Trekking Elephant Mountain

Definitely a must-do when in Taipei is to hike the Elephant Mountain trail, which leads to a breathtaking vista of the city and of Taipei 101 at the top of the steps. It’s a very short hike, only about 20 minutes one way, but it is a steady incline of endless steps, so I would definitely recommend wearing light-weight, breathable clothes and comfortable shoes. Also, DO NOT FORGET THE MOSQUITO REPELLANT!!

How to get there: from Xiangshan MRT station, the way to the hike is very clearly labeled. Basically walk straight down the street parallel to the park, and head up the hill to the left. Signs all the way!

But first, we did head to Family Mart to get some breakfast. Taipei is so riddled with convenience stores it’s ridiculous. You literally cannot walk down one block without seeing at least one 7-11, Hi-Life, or Family Mart, all of which basically sell the same things. Tracy got a watermelon milk and an egg roll. I was able to buy a fresh tea egg, rice ball, and bottle of Ion Sweat sports water for 55 yuan (under $2 USD).

The trailhead is located right beside a large temple up the sloped road, and is marked clearly along with a map of the different trails that branch out:

Trailhead

Trail Map

From the trailhead

Just a little ways up from the trailhead, there is a lady selling tea eggs and small refreshments so those who forgot to bring water can definitely get some there!

Looking down from about 1/3 the way up

And from there it was a relentless upwards climb…It was a pretty hot day, and the humidity was killer, as usual. We were both seeping sweat not even halfway up the trail! The trail itself was well maintained though, and was thoroughly paved with stone steps that were awkwardly mini-sized at some points (like the awkward steps at UCLA), and really steep at other spots. Also, most of the trail was covered in shade from the abundant greenery all around, so it was not as hot as it could have been if we’d been in the sun the whole time.

The struggle

Greenery and paved paths

Overall it was a really beautiful experience though. Unlike in the city where it just smells like exhaust, smoke, and pollution all the time, the air up there was very clean. It also felt remarkably peaceful, even though there were a good number of people on the trail that Saturday morning—probably due to the sound of cicadas and other naturey sounds that permeated the air.

Looking down at old people

The trail draws an assortment of elderly Taiwanese, young locals, foreign travelers, and photographers, and it’s easy to see why…around the time we couldn’t take the endless ascent anymore we were rewarded with a small deck that opened up to an unobstructed view of Taipei 101.

Viewing deck

There are also lots of benches scattered along the trail—maybe for romantic couples or for the elderly to rest at?

Stone benches

After a final stretch of the steepest stairs ever, we finally arrived at the top. The view is absolutely SPECTACULAR and I can definitely imagine how crowded it must be up here with photographers at sunset and at night.

There are also a couple large boulders at the top that people like to climb onto for good picture opps. We hogged a boulder for a little too long.

Highly recommend this hike if you’re ever in Taipei! It’s a casual hike that is doable in regular close-toed shoes as you can see, but you’ll definitely still work up a bit of a sweat. The resulting view is well worth it!

Check out my video of our hike down below:

And until next time!

Taipei Nights: Pub 45 and Hideout

I’ve been living with my Taiwanese relatives…which means there is very little leeway for the ratchet lifestyle here. My grams ain’t too keen on me staying out any later than about 10 pm, which is typically the beginning of the night for a young adult of legal age.

So yeah, life’s been hard.

Haha JK it’s been great living with the relatives ❤ Free food, free laundry, free transportation, insider tips on where the best eats are….the perks are endless. They’ve all been so considerate and accomodating even though I’m basically mooching off them for the next couple months. However…the fact remains that I do not enjoy the same level of freedom here as I had in college.

So when my friend from the states, A, hit me up for Taipei’s nightlife I was quite excited to get out of the house 🙂

45 PUB

Address: Taipei City, Da’an District, Section 1, Heping E Rd, 45號2樓

45 Pub bar area

We met up at the Guting MRT station and walked to 45 Pub, which was very close! Only about a 5 minute walk away from the exit 5. As with many businesses in Taipei, the pub was located on the second floor up a perilously steep set of stairs squeezed between two buildings.

It was really early when we arrived (maybe 6:30 pm) since I needed to get back home before by grandma curfew of 10 pm, so the pub was really empty. They do have a minimalist food menu consisting of mainly sandwhiches and small snacks. Their drinks menu included both creatively named cocktails and an extensive beer selection. We ordered a round of drinks from the middle-aged lao ban niang (boss lady) and a “Piquant Beef Rice” dish for me since I hadn’t eaten yet.

Piquant Beef Rice

Dranks

My Long Island Iced Tea (round 1) was pretty good…strong, but sweet enough to mask its potency. The beef dish had good flavor, but the beef chunks were kind of chewy and difficult to eat.

A side note: the bathroom is very small and literally shady. The whole room was painted oil-slick black and there was an umbrella blocking the non-existent ceiling above…(yeah um wtf?)

But I guess the bathroom does add an odd quirkiness to the place. Overall, I do recommend 45 Pub! Apparently it’s a popular spot, especially for foreigners. By the time we left around 8ish the pub was getting quite busy.

