Toronto, Canada

We're back home, mostly recovered from the jetlag. It was a nice little trip over the holidays.

This trip was about the food almost as much as the sites! So I have two lists of highlights. First, our favourite eats, in order of eating:

• Ramen at Oreno Ramen in Seoul *
• Ise-ebi lobster lunch combo at Payao Fish Market in Okinawa
• Steamed buns on Dihua Street in Taipei
• Pineapple buns in Tonghua St Night Market in Taipei
• Bào bīng (shaved ice cream and fruit) in Tainan
• Dumplings at Hang Zhou Xiao Long Bao in Taipei
• Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung in Taipei *
• Beef noodles at Tien Hsia San Chueh in Taipei *
• Twisted doughnuts in Gwangjang Market in Seoul

* Michellin rated

And our favourite sites, in no particular order:

• Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul (#84 on my Top 100)
• Castles in Okinawa *
• Tsuboya Pottery District in Naha
• National Palace Museum in Taipei
• Dalongdong Bao’an Temple in Taipei
• Taipei Confucius Temple in Taipei
• Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei (#83 on my Top 100)
• Mazu Temple in Lukang (#78 on my Top 100)
• Lukang old town at night
• Sanfong Temple at night in Kaohshiung
• Grand Matsu Temple in Tainan
• Tiantan Tian Gong Temple in Tainan
• Anping old town outside Tainan
• Gwangjang Market in Seoul
• Ikseondong hanok village in Seoul
• Tuned mass damper inside Taipei 101 in Taipei
• Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul *

* UNESCO World Heritage Sites

There were lots more temples and museums and markets that we liked, I've just noted the highlights above. There would likely have been more UNESCO sites on our list but Taiwan isn't recognized by the UN.

Google translate makes it much easier to travel where you don't speak or read the local language. Google Maps and Uber also make it easy to get around. We didn't use any of the Korean we had tried to learn through Duolingo, although we did recognize when someone asked us if we were students when buying a ticket to enter some museum. (Student (학생) is one of the first Korean words taught in Duolingo).

We planned out about the right amount of time in each place we stayed. There's much more to see in Seoul but it was more of an extended transit stop on this trip; when we have a trip focusing on Korea we'll get to see more of Seoul. We also just changed trains in Taichung (Taiwan) — it looked like a cool place to visit, and not on the tourist map even though it's the 2nd largest city in Taiwan. The eastern mountainous side of Taiwan also looked cool. It takes a bit of time and effort to travel through there, and generally anything less accessible we find more interesting.

We used masks quite a bit in Taiwan, especially on transportation and in museums. We also used masks whenever traveling through airports. In Seoul and Okinawa, mask usage wasn't that prevalent. In Taiwan about 75% or more folks wore masks, in particular almost all hotel and restaurant staff. (It was odd to us when we arrived back in Seoul after two weeks in Taiwan and the hotel staff weren't wearing masks!)

The subway system in Taipei was super easy to use, with very frequent subways (I think we waited at most three minutes). We just bought single-trip tokens which was pretty easy, except once in Taipei Main when we couldn't find the MRT ticket machine (in our defence, Taipei Main is a major transportation hub with subway, high-speed rail, regular rail, and an airport LRT). The train system in Taiwan was also very easy to use and very punctual. We didn't take the subway in Seoul because the tourist attractions are compact enough to walk. People were very orderly everywhere on this trip, making getting on/off the subway really efficient.

Apple Pay worked most places, except a few in spots in Seoul, where we just used a regular credit card. It was cash-only in the markets.

All the places we visited were really safe, probably the safest places we've visited. Hopefully we didn't develop any bad travel safety habits for our future trips :)

Overall it was a very relaxing and enjoyable trip!

Seoul, South Korea

On recent trips we've used guidebooks to varying degrees, mostly to map out highlights of cities. They're still useful for navigating larger historical sites such as the Karnak Temple complex in Egypt. Heather also likes them for the historical context they provide. We're not really partial to a particular brand; it's more likely to be the most recently published one.

