Taiwan, Oct 2013.

 

I went to Taiwan with my mother, brother and sister in Oct.  It was a 5 days 4 nights trip.  We stayed 4 nights in The Beauty Resort in Shilin, Taipei City, the best thing about the hotel was the location which was close to the famous Shilin night market.

We arrived in the evening, after checked in we went straight for dinner at the Shin Yeh Restaurant.  It was an old Taiwanese restaurant that is very popular among the locals and the tourists.  The food was indeed very good even a simple fried meehoon (rice vermicelli) was so good!  It was slightly expensive though.

 

Garden at the Shilin Official Residence

Next morning we started the day with visiting Shilin Official Residence which was the residence of late Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek.  Chiang Kai-shek had a very famous wife Soong May-ling which all my family members are familiar with after watching the TV series of the 3 sisterf Soong family.

The residence was a 2 storey building and nicely decorated with a mixture of Western and Chinese style.  Too bad pictures were not allowed inside the building.

 

 

 

We went next to The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall which is an important landmark of Taipei City.  Today the memorial park and the Liberty Square has become a venue for mass gathering.

 

The Chinag Kai-shek Memorial Hall

 

 

 

Gate at the Liberty Square

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that we had lunch at the Ding Tai Fung restaurant, it is a famous Taiwanese restaurant chain with branches in many countries. We quite like the Ding Tai Fung in Malaysia and thought we should try it locally.  It was not a good experience as my mother was not happy that we had to wait for an hour before getting the table.  They did not allow reservation on weekends, by the time we arrived there were many people waiting, we took a ticket for a table and were told to go back in an hour.  My mother had no patient and did not understand why we had to eat there!   While waiting we already ordered the food, therefore food was served pretty quick after we got our table.  Not sure whether it was because we waited for so long, we felt the food was not as good as in Malaysia.

 

After lunch we walked around the Yong Kang Street, it was an area with restaurants, cafes and little shops.  I saw some restaurants that were recommended by bloggers but we really couldn’t eat anymore!

 

 

At night we went to the Wufenpu wholesale clothing  market and bought a few clothes, after that we went to the Raohe night market, it wasn’t a pleasant experience as it was so crowded, we just couldn’t stand and simply bought some food and headed back to the hotel to eat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we had booked a tour to a few places.  My mother likes flowers but it wasn’t a good season to see flowers in Yangmingshan National Park, I searched online and found  Ta Shee Farm in Taoyuan  but I was quite disappointed as the flowers were not as much as I thought.  Luckily my mother was happy with the visit.

 

 

 

 

 

After that we visited the Cihu Park which had 152 statues of the late president Chiang Kai-shek, it was quite impressive and I like the garden style of the park.

 

 

 




 

 

We went to Sanxia next,  Minquan old street was built during Japanese rule and the Japanese colonial architecture was well preserved.  Today the old street has many stores selling local food, souvenirs, arts and tea etc. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

On the next day, my mother wanted to go to the food market therefore we took her to the Nanmen Market.   It is a 3 storey building with more than 200 stores, very clean and tidy.  My mother bought some cured meat and freshly made buns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ximending is the heart of Taipei’s youth culture, you’ll find all the trendy stuff around there, the area is full of fashion stores, restaurants, cafes, book stores, cosmetic shops etc.   We walked around the pedestrian area, had lunch at a little food stall and did some shopping.   




 

 After that we went to Taipei 101, a landmark skyscraper in Taipei to take some pictures, we didn’t stay long in the shopping mall as the shops there are all luxury boutiques.

 

 

We had tea in a café that I found online, there are many nice cafes especially in the Taipei East area, I chose this one because their specialty is soufflé and I really like soufflé.










 

We had a relaxing afternoon and spent the night in Shilin night market.  There were not many people on that Tuesday night and we managed to do many shopping,  we bought phone cases, shoes, clothes and some souvenirs.  We had lunch in a restaurant over there, not great food but it was ok.

 

On the last morning we decided not to have breakfast in the hotel, I actually quite enjoyed the buffet breakfast in the hotel, but after having it for a few days we wanted a change.  We found a small breakfast place near to the hotel, we had some Taiwanese style pancakes, onigiri and soya bean for breakfast, it was very good and cheap!

 

 

 

 

We left for airport at noon time and everyone had a good time.  We all like Taiwan very much and considering going back to Miaoli, Hualian and Taichung.