Adventures in Taiwan

Everything we want in a Travel Destination

We spent 27 days in Taiwan, October 21st to November 16th and loved it. Taiwan was not originally on our Round the World Route, but after the earthquake in Nepal, we started looking for another destination to visit in the fall. I read somewhere that the food was good and one of our regular spots in Albany was a Taiwanese noodle shop, so the seed was planted. Even after we bought at tickets we didn’t really know what we were getting into, and it was one of the best decisions we’ve made on this trip. Taiwan stands out as one of our top destinations on our ever-growing list of countries.

Colors of Taiwan

Taiwan – Sun Moon Lake – Wenwu Temple

Taiwan – Tainan – Pond at Chihkan Tower

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lindsey and Bumblebee

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

Taiwan – Sun Moon Lake – Ci’en Pagoda

Taiwan – Taipei – Night bus in the rain

Taiwan – Taipei – Qingshan Temple

A collection of some of our favorite photos from Taiwan, one for each color of the rainbow. Click on the first photo to view a slideshow. Check out our Flickr page to see all our photos from Taiwan. Also, check out our photo collections by color.

BLACK & WHITE

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

Taiwan – Taichung – Fine Arts Museum

Week 24 – Kaohsiung and Taipei, Taiwan

Feeling Better, Oh Wait, Just Kidding

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake – Dragon and Tiger Pavilion

Pat finally felt well enough to sightsee again. We started off easy by having a few nice but short days in Kaohsiung before taking the high speed train back to Taipei. In Taipei, we fit in two full days of sightseeing, including a day trip to Juifen, before Pat started feeling ill again. We thought maybe we had done too much too soon, but by Sunday night it was clear that this was not the achy cold that he had last week, but full blown food poisoning. He wasn’t able to keep much food down starting Sunday night. We are hoping that a good day of rest on Monday will mean he’s ready to fly to Thailand on Tuesday. Fingers crossed!

1. Go

• Bus – 6 km. Final leg to and from Juifen.
• Train – 120 km. Tainan to Kaohsiung and a day trip to Juifen from Taipei.
• High Speed Train – 350 km. Kaohsiung to Taipei in only 1.5 hours!
• Metro – 81 km. Around Kaohsiung and Taipei.
• Foot – 76,000 steps in 7 days (approx. 38 miles)

2. See

Because of Pat’s illness last week, we decided to skip Kenting Park on the south end of the island and just do the city of Kaohsiung. Pat’s dad visited this city while in the Navy, but it’s changed a bit since then! It’s still a major port and suffers from some of the worst smog in Taiwan, but they’ve done a lot of work to make the city enjoyable. Kaohsiung is near the south end of the island and much hotter than the northern cities. Despite the heat and humidity we got out and enjoyed the art scene. There are sculptures all over town (even transformers!) and murals on many walls. There is excellent shopping and a nice walkway along Love River that cuts through town.

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Love River

Taiwan – Kaohsiung

Taiwan – Kaohsiung

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lindsey and Bumblebee

Just north of downtown Kaohsiung is Lotus Lake. The Lake itself was pretty small, but there was plenty of activity. There were several longboats out rowing and an automated wake boarding course complete with jumps and rails. Lotus Lake is home to the most photographed place in the city, the Dragon and Tiger Pavilion, which is exactly what it sounds like. You enter through the mouth of the dragon and exit through the mouth of the tiger for good luck. The insides of the animals are decorated with elaborate scenes. In each pagoda there is a double helix stairway to the top.

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake – Dragon and Tiger Pavilion

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake – Dragon and Tiger Pavilion

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake – Dragon Pavilion

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake – Dragon and Tiger Pavilion – Walking out the Tiger

Taiwan – Kaohsiung – Lotus Lake

Back in Taipei we visited a few places we had missed during our first stop. We went to the Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Taipei Confucius Temple, Grand Hotel (totally belongs in a Bond film), and the Martyrs’ shrine. Pat’s mom visited Taiwan over 30 years ago and had photos of the last two locations, so we went to take new photos and compare. They pretty much look the same and have been well maintained. The stripes on the ground at the Martyrs’ Shrine are from the shoes of the guards. We happened to catch the changing of the guard ceremony and the five soldiers walk in a v-formation wearing shoes with metal to make the clicking sound. They kick the shoes along the ground and over time it’s left those marks.

Taiwan – Taipei

Taiwan – Taipei – Grand Hotel

Taiwan – Taipei – Grand Hotel (seriously needs to be in a Bond film)

Taiwan – Taipei – Martyrs Shrine

During our last sightseeing day in Taipei, we took a day trip to the small town of Juifen in the hills near the ocean. It was the inspiration for the spirit world in the 2001 Miyazaki film Spirited Away. It was a Sunday so it was a complete madhouse. Since we are traveling slowly, we try to avoid tourist destinations on the weekends, but this one couldn’t really be avoided given our departure date. So, for the first time in a long time, we dealt we crazy crowds. It was standing room only for the two hour trip out there, several hours of wandering, and the two hour trip home. Our step count was low, but we were on our feet a lot! It was similar to night markets we’ve been to before, but once the sun set it was magical. In the end we are glad we went, but wish we could have gone during the week instead.

Taiwan – Juifen

Taiwan – Juifen

Taiwan – Juifen

3. Eat

The food in Taiwan is really excellent and we only have one complaint: we wish we could cook for ourselves occasionally. All the hostels have hot water available, so we can have instant noodles, but cooking is another matter. It’s also much cheaper to buy street food than to buy ingredients at the grocery store or market. This week we started wanting some routine and ended up eating at the same places several times in Kaohsiung. There was a night market across the street and a Japanese udon place around the corner from our hostel. We had several lunches and dinners at each.