On this trip we had the Lonely Planet for Seoul and Taiwan, and an independent guidebook for Okinawa. We didn't use much of the Okinawa book (it covers the entire Ryukyu Island chain, of which we visited just the southern half of Okinawa Honto).

It took me most of the trip to figure out how to use the LP for Seoul. It's set up by neighbourhood, so you need to know what highlights you want to see (from other sources), and then use the LP to see what else is around the highlights. But you can't use the LP to figure out highlights (which is how I would have typically used it in the past).

Anyways for today (our last day touristing on this trip) we wanted to see the Seoul Museum of Art and Namdaemun Market. We planned out a nice little walking tour, including some places mentioned in the LP. They're not on 'top things to see' lists but were pretty cool.

First up was City Hall, just down the street from our hotel (we could see it from our room). It has a huge green wall, seven stories high, that was the largest in the world when it first opened in 2012. There's also an artwork that goes from floor to ceiling. It was interesting enough to see.

Across the street from City Hall is Deoksugung Palace. We lucked out that we reached there just after 11am and got to see the changing of the guard. They have a photo op with the guards before the change, then they clear everyone out and go through their ceremony. The sun was out and in the right direction for pics so took a bunch.

Deoksugung was included our combo ticket. We ended up visiting all the sites on the combo ticket except for two. Entry fees are pretty low (about $2 / site) so it was more about the convenience of not having to line up to buy tickets everywhere.

Deoksugung itself contains a handful of palaces and the National Museum of Art. The museum is separate admission (only $1 or something) so we bought our tickets and entered. The current exhibit, spread across the six rooms in the museum, was a retrospective on Chang Ucchin, one of Korea's pioneering modern artists. It was cool to see, and not that busy.

We were at our museum capacity for the day, so skipped out on the Seoul Museum of Art, which was next on our list. Instead, walked towards Namdaemun Market, and the start of Seoullo 7017. Along the way we passed by Sungnyemun, one of the Eight Gates of Seoul. We crossed the street to get better pics of the gate, and as I was taking my pics, Heather motioned for me to watch out for some people trying to walk by. Turns out we had stumbled into another ceremonial changing of the guard, and the 'people walking by' were actually the guards marching towards the gate! So took some more pics.

A couple hundred metres down the street was an access point to Seoullo 7017. It's a former highway overpass that was converted to a pedestrian walkway with plants and seating areas, sort of like the High Line in NYC. It's probably more interesting in the summer; when we visited it just contained large plant pots with burlap protecting the plants over winter.

Walked back along the path to Namdaemun market. They had a very helpful info booth in the middle. They gave us a map of the market and circled the alleys with food. There were a number of stalls selling hotteok, a very popular street food in the winter. It's a thick pancake with a sweet filling, served rolled up in a paper cup. We found a stall with a line-up and waited for our turn. The lady behind us was pleased that we wanted to try one each of the flavours (sweet potato and honey & seeds). They were excellent!

Next we searched out the restaurant alley and picked a busy one for lunch. The food was okay, although we were still a bit full from the hotteok. After we walked through a bit more of the market. It's more of a wholesaler market, with mostly clothing and bedding, and not as photogenic as some of the other food-based ones. Very atmospheric though!

We were getting tired so headed back to the hotel to pack up. On the way back, stopped by Koffee Sniffer which was an excellent little hipster coffee place.

Later in the evening I got an PSA alert in Korean on my iPhone. After translating in Google, it turned out the alert was just about the forecast for snow and a reminder to shovel your sidewalk. Not sure I'd rate that as important enough to push out across the entire mobile network :) Anyways we finished packing, the end of our little trip!

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul has a compact core with most of the tourist highlights within a 20 minute walk of our hotel. It’s also a very walkable city.

