A day at Taipei (台北)

Woke up at 0530 today as we need to leave house by 0630. It was a 40 minutes drive from our place to Chiayi HSR and another 1.5 hours from Chiayi HSR to Taipei HSR. We took the 0736 train and arrived at Taipei at 0900. Our first stop was at Dan Shui. We took the 捷运 from Taipei main station to 淡水.

we usually call it drop off point but they call it kiss and ride. so cute><

High Speed Railway (HSR) at the background

淡水河. The island at the back is called 八里. 

Fisherman use the cable system from the garage to bring the boat down into the waters 

We walked along dan shui river to the fisherman's wharf and we stop by Fort San Domingo along the way. The Fort was built in 1628 to guard the busy harbour.

Prison cell in the fort

9 countries' flags

While walking along the river, we saw this really huge pig outside a shop. I was really surprised that people here rear pigs as pets! I don't think it is legal according to Mr. Kuo.

The lovers' bridge at dan shui river

I was told that this place is usually crowded at night and is popular among couples. There are also some restaurants nearby that has live bands.

Really delicious biscuit! It was warm when we bought it. I bought the yam flavoured one. 

We stopped by 淡水老街 for lunch and we ate 阿给 (ah gei). If you thought that 阿给 is the name of the shop, you are wrong. It is the name of the dish. It is a very interesting dish made of beancurd skin and is considered a local specialty. The beancurd skin forms the bowl shape and they fill it with 冬粉, followed by drizzling it with the sweet and salty gravy.

阿给 (ah gei)

After lunch, we went to the Hello kitty Cafe to take a look. The cakes were quite expensive reviews seem bad so I didn't eat. Took a few photos and left. Mr. Kuo was really sweet and he specially brought me there because I said I wanted to take a look if it's on the way. However, it wasn't quite on the way. We exited from 忠孝fuxing station just to see the cafe and went back to the train station to continue our journey.

Then, we went to Songshan Creative Park (松山文創園區). We chanced upon a wood carving art exhibition （大溪有木有） which was really interesting. Admission was free too. They had interesting wood carvings based on Chinese characters （甲骨文）. Some other exhibits included carvings of Characters in Chinese legends like Damo (达摩). Mr. Kuo shared many interesting stories and guided me along the way. It was as though I was attending another history lesson, really enlightening.  

Ducks at the pond near the creative park

After which we walked down to 国父纪念馆，a place built to remember Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (孙中山). You will notice that there are many youths dancing there and many people also bring their dogs there for walks. Some kite enthusiasts will fly their kites there too as there is a huge space and there is not much of obstructions. We were lucky to see some soldiers marching as well.

Finally, our last stop was at Taipei 101. It was once the world's tallest building and its elevator has been awarded the world's fastest elevator by the Guinness world book of records.  My journey to Taiwan is now complete after visiting this landmark of Taiwan. The elevator up to the observatory deck which was at the 89th storey only took 37 secs! My ear was quite uncomfortable due to the speed of the elevator. However, I was taken aback by the remarkable speed of the elevator.  

view of Taipei 101 from 国父纪念馆

Beautiful skyline of Taipei

Really thankful to Mr. Kuo for bringing me around Taipei! :)