Now for Taiwan itself, the city is incredible. The one thing I can fault it for is there isn’t enough simple casual bars. There’s plenty of restaurants you can drink in but in terms of just a straight bar we couldn’t find too much, then again this problem could’ve been overcome by researching it a bit better but I don’t feel you should need to research where to find a bar if you’re willing to wander. In all other terms though the city is amazing. It’s easy to get around and its incredibly cheap to do so (our huge trip to Tamsui was 55 TWD whilst a short trip to the 101 from The Grand Hotel was 23 TWD). If trains aren’t your cup of tea taxis are also incredibly cheap costing about 200-300TWD to get across the city the only problem being most taxi drivers speak very little to no English.

Hotel wise we kicked back in The Grand Hotel which there were a few photos of previously. The hotel itself is a tourist attraction and the dumpling place inside the hotel is quite delicious but the buffet breakfast isn’t anything spectacular. Overall the rooms are OK and for what we paid expected. Looking into the rooms with a view they are far better but come with a pretty hefty price tag.

Other then that Taiwan is just simply amazing. Whilst ridiculously hot in the summer it would be best to go in the other months for sure but summer is definitely still manageable just don’t plan on walking too much.

Next up Jeju. I’ll do a single post on Jeju from Seoul tomorrow.

So yesterday we went out with the main interest of finding and browsing through the technology markets area (Guang Hua Digital Plaza) to mostly check out the prices and browse. Whilst this was a success we didn’t exactly get any photos from it as there wasn’t anything interesting to get photos of and a write up of what technology I liked wouldn’t be very interesting.

After the tech area we stumbled into an exhibition area, what this place was called I’m not sure except it was near Huashan Culture Park. Whilst cool photography wasn’t allowed in a few of the exhibitions we went into so once again not much to write up about.

In the evening though we did head up north to the coast to a town called Tamsui. Here we enjoyed the old streets night markets which was incredible then caught a ferry up to the edge of the water at a place called Fishermans Wharf which has a cool bridge which gets lit up in all kinds of fancy colours (in the images below).

As for today it was more of a sleep in and relax day with lunch at the original Din Tai Fung building followed by a stroll around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall grounds, an impressive collection of gardens and monuments/exhibits to one of the most important people in history here.

Tonight will probably be spent exploring one of the night markets we haven’t been to yet so maybe some photos from that to come but that wont be until we are in South Korea as we fly out shortly after midday tomorrow. I’ll do a wrap up on Taiwan soon as well but for now, here are some pictures.

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.

Now onto Taipei. To put it simply its amazingly cheap here. Food and services that are needed everyday are very very cheap. Think about $1-2 in Australian Dollars for a large drink anywhere and meals not much more if you eat like the locals. Public Transport is about 18 TWD which is close to 60c Australian to get across the town.

In regards to what we got up to today. We headed out to the Taiwan Fine Arts Museum at first and thought we could walk there, turns out the path to walk there wasn’t a straight line and we ended up walking in the heat and humidity for a good 30 minutes (hence the cool down drinks in the photos below). After that we journeyed across town to the Taipei 101 Tower to check out the lookout and see the surrounding shops and memorials. After all that and some occasional bites to eat we moved on back to the local night markets here near the hotel for a quick peek and a bite before passing out.

Tomorrow  we move onto National Palace Museum for a gander then onto one of the more major temples and its adjoining night markets. For now though here are the photos.

Note: I’ll be fixing up the thumbnails on the posts soon. I just need to make sure I set it up right again.