We started at a couple of hanok villages - Insadong and Ikseondong. Hanoks are the traditional Korean homes, in these two villages mostly gentrified.

Insadong has lots of boutique stores and art galleries. It’s also where you can get a custom-made dojang stamp. These are the traditional Korean seals used to sign/stamp documents. It takes about 30 minutes for them to create so we placed our order for pickup later in the day.

Across the street is Ikseondong. It’s filled with little restaurants and cafes. We were still full from breakfast so just browsed. The places looked really good though. There’s a couple Michelin rated ones which had long lineups.

Next to Ikseondong is the Jongmyo Shrine. It’s included in the combo ticket we had bought the first time through Seoul when we saw Gyeongbokgung Palace. However during the week you can just visit Jongmyo as part of a one hour tour. We just wanted to cut through on the way to Changyeongung Palace. So walked around Jongmyo Plaza Park.

Changyeongung Palace was okay to see. It leads to Changdeokgung Palace which is amazing, one of the highlights in Seoul. I took a lot of pics. Also included in our combo ticket was the Secret Garden, but it’s probably better visited not in winter.

From there it was a ten minute walk to Gwangjang Market. We worked our way to the food section. This was one of the cooler markets I’ve seen. There were food stalls on both sides and lined up the middle, all filled with people sitting on benches enjoying lunch.

The mantu stalls looked yummy so we grabbed a seat. The stall person motioned for us to squeeze in closer so that there was room for more folks. We tried steamed mantu and mantu in a soup broth. Mantu is similar in flavour to manti, the stuffed dumplings we had in Uzbekistan. I googled and turns out it’s generally the same thing. It was excellent.

After lunch we walked around the market, it’s really photogenic. There was a long line up for a donut stall. It moved really quick though, so we joined the line. About ten minutes later we had a twisted donut each, freshly cooked. It was amazing!!

We walked back to Insadong to pick up our dojangs, and then back towards the hotel. The mall next door had a Kakao Friends store, which was another souvenir I wanted for our key shelf. Kakao Friends are emoticons used in a hugely popular texting app in Korea.

Just around the corner was a seesaw statue that Heather had read about. It was cool.

After dinner we tried to visit Deoksugung (they light it up and supposedly it’s really pretty), but it closes at 9pm so we missed it today.

That wrapped up our day, we saw quite a bit with lots of variety. We also picked up both the souvenirs we wanted for the key shelf, so a very successful day!

Seoul, South Korea

We had carefully planned out getting to Taoyuan International this morning, right down to having exactly 40 TWD in coins for the MRT and 300 TWD in bills for the express train. I felt like the bad guys in Die Hard 3. I’m sure John McClane would have figured out our destination.

Our flight to Seoul was at 12:20, so it turned into a full transit day :( Oh well, traveling between countries usually takes up the full day.

We flew Korean Air, it was pretty good. Even got a decent hot meal for lunch!

I had booked our flight in Feb so we were the 2nd row in economy, for the luggage space under the seat and front of the line for immigration.

We were through both customs and immigration in no time. We couldn’t track our AirTags in Seoul but couldn’t see our luggage elsewhere in the world so assumed it was here. Sure enough our luggage came out.

We debated taking the subway but Naver was showing it 20 minutes faster driving so just took a taxi. Less than an hour later we were at our hotel.

We just had dinner in the hotel lounge and planned out the next two days. We won’t get to see everything this time but that’s okay; Seoul only became a destination this trip cause of the direct flight from Toronto.

We had to look up thank-you and hello in Korean again. Also said xie xie (thanks in Taiwanese) a few times out of habit :(

Somehow we ended up walking 7.5km today. I guess with transit transfers in Taipei and walking through the airports it adds up.

Taipei, Taiwan

The forecast had called for rain today and it was right :(

We didn’t plan to do much today, partially cause of the rain and also because we had to pack up for our flight to Seoul tomorrow. We had accumulated quite a bit of stuff over the past two weeks (including my shoes!) and it all needed to fit in one suitcase each.

