Taipei and surrounds exploration

After boarding another new airline (t'way) we found ourselves in Taipei and ready to start exploring Taiwan.

We stepped off the plane and were greeted with a very warm and humid afternoon, although we decided it was more comfortable than the 38 degrees in Seoul the previous day. James managed to navigate the subway system and we arrived at our hotel, stashed our bags and headed out on our first foray into the streets of Taipei, keen to get our first taste of anything. As far as we can tell, Taipei is a collection of "old streets" and night markets. Our first stop was Dihua Street, the city's biggest and oldest "old street", with a new world of things to look at and smell. Light meals in the lead up to the afternoon meant it was a tantalising prospect. We explored a selected few shops, mainly featuring teapots and tea, lamenting all the while that we could not buy anything as our compact luggage left no room to carry anything else. The amount of dried mushrooms on this street was just amazing - how many mushroom shops can be sustained in such a small area anyway? And no we didn't stop to sample anything but a few jokes were made. 

Each old street seems to have it's own atmosphere and specialties, and they have been fun to explore, whether intentional or coming across them by accident. They have included restored historic areas, like the Bopiliao Historical Block, restored to give a sense of how things were in previous times, as well as more mundane areas with a wide range of shops, usually centred around particular themes. It's the sort of arrangement that acts like catnip for us, providing endless opportunity to play "what's around the corner?" - the answer is almost always interesting.    

Our explorations included stumbling on the river and the Dadocheng Wharf Container Market, were we stopped to enjoy the amazing view and to partake of a well deserved cold beverage. We watched the fish jumping and the instagrammers, yet again, try to get that perfect shot. As Gillian enjoys people watching and making up back stories this provided a certain amount of entertainment. Wandering off in search of our first night market to sample the local street foods, we encountered a couple of impromptu outdoor karaoke groups, but much as Gillian tried to encourage James to stop and join in the festivities he could just not be persuaded. Despite the theory of "when in Taipei"...

The night markets are lively places with a wide variety of tempting (and otherwise) street foods. Ximending night market provided pork pepper buns, stinky tofu (actually pretty tasty once you get bast the "distinctive" smell!) and radish cakes. We were well and truly sold on the concept, despite at least one burnt mouth from over enthusiasm. Shilin night markets were different again, located around a large Buddhist temple and including a massive "sideshow alley" arrangement, with a whole new range of food including our first dumplings (not our last), duck pancakes and peanut brittle ice creams. Clearly the objective was to sample as big a variety of the local cuisine as possible. Which is only reasonable give the foodie reputation of Taiwan. 

Our stay in Taipei included a day trip up into the hills via the Pingxi railway, originally built by the Japanese as a mining railway. Today it is a big tourist attraction for locals and foreigners alike. The most popular stopping point is Shifen, with its own old street (and the most awesome stuffed chicken wings!), and the widest waterfall in Taiwan - "Taiwan's Niagara" as it was described by one sign. This was something of an oversell, but it was very pretty and the walk along the river is very scenic. The area is famous for sending up sky lanterns at festivals twice a year, and tourists buys lanterns to send off when they get up there. It turns out this is not a great environmental practice, as the walk along the river is littered with spent sky lanterns, on the riverbanks, in the water and stuck up trees. Needless to say we didn't partake. 

The other striking feature of the town is the railway line going right down the street with no barriers. People are shooed off the tracks as each train approaches, and crowd the edge of the line taking photos. It's nervewracking to watch!

We also headed up to Pingxi, further along the line, which was a lot quieter. There is a short hiking loop that we had decided to try, which takes in a couple of the local mountain peaks. This turned out to be a little more than we had bargained for, with very steep steps (at least as many as in Seoul), followed by some rope assisted ascending at the end to get to the top. Climbs go along razor edged rock ridges, providing a serious intimidation factor. After climbing the first peak (Mt Xiaozi), discretion overrode valour and we headed back down the hill to catch the train home. It was interesting to see the couple of Buddha shrines on the way down to town, presumably where you give thanks for not falling off the edge of the climbs!