This past week has been a lot of training for my new job here in Taipei. So Saturday, when we got a day off we went off on our first real adventure. It started with a trip to Yangmingshan National Park to see the Cherry Blossom trees, the ended with a stop at the Shilin Night Market.
Yangmingshan National Park is located north of Taipei, to get there from the city you take the. We got off at the stop we were told by the women at the information desk, and that’s when the first adventure began. She had told us to take the 260 bus line from the stop…but there wasn’t one. Thus began the asking many people and slowly coming up with our options. The bus we ended up taking got us about 75% of the way to the park. From there, we had a steep 5-minute hike, followed by a 15-minute windy hike. Plan ahead, a thing we failed to do, here’s a list of busses. The park was beautiful, although most of the cherry blossoms have begun to fade. If you get hungry there are a few areas where food vendors set up, so grab some snacks and split them among the group.
Yangmingshan National Park
Back in Taipei, it was time for the markets. If you’re looking for cheap electronics, then Guanghua Digital Plaza is the place to check out. The market is stories of technology heaven. Floor after floor of cell phones, laptops, memory cards, you name it. A lot of the top floors offer used items and repair shops. All the options make it a bit overwhelming.
After working up an appetite all day, our final stop was Shilin Night Market, where I got my first glimpse of a Taiwanese night market. Aisle after aisle of delicious (and some strange looking) dishes, cheap clothing and accessories, plus carnival games.
My 3 favorite things there
- There’s a game where you can fish for shrimp and then have them cook what you catch, actually, there are entire 24-hour places that just do this activity in Taiwan. You can spend your night shrimping.
- Candied Strawberries, they have a hard candy like coating on the outside and delicious fruit inside.
- There were bumper cars on the outskirts of the market, the kids just ride them around…one almost took me out when I walked by them as there’s no border to the area they drive in.