Anyways we started the day at National Taiwan Museum Nanmen Branch. On the way there we walked through 228 Peace Memorial Park. It’s dedicated to the Feb 2, 1947 massacre of thousands participating in the drive for independence. (I knew very little of Taiwan's history until this trip). The park was peaceful in the rain.

The museum was small but excellent. There’s several branches, it’s the Nanmen one that we visited. It’s built in an old camphor factory. The ground floor was about the history of camphor and opium in Taiwan. Camphor is still used today in some products, including Salonpas (pain relief patches) and Tiger Balm. The upstairs was a special exhibition on the history of electricity in Taiwan which I found way more interesting than I would have thought. Both floors were really cool, with good English descriptions.

We had lunch at a sushi place based on Google maps. It was okay. We’ve had such great sushi on this trip that anything less is just meh. We did like their scallops (with lime), squid and yellowtail.

After lunch we took the MRT up to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. This had cool contemporary art and was a nice contrast to the museums we saw in the morning. By 3pm we tapped out, and took the MRT home.

We had reservations for dinner at the hotel restaurant. It’s highly rated and based on their breakfasts we had high hopes. We ordered a la carte - appetizers to share (soft shell crab, grilled cauliflower and a deconstructed pho). All were excellent. We both had pork dishes for our mains which were also excellent. It was a nice end to our Taiwan leg of the trip!

Taipei,Taiwan

It was a beautiful day outside, blue sky, no humidity, about 22C. Perfect day to take the gondola up to Maokong!

The gondola base is conveniently located at the end of the Wenhu MRT line. The MRT is above ground on the last few stops and pretty scenic. It’s then a 5 minute walk to the gondola. We arrived around 10am to beat the crowds - we only waited about five minutes to get on the gondola. We bought a day pass in case we stopped off at the various stops to sightsee on the way down. (We ended up not, but it was less than 1 CAD each extra for the day pass).

In our gondola cabin was an older couple who had visited Toronto and studied at York. We think they were both professors. Anyways it was nice chatting with them on the 30 minute ride up to the top.

We decided to walk over to Zhangshan Temple, about 20 minutes up the road. It’s a beautiful walk through tea farms with great views of the city skyline. A lot of locals come up here to hike the trails or for bike rides - it’s really close to the centre yet seems miles away.

Walked back towards the gondola and stopped for lunch at a place (Spring Tea County) that looked busy with groups of friends. The restaurant said it would be a 40 minute wait for food, which was okay by us as they had seated us on the balcony with a beautiful view of Taipei 101 and the skyline.

We ordered a bunch of tea-inspired dishes - fried rice with tea leaves, fried chicken in tea oil, fried king mushrooms and steamed greens. We really liked the rice and mushrooms, although it was all good.

We tried to get a green tea ice cream a couple stores down, but the ice cream machine stopped working when we were literally the next in line. Oh well.

Took the gondola back down, and the MRT over to an antique market in town. The market itself was pretty small and just starting to open; however it was in a really cute part of town. We wandered around (one of the best weather days we’ve had), came across a tofu pudding place and stopped in to try some - it was one of the last food items on our list. It was really good.

We browsed through the nearby Yongkang shopping district which was very lively. Google had marked the end of the street as a photo op. I assumed it was where you were supposed to take a pic of Yongkang St. We got there and looked around, and realized there was an unobstructed view of Taipei 101 framed by Xinyi Rd! The lighting was excellent as it was nearing dusk. That was a nice little bonus on our walk.

Walked the rest of the way back to the hotel and cleaned up. We wanted to try Din Tai Fung for dinner, a Michelin-rated dumpling place and supposedly some of the best dumplings in Taipei. There was a branch just next door to us in SOGO mall. It sometimes has wait times of up to two hours! They have a good reservation system though - you can stop by in person and get a number and QR code. You can then use the QR code to place your order and see how long the wait is for your number.

