meeting chaya

I woke up, legs so stiff. Seriously thought i was gonna die walking down the stairs of my hostel. The plan was pretty straightforward today, take trains until I reach Taichung. The man who checks tickets to see you paid your fare, checked mine, and I had purchased the wrong one. He was super kind about it though. I paid him for the correct ticket and he gave me a receipt and an official looking stamp and gave me directions on how to get a refund for the first ticket I bought. People have been for the most part,so kind and helpful here. I had to take a stop at songshan station in Taipei to get my luggage. I took a break and ate some king pao chicken at a restaurant in the train station before boarding the next train to Taichung. It all flowed pretty smoothly all things considered.

I waited around for Chaya at the old station market, which was really cute. An old train car has been repurposed to house many small shops and cafes. She got off her train after her school day and had me follow her onto a bus to get to her family’s house. Chaya is Justin’s relative. She is getting ready to study fashion design at the same school as Peggy is enrolled in! After stopping at her house to drop off my suitcase, she showed me around the local night market. I got a rice sausage (one of my favs) and then we sat and ate dumplings together. We got some boba before heading back home. She spent some time showing me her many sketchbooks filled with art and her portfolio. She went to several art and fashion design summer camps and had some clothes to show me as well. Super cool!

Her brother Jasper was the next one to come home, followed a bit later by her mom Pearl and her 8 yr old sister Jaimie. I talked to the mom a bit to thank her for opening up her house to me, and she offered to take me on a hike on Thursday. I’m not sure yet if I’ll go or not, I’m still thinking about it. I’m not even really sure what I want to do tomorrow, but I think my plan is to leave around 10am. Later on, Chaya is going to take me to the town Changua where I can explore a bit while she has a studio arts class.

matcha mountain and stinky tofu

I found out that the majority of Taipingshen is inaccessible currently, due to ongoing road repair. Bummer.

I pivoted and decided to explore Wufengqi waterfall area and matcha mountain. After I arrived at the nearest bus stop, I took a short break and ate some treats I procured from 7/11. A fried rice ball, a tea egg, a yakult. I saved my sweet potato for the return journey. The hike ended up being a little more challenging than I was prepared for, mostly in terms of endurance. One nice thing is that at the very beginning I asked someone in a large tour group for clarification on direction, and for the rest of the hike, anytime I ran into anyone in their group they would stop and happily chat with me.The hike started along a stream with many waterfalls. Hours and many, many stairs later, I reached the vista. A vast expanse of rolling green hills.

I wasn’t initially going to, but figured why not. I stopped at the Jiaoxe hot spring park on the way back. A foot bath was nice after the long walk. Afterwards, I boarded the train back to the town I’m staying in, Luodong. It isn’t exactly the most convenient place to stay unless you intend to go to Taipingshen park, but Taiwan is pretty well connected by rail. I went straight to the night market to get some dinner.

I went to a food stall famous for its Angelica Lamb soup. I read about it in a guide for Luodong market. I wouldn’t have figured it out otherwise, it was pretty confusing where to queue and how to order, but the waiting area was next to a temple at least, the red lanterns are so pretty. I got Angelica mutton soup, braised water spinach and pork, and stinky tofu. It was my first time trying stinky tofu and actually I found it quite good! The soup broth had a somewhat bitter, medicinal flavor. For dessert I went to a nearby shop and got red bean stuffed boba and grass jelly with lemon ice. It was the perfect wrap to my night. Tomorrow is a big travel day.

travel day

I woke up super hungover. Much more than i thought i would be. I had told enly we could do a photoshoot at 8am , so i committed though i think i was a little bleary eyed. Afterwards it took me the better part of 4 hours to repack all my things and rest a bit and talk with raven on the phone. Enly was able to give me information on stowing my luggage at the train station. Now i know! You cannot store things at mrt stations for more than a day, but at the high speed rail stations you can. It was super confusing to find to baggage area, but the attendants were so friendly i forgot all my frustration. Seriously though, it was outside of the station, across the street and around the corner of a hotel building. I had to ask for directions sooo many times lol.

