After clearing immigration I hopped on the Taoyuan MTR express train to Taipei. With the early arrival, I spent most of the 40+ minute ride asleep as we rolled through a bit of the countryside until the train terminated at Main Station.
After arriving at the station I walked over to the Sheraton Grand Taipei, but they were enforcing the 3PM check-in, so I left the hotel to find breakfast before exploring the city. Taipei has many traditional breakfast locations, so I went to the highly-recommended Fuhang Soy Milk down the street from the hotel. The restaurant itself is a stall in a fool hall on the second floor and, due to it's high rating and popularity, has a line that goes down the stairs, outside, and around the block. Since I arrived early and it was a weekday, the line wasn't particularly long and barely went out the door on the first floor.
Out the door on the corner
The line moves relatively quickly, and after a short while I was at the top of the stairs. The shop itself actually occupies four stall spaces, with two spaces dedicated to cooking right at the top of the stairs and the other two spaces dedicated to sales. When I arrived at the counter I was immediately bombarded with questions asking what I wanted. Being prepared, I ordered a hot sweet soy milk, a salted soy milk, and two you tiao/crullers. Salted soy milk is essentially soy milk with some vinegar to induce curdling accompanied by savory toppings. I particularly enjoyed this version of the salted soy milk due to its more uniform consistency compared to most other iterations.
Kitchen
Breakfast
Left to right: salted soy milk, sweet soy milk, you tiao/crullers
Food court
After that wonderful breakfast I headed out to the nearby Longshan temple, a traditional Chinese temple originally erected in 1738 and rebuilt numerous times throughout its history. I took the opportunity to pay respects to my ancestors before carrying on with the journey.
Hanging out at the MTR station
Temple gate
Dragon pond
A short walk away from the temple is Bopiliao old street. The street was formerly an active and bustling market, and has been preserved and restored to give a small snapshot into the Qing dynasty. While there isn't much beyond the preserved street and buildings and a small cultural center at the end of the street, there were a number of photoshoots going on, including a wedding shoot.
The cultural center also hosts temporary exhibits, with the one at the time being about the 20 year history of the Taipei film festival. However the exhibit didn't really feature much material.
Summer is really hot in Taipei, with temperatures regularly reaching into the 40s (celsius), so naturally I made the brilliant decision to go visit Beitou, an area of Taipei exhibiting geothermal activity. The area is known for its hot springs, with numerous public and private bathhouses available for soaking in the hot spring water. The trend fo these bathhouses begun in the late 1890s with the Japanese occupation. The area is known for hokutolite, a mineral that contains radioactive radium.
Adjacent to the MTR station is the old Beitou station, which has been turned into a free museum about the original train station. The entirety of the museum is in Chinese, so not sure how much non-speakers would get out of it.
Old Beitou station
From there I walked through Beitou park along the stream. The water in the stream came from the thermal hot spring, which made the park very warm resulting in me really sweating through my shirt.
Beiout park fountain
Splashing
Shade
Stream (also really really hot)
Might not want to wash your hands in the stream...
At the end of the park there is a path to the Beitou thermal valley (aka hell valley), which is the surface source of much of the thermal water for the area. Today the small lake is fenced off due to the heat and corrosiveness, but previously hard-boiled hot spring eggs used to be popular snack.
Lake
On the way back I stopped at the Beitou hot spring museum, a free museum that details some of the history of bathhouses and thermal bathing in the area. It was also an opportunity to get out of the heat and cool off a bit before continuing on through the day.
Sitting area
Bathhouse
Window
Public library
Near the bottom of the park is the fuxin hot foot spa, which is the main free thermal bath area to soak your feet. However given the number of people there and how some of them seemed to lack good hygiene, I passed on soaking my own feet in the water.
As it was approaching dinnertime I headed back to the Sheraton to check into my room. On the way there I explored many of the underground markets attached to the MTR stations and grabbed a pastry from Yamazaki.
Zhongshan mall
Stationfront mall
Yamazaki
Coconut raisin pastry
Once at the hotel I checked in and received a one category upgrade to a higher floor corner room. The hotel itself is one of the nice international Sheratons, with clean and modern rooms. What I was particularly impressed with is the soft-close drawers and sliding bathroom door. Additionally there was a small plate of fruit provided in the room.
Entry
Beds
Bathroom
View
Fruit plate
Soon after my friend arrived and we headed out to Shilin night market. While it is popular with tourists it still features plenty of good food. What I did notice is that some of the stalls seemed to appear more than once and were identical, which is something I noticed at a couple of other places. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the market just buying random things here and there to eat. Because I love eating.
Stalls
Obligatory
Hotstar, which essentially smashes chicken into a thin piece and fries it
Delicious
Stalls
Blurry fish balls
Non-blurry fish balls
Rice flour noodles in a delicious broth
Lemon aiyu jelly, which is made from a type of fig
Wandering into the night
On the way back to the hotel we stopped by PXMart, a local grocery store that actually has a no photography policy. I bought a red dragonfruit to eat at the hotel later. Unfortunately the knife that was provided in the room for the fruit wasn't particularly sharp and cutting the red dragonfruit got a bit...messy. After eating the fruit and dealing with the resulting mess, it was time to call it a day.
Before the carnage
