3 Mar | 喝茶，享受 － 這是我愛的台北 | Taipei, Taiwan

My ideal 3 day trip would have included an outing to either Jiufen 九份 or Yangmingshan National Park 陽明山國家公園. As I've mentioned in the last 2 blog entries, the weather in Taipei was just too cold and wet this time to go to either destination, so we settled on a mini-trip to Maokong 貓空. (I've got no idea how this place derived its name as it sounds so strange even in Chinese!) The decision was also made easier by the fact that the Maokong Gondola 貓空纜車 rides were advertised extensively on the Taipei City MRT trains.

When I was here in 2009, the Maokong Gondola rides were not even in operation as they were under extensive repairs. I was told they were the scariest gondola rides one could go on. (In actual fact, they had to shut down the service as a typhoon caused significant landslides near one of the Gondola towers in 2008) And the only other way to get there was to rely on a friend/acquaintance to drive you there to enjoy the Taipei City views and drink tea. We were game to try these new gondola rides, well at least I didn't tell M the history of this until we were on the return journey down from the mountains! Ignorance sure is bliss on such occasions.

The new and improved gondola rides @ Maokong

To get to Maokong it couldn't be simpler - simply hop on the brown Wenhu MRT line 文湖線 and head to Taipei Zoo Station. When you get out of the station, you will be greeted by cute cartoon characters such as the ones below, and you just need to follow the signs to get to the Gondola station (about a 5 minute walk). Once there, you will be presented with the option to go on the 'Crystal' cabin rides or the normal ones. I didn't know what the difference was so simply went for the non-crystal rides as there was no queue! (We later took the crystal rides on the descent. It just means the floor of the cabin is made of glass so you can see through it).

太可愛了吧！

As we were clearly on the ascent here, the weather was remarkably cooler up in the mountains. It definitely made for good tea drinking and hibernating weather! Once you arrive at the main tourist hub, you will be welcomed by touristy food sights such as the ones below. I'd suggest walking further in to find 'teahouses' or restaurants/cafes to get a more authentic, local feel to the area. There is definitely no short supply of tea houses/restaurants so take your time to pick one that takes your fancy. Once we picked a place, we only ordered a pot of tea to drink. Here I performed my duties as 'host' to give M an 'authentic' Taiwanese tea drinking experience. (I really should have learnt from mum and her friends the correct way to do it!)

Up and away!

Take a stroll around the main strip. 

Tea time!

The scenery up in Maokong is really quite beautiful as the pink apricot trees were still blooming whilst we were there. I also like this 'coffee cart' we found up there too. The Taipei City views were a bit of a blur this day given the weather, I know from experience that it looks lovely by night.

貓空風景

 

貓空間 － 超可愛！

Next on the itinerary was finally a trip to the famous Taiwanese-owned 'Din Tai Fung' 鼎太豐 franchise. We went to the Sogo-Fuxing location as I know that place is much larger so the wait for a table isn't as long. (Note: we still had to wait for a table despite the fact we were eating lunch at 3pm!). Here we ordered their famous soup dumplings to share. After over-eating for a couple of days, we were trying to tone it down again!

The Din Tai Fung counter...those perfeclty aligned cans is what I noticed!

紅油抄手 - spicy dumplings. My absolute favourite!

The famous soup dumplings 小籠包

Last minute gift shopping @ Sogo - There's no need to struggle for gift ideas as post people will appreciate some fine Chinese tea or Pineapple cakes as presents from Taiwan. Since we were already at Sogo, we just sampled the gift/food store area to get our shopping done. I can recommend the '旺來酥' Pineapple cakes from one of the Sogo counter. Definitely sample the cakes as each brand do taste different. If Pineapple cakes are not your thing, there are other Chinese-style pastries to buy including '太陽餅' '老婆餅' '宜蘭餅'。Go crazy! I can also recommend Pineapple cakes from Chia Te 佳德 which my dad recently visited and bought plenty of cakes. This stores is so famous that people queue from day to night for a box of these delicious golden squares. Check it out here: http://www.chiate88.com/