The train ride was seamless. Spent the ride doing a bunch of reaching out to people and answering messages, it went by fast.

I’m in the town Luodong now, all checked in to my hostel (which is super cute). I decided to pay the day use fee and go to the onsen area of a nice resort nearby for some r&r. It was a super luxe setting, which was kinda nice. There was even a beautiful tiled swimming pool. Left feeling refreshed. Had dinner at the local night market , which seems to be a pretty good one. I had chicken wings, chinese sausage, fried assorted mushrooms, glazed spicy corn on the cob and a grass jelly boba drink for dessert.

I’ll spend the rest of the evening figuring out how im going to approach taipingshan national forest.

saturday

Today I was determined, and I got a lot done.

I began my day by taking the green line almost all the way from one end to the other. My mission, shopping. I stopped at a convenience store and got a full spread for breakfast. I’m talking sweet potato, tea egg, chicken cutlet and corn on the cob. If only convenience stores in America had all those offerings. The sweet potatoes are especially my favorite, this store had them nestled on hot rocks. True secondhand stores are kind of hard to come by here in my experience, but this one i went to is true blue. I spent some time shopping there, got mostly clothes. It’s always funny being in some far-flung neighborhood with no touristic influence.

Took a break for a matcha in the Zhongshan neighborhood, it was extremely crowded. I’m glad I spent time here before the weekend.

Then it was time to take the train all the way from south to north to go to a pop-up art market I found from instagram. It was taking place in a hair salon which was a cool backdrop. There was several cool booths, and some vintage clothes. Honestly all the people there looked soo cool I felt pretty out of place. I’m not exactly dripped out when I’m traveling unfortunately! But I did talk a bit to the person who’s instagram tipped me off to the market @ponpontou . She was really friendly and her work is amazing. Check it out! I purchased a stuffed animal bag. She designed a photo overlay for the photo booth in front of the salon and I got some of those too. How extremely cool!

Next, i took a bus to a local flea market, again pretty far from being in central Taipei. I really enjoyed it, people were super friendly and I got some cute stuff! Everyone is just sifting through piles haha.

I took an Uber to see an art exhibition of “nAn” or “not a number”. It was a really cute exhibit of a fantasy world made entirely from cardboard.

After a brief intermission at Enly’s, I went to MAJI square and danced the night away. I had some fun , but I felt a little lonely. I chatted with a few people, but I wish one of my friends here was available to go with me. Oh well, maybe next time! Tomorrow I head to Yilan for some nature time.

a home cooked meal

Today I checked out of my hotel to meet up with my new friend Enly. She’s from the “host a sister” program and I’ll be staying at her apartment for the next couple of days. She’s a project design manager and her company actually helps put on Taipei Fashion Week, so she might be able to get me into a show! Her house is super nice, the kitchen looks like something off of Pinterest. After lugging up my suitcase 5 flights, getting the house tour and meeting the cat, I took a shower. I didn’t have a clue of what to do today, and I’m in a whole new area of the city I’ve never explored. I decided I’d get lunch before I made my mind up, that alone took forever. I went to a famous beef noodle shop for my first beef noodles of this trip at Lin Dong Fang Beef Noodles 林東芳牛肉麵. I intended to use a city bike to get from the restaurant to Daan park— where there is a giant flower garden in bloom for spring. I didn’t end up making it there, the combination of wearing a long dress and trying to bike against strong wind and just being generally fatigued got the better of me. Heading back to the apartment took awhile, and I took my time. Enly cooked dinner tonight. She served up Braised food 滷味 , Stir-fried Bitter Melon with Salted Egg苦瓜鹹蛋 , and Bak Kut Teh肉骨茶. It was all really good and it is always so comforting when traveling to eat food at someones house. I enjoyed our evening spent sharing travel experiences and getting to know each other. Thanks Enly!

