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 :)