Taiwan is an exciting place to visit. This was Charles' third visit and Helen's first visit. as a matter of fact, this was Helen's first time to cross the across the Pacific.
There are many things to see in Taiwan:
- inexpensive and expensive hotels
- interesting food
- world's second tallest building
- interesting seashores
- multiple Lantern Festivals
- funny cultural differences
We hope you enjoy our interesting tour through Northern Taiwan.
Taiwan is located in the South China Sea just off the coast of China.
We spent all of our time in Northern Taiwan in the Taipei area.
Good9Stay Hotel
Ximending Area of Taipei
Prior to coming to Taiwan, we spent a lot of time researching inexpensive hotels in the Taipei area. The Hotel most appealing to us was one that had most recently been refurbished, had a quaint name, was located near downtown Taipei, was near the Ximen subway station, and was only US$50 (NT$1,500) a night. We had our fingers crossed when we arrived that we would not be dissapointed with the accomodations. Several of our friends warned us that such an inexpensive hotel would probably be sleazy and unacceptable no matter what the advertisement/managers said! When we arrived we were very pleased to find a nice, well-maintained hotel. In fact it was spotless and artfully decorated by our favorite two managers, Kevin and Kenny. We highly recommend this hotel to anyone looking for inexpensive accomodations in Taipei with compact (tiny) rooms. The Good9Stay Hotel occupies the fifth floor of an old building containing various shops, located on a narrow street.
All the managers were helpful and friendly and we especially liked Kevin and Kenny. They had been given free riegn by the owner to remodel and decorate the hotel and were proud of their accomplishments.
Hotelcontacts:
- Good9Stay: http://Good9Stay.blogspot.com
- Senior Manager: Kenny <One2Stay@gmail.com>
- Manager: Kevin <Good9Stay@gmail.com>
The many businesses open around 10am and close late depending on the day, date and presence of holidays. When closed, the storefronts are enclosed by metal garage doors. When open, the displays spill out onto the wide sidewalks and the merchants stand nearby and smile.
The Hotel was an easy walk from the Ximen Station, exiting door #6, stepping into the heart of the city.
What a narrow street--the word Lane is being generous. The first time we came across it, we almost walked right by it. However eagle-eye Charles spotted and recognized it as the Lane leading to our hotel. Next we had to spot the building with the Good9Stay sign. What really threw us off was the fact the pictures of the area were taken in the daytime, with the shop doors open. When we arrived it was 10:30 at night and the shops were closed behind the steel garage doors.
This is how the Lane looks at 9PM.
Wow! What a bright tiny room. Only a few short steps from the doorway to the refrigerator.
Here is Charles looking through his suitcase, which will be his "dresser" for the next 4.5 days. There were 4 pegs on the wall, a small glass top table, a chair, and no other furniture. We had to close up the suitcases in order to manauver in the room. It was a good idea to traveled light with only two carry-ons each.
The bed was firm and very comfy.
The bathroom was spotless and just the right size for one person.
Here is the Ximending neighborhood during a light morning shower. Notice the many motor scooters and the individual shop awnings to protect wares from rain and sun.
Food
On our first morning in Taipei, we went searching for breakfast. We found this quaint little open air restaurant. They served a varity of egg crepes, all of which looked good.
The meal included, not only the crepes, but a hash brown patty and a drink. We had purchased a variety of crepes, all of which were good.
Here is breakfast on another morning. The white object on the top is an egg. I don't recall the type of meat that was under the egg. The green vegetable is bok choy, a very good leafy vegetable. I'm sure the meal was tasty as I enjoyed all the meals I had in Taipei.
On our last morning in the Ximending area, we found this outdoor breakfast restaurant. We were surprised to see they had both eggs and pancakes. They even served a US brand of syrup for the pancakes.
On this morning, we were sitting at a table with about 8 other people at it. Since it was the only table for the restaurant, we had no choice on where we ate. As luck would have it, we were sitting across from a young couple that could speak English. We had a great conversation and even found out the best places to buy ice cream!
Noodles are a popular dish in Asia. Charles loves noodle soup so he felt right at home. Helen, has now had enough noodle soup to last the rest of her life!. This is a typical lunch for the workers at a local electronics building. The building had 8 floors with many, many small shops on each floor.
Egads! Another bowl of soup! This one had one of Charles' favorites in it, a hard boiled egg.
This dumpling shop is one of the most famous in Taiwan. They have 3 or 4 branches in Taipe, a bunch more in the rest of Asia and even 3 in the USA (2 in Southern California and 1 in Washington State). They started in Taipei, however this is not the flagship restaurant. This one is in the Sogo department store.
In case you ever run across it, the name is Din Tai Fung. Their signature dumplings have soup in them. They even have instructions on the proper way to eat them so you do not burn your tongue on the soup.
Part of the kitchen for the restaurant was available for watching the chefs make the dumplings. They were very methodical and every chef has his on part of the dumpling to make. One rolls the dumpling out into a small thin circle of dough. Then the next person puts a dab of filling into it. The following person folds it in half and puts a very pretty serratted edge around it.