Hide Out

和平東路一段280號
Da’an District, Taipei, 台北市 106
Taiwan

Art

It was raining again when we left the pub, so we took a taxi to our next stop, the Hide Out bar/hookah lounge. Unlike Pub 45, this bar is located on a corner on the street level, and has a fantastically lecherous piece of wallart on its side, which makes the location very easy to spot. The place was completely empty, so we took some window seats right next to the bar area and got down to business.

AMF

The forbidden (o.O)

Lady’s Yogurt

The jiu dan (drink menu) was short and sweet and did not include the selection of hookah flavors, so we had to ask for them. The very nice bartender rattled off a list of fruity flavors, and we decided on guava, a flavor I haven’t seen offered in CA. For round 2 I ordered my go-to drink, the AMF, which came vividly, promisingly blue. Later on, inhibitions lowered and happily giddy, I ventured out of my comfort zone and ordered a Lady’s Yogurt, which was a beautiful, cotton candy pink. It came in a delicately tall, wide-rimmed glass and tasted like strong, frothy peach yogurt soju. It was absolutely delicious and I would 10/10 order it again.

Side note: I have not been carded once yet in Taiwan. I have narrowed down this phenomenon to 3 possibilities: 1) Asians tend to look younger than reality so I am merely blending in with my people 2) A is a menacing looking dude and they don’t want to mess 3) Taiwanese people just don’t give any shits about legal drinking age. Or maybe all 3??

When nature called, I was pointed downstairs to the basement, and discovered that in addition to nice bathrooms there is a very cozy-looking basement lounge complete with plush leather couches and dim mood lighting.

Basement lounge

I would DEFINITELY recommend sitting in the basement instead of street level just because Hideout’s windows are HUGE and COMPLETELY UNTINTED (how does a bar not have tinted windows?!), which means that literally every Taiwanese passerby blatantly stared at us through the windows as they walked by and even now I can still feel the unadulterated judgment in their eyes. Apparently going to bars/hookah/nightclubs and drinking is highly TABOO here in Taiwan, even more so than in the states. Only the real bad kids go to places like this o.O But I am foreigner so I will do as I please 🙂

The weak-sauce I am was a little delirious by then, but I made it back home safe and sound by curfew.

Okay, maybe I kinda got lost in the MRT station on the way…shhh…

Yangmingshan Part 2

Yangmingshan vegetable paddies

It’s Friday, and that means Aunt 1 wants to go up to her weekend house in Yangmingshan again. Today, instead of heading straight to the house, we actually went up for lunch first. At first I didn’t even know where we were headed…just knew that we were heading quite deep into the mountain. Eventually we branched off from the main road, the passing cars became scarcer and scarcer, and the buildings became more squat and rustic. Suddenly we broke out from the tree canopy into a scene that looked like something straight out of a Chinese kung fu movie. We were in a plateau cradled in the midst of the Yangmingshan mountains—a flat expanse of plant terraces lush with calla lilies and vibrant vegetables as far as the eye can see.

We walked down a winding path that went straight through the plant terraces, and right in the middle of the field of greens, there was a quaint little restaurant run by a friend of my aunt’s. It was completely empty inside, so we had privacy to chat as we liked.

Long, winding path through the veggies

The “restaurant” hut

While we waited for the dishes to come out I explored around the immediate area…

Huge (~3’ long) winter gourds in the back…

Veggie paddies forever…

The dishes were served up super hot and fresh, and many of the vegetables were home-grown.  Crisp bamboo stir-fry with mild chili and sesame oil pork:

Left: stir-fried bamboo; right: sesame pork

Delicately soft steamed fish:

Special preserved winter gourd to flavor white rice.  Strong fermented flavor and very salty. (It came in one small block but my grandma split it up before I could get a good picture).

After the very satisfying meal, we dropped into a garden store on the street.

It was filled with lots of random cute odds and ends for the garden.

Sunlight-activated bouncy dolls.

Lots of Asian-sized plants.

Plant-able beans with words like “happiness,” “good luck,” etc…

A pond lily with way too many bugs in it:

We then went to the house and I took a few nice pictures of the view:

The living room (and grandma):

Some bedrooms:

There was no wifi yet since the house is very new, so I edited some video footage offline with the great view as the backdrop.

Watch the Yangmingshan Pt. 2 vlog!:

I’ve finally put up a few videos so you can go check it out at the Youtube link at the top of the page will take you directly to my channel.  Feel free to let me know if there’s anything I can improve on or if there’s something you want to see in future posts. Until next time!

Week 1 Recap: NTNU, public transportation, Shilin, Taiwanese dentistry

As mentioned in the first post I basically couldn’t use my DSLR at all for the majority of my time here so far, and I’m a noob at trying to vlog, so I don’t have too many pictures and videos for the first few days.  In this post I’m just going to summarize what I did my first week in Taipei, which was mostly just settling in and learning how to live the city life.

