I'm really embarrassed. I've visited Taipei Taiwan at least a few dozen times on business, and this was only my first weekend spent touring here. Shame on me. Stephen came mid week as his parents were also in Taipei. A few 'tourist' observations:
1) Taipei is very very Japanese. The streets are orderly, all the department stores are Japanese brands, there are tons of sushi joints and MRT subway queues exist. Except for the Mandarin Chinese language we feel deja-vous from our Japan trip a month ago! There is also a pedestrian area called Ximendeng, which looks like a mini version of Shibuya crossing in Tokyo...
2) Everything moves slower and closes earlier than Hong Kong. This is good (relaxing) and bad (slow food service). The restaurants near Grand Hyatt closed by 9:30pm. According to my friend Jackie people here eat at 6 or 7pm regularly! Wow normal life.
3) Taiwanese meal food is nice, not too memorable (omelettes is one choice) BUT desserts are fabulous. I had a tofu hua (do fu fa) in nice syrup with peanuts at Meet Fresh Taipei. The evening prior, Stephen and I had sticky rice in coconut... I like dessert more in Asia (i don't have a sweet tooth for cakes and pies back in North America!!)
4) Fusion food is not sushi. We headed back to a A-Plus fusion sake bar given other restaurants closed early...and I seriously thought our "Sushi on Fire" salmon roll was spicy salmon. BOY WERE WE WRONG. They brought out the roll which looked AMAZING and mouth-watering, and then our waiter proceeded to TORCH our roll! We were sooo shocked they killed our lovely sashimi on the spot.
5) Night market street food looks great. Watch your stomach. We met up at Shilin the 2nd day and Stephen's parents came too. Busy.. and the clothes are far separated from the main food area.
6) Mitsui Sushi restaurants have many locations and continues to be really fresh and premium, but also, watch your stomach with the raw shrimps etc.
7) Beitou hot springs area is sadly not as amazing for your skin or senses as outdoor onsen hot springs in Hokkaido (I know, NOT fair). We climbed around forever looking for I-Tsun (where Sun Yat Sen went) - not luck. Found a roof top hot spring nearby Thermal Valley... so so.
8) MRT travel is really cheap and fairly extensive. After a few days - I still haven't spent my ~$10 US
9) Banking system is really domestic; sort of like Canada. Most of us haven't heard of the banks in Taiwan
Good bye, see you again soon Taiwan - probably in a month! (This was a nice tourist trip but time for somewhere new next time)
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