So I went across and got a QR code, the wait was about 80 minutes. Returned back to the hotel (just a four minute walk, almost all underground, similar to the PATH system in Toronto), had a beer and caught up in my blog.

Around 75 minutes later we went back to Din Tai Fung. We still had another 20 minutes wait before we were seated.

I had preordered using the QR code, including xiao long bao, steamed dumplings, shao mai and pot stickers. They run a tight ship here - we were seated, had another server come by to explain the proper way to mix soy sauce and vinegar for our xiao long bao (1 part soy 3 parts vinegar) and then our food started coming out from the kitchen. There was an instruction card on how to eat - place the xiao long bao in you spoon, use your chop stick (just called ‘chops’ in Taiwan) to poke a hole, sip the broth that spills out, then lightly dip in the soy mixture, add a sliver of pickled ginger and enjoy! It was the best dumplings ever.

After dinner we walked about 15 minutes to a place marked on Google maps as Taipei 101 street photo point. I had looked on street view to make sure we weren't being pranked. It had an even fuller view of Taipei 101 with nice street lighting framing the pic.

Thus ended another day of good eats in Taiwan! Good thing we walked over 17km today :)

Taipei, Taiwan

We’ve found Jan 1 to be a good day when traveling cause the things that are open are usually very under-touristed. Today we had a train ride to Taipei and then an afternoon to sightsee.

Had breakfast in Tainan, packed up, walked across the street to the train station (much easier now that we had figured out how to access the bridge).

We took a local train from Tainan main to the HSR station, about five stops. Most people were doing the same thing so it was easy, plus they announced the stations in English.

We used our local train ticket to exit and then our HSR ticket to enter the HSR station. The train system is fully automated for passengers here (I guess it’s similar to the GO train back home).

We settled in for the 90 minute ride to Taipei. We used the time to read up on Taipei and what to do over the next couple days.

In Taipei we transferred to the MRT (subway) and three stops later we were at our hotel. Easy peasy.

Our room wasn’t available yet (it was just past noon) so we left our bags behind and headed off for lunch near Taipei 101.

Our hotel had made a reservation for us at a restaurant in a mall (a lot of good restaurants are found in malls here). In the mall we ran into a Onitsuka Tiger store! I’m a big fan of Mexico 66 SD’s, but they’re very hard to find in North America. Here was a store fully stocked with them! Yes, here I was in Taiwan, shopping for shoes in a mall.

Luckily cause we hadn’t yet checked in I still had my passport on me, so was able to claim a tax credit. Conveniently there’s a tax return place right in the mall :)

We left the shoeboxes at the store to pick up later, and went for lunch. The restaurant specialized in teas (their food is also very good). We both had some premium teas, and a set lunch of fried rice with pork, miso soup and accoutrements. We also split a grilled corn appetizer. Mmm good.

Taipei 101 was a few minutes walk away. The entrance is through a mall, on the 5th floor. It was very busy. Bought our ticket at the kiosk. It’s timed entry so we had an hour to kill. We browsed through the mall, but it’s not really a browsing mall - here most stores were luxury goods stores that had retractable belt stanchions in the front to keep out the riff raff like us.

Finally our entry window came up. (Actually we went 30 minutes early but they didn’t care). Waited about ten minutes to catch the elevator. It was very quick, taking 37 seconds to reach the 89th floor.

The views are great from the observation deck, as you would expect. The coolest part was the tuned mass damper in the middle. This is a big yellow weight that acts as a counter-balance in high winds and earthquakes. They had videos of the damper swaying (I guess it’s actually the building swaying but it’s all relative) when recent earthquakes had struck.

There was a longer line up to get back down. We walked back to the Onitsuka Tiger store to pick up my shoes, and caught the subway home.

For dinner we headed back to the Michelin-starred beef noodle place near the hotel. Another day of great eating!