Here’s a quick video of the first couple days here…my very first video so do not have high expectations LOL:

Monday 8/24: Registration at NTNU

The main reason I am living in Taiwan for such a lengthy amount of time is because I will be learning Chinese at the Mandarin Training Center of the National Taiwan Normal University (Shida).  It’s a fairly well-known program, and people from various different backgrounds and nationalities come to Shida to learn the Chinese language. This was the first day for registration, and there were way more people than I’d expected. The whole thing took a whopping 3 hours to complete, and was literally 90% just waiting in line and doing nothing. Basically registration was a 3 step process: 1) verify passport information, 2) pay tuition, 3) skills evaluation quiz, 4) apply for and receive student ID card. Waiting to pay for tuition took so long though…I literally waited an hour and a half for step 2.

Since it took so long, I had the chance to get to know two girls who were in line next to me. Both spoke very good English, and seemed to have pretty decent Chinese as well. From what I’ve seen of the people at Registration, many already have a fair grasp of the language; very few can be considered pure beginners.

The skills evaluation consisted of an oral segment—basically just conversing with a counselor to help determine which class you would fit in best— and an optional writing portion, which I opted out of since I don’t even know my Bopomofo (like Chinese alphabet).  After that, I was sent upstairs to input some basic personal information into their computer database.  Lastly, I received a few handouts, a student guide book, and my ISIC, an International Student Identity Card:

Student guide book, ISIC card, and other handouts.

Tuesday 8/25: Taipei Bus Station and bus life in general

MRT

This day marked the first time I walked out of my aunt’s house independently! Grandma, and Aunt and Uncle 2 live just down the street from where I am staying with Aunt 1, so I met them there for lunch. They took me to a western-style restaurant at the Taipei Bus Station, and taught me how to use the public bus transportation system. We also visited Hands Tailung, basically a Daiso/Tokyo Lifestyle on steroids, and then shopped around some random small street stores nearby. We took the bus home, and by this time I was getting pretty used to how the bus works. The wonderful thing about Taipei is that there is English everywhere. Every street sign, MRT sign, all the maps, and even the buses are labeled in both Chinese and English. The buses announce every stop in both languages as well, so it’s very convenient for foreigners to navigate the city.

Wednesday 8/26: Taipei Metro Mall

I met up with my Aunt and Uncle again for lunch. This time we took the bus to the National Taiwan University (Taida) area, which has a lot of good places to eat and shop close by. However, Taiwanese restaurants apparently only serve lunch until 2 pm, and they close very strictly at that time. We came a bit too late and had to eat at a different Thai restaurant than the ones my Aunt and Uncle had intended to eat at. Afterwards, my Uncle took me down to the Taipei Metro Mall, an underground network of diverse street shops accessible by many of the main MRT lines. Everything is really cheap there…I got myself a selfie stick and a desk tripod for only 88+30NTP = about $4 USD altogether. Yes, I will now be one of those people who take selfies obnoxiously in public.

Goodies from the Metro Mall (not including camera).

Before heading back, we stopped by Tim Ho Wan, a quick take-out dim sum place to pick up some of their well-known crispy char siu buns.  My Uncle, who is from Hong Kong, informed me that Tim Ho Wan is known as one of the cheapest Michelin-star eateries. And the char siu baos did not disappoint. I’m not a particularly huge fan of char siu baos in general—they’re usually just a-ok for me. But piping hot out of the oven, these unique buns have a caramelized, crunchy cookie shell (kind of like a melon pan), and the rich Chinese bbq pork filling inside is seasoned to sweet and tangy perfection. Highly recommend if you’re ever in Hong Kong or Taiwan where there’s a Tim Wan Ho nearby!

Tim Wan Ho char siu buns (baos)

Thursday 8/27: Dentist appointment

A year ago, I was told I would need a root canal, but it costs major $$$ at the dentistry in Irvine that I went to, so we decided to try our luck in Taiwan. Aunt 1 took me to a place down the street that’s run by an old high school friend of hers’ and let’s just say this experience kinda-sorta-maybe scarred me for life. Either way, I’m now scheduled for a root canal on my birthday -______-.

Later that night, Tracy finally arrived in Taiwan! We decided to go to Shilin Nightmarket for cheap food and shopping. The nightmarkets are always a must if you’re visiting Taiwan (or any other Asian country in general). At Shilin, most of the food vendors are organized into a large underground area, which made it unbelievably loud, stuffy, and hot down there.

Outskirts of Shilin Night Market

Legit fried stinky tofu.  Heavy stink and very garlicky.

Fried stinky tofu

Tracy and her duck blood stinky tofu soup. Yes, there is such a dish:

$30 NTP ($1 USD) boba milk tea! Perfectly chewy tapioca and rich, creamy milk tea.

Boba milk tea

Sitting area in basement food court

Freshly made dishes on display

Teh Tarik – Malaysian “pulled tea” in a bag

Watch my Shilin Nightmarket video!:

Let me know if there’s anything about Taiwan you’re curious about, or if there’s anything you want me to cover in later posts and videos.  My Youtube channel finally has stuff on it so go check it out, and follow me here and/or on Youtube for more FOBification adventures 😀 Until next time!