Taiwan

At the beginning of February, we arrived at the final destination of our holiday. We started going around Taipei visiting various famous street markets, temples and the rainbow bridge. Arriving in Taiwan was quite a relief after being in China for so long, it was much quieter and smaller than China, which was a nice surprise whilst they all spoke Mandarin and knew a lot of English. After a couple of days, we travelled to the East of Taiwan, Hualien.

Whilst we were in Hualien we ended up drinking bubble tea almost every day since they originated in Taiwan and were so cheap. A couple of times we went to the beach to catch the sunset. We took a bike ride along the coast where we were able to cycle near the cliffs with a great view out to the ocean. Hualien has a famous night market and they were still celebrating Chinese New Year so we were lucky to see some performances whilst trying new Taiwanese snacks. A trip to Hualien wouldn’t really be a trip there unless we visited Taroko Gorge, so on our second and third day we made our way there to do a variety of walking trails where we met some other foreigners from Canada and America. Whilst walking we got to see some wild monkeys, and of course got to see some great views.

Unfortunately, our time came to an end in Hualien and we returned to Taipei for our final days before returning to Tianjin to study. Second time lucky, we made it to Beitou hot springs, which was actually shut the first time we went. Years ago before the hot springs became a tourist destination it had actually been used for locals to boil eggs since it was so hot. We were fortunate to be a 5 minute walk from the largest night market in Taiwan, which of course meant we went there almost every night for our dinner. One evening we walked up Elephant hill to see the sunset and see the whole of Taipei with the 101 towering over every other building.

Since arriving in Taiwan we immediately found out there is a very famous film in Asia, Spirited Away, set in a small town just North of Taipei, so we made our way there and of course it wouldn’t be a day trip if we didn’t walk up a mountain while we were there or try some more bubble tea. We were also able to see an active volcano one day before we heard about the Pingxi lantern festival. That evening we headed to Pingxi to see the festival, watch everyone for good luck get a lantern, and paint their wishes onto it before setting it off into the sky. It was an incredible view to see the sky lit up with lanterns. The final day in Taipei we went to a geopark before going to a cat village where there were over one hundred cats walking around and sleeping at every turn. In the evening we met up with some of my Taiwanese friends who showed us around some parts of Taipei, the South Gate where there was Jazz music being played for another festival that was only on for a week, and we also went to a light show before they introduced us to a famous Taiwanese pudding 刨冰, which had ice at the bottom with hot taro balls, grass jelly and mung beans on the top.

If you'd like to see more of what I did in Taiwan you can check the video I made of it - Preview YouTube video Taiwan - 台湾