Taiwan: The Land of Non-stop Eating (Part II)

Day 1

Traveling days suck. The first day mainly consisted of us traveling from place to place to get to our hotel in Taipei. First, Jeff and I went on a 3-hour train ride to Narita Airport. Then, we hopped on a Cathay Pacific flight to Taipei. I like Cathay Pacific. They have good food and a good selection of movies on their flights. What more could you ask for, right? Well, they could’ve come by more often to offer us water, but it’s ok. Anyway, we saw The Devil Wears Prada on the flight! Woot! We had decided earlier that we would see a movie in Taipei anyway, and it was between The Devil Wears Prada and The Departed. I guess the free movie on the flight made our choice for us! By the way, the movie rocked! Meryl Streep was awesome in it!

After a 3.5 hour flight, we finally arrived at the Taipei International Airport. I must say, it was a lot more ghetto than I expected! I felt as if I was at a Chinese restaurant, not an airport?? Anyhoo, we were greeted by our Chinese tour guide. She was very, um, how do you say...“Chinese?” She was very LOUD while trying to gather all the Japanese tour members on the bus. She spoke Japanese, but with a very interesting Chinese accent, and she also added “ne” to the end of every sentence. The “tour” we signed up for just included the flight and the hotel, plus the transportation to and from the airport to the hotel. Thank goodness. I would’ve died with her as a real tour guide. She kept pushing the Japanese tourists to buy massages and also exchange money with her! That’s right, she had envelopes filled with Taiwan dollars…ready to exchange them for yen. Um, SKETCH!

After stopping by a million hotels (all of us apparently were at different ones), we finally reached Santos Hotel. It was really nice! The staff spoke English and Japanese and whole feel to the place was very clean and polished. Definitely a few steps up from our hotel in Korea, although that wasn’t bad. After checking in, we hailed a taxi and went to Shi Lin Market, the biggest night market in Taipei. It was awesome to see the many many food stalls they had! Hello! They sold everything from porridge to fried chicken to scallion pancakes to hot buns to bobas to shaved ice….you name it! As you can guess, Jeff and I were VERY excited. It’s not like I haven’t seen food stalls elsewhere before, but they just don’t exist here in Japan. Sad. Anyhoo, we tried everything we could fit in our stomachs but we just didn’t have enough room! Remember how I said the Taiwanese LOVE to eat? Well, it’s definitely true considering it was past midnight and the food stalls were still busy with patrons and showed no signs of closing down any time soon. We ate and ate, then got a taxi back to our hotel. I love how in big cities you can find a taxi any time of night. Oh yeah, I was also surprised at how many scooters were on the streets! Everywhere we went, people were zooming past with scooters, sometimes whole families! Seriously. Abunaiyo!

Day 2

We woke up on Sunday morning to go to a highly recommended restaurant by Emily and tons of food bloggers on the Internet. It’s called Din Tai Fung. Lemme tell you, this place is SOOOO GOOOOOOOD. Omg it’s good. Although it was only the two of us, we seriously ordered enough food for 3 to 4 people. EVERYTHING we ordered was yummy, from the chicken soup to the pork/shrimp dumplings to SEASAME buns, etc…..just AMAZING. The quality of the food and the service was impeccable. If you ever get a chance to go, GO! It has locations all over the world.

After eating way too much, we headed for the National Palace Museum. It was nice and all, but they just showed dishes and “China” on all the floors? Well, not really, but it sure looked like it. We weren’t in awe by the stuff on display, as one of the highlights of the displays was a jade cabbage. After the museum, we went to Wufengpu, a garment market area we wanted to check out. It turns out we’re not into markets...at least not that one. We “attempted” to ride the subway to Ximenting, another shopping area, but we were unsuccessful, as we went in to the station and then came right back out to hail a taxi. We are such lazy bastards. Hehe. Oh well. That is actually the only form of transportation we used in Taipei...taxis. I’m sure all the taxi drivers in Taipei know us by now. Seriously. Ximenting was really cool, it reminded me exactly of the Myeongdong shopping area in Seoul. Exactly. It’s a cool/young shopping area with name brand stores, ie) Puma, Adidas, etc. and eateries all around. We saw a noodle shop that was PACKED with Taiwanese people lining up and standing while eating. Yes, they eat out in the open while standing in Taiwan! Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Japan anymore! Of course Jeff and I couldn’t resist a long line of people waiting for some mysterious noodles. We got in line and we were in awe of how FAST the noodle guy worked. When we finally ate the noodles...OMG...they were AMAZING. No wonder people were lining up!

After Ximenting, we headed for Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. Why is the tallest building in the world in Taipei? I have no idea. Anyway, it didn’t look that tall when we were a few blocks away, but it seemed ENORMOUS by the time we were standing right outside the door. The elevator up the building was clazy; it is the fastest elevator in the world! Seriously, we went up 80 floors in 30 seconds! Insane! After Taipei 101, we went to CPCity Mall. It was a huge mall, bigger and more complex than ones in Southern California. However, we didn’t have the patience nor energy to circle around, so we got some coffee then headed for dim sum. That’s right, dim sum. They have 24-hour dim sum restaurants all over the city! Woot! The place was good, but it felt like a ghost town in the restaurant as we had our dinner at 10pm!

Whew! Yes, I know, I talk a lot. I need to learn how to condense. Oh well, too lazy for that now. You’ll just have to live with it...and I’m not even finished yet! Muahahhaha.