taipei weekend
Another weekend… another solo mission, maxing out that staff-travel benefit… the travel for this weekend was slightly painful to be honest but I can’t really complain when I am paying barely anything for a ticket. In any case I did eventually arrive in Taipei for my first visit to the capital. Started slowly with breakfast at my cute little cafe/hotel then headed out for a hike up Elephant Mountain. The hike is all about the view of Taipei 101 (once the tallest building in the world until the one in Dubai took over) and there are some particularly photogenic boulders in prime view spot. This made for some great people-watching as the instagrammers all queued then clambered up on to the boulders to pose for selfies. I didn't continue with a longer hike and made my way back down to the city for the main highlight of Taiwan - the food! On the way to lunch I headed to a wee market that has sprung up inside/beside old military housing, it’s a lovely contrast right in the shadow of Taipei 101 to have these cute little buildings, and right beside them you can still see the bunkers.
I then (foolishly) ate way too many soup dumplings for a late lunch and then with not much time to digest headed off for a 4 hour street food tour. One day I hope to learn to turn up to these things with a totally empty stomach. The tour was epic, starting off in the market we had in-season perfectly ripe mango and pineapple as we wandered through the market enjoying the sights and smells.
The next stop was a mochi stand where I learned that the Taiwanese call the texture of mochi “Q”, apparently “Q” is a divisive texture and people either like it or don’t but it is quite popular in Taiwan and they have quite a few “Q” foods. I don’t have a great comparison for it if you have’t tried mochi, its kinda like squid in terms of white rubbery-ness but more like peanut butter in terms of coating your mouth. Its basically a strange dough which they sometimes fill with things or sometimes coat it in stuff, in this case it was coated in crushed peanuts which really added to the peanut butter mouth-coating effect.
Anyway… next up was a “thousand layer” spring onion pancake, one of the classics and definitely a highlight. Layer upon layer of doughy goodness with spring onions and sesame seeds, sounds weird but is damn good. So far we had been snacking as we strolled but reaching the end of the market our next stop was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I was probably too excited about this one so was ever so slightly disappointed, but I feel like somewhere out there is a life-changing version of this snack. It was a braised pork and mustard green filled bao ‘burger’ with crushed peanut and coriander, still on my recommended list though. I was already pretty full at this point and we weren’t even halfway but I am not a quitter… so onto the next stop!
The guide let us know this next taster would be optional which was a weird comment until we found out what it was, a betel nut, often chewed by taxi drivers, it releases a stimulant similar to caffeine when chewed and they use it to stay awake. I decided to try it but it was very unpleasant to chew on so I don’t think I lasted long enough to feel any buzz, also it weirdly turns your saliva red after a couple of chews so some taxi drivers end up looking a bit like vampires with red stained teeth. I was hoping for a delicious next stop to get rid of the previous taste but was outta luck.
Our guide kindly ordered 2 varieties of the classic Taiwanese dish ‘Stinky Tofu’, I feel like they could have tried harder with the name as now it not only smells unappealing but sounds it too. She bought out the first one, fermented cold tofu sprinkled with mysterious greet bits. She told us it is a bit like cheese so that got my hopes up but one chopstickful later and I was guzzling my Wintermelon tea (which I usually don’t like) just to get rid of the taste, it really was awful. She then bought out the second variety, fried stinky tofu and told us this version is a bit of an “easier” version, so with very little expectation of actually liking it, I dutifully tried a bite. Not as bad as the cold one but I would never order it or recommend it. I am not the greatest at trying weird food so I was proud of myself for having a go but it was really quite unpleasant!
Luckily the next stop was much more palatable - Taiwanese Milk Tea/Bubble Tea aka very sweet milky black tea with tapioca pearls in it. I am already a bubble tea fan from Hong Kong but always get fruit teas, so I was keen to try the milky one. It was pretty yum, but a huge cup of milk on an already full stomach was a battle that had me beat and I only made it a few sips in.
Our next course was hidden away in a very residential area, in the ground floor of an apartment building. We walked into a spacious room with a piano and two small stands containing boxes and wee bites of pineapple cake. The chef was there to introduce his cakes, near a table covered in trophies and medals, turns out his pineapple cakes are Michelin starred! Luckily they gave us one in a little packet to take with us as I could only mange one tiny bite by this stage.
Thankfully we had a bit of a walk and a wait for the next course, this time around it was Soup Dumplings (again damnit why did I have those for lunch) and pan fried pork buns. Both were simply delicious, Taiwanese classics for a reason.
