Category: Taiwan

Kaohsiung was my most ambitious day trip from Taipei – it’s basically on the other side of the country! It would be about a four hour drive, but the bullet train cuts it down to about an hour and a half. I was also looking forward to taking a bullet train in Taiwan. I’ve taken them before in China and Japan, and I’ve always been impressed at the pinnacle of what train travel can be.

The train itself is beautiful and clean, with seats that remind me of a domestic first class plane experience. The scenery out the window was really cool – the majority of the cities in towns in Taiwan fall on the same spine in the west, and we passed right by Taichung and Tainan, among smaller towns and cities.

My first stop was one of the most famous sites in Taiwan: the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas! It was about a half hour walk from the high speed train station, Zuoying. It was a nice enough walk but it was very hot and humid, and the final part goes over a giant road (although thankfully they built an overpass).

Still, I was relieved to make it to the temples! They’re on the shore of Lotus Pond, which has several beautiful temple complexes nearby. It made for a nice morning to explore the various buildings and statues nearby.

It’s free to enter the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas and you can climb to the top, which I did. It was a nice view. And more importantly, there was a breeze at the top!

Once I had my fill of the temples, I called an Uber to get to my next destination. I didn’t need Uber very often while I was in Taiwan, since the public transit was so good, but it was nice to have it when I was out late at night or the routes that didn’t have great connections!

I headed off to Pier 2 Art, the arts district in Kaohsiung! It was a great area to walk around and explore. It’s full of art installations, restaurants, and museums, so it was where I spent the rest of my time in Kaohsiung until I headed back to the train station to make it back to Taipei for the evening.

I spent some time in the Taiwan Railway Museum, which was a fantastic break from the heat, with the best air conditioning I experienced all day, and had a very charming diorama representing the trains across Taiwan. There were some interesting relics showing the history of the train as well, although I spent most of my time in the miniatures room.

From there, I did a little more exploring and found a local brewery to try, which was a real highlight of the afternoon!

I made one more stop on the way back to the Zuoying high speed rail station to see the world’s largest glass art installation! The Dome of Light, at the Kaohsiung metro station, shows Taiwan’s history alongside the stars and the broader history of humanity. It was a pretty easy detour while I was already in the Kaohsiung metro station, and definitely worth a stop. It’s absolutely stunning. It’s probably the most beautiful metro station I’ve ever seen.

I’m glad I made it out to Kaohsiung! If I’d been more strategic going into this week, I could have spent a night or two down in the southern part of Taiwan, and maybe made it out to Tainan as well, but that would have required a lot more planning than I did for this leg of the trip. Even with just a day, though, I felt like I got a chance to see some of Kaohsiung and a lot more of Taiwan from the train’s window, which definitely made it worth it. It was a pretty great week in Taiwan overall!

With how well connected Taiwan is, it was really easy to explore other parts of the country! I visited a couple other areas near Taipei. Some of these might even technically count as the Taipei metro area, but they did still feel distinct enough that I wanted to include them here instead of my main summary of Taipei.

Jiufen

This is the first day trip to come up on almost any list of recommendations. It’s about 45 minutes to an hour east of Taipei. I was absolutely delighted to find that there was a bus that picked up about five minutes from my hotel and went directly there, so it was the first place I went outside of the city!

Jiufen was originally a gold rush town! There is a museum there about this time period, but I wasn’t able to go because it was closed while I was there. When Taiwan was occupied by the Japanese, their time in Jiufen made a big impact on the architecture as well.

The mine shut down in 1971 and the town fell into decline, as so many old mining towns do. However, it was revitalized because it was a filming location for a Taiwanese film, A City of Sadness. The tourism boom from that movie led to a lot of development there, including the cafés and teahouses that remain popular today.

It is also known for its resemblance to the town in the Ghibli movie Spirited Away. While Miyazaki has denied that Jiufen was any sort of inspiration for the town in the movie, it’s still a popular destination for the many fans of Ghibli’s films.

I had a really nice day in Jiufen. I loved the teahouses and ended up waiting out a massive rainstorm at one of them – it had such a beautiful view from the patio when it wasn’t pouring rain! There are a ton of souvenir shops, as well as a lot of paths to walk around the city and see the views over the valley. It definitely has enough to stay busy for a day. I imagine the lanterns would look beautiful at night as well.

Beitou

This was even easier to get to, as it is on the red line of the metro. Beitou is known for its hot springs, which smell very strongly of sulfur.

Wikipedia informs me that Beitou has one of the largest concentrations of hot springs in the entire world! What was fascinating to me was how accessible they are. From the metro, it was a short walk to a public park that went right into the Thermal Valley area.

I also visited the library while I was there, which was beautiful and peaceful, and had a really delicious lunch at a local restaurant. It was one of those where I walked in right after it started pouring rain and I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed at figuring out what I wanted to eat, and they were so kind and made sure I got an English copy of the menu and knew where I was supposed to go to get service.

