Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Sav: It seemed as though the sky was going to hold on to the rain today, so we decided to take advantage of being outside and grabbed the MRT all the way to….

Taipei 101! We came out of the subway station and were almost directly underneath it. We walked away from it so as to be able to see it completely and as the extra layers came into view I was reminded what a beautiful building it is. We didn’t go to the top (it was still too cloudy today) and instead opted to wait for a nice day to see the city view from Elephant mountain. We wandered around Village 44, an old military dependents village turned simple goods market. Peeking in and out of the old alleyways and winding around the trees we saw low houses crumbling around the edges, foggy glass windows and thin wooden doors covered in moss. Unfortunately due to Chinese New Year many of the small businesses were closed, but will be open again in a few days so we may make our way back here then!

Max: We hoped back on the subway and wandered over to Dihua Street. Lanterns set up for Chinese New Years crisscrossed above the crowded street full of food, traditional medicine, jewelry and fabric. Sav immediately zeroed in on a stall selling Pig Blood Gao that she’d been itching for me to try since we arrived and I was so nervous. This is literally just a gelatinous stick of pig blood rolled in peanut shavings and herbs, and I’m pretty sure the peanut shavings are just there to mask the coppery taste of the blood… Now. I like rare meat (dancing blue please) and I like to think I’m pretty carnivorous, but this was too much for me. I had full on shivers and could not bring myself to finish it. An older Taiwanese couple laughed at my involuntary reaction.

Taiwan – 1.

Max – 0.

We bought some Jiaozi (flat circular dumplings) to reset our (my) flavour pallet and continued down the street. Several stops were made in shops selling interesting paper origami animals, medicine, and kitchenware where everything was made of wood. Sav kept pointing out those wooden steamer trays for dumplings and I’m starting to think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have our own set… (Sav: we love dumplings what can we say). We even saw a stall selling shot glasses with animal heads on the bottoms, and laughed incredulously when a woman said ‘ages 12 and up‘. (S: twelve!!) We came up to Xiahai City God Temple and were immediately drawn in. It was small and quaint and completely packed with locals. Through the heavy layer of incense smoke, we could see lineups of people throwing moon blocks or quickly praying to one of several shrines.

At this point we were getting peckish and found a small cafe called Salt Peanuts with a beautiful plant filled courtyard. Desserts are their specialty and the lemon tart we shared did not disappoint. We snagged a spot in the courtyard and took a minute to enjoy the quiet among the greenery before moving on.

Sav: We walked towards home on the Dadaocheng Wharf, stopping at Pier 5 to grab a beer for the walk. Seeing the other side of the city from the riverfront was as beautiful as I remembered, and I was happy to be back in a spot that had me smiling ear to ear last time.

It was starting to get a little chilly (I feel so lucky to be saying +15C is chilly) so we decided to hole away in a movie theatre for a couple of hours. The Gentlemen was playing and I’d heard it was amazing. (Max: imagine a shorter, funnier Quentin Tarantino movie). We scarfed down some sweet kettle-corn and enjoyed sitting down for a couple hours after spending so much time walking. Feeling refreshed we wandered around downtown, eventually making our way to the eastern side of the city towards Raohe Night Market.

I went to to Raohe last time I was here and let me tell you it’s massive. Definitely the biggest night market I had been to, so I was looking forward to bringing Max here. We had a bit more space in the alleys, although not much, to gawk at all the food fare and wares for sale. Max had been wanting to try a claw machine since the very first moment we arrived in the city (there are cubbies of them everywhere) and he finally got his chance attempting to win a small plush shark. I have no idea what we would have done with it but it was fun to try! We ate dumplings (of course), custard filled coffin bread and beef stew and scallion filled buns.

Good thing we are walking so much!!

Also good thing there’s salad at breakfast…

Sav