Taiwan Trip 2015 (台灣30天環島記) - Day 28: Taipei 台北 (Banana Hostel, Dihua Street 迪化街, Taipei Expo Park 台北花博公園, Taipei Fine Arts Museum 臺北市立美術館, Taipei Story House 台北故事屋, Pavilion of Dreams 夢想館, Ningxia Night Market 寧夏夜市, Maokong Gondola 貓空纜車)
Day 28! My Taiwan trip is finally coming to an end. After staying at capsule room via Air B&B for the past 3 days I've been starting to feel a bit depressed with the weather and severe lack of contact. Hence I decided to move out and find a backpackers hostel to cave in instead. Upon scrolling through a couple of dorms on Hostel World I finally settled on Banana Hostel.
Apart from the great price, as you can see from the pictures the beds are divided equally into capsules with a curtain. This means that stayers get to have complete privacy while sleeping and also more luggage space. This is a huge plus point for hostels in Taipei which are usually cramped. The location of this hostel is also great as well as it is located nearby Dongmen Station (東門站), which is in the vicinity of Xin Yi District (信義區). Highly recommended!
With my accommodation settled, I then headed towards Dihua Street (迪化街) which is well known for it's Lunar New Year sundry market. My timing was impeccable as the celebrations are only just around the corner and the decoration is already up in full. My first time experiencing the Chinese New Year feel in Taiwan and it is certainly quite the atmosphere!
Along the street you could see many stalls selling traditional Chinese New Year stuffs, from Chinese sausages, sweets and to goodies. It will probably be not as interesting if you visit during other months of the year but it will certainly be an eye opener when visiting closer to the celebrations.
I was beginning to run out of places to visit in Taipei city. After flipping through my Lonely Planet good for some good 20 minutes, I then decided to revisit some of the places that I've visited during my last trip there in 2012.
Directions: Take the MRT to Zhongshan station. Rent a bicycle and cycle for about 1-2 km. Walking is not recommended lol. But no harm trying. Google maps to guide your direction also recommended.
My next stop of the day was at Taipei Expo Park. My old post on this place here. I wanted to rent a bicycle to move around the area with less effort but unfortunately all bikes are unavailable. The entire park is huge with many different attractions. The park is divided into Yuanshan, Fine Arts and Xin Sheng Park Area.
I first explored the Yuanshan Park Area where they have the Maji Square which has a variety of stalls selling different types of food. The dome area is also filled with people hanging around or students practicing their dancing choreography.
Moving on would be the Fine Arts area which houses the Taiwan Excellence Pavillion where they showcased Taiwan's various achievements on the technological front. Entrance is free of charge.
Then I moved on to Taipei Story House. To enter you'd have to a pay nominal entrance fee. This place showcases the various wedding gowns that different cultures and countries use. Quite fascinating and impressed to see the amount of work that goes into the dress.
So much effort just to sew a peony on the dress (牡丹):
I then strolled back to the main area again to try my luck to get a U bike so that I could explored further. With much luck I managed to grab one and headed for the Floral Tunnel (花之隧道) bikeway! This route cuts across the Fine Arts Park to the Xin Sheng Park area.
Personally I think the main attraction at this area would be their Rose Garden. Here you could see a huge variety of roses that you never thought existed. From different colored roses to roses to sizes as big as your entire certainly makes this place fascinating. Be careful not to be pricked by those thorns though!
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| Rose garden |
There are more to the roses that we give away on Valentines day:
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| HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEE rose. 5 inch phone on the left. |
I then moved on to the main area, only to find out that the Pavilion Of Dreams closed down after 4 years. Seems like every country has their own share of a white elephant. I was pretty amazed about it's concept when I visited a couple of years back.
My last stop for the day was this simple maze located in the middle of the park. Good to reminisce the times I had here during my first APPS conference more than 4 years ago.
How to get here: Take the MRT to Yuanshan station.
During the night, I headed to Ning Xia Night Market (寧夏夜市) for dinner. While the food stalls are generally about the same like any other night markets in Taipei, the main difference is that the stalls provide tables and chairs for visitors to sit down and eat their food. This is very convenient as I didn't have to carry my food everywhere and can just hop from one stall to one stall at my own pace.
Having said that, popular stalls like the one below would not be bothered to prepare tables and long queues are still part of the norm. Nope I didn't bother to try this stall as well.
How to get here: take MRT to Zhongshan station (中山站)
At about 8 pm I decided to YOLO for a bit and headed for the Maokong Gondola (貓空纜車) even though it was really close to closing hours. Since it was already so late, there wasn't a queue and quickly hopped into one of the cable cars.
From the base to the top there were several stops which lead to the zoo. Due to severe time limitations I went straight away to the last station. Sitting a cable car alone in the dark night was quite an experience, even more so when the winds are strong and the whole cabin is shaking. Nevertheless the breathtaking night view of Taipei city certainly made it all worth it.
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| Taipei city view from the Maokong Gondola. |
As expected, all the shops were already closed by the time I reached here. After a brief walkabout I then went to grab a cup of coffee at the convenience shop and waited until the very last moment before headed back down.
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