I didn’t go to any of the actual spas, which I think would have been fun, but there are always trade offs in travel and I paired Beitou with Tamsui, which was just a little farther along on the red line.

Tamsui

Tamsui sits at the mouth of the river where it meets the sea, and the Old Town is primarily located alongside the water.

Tamsui was one of my favorite areas to walk around – I found it very charming, and it also felt a lot more walkable than some of the other areas where I was. Most of the Old Town was closed to cars and the areas right next to the river functioned more like a boardwalk.

One other fun note – I love the instinct in East Asia to make these kind of charming, personified characters out of everyday objects. This one was the best that I saw on this trip!

Tamsui was a solid half day, although there is probably enough for a full day if you keep going to the fort or end up having a leisurely lunch along the river. It also was rainy while I was there, so my walk could’ve been longer if I hadn’t been trying to beat another potential downpour.

All of these were so convenient from Taipei and I would say they were all worth it. You could give Beitou and Tamsui their own full days, but I do think it was sufficient to do a half day for each due to their proximity if you’re short on time, like I always feel like I am. That said, I feel like I got a good sample of a few different areas in the north!

My next trip started out with a week in Taiwan! I based myself in Taipei the whole time and explored the city, with a few day trips outside of it. In hindsight, I might have considered spending part of the time in a different city just to get another perspective of Taiwan, but I also didn’t want to plan that much in advance. From Taipei, there were so many good options of what to do each day and I wasn’t locked in to any one itinerary in particular.

One of the things I love about East Asia as a region is the level of public transit that’s available. Taiwan was no exception! I used the metro and buses to get all over Taipei, and I also took a bullet train all the way to the southern tip of the country. The options were frequent, clean, and efficient. It made this whole week so easy to put together.

I was staying in Ximen, very close to the Ximending Night Market. The night markets are one of aspects that Taiwan is best known for, which was really fun to explore. It was always lively near my hotel. Even in the middle of the night, it was a fun vibe and felt safe to walk around.

There are a few bigger sites in Taipei that are well-known, but a lot of the fun of the city is just walking around and exploring the neighborhoods. I would try to pick an area of the city that looked fun, get to that metro stop, and walk around.

One of the more well-known sites is the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the surrounding square. The memorial itself is a monument to Chiang Kai-shek, who was a former president of China. The memorial hall reminded me a lot of the Lincoln Memorial in DC in its structure. It’s surrounded by a square, which has the National Theater, National Concert Hall, and the Liberty Square Archway. Liberty Square has been the site of a number of mass gatherings and demonstrations throughout Taiwan’s history.

Taipei is also home to the National Palace Museum, which is generally one of the top things on most Taipei itineraries. It’s a massive museum, with a very impressive collection of art, pottery, relics, and plenty of other things that I probably didn’t even get the chance to see while I was there!

All that said, if you had to pick the symbol of Taipei, it would probably be Taipei 101. It was the world’s tallest building from December 31, 2004 until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s by far the most recognizable building in Taipei’s skyline! My friend Lucy joined me at the end of my time in Taiwan, and our first stop was to go to the very top for the views of Taipei and the surrounding area.

Ultimately, a lot of big cities have a really tall building where you can go up to the top for an observation deck. The views of Taipei were great, don’t get me wrong, but if you’ve done something like Tokyo Skytree or the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, it’s not going to be a unique experience. That said, what I was pretty excited about was seeing the damper. Taiwan is prone to both earthquakes and typhoons, so the structural engineering that went into Taipei 101 had to be pretty impressive. The tuned mass damper is designed to offset movements within the building, and when you go up to the observation deck, you can see it in the core of the building. Thankfully, it wasn’t moving too much while we were there!

I also visited Lungshan Temple and the nearby Bopiliao Historical Block. I was in the area both during the day and at night, and was more impressed at night, as the lighting was very well done and highlighted how intricate the architecture of the temple was.

Since so much of my week was wandering and exploring, it’s hard to even pinpoint all the places that I thought were cool! I definitely visited the Songshan Cultural Park, the Red House, and walked all around a lot of other neighborhoods. The great thing about Taipei is that type of exploration is a really rewarding way to see the city. There aren’t the types of sites where you have to schedule or buy tickets in advance, so it can be a very organic experience of discovering a cool area and trying food from all the different stalls in the night markets.

Speaking of, a big shout out to the final meal I had, which was at Ningxia Night Market. This one was my favorite of where I went, as it felt really intense with the amount of stalls in such a small space and the variety of food on offer. It was such a fun week in Taipei.

I did also get the chance to explore a few places outside of the city, with a couple day trips in Northern Taiwan and one long day trip all the way down to Kaohsiung, but those deserve their own post!