Day 4 - 9 hour scenic tour

We started day 4 early - woke up at 7am and got to our meeting spot 10 minutes before 8:30am for our small group tour - 9 hours including 

- an hour at geo park where we saw the natural rock formation of the queens head

- two hours at liufen old town - for beef noodle and xiao long bao lunch and overpriced souvenirs

- an hour walk around a beautiful waterfall - very cool stop

- 50 minutes at shifen where isabel got to draw on a large red lantern which we then released into the sky. 

Our favorites were the last two stops.  We got off the tour at Taipei 101. Didn’t go up as it was rainy and most people say not worth it.  Tried to go up to Simple Kaffa cafe on 88 fl for coffee and dessert but it had a 120 min line.   We walked around the malls full of expensive shops. Long champ bags are nt 5700 and I guess a recent rising brand.  Isabel shared many of her classmate has them.  We were uninspired and took that metro home 

At the station we treated ourselves to Glo the self serve frozen yogurt place - dessert before dinner is the best. 

We got back around 7 PM.  To tired to go out for dinner

-  I ended up having 炸酱面 I got prepackaged from family Mart the day before Plus drunken chicken. They got from the night market the first night.  Pretty good

- I ordered from Uber Eats Breakfast food for dinner for Isabel from the place we found the first day here - Hot soy milk, fried dough, 小笼包 和烧饼加葱蛋   She loved it

Day 3 - “rot” day + food tour

“Rot” is slang for my daughter generation to mean a lazy day. That’s exactly what we did for the morning and early afternoon.  I explored the area and found that we can get to our mrt station within a block and walk the rest underground while browsing different shopping stores and snacks.  Amazing.  When we didn’t know this we would walk 12 min in the rain to get to the station.  

The only formal thing we did was our three hour food tour via Viator at 5pm. $48 a person for 12 tastings and visited a small temple and ended in Ningxia market.  https://www.viator.com/search/387012P10?mcid=70066

 We started in the dihua street and started with

- pigs blood cake

- braised pork rice with veggie and braised tofu side dishes

- stinky tofu. This was just okay. I like the spicy ones I had that were black in Hangzhou better. 

- grass jelly tea which is quite refreshing and good to lower our internal heat

Then off to a temple to see the city god and another god of love.  Next tasting was gua bao with pork belly - best in the city called pretty cool gua bao.  滿潮刈包 pretty cool GUA BAO https://share.google/syejmjHOUvP9lcQfg plus amazing wheel pie next door for only nt 20 a piece so $0.70   😋

Lastly we had scallion cake - delicious but too oily, peanut rolled pineapple ice cream - delicious and sweat potato balls - airy and mochi like.   Overall very fun.     We were so full we couldn’t eat anymore so didn’t even walk the Ningxia night market   Another time.   Isabel also got an amazing boba tea at 50 lan, famous chain store in Taiwan   We loved it but don’t know the name of the drink we got  🤪  we went to bed early as we have a full day tour next day at 8:30am.

 

 

Day 2 Taiwan walking tour and food court

We went on a good 3 hour walking tour at 10am, learned some history and had a nice ice cream break in the middle plus lunch after. We learned about the god of education and the god of sea and god of love at the longshan temple We learned about the occupation of Taiwan by the Dutch, Portugal and Japan and the 228 incident plus 38 years martial law before being more of the free Taiwan now since 1987. Three parties in government now. It was raining so only 6 people in tour but we found plenty of covered spots to listen. We only had to tip for the tour. About $35 for two people is a good deal. https://www.likeitformosa.com/taipei-historic 

 We had a nice lunch right at chiang hai shek memorial plaza and had yummy peanut break boba tea pork noodle soup and veggies plus豆花 dessert next door before taking the metro home to rest. Evening we decided to stay close and go to a basement food court at a Japanese department store. We had Korean food for $20 total. It was just okay but the cheese egg tart was great after plus some shopping at popmart. Another good day. 

First time in Taiwan - day 1

Isabel turned 18 annd graduated from high school so I decided to take her on a graduation trip to Asia - Taiwan and China for 22 nights.  

It’s our first time in Taipei.  We both were excited for all the different food we will experience.  We arrived direct from sfo to Taipei at 5:15am on June 8.  Both of us got to sleep quite a bit which felt pretty good considering a 13 hour flight.   We got local cash out of the atm at the airport and decided to brave the metro plus taxi combo vs just take uber.  It turned out very easy and pleasant.  We were able to load up two easy pass card with nt 400 each. (nt100 to buy the card).  Metro from airport to main station was only 160 nt each and then taxi was 120 nt.  Got to hotel in about 45 min and nt440 ($15) vs uber would have been longer due to traffic and close to $40.  A very good start.   Day 1 was off to a good start. 

Hotel: amba Zhongshan was what I decided.  We like it a lot. It’s in a cute neighborhood and very walkable to metro and local restaurants.  At $185 a night plus $70 to check in at 9am, it was a good deal.  We opted for a larger balcony room so we have good enough space. 

Local breakfast.  Originally wanted to go to Fu Hang Soy Milk 阜杭豆漿 but they were closed on Monday https://maps.app.goo.gl/f9otSWfQZhuUc7wv9?g_st=ic we found a closer place and delicious. Sihai Soy Milk 四海豆漿大王.  We got salted soy milk, fried dough, 烧饼plus scallion egg and pork floss, cold soy drink and plain bun.  All for less than $5.  We did take out so we can eat in nice air conditioned hotel lobby vs onsite.  

Then it was nap time first for me while Isabel spoke to her friends and then her   I opted to order lunch delivery as I woke up midday to pouring rain  I ordered shrimp pork dumplings and xiao long bao the latter was good and the former was a bit less impressive.   By the time Isabel woke from napping it was dinner time so we headed to our first night market

Night market: Raohe night market was easy to get to by MRT even in the rain  we walked 10 min to station and 5 stops later we were there and luckily the heavy rain turned into just a drizzle.   We had pepper pork bun, Tianjin scallion pancake, pork belly bao, Taiwan fried chicken bits, fried snow crab meat (me only), guava drink and ended with mango shaved ice.   Most were delicious   The mango shaved ice was at a place Jensen huang, ceo of nvidia, just visited in late May and endorsed.   All in all a fun 2 hours and we were full and it was only 8:30   Isabel was ready for bed and I still had some energy  🤪

Massage and hair wash: I happen to walk around the hotel in the afternoon looking to buy water and came across this Vietnamese hair wash place.   I thought how good could it be but to my surprise 4.8 stars from like a thousand people   Anyways I ended up get an hour massage plus 40 min hair wash for $60   It was freaking amazing. I slept like a baby for 8 hours after. 橙花越式洗髮-台北總店 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JwQxTQkvvJ6BnqRT7?g_st=ic

A great first day! 😋❤️🥰

Alexis graduates 8th grade

 Alexis graduates as valedictorian of her class at SSPP.  She also earned another 7 awards for academic excellence.  She has grown so much in the last 3 years and also literally as she is officially taller than mama. 🙃