We had four fantastic days in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city. We saw some of the city’s historical temples and shrines, visited the newer downtown area (home to Taipei 101, the world’s 5th tallest building), and sampled lots of local food at several of the city’s night markets. We also did a day trip to Yehliu Geopark.

Taipei Temples

We started our day with an attempted trip to Confucius Temple but quickly learned a lesson about checking which days of the week temples are closed; we weren’t able to enter this temple on a Monday. Instead, we strolled across the street to a smaller temple that we don’t know the name of. It was beautiful, colorful, and so fun to wander and photograph.

One of our favorite temples was the Martyr’s Shrine, a temple dedicated to people from Taiwan who have died in the pursuit of Taiwanese Independence. We got to see the changing of the guard ceremony which was particularly interesting. As the tour groups cleared out, we were able to see the guards let their guard down (lol) and joke around with a staff member there to keep tourists out of the way of the changing ceremony.

We also visited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a monument dedicated to the former president of Taiwan who championed independence. It reminded us a lot of the Lincoln Memorial in DC.

Downtown Views

Unfortunately for John, I insisted on taking a trip to the shopping mall at Taipei 101 in my continued search for a pair of shorts. The mall is enormous (it takes up 6 stories in the Taipei 101 complex) and is fancy. We didn’t find any stores selling shorts we could afford, but we did get a kick out of seeing the mall. Apparently, Taipei has a huge mall and shopping culture and this was a glimpse into that world we typically avoid while balling on a budget.

We investigated what it would take to get to the observation deck at Taipei 101 but agreed we weren’t willing to fork over the 600 TWD (about $20USD) per person. Again, balling on a budget. We got to see some of the exhibits in the ticket area that made us feel like we were at the top so that was just fine for us.

A highlight of this particular day was doing the Elephant Hike, which takes visitors up about 600 feet of stairs to Elephant Mountain for panoramic views of Taipei. It took us about 30 minutes to make the climb to the top and we spent about an hour wandering the mountain to see the different viewpoints. We did this hike in the afternoon, but hear it’s also fabulous during the evening to see the sunset and the lights come on in the city. We’ll definitely make that happen if we ever get back to Taipei.

Night Markets

A major highlight from our time in Taipei was exploring many of the night markets. At most night markets, there are several blocks lined with carts selling food, clothes, souvenirs, carnival-style games, and more. We went to a different one on each of the four nights we stayed in Taipei and loved trying new foods. We scoped out what other people were eating and a few times decided to get on the longest lines in the market to figure out what the particularly popular foods were. This strategy introduced us to some particularly interesting things that we wouldn’t have tried otherwise so despite the waits, we’d call it a success!

Ningxia Market was located closest to our hotel. It was the smallest market we visited and had mostly food vs. other things for sale. We got on the longest line in the place and about 30 minutes later were treated to a rice ball stuffed with meat, spices, and an unidentified crunchy churro-shaped item that could have been literally anything (I think stale baguette, John thinks fried goose neck. Unknown). It was delicious. We also continued fueling our scallion pancake addition that we picked up Kenting.

Shillin Market is the most popular night market in Taipei. It seemed to have way more souvenirs, games, and other non-food items. Most of the food was concentrated in an indoor basement market area with small tables. After wandering around, we ended up in the basement and ordered an oyster omelet which we’d seen several people eating the day before. It tasted just how it sounds and was delicious. We also got some dumplings because they’re delicious too.

We went to the market closest to Taipei 101 called Linjiang or Tonghua on the day we were hanging out in that area, but when we got there around 5pm most of the shops hadn’t opened up yet. We strolled around before heading back for a second visit to our favorite market: Raohe Market.

Raohe Market was like the Goldilocks of Taipei Market’s in our opinion. It wasn’t too big or too small; it was just the right combination of enough food that there was interesting variety but not so big or popular that it was overwhelming. We fell in love with these delicious pork buns at one end of the market and the scallion pancake stand at the other end. We also really lov   ed trying several of the dumpling stalls, fresh fruit stands, and a turkish Gyro in between. It was all delicious.

Taipei was a really cool city with lots of historical buildings, impressive new skyscrapers, and some urban hiking within close proximity to national parks and beautiful shoreline. We had a great time in Taipei and are so glad we were able to spend time in Taiwan on our trip.