The Regent Hotel Taipei
At the end of the first week in Taipei, Charles had to go to work. He is a consultant for the international computer memory standards organization, JEDEC. Since he has lots of equipment to take to the meetings each day, he has to stay in the hotel where the JEDEC meetings are held. These are always very nice hotels. In Taipei, Charles and Helen went from a $50 a night hotel to a $250 a night hotel! You can imagine how luxurious it felt after our initial hotel.
The Regent hotel is only two subway stops from the one in Ximending. The subway stop is about 4 blocks from the hotel. We consulted this map on the best way to get to the hotel. Since we had luggage with us we were interested in finding the nearest elevator.
The regent hotel is very beautiful. It had a pond and a water sculpture in front of the building.
They even had a couple of ducks in front of the hotel. I'm not sure of the purpose for the ducks, but it may have been for some type of charity, where they will be auctioned off at some point to raise money.
The sleeping room was really huge! We had plenty of room to store our stuff and a lot of room to just just walk around. This room was similar to the type of rooms at upscale hotels in the USA.
We had a high floor with wonderful views.
The tall skinny building just left of center is the Taipei 101 building. It is the second tallest building in the world and it was the tallest building when it was built.
Taipei 101 Building
Taiwan Northern Coast Tour
Helen took a tour of the Northern Coast. The group was picked up in a mini van and driven to the coast. They made the following stops for sightseeing:
- Keelung City
- Keelung Harbor
- Buddha Statue
- Yehliu Park
- Queen's head
Click here for the tour brochure.
Taipei Lantern Festival
One of the highlights of the trip was the Lantern Festival. This festival occurs each year and lasts for about two weeks. It happens during the Chinese new year festivities.
There are many theories as to the origin of the festival. The one Helen likes the best is a gift of light from weathly people to the poor. Back in the days before electricity, it was very dark at night. In the Winter time the days were short and the nights long. During the period of the longest nights, the weathly people would pay artisians to build the lanterns. They were then displayed at night during the new year so all the people would have light to celebrate by and they could celebrate late into the night.
The lantern festival shown below is the Taipei City Lantern Festival. This is sponsored by the city. This year it included a 2 kilometer (about a mile) walk along busy city streets. The streets were decorated with lights and in some places, it created a tunnel of light. These lights led to the park where the festival was held.
This is a self-portrait of Helen and I taking a rest break.
This year (2013) is the year of the snake as shown on the zodiac calendar above.
There were many lanterns made in the shape of the snake since this year honors that reptile. The above lantern was the main lantern for the festival. It was about 30 feet tall!
A close-up of the head of the snake shown in the previous photo.
Other animals were also depicted, such as the lion shown above.
The festival was very popular. This is the inside of the train station around 10 PM on a Wednesday night. The line is for people heading home. I took this picture from the escalator going to the platform. I had turned around to get a picture of all the people behind me waiting in line to go up the escalator.
All Taiwan Lantern Festival in Hsinchu County
We had soooo much fun at the Taipei City latern festival that we decided to go the all Taiwan festival. The official, all Taiwan festival is held in a different city each year. This year, it was in Hsinchu county, which is about an hour from Taipei on the high speed rail line.
We left Taipei around 5:30 PM Friday night. An hour later we were about 85 KM (about 50 miles) SouthWest of the city. We had planned on meeting Howard and Roloef, JEDEC friends, at the station. They had gone down earlier in the day, however, since I had JEDEC equipment to pack and ship back to the USA, I couldn't leave that early. When we arrived at the station, I called them on their mobile phone and about 10 minutes later we found each other. It was quite difficult as the crowds were so huge it was hard to find each other. Fortunately, I'm rather tall with blond hair so they were able to spot me.
Snice I had an early morning flight back to the USA the next day, Helen and I had only planned to spend a couple of hours at the festival. To ensure we had a seat for the train ride back to Taipei had purchased reserved seat tickets for the 9:30 PM train. As it turned out, we were having such a good time, we didn't leave till about 10:30 PM. Howard's Taiwanese co-workers assured us our tickets would be good on any train that day, however, they would not be reserved seats, so we may have to stand the entire trip. Fortunately, the festival was so popular, they had added unscheduled trains. When we got on board, there were plenty of seats for us to sit in. This was good as Helen, Howard and myself were really tired! Roloef had a flight that night and one of Howard's co-workers had given him a ride to the Taipei airport, so he wasn't on the train back to Taipei.
The highlight of the festival was the laser and fireworks display. They had this display every two hours on Friday night.
Interesting Cultural Finds
Here is something I had never seen before. This is a sign that was in front of the women's restroom in a train station. The sign shows which stalls in the rest room were occupied, out of service or empty.
Click on the sign to get a larger view and when it opens, if you click on it again, it'll be large enough to read the captions.
The below movie is of a cross walk sign. When it starts, you will notice a green "man" leisurely walking. Just before it is time for the signal light to change, he gets worried and starts "running". Most of the crosswalk signs in Taipei were of this style. They were very entertaining to watch.
Saying Goodbye to Taiwan
We had a wonderful time in Taiwan. I would have liked to have been able to spend another week there. It was sad to leave, but it was time to head home.
Helen and I hope you have enjoyed sharing our adventure as much as we have had in reliving it. We hope you will stick around for more of our travels.