Second to last stop was a funny wee bowl of sticky rice with pork, fish floss, picked vegetables and giant peanuts. Even writing it sounds strange but it was surprisingly yummy and I would definitely want to find and order it again if I was in Taiwan!
Finally we rounded it off with sorbet, lychee and pineapple flavours, I also saved that one to google maps for next time, a very inconspicuous looking shop with top quality sorbet.
Although some of the dishes were not my favourite it was such a fun thing to do and also a cool way to see the city and get to know it a bit more. Our guide grew up in Germany, but moved back (to her mothers homeland) recently so she had a really interesting insider-outsider perspective and could answer all our stupid questions. The tour group were a good bunch too, 2 other solo travellers, one a retired lecturer who had just taken a group of kids on an exchange to Japan and tacked on a few days for himself in Taiwan, the other a Welsh student on a summer exchange to Korea sneaking in some travel before she headed home. Then completing the group was a couple of Americans currently stationed in Okinawa where she is in the navy as an orthodontist and he works for the local hospital. They were all chatty and friendly with good travel stories!
While we were walking around we ended up at one of the big museums which at night has its large terrace overtaken by street dancers, crew after crew lined the balcony all with their sounds blasting trying out new moves, it was very cool to wander around watching them. I eventually rolled myself back to my hotel room to fall into a food coma for the night.
Sunday I started bright and early to try and beat the crowds up to the Maokong area to check out the tea plantations. Taking a gondola up the mountain I stepped off expecting calmness and rows of tea growing everywhere and instead found a bunch of bus stops, tour groups and stalls selling cold drinks and snacks on sticks. Slightly disappointed I walked through it all heading for a tea plantation, but even the walk was along the side of the road, in the heat. not the dirt path through the greenery I had envisioned! Once I found my tea house though I veered down off the main road and ended up with a table looking out over the greenery to enjoy a cup of tea.
Not an entirely uncomplicated process this tea drinking business>
Choose your tea flavour from the menu
Write the corresponding number on a little yellow paper
Go up to the counter and pay
Get given a tray of paraphernalia
Head back to your seat and take the big tea pot to a hot water station
Fill with water then keep warm on the teapot heater at your table
Pour some hot water into the mini tea pot (to heat the pot)
Pour that water into the small jug
Use the wooden scoopy thing to get tea into your little tea pot
Add new hot water to the little tea pot
Use the chopstick looking thing to clear the spout of any tea leaves
Empty the jug into the water disposal pot
Fill the jug with new hot water and pour into the little tea pot
Pour water into the tea cup to heat it then empty into disposal pot
Pour your brewed tea through a strainer into the smelling cup
They didn’t say what to do next but going by the name… smell your tea?
Then pour from smelling cup to drinking cup and drink
The drinking cup was so small, this was a lot of effort for a couple of sips of tea, but it was kinda fun playing around with it all! Done my dash with tea I then started heading back to the gondola. There were rumours of a bus that one could take, apparently you just had to wave it down, myself and a Japanese couple tried a couple of times to no avail so I took the sweaty option and walked back.
I made my way on the MRT (subway) into the more central part of town where my next mission was a knife massage. I didn’t really know what to expect but had read some good things about it so thought I would try it. It started with choosing a chakra oil ‘based on my intuition’ from a box of bottles then rubbing it between my hands and breathing in the smell. So far so weird I thought but hey who knows. Then next we headed to the massage table where I stood opposite her holding two shortened broomsticks in my hands while she had me move them up and down side to side doing some stretches. I then lay clothed on the massage table and she covered me in towels. She did a bit of more normal sort of massage, poking and prodding to find the tight spots… then out came the knives. They look like 2 big butchers knives but are luckily dull blades not sharp and she used them all over in the same kind of motion people use when they do “chop chop” type massage movements with the side of the hands. It was actually very effective as weird as it sounds and left a kind of buzzing/humming/vibration feeling in each area as she moved past it. If you like massage I would recommend trying Chinese Knife Massage if you ever get the chance!
Winding down my weekend in Taiwan I grabbed some below average Ramen and then a huge (they literally served it to me with 2 spoons) mango shaved ice which I demolished before heading to the airport. I feel like I only saw about 10% of Taipei so will definitely be returning, keen to check out the main city part more, the other night markets, the hot springs and the national park next time!