springs and shimps

I felt a little lousy this morning,it was hard to get going. I woke up early and got some kinda breakfast item (I have no idea what, some kind of goo with pork on top). I came back to my hotel and drank tea and chilled out for a bit before really getting started with my day. Around 10:30 or 11 I got on the train to Beitou , its a district in Taipei famous for its hot springs! I went to check out the beitou hotspring museum. When the Japanese colonized Taiwan, they brought onsen. Beitou was one of the prime time areas. Beitou was called Hokuta then, and they actually found a unique mineral in the springs and named it Hokutite. I thought that was cool. :)

After checking out the museum, I decided to enjoy some hot spring time. It seems that there is some kind of rule that a single person can’t rent a private hot tub here, I guess due to the concern they have of you passing out or something. I went to a public bathhouse instead at SweetMe, which is a long-standing hot spring resort in the town. I spent hours enjoying the spring and the various temperature baths. I even took a light nap near the end. The hot spring helped enormously with my morale, my health, my digestive discomfort, you get the picture. I felt very relaxed.I enjoyed blow drying my hair after.

I stopped at the hotel again before setting out around dusk for Ningxia night market. I stayed near there last time I was in Taipei, and I remembered liking it. It still holds up! I got taro/sweet potato balls, takoyaki, grilled zucchini, and thinly sliced grilled beef wrapped around green onion. I felt satisfied and left, meandering a little bit back towards the Zhongshan neighbourhood and resting at the train stop.

I wasn’t feeling quite ready to wrap up the night yet,but I didn’t know of anything cool happening and I didn’t really want to ambiguously drink at a bar when I have 11am check out tomorrow morning. I looked up some ideas of what to do, and prawn fishing came up. Actually I’ve been eager to try it for awhile! When I got there, I was handed some bait and a pole, and I purchased an hour of fishing time and a beer for around 400NTD (around $12USD) I was really bad at it, and the shrimp were really scary. But I managed to catch 4 and the last one I wrangled and subdued all by myself. I had varying degrees of help for the first 3. I felt like I was finally understanding how to read my bobber as my time was coming to a close. Then the clerk grilled my 4 prawns and I ate them, feeling so proud and awesome. The guys next to me literally caught enough to have a heaping pile hahaha. It’s a really cool thing. When I walked in there was a group of businessmen talking over plates of shrimp they caught. I kinda want to get better at it. I wish we had it in Arcata.

day 1

I decided that going to a cafe in Zhongshan neighborhood was how I wanted to start my day today. I asked a random passerby for directions to a cafe called “waha” and she was kind enough to walk me there and chat with me on the way! It was nice to have a little escort, she even explained my presence to the shopkeep. It was a very friendly interaction and I was able to practice some conversational mandarin. I’ve been lightly studying the language for about a year now, its very challenging. It’s good for me to be able to practice in real world conversations. I feel like with language learning, I have a really hard time retaining the information, but the shock and discomfort of trying to produce words from memory in a real life situation makes them stick a bit better. By happenstance I ran into her again shortly after at a little Japanese dessert shop. I got her name, Yvonne, and her LINE number. She actually sent me some recommendations for a couple restaurants including a beef noodle shop. Cute! I spent most of the day putzing around shops, purchased a few small things. I went to a Hakka restaurant for lunch and got pork and fried tofu and cucumber salad. It was pretty good! Hakka cuisine came from mainland china. I’d love to try some indigenous Taiwanese food also. Another popular cuisine here is Fujian, which comes from the southern part of china across the sea from Taiwan.. Japanese cuisine is also very popular. I saw someone online draw a comparison that pizza isn’t really an “American” food right , because it’s Italian , but then tomatoes aren’t really “authentic Italian” because they aren’t native to that area of the world. So I guess similarly , food in Taiwan is made up of a lot of cultural influences to become what it is today. At night, I met up with fashion design student Peggy at daodecheng dock and we shared a drink and talked awhile. It was interesting to hear her perspective on life in Taiwan,as it sounded like she’d traveled worldwide pretty extensively. I liked talking about fashion design with her. I told her I envy that she gets to live in Taipei and study fashion! She didn’t seem to share all of my enthusiasm , saying that she’d rather live in Europe or England or the US instead. She showed me some of her collections and a clip from her final runway show and they were all very impressive. I hope to have my designs walk down a runway someday.

