ceremony in front of the memorial hall!), I can’t say we achieved the latter… Maybe our brains were not as fresh as we thought they were, but by the time we got into the hall itself and tried to find exhibits, we were completely lost and ended up back outside in the grounds. Poor-form tourism aside, it’s a wonderful area to explore with a very serene pond full of hungry koi and ducks. For the rest of the afternoon, we mostly wandered around the downtown going through multiple parks and walking districts, but not really stopping for too much. Our real goal was the dinner extravaganza at the Raohe Night Market back closer to the Airbnb – this was our first foray into the night market eateries, and it was fantastic! We tried so many (too many?) delicious, mostly fried, foods and the top for me has to be the Gua Bao – a fluffy braised pork bun that still makes my mouth water thinking about it today…

The next day we decided to ratchet down the touristic intensity, and planned just for the National Palace as the primary sightseeing destination. Before heading that way though, we walked over to a small shop serving some traditional Taiwanese breakfast: omelette and puffed pasty served with steaming hot soy milk… I can’t say the latter was my favorite, but the overall meal was pretty delicious – and we definitely weren’t thirsty after polishing off a liter of hot soy milk.

At the National Palace Museum, we spent a few hours perusing the various floors which covered exhibits spanning the evolution of Chinese calligraphy to the various ornate jade pieces crafted in the last thousand years. One of the most anticipated parts of the visit though was seeing the Jade Cabbage, a carved jadeite piece serving as a centerpiece of the museum and part of the trio of historical artifacts comprising the ‘Hot-Pot Collection’ along with the meat-shaped stone and the Mao Gong ding (a bronze pot). Unfortunately as you can see by Rachel’s disappointed face below, the Jade Cabbage was not on display the day we were there… total bust. Luckily we quickly lifted her spirits later that day with a snack she’s been looking for ever since we got to Asia – a Korean street hot-dog. I fully appreciate the irony with missing this snack after having just been in Korea 48 hours before…

We finished the day with more walking around the Taipei 101 area, and ultimately settling in for a serving of Lu Rou Fan (braised pork and rice) – a must-have dinner recommended to us by some folks in Japan.

Our final full day in Taipei, we decided to start off by grabbing brunch at Din Tai Fung in Taipei 101 – while we have Din Tai Fung in the US, and even in San Diego, the Taipei version is clearly superior. The xiaolongbao and the bao buns were phenomenal, and ending with a chocolate-filled xialongbao for dessert was fantastic! I’ve done this before when traveling for work, but I was glad Rachel was finally able to experience the elevated Din Tai Fung 🙂 Bellies full, we made our way to central Taipei to visit Lungshan Temple, a Buddhist and Taoist temple that feels uniquely out of place in the hustle and bustle of the rest of the city around it. We also meandered through the Taipei Botanical Garden, another great place to forget you are in a megacity for a few hours by completely surrounding yourself with tropical flora – this would be the start of many gardens visited for the rest of the trip, hence the namesake of the post. Finally, we made our way to the Taipei Rose Garden, where we saw probably the biggest collection of rose varietals I’ve ever personally seen – it was a beautiful little park to wander around and literally stop and smell the roses.

The trip to Taipei wasn’t a long one, and the list of things to do in Taiwan only grew as we talked with old colleagues, friends and even random strangers at the night markets – that said, it was a great first experience for Rachel, and a great first tourism-focused trip for me! We can’t wait to come back (especially for more pork buns…), but for now on to Singapore!