My last visit to Taiwan was in 1985, about 33 years ago. My memories from that visit and the one before that was dirty and smelly toilets, incessant honking by taxis, betel nut spit on the sidewalks, etc. They were memorable visits for the wrong reasons.
Since I've been coming to Asia almost every year for the last 10 years, I've been trying to include a return visit to Taiwan. On this trip to Singapore I scheduled an 8-day trip, not being sure of where I'd go and what I want to see. I was thinking of a more comprehensive round-the-island tour but after talking to several people, I was told that only Taipei and the surrounding areas is worth spending much time.
I had many friends from Taiwan but I've either lost touch with them or they have moved away from Taiwan. One friend I have in Taipei is Phung Bang, who was teaching me Vietnamese when I was living in Hanoi. He was offered a scholarship to study for a Master's degree in Civil Engineering at the National Taiwan University, the top-rated university in Taiwan. After finishing his Master's he was offered another scholarship to do his PhD, working on an Earthquake Engineering project.
Bang (the "a" pronounced like in father) was very generous with his time. He met me at my hotel when I arrived the first evening, with his 2-year old daughter. We went out to dinner in the Ximen area where the Diary of Taipei hotel is located. Bang recommended that I stay here because it's a very lively area. Many of the streets in the area are closed off to vehicular traffic. Throngs of young and old, locals and tourists, walk around the area. It's like a night market but not a night market. It's simply a pedestrian mall with lots of shops and restaurants, instead of street vendors.
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| Night scene at the Ximen Pedestrian Mall |
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| One of the gateways to the mall during the day |
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| Ximen MRT Station, Exit 6, near the hotel |
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| A very popular noodle house, always crowded all day |
Top on my list to visit in Taipei is the National Palace Museum. When the Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-Shek fled China in 1949, they took with them some of the best Chinese artifacts from about 6,000 years of Chinese history. It is considered the best museum on Chinese history. I've planned to spend as much time as I needed there. I ended up spending about 6-7 hours.
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| Top attraction: cabbage carved from jade |
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| A carving that looks almost like a piece of meat |
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| One of many beautiful porcelain vases from the Ming Dynasty |
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| A porcelain spoon with sanskrit writings either from the Ming or Ching Dynasty |
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| A bronze vase from the Qin Dynasty |
Other interesting places to visit are: Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, Taipei 101, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial and night markets. Night markets are very popular in Taiwan. I plan to write a separate posts on this subject later. The Chiang Ka-Shek Memorial sits in a park in central Taipei. Within the park are the National Theater and the National Concert Hall. The memorial pays tribute to Chiang Kai-Shek, the former president of Taiwan, who moved the National Government from mainland China to the island of Taiwan and established a government-in-exile there.
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| CKS Memorial |
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| Statue of CKS inside the memorial |
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| Changing of the Guard |
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| The National Theater |
Near the memorial is a local market that I happened upon when getting off the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit, the subway system in Taipei) station. This market sells many local foodstuffs.
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| Cooked foodstuffs |
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| Braised Pork Belly |
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| Fried crullers |
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| Preserved foodstuffs |
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| Vendor selling greens |
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| Chinese Bacon |
I also spent some time traveling outside the Taipei city center. I will talk about those places in another post.
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