touchdown

They gave me not one, not two, but three meals on my flights thru Asiana airlines. And its a Korean airline, so they served bibimbap and chicken and rice. Yum. Everything went really smoothly. I decided to pay for an ESIM at the airport instead of buying one ahead of time, which I’m really glad for. The ESIM folder on my phone looks crazy still from my adventure in 2024. I purchased a plan for unlimited data and text and it came out to about 20$. Another perk doing it of this way is that I have a Taiwan phone number, which already came in handy. I was able to create a LINE account and use that to set up a mobile payment to rent a locker at the train station. Mobile pay is really popular in a lot of parts of china, so I feel like this is useful information for when I finally go there. Taiwan is different in a lot of ways though, obviously. Getting off the plane and onto the train, buying an ESIM and setting up a virtual payment. The first day is always so logistical. Then I ran into Justin at Taipei Main Station, which was really random! In a city of 2.5 million, we happened to pass each other. He was my first connection here when Raven and I visited in 2024. Jocelyn, my coworker at Mokka, passed his contact info along then and we met up with him and had lots of karaoke and hotpot fun. I mean, I’m sure it helped our odds of running into each other that i spent an hour aimlessly wandering. He was there because he was headed to the airport for his trip to Japan. I knew that I was arriving and he was leaving the same day, but it just seemed crazy happenstance to run into him there! He gave me some lunch recommendations and was on his way. Have a good Japan trip Justin! I’ll see you on the 28th! I had several hours to kill before my checkin, so I did what any sensible person would do— I went to the busiest, most intense shopping district in Taipei. I wanted to get a novelty item, a 3D figurine version of the card that lets you on the train(easy card). It felt like something I should cross off my list early on, and having surmounted so many logistical challenges already I thought I’d be up for it. Unfortunately, I found myself unsuccessful.The internet gave me a lot of conflicting reports on where to buy them. I actually did see a couple at various 7/11’s and Family Marts, but finding them felt more like finding a needle in a haystack than browsing a beautiful wall of trinkets. I wasn’t super into any of the ones I was finding. I finally gave up, starving, jet-lagged and exhausted. And bought a normal transit card at the station. Re-found the locker which I had stored my luggage in (not the easiest) and headed to my accommodation. Which is super weird by the way , lol. It’s a self check-in and at first I felt like I broke into somewhere, but I finally figured out the way to my room ( I am so lucky a housekeeper was there and help me ). It’s tiny and freaky and sorta smells but I can walk ten paces out the front door and be in the “ Minquan “ train station. Also the neighborhood is pretty cute. It’s close the the SUPER cute neighborhood, which is only one train stop south. It was a struggle to keep myself awake, but I knew it was gonna be crucial to adjusting to the time zone, which is 16 hours ahead. Lost a full day during my flight— must have crossed the international date line? I managed to sit and look at my phone while I rested a bit in my hotel room, then I ventured out to get some things from 7/11 - water and a steamed corn on the cob ( more about the 7/11 offerings to come ) . There were beautiful red lanterns lighting a lot of my evening walk, and I saw a cool temple in the middle of them. I decided to close out my night by getting a foot massage at a parlor, it was definitely a little awkward but I’m glad I did it and might do it again. It’s a big thing here. My feet certainly thanked me. Can’t wait for my first morning here tomorrow!

a new adventure

follow along with me on a new adventure! I'll be visiting Taiwan again from march 15-30th this month. Wish me luck!