We finally had the chance to try fishball soup which we have seen everywhere in Taiwan. It’s a basic broth with noodles to which they add three types of “fish balls.” One was similar to a dumpling with meat inside a wrapper. The other two were more like meatballs made with fish. It was surprisingly good and not too fishy.

4. Drink

With the heat and humidity we are always craving something cool to drink. While Pat was sick we looked for a sports drink, but didn’t find any of the usual culprits like Poweraid. Eventually we found a brand that is widely available and tastes good, called “Pocari Sweat.” Not the best name for a drink, but it will do.

5. Sleep

Our place in Kaohsiung (D’Well Hostel) was ranked #1 on TripAdvisor and it really measured up. We had a private room with ensuite bathroom. It was more like a hotel room than a hostel room. They also included breakfast and had instant noodles available in the evening for dinner. Our room had cable TV and A/C.

In Taipei, we stayed at the same place as before, Taipei Walker Guesthouse. It was just as good as before, but much busier. Last time there were only a handful of people, and this time it was completely packed. It was a bit noisier and the bathrooms were in use more often, but it was still very nice.

6. Move

Since Pat was still in recovery mode we didn’t want to push it too much. We got in some longer walking days, but nothing crazy.

When we arrive at new hostels, we tend to ask about running or walking routes that are nice. The staff often recommend the nearby elementary school track (there is always an elementary school nearby and they all have a 200 meter track). It makes for a quick loop, but it’s a bit repetitive. Other than that, the staff typically comment that Taiwanese don’t like exercise!

Check out Pat’s CADENCE Week 24 post (coming soon) for details about this week.

7. Etcetera

One of the things we really like about traveling for a long time is doing “regular” things in other countries, similar to study abroad experiences. Regular things include buying toiletries, going to the pharmacy, or going to a movie. This week we did all of those. Buying toiletries is pretty easy because they have a lot of the brands we have in the States, but trying to find medicine is more difficult. Other than basic pain relievers (like ibuprofen or advil), nothing is really the same. Pat needed something like Pepto Bismal, but they don’t have that here. We got some sort of powder that you swallow with water that is working really well, but is unlike anything we’ve tried before.

Going to a movie in a foreign country is always interesting. We’ve been wanting to see the new Bond film since it come out in Taiwan on November 5th, and we finally made it happen in Taipei. We made sure that it would be in English (not dubbed, only subtitles in Chinese) before going. The girl at the ticket counter spoke no English and laughed hysterically when we said, “Spectre.” Our tickets were for assigned seats and we think there may have been different prices for different seats. They also didn’t let us into the theater until five minutes before showtime. The walls were a bit thin and we could hear other movies during quiet moments, but it was still fun!

Check out our Flickr album to see all our photos from this week.

Week 23 – Sun Moon Lake and Tainan, Taiwan

Illness and Bedbugs and All-Female Hostels! Oh my!

Taiwan – Sun Moon Lake – 5 months and still alive!

Taiwan – Sun Moon Lake – Beware of bedbugs too!

This week was rough. It started off great. We celebrated five months on the road in Sun Moon Lake, the largest lake in Taiwan often visited for weddings or honeymoons, but Pat started feeling a little off while we were sightseeing on Tuesday. He ended up spending the second half of the day in the hotel. Next we traveled to Tainan, where we planned to stay for four nights. Pat was feeling very ill by this point, so we were happy to settle in to a private room and relax. Unfortunately, we discovered bedbugs in our room! It was too late to move hostels, but we were able to switch rooms for the night. We booked another place online and left early the next morning. The second place was nice, but they weren’t happy to see us. It turns out that it’s a female only hostel and we were only able to book due to a glitch on Hostel World. Oops! Thankfully, they decided to honor our reservation but requested that Pat not spend any time in the common areas. Not a problem since he was curled up in bed the whole time.

Despite those setbacks, we are still enjoying Taiwan! I did four days of sightseeing alone while Pat stayed in bed. Traveling as a single woman is VERY different than traveling with a husband. While traveling as a couple, we’ve had people occasionally approach us curious about our travels and excited to help us in any way. As a woman alone, this happens at least twice a day. During those four days, I was taken under the wing of everyone who saw me. I don’t think it’s that people feel sorry for me or are worried about me, it felt like they were protective of me. On buses, people would ask me where I was going, then have a very long conversation with the driver, and inform me that they told him my stop (this was NOT necessary since the stop is announced in English, but oh well). I stopped to watch a religious ceremony in the street and ended up getting a whole tour of the temple from an old man. A man who frequents the coffee shop next to our hostel has recommended a lunch place three of the four days we were here, and even walked us to one.

Week 22 – Taroko Gorge and Taichung, Taiwan

The Beauty of Taiwan

Taiwan – Taroko Gorge – Eternal Spring Shrine

When we arrived in Taiwan we had planned to go around the island clockwise, heading down the east coast and then heading up the west coast. Unfortunately, public transportation had other ideas. We had already booked our accommodation in and transportation to Taroko Gorge on the east coast. But when we tried to find transportation from Taroko Gorge it was all sold out. We could have still gotten to our next stop, but it would have involved several transfers and we didn’t really want to deal with it. So we switched to the west coast instead. Since Taiwan is a small enough island, it wasn’t too far. So, we spent the first half of the week in Taroko Gorge on the east coast, then the second half in Taichung on the west Coast.