Hello Kitty Gift Shopping available at Sogo

Throughout this trip, there was an element of sentimentality - so I left visiting the Shida Night Markets 師大夜市 last on the agenda as this place is most vibrant at night. This night markets cannot be compared to the scale of Shilin night markets, but my goodness check out the crowds that gather here each day! Oh I missed walking down the narrow Longquan street 龍泉街 on a daily basis. Those days were so memorable! I can't believe I lived 5 minutes from this place for 3 months yet I still didn't head into every nook and corner for a bit of discovery. We ate a bit of food here at Shida including the deliciously good pan fried buns that taste almost the same as the ones from my childhood, and I was glad to discover the famous 藍家割包 from the neighbouring Gonguan night markets 公館夜市 now have a small store here. I'd highly recommend these 2 eateries if you are here at Shida. I really like the boutiques around Shida too, unfortunately we were just a bit shopped-out and time short to really check them out.

The busy Shida night markets

The famous 許記生煎包 vendor. Take a number and queue!

My lopsided photo as I was holding onto food at the time.
We ate it so quickly I didn't even take a photo of our  割包.
It's like a chinese sandwich but full of flavour!

Did we end the day here? Of course not! There was still one unique Taiwanese experience left on the itinerary. Bubble Tea 珍珠奶茶. Chun Shui Tang 春水堂 is the one and only destination to head to for great bubble tea. Apparently this was the first store in Taiwan - Taichung to invent the bubble tea! Once we finally located the cafe, we found ourselves ordering the hot taiwanese bubble milk tea to warm ourselves up from the cold outside. M agreed with me that it was the best bubble tea she had ever tasted! (Win!) It's a combination of the chewy bubbles (tapioca balls) and sweet milk tea that makes this place the overall winner. We also ate a bit of food too which is nothing that special. Just light snacks to fill the stomach and I guess you don't want the food to overpower the bubble tea! I highly rate Chun Shui Tang and they have quite a few branches all over Taiwan. The one around Zhongshan is pretty good too!

Chun Shui Tang Locations (the ones I've been to)
光復店: 光復南路180巷4號

南京店: 南京東路一段29號

Inside 春水堂  － 有沒有文藝風格的感覺？

Finally had my bubble tea 珍珠奶茶

Last but not least, we headed to Marquee Bar for drinks. I had heard much about Marquee Bar from the internet so was keen to check out this lounge bar. Unfortunately this place was a bit too pretentious for our liking. They definitely do make some tasty cocktails and have good service here, so maybe we just went on an off night where people simply decided to stay home and hibernate from the 11 degrees temperature. In any case, we probably should have gone to my prefered Fifi bar for some winding down time but nevermind, I did want to check out a new Taipei bar. I checked it out and can say that I'd prefer going to Fifi or Brown Sugar any day :) But this is purely my preference and experience.

Marquee Restaurant & Lounge: 信義路五段16-1號
Fifi Bar & Lounge: 仁愛路四段15號2樓

We actually had half a day left on Day 4 where I managed to catch up with 2 friends from 2009 that are still in Taipei! It was definitely great to see them and I really hope my next trip to Taipei is at least 10 days long so I can take my time to walk down old streets, see new things and tour other parts of Taiwan that I haven't seen yet! I hope my dear readers have enjoyed reading these Taipei entries and have found the info here helpful. In any case, comment away if you have questions or just want to write compliment my writings :P

我愛台北！

我愛的台北以往如常。雖然不像上海，北京在世界的舞台上閃閃發亮，吸引大家的仰慕和青睞，但台北的確有她可愛親切的一面。她彷彿在人們不注意之下漸漸地成長，演變成一位亞洲不可缺席的角色。一個充滿文化，文藝的華人地區。這也就是台北的特點。一個地屏不大的城市， 卻充滿豐富的口味。每來一次就嘗試一點點地不同。我希望台北會不斷地改變自己，找到未來在世界舞台上的地位。

Next update will be about my brief stopover in Singapore so stay tuned!