Taipei From Above (Taipei 101 and Elephant Mountain)

It's still raining pretty steadily this week in Taipei, but we had a brief reprieve on Friday, so we hopped on the MRT metro to the Xinyi District to get some close up views of Taipei 101. There it is, behind the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall!

Sun Yat-Sen was the founder of the Republic of China. His party overthrew the imperial Qing dynasty in mainland China and replaced it with a republic government in 1911. Fun fact: he was educated in Hawaii in the 1880s and was a student of American history and political philosophy which influenced his ideas for reform in China. Although Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule while he lived, he is now considered the “Father of the Nation” since it was his party, the ROC (under Chiang Kai Shek), that succeeded the Japanese as the ruling government of the island after World War II. 

Unfortunately the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall is under renovation so we didn’t visit the interior. But I really enjoyed strolling around the surrounding Zhongshan park and gardens and watching the locals taking advantage of the rain-free morning to do some gentle Tai Chi and some other kind of more jazzercise-type group exercise (I wish I could figure out the name of it, maybe Yuanji Dance... anyway, the energetic elderly ladies doing it gave us friendly waves and a few cheery “Ni hao!”s as we walked past). 

From there we headed to Taipei 101 tower, built in 2004 and briefly the world’s tallest building at 1667 feet tall (the Burj Khalifa surpassed it in 2010, and it now ranks as only the eleventh highest). As the name implies, there are 101 floors, with a 360-degree panoramic indoor viewing deck on the 89th floor or an outdoor skywalk on the 101st floor for people who have no fear of heights. The 89th floor is about $20 USD per person but we discovered another option is to just buy a coffee at the cafe on the 88th floor. 

It was only a limited view from one side of the building but hey - it was a fraction of the price and we got some tasty iced coffees to boot! We also had a chance to peek at the enormous earthquake damper, a pendulum weighing 660 metric tons that acts as a counterweight to offset any swaying during earthquakes or high winds. It's hard to tell from the photo but it is massive!

Riding the elevator in Taipei 101 was a trip, it zipped up to the 88th floor at something like 38 miles an hour and took less than 45 seconds. Another alternative would be to use the Alex Honnold route of free-climbing the outside of the building. That would get you to the top in about 90 minutes. 

We did get a workout hiking nearby Elephant Mountain later that morning. The trail was a steep 1.5 kilometers of about 500 oddly-spaced stairs that had me wishing I was back on the elevator! 

But the spectacular view of the city was well worth it!

We then took the zippy MRT to Da’an Park, a beautiful green space in the center of Taipei. This weekend was the kickoff of the azalea festival, so there were beautiful flower displays set up throughout the park. 

The theme was something to do with boats, so many of the displays had a nautical slant. The hydrangeas were by far my favorite. 

We wandered a few more blocks and found the charming Yongkang neighborhood. There were trendy shops and boutiques and we found a great cafe with a cellist/piano duo playing classical music. A fantastic place to relax after walking and hiking nine miles! We have only been here four days and already we have walked 35 miles. 

Jiufen Day Trip

On Thursday we took a public bus from Taipei to the mountain town of Jiufen, about 50 kilometers east of Taipei. Most people book an all-day guided bus tour for this excursion, but the local bus was inexpensive and it was nice to be on our own schedule. The town is a must-see in Taiwan, mainly because of the beautifully decorated 100-year-old A-Mei Teahouse. 

We arrived in Jiufen a little before 10am which was perfect because we got there well before the tour bus crowds. (This stairway and the A-Mei viewpoint in the photo above were both packed with crowds by noon). 

Jiufen is a small town built right into the side of a hill. It’s an old gold mining town, and its steep winding stairway streets reminded us a lot of the town of Jerome in Arizona, which is also built into a hillside.

We arrived in town before most of the shops on the Old Street were even open, so we started our day at the A-Mei Teahouse. Because we arrived so early, we were easily able to get a table and we ordered the “set tea” which is basically all-you-care-to-drink tea, accompanied by a few little cakes and snacks (sweet sesame crackers, mochi balls, green bean cakes, and sweet dried sugarplums). 

The fun part was learning how to properly prepare and serve the tea. On the floor beside each table is a little open-flame stove and cast iron pot full of scalding hot water. They bring you a special wooden box platform on which you set up the steeping and serving tea pots as well as your little no-handle teacups. First step is to rinse the pots and cups with the scalding water to bring them to temperature. Then you fill the bottom of the steeping pot with dry tea and fill it with water. This first step is just to rinse the tea leaves and open them up, so you pour this water out into the box. Then you fill the steeping teapot for real and let it steep for 30 seconds before pouring it through the strainer into the serving teapot. Remove the strainer and serve, always pouring the other person’s teacup before your own. You can repeat the steeping and straining process six times (with steeping time increasing by 10 seconds each time), then you’ll have to switch out for new tea leaves.

We were both veerrrry careful with the heavy cast-iron hot water pot. I did wonder how many tourists take home first or second degree burns as souvenirs from their Jiufen day trip!

We enjoyed the process so much that we ended up drinking at least 10 cups of tea (okay, well -- note how small the cups are -- it was really probably no more than 3 regular cups). By the time we were finished, the shops were open so we wandered up and down the Jiufen Old Street for a bit, checking out all the food and trinkets on offer. The Old “Street” is really more like a bunch of narrow walking paths connected by stairways that wind up and down the hillside. There are vendors selling tea (obviously) but also candies, snacks, artisanal handmade goods and ceramic tea sets. 

The rain really started coming down for a while so we stopped in for a quick peek at the historic Shenping theater. It was built in the 1920s and was restored in 2011 when it was designated a historic monument. It was free to enter and they were showing old Taiwanese movies.

Around lunchtime we found a little restaurant with some pretty nice views despite the rain. We had some delicious soup dumplings and sweet pork buns washed down with generous mugs of Taiwanese beer. 

By this time, the tour busses had arrived and it was getting crowded to navigate the narrow area of the Old Street. But we had noticed the ornately decorated rooftop of the Shengming temple a few levels up so we headed in that direction for a closer look, and had it mostly to ourselves. 

There’s more we could have done in Jiufen; there are a few good hiking trails and lookouts, as well as a gold mining museum. But the rain put a damper on attempting a hike, so we caught an afternoon bus back to Taipei. After dark, we headed back down to the area near the Longshan temple to check out the Huaxi Street Night Market. After our run-in with stinky tofu the night before, we were feeling a bit less adventurous about ordering food from the vendor stalls. We ended up chickening out on the night market and decided to head back up to Ximending for dinner at a Hong Kong-style Dim Sum restaurant with lots of good reviews. The market did look pretty at night, though!

Our route took us right past the Longshan temple, all lit up by golden lanterns. The reflection of the light on the rain-soaked sidewalks as we made our way back was almost otherworldly. 

Ni Hao, Taipei!

We did our best to sleep during our 15 hour flight to Taipei. We knew the plane would land at 5am and we wanted to hit the ground running! 

After catching the metro (MRT) to the city, we checked in (we had booked the night before so our room would be ready), had breakfast, and headed out for a guided walking tour exploring the history of Taiwan. Here is the briefest summary I can come up with: For 6000 years before it was "discovered by the world", Taiwan was inhabited by indigenous people who originally came from various parts of Southeast Asia. In the late 1600s, Europeans "discovered" the island, using it as a base for trade. The Portuguese sailed by in the late 1500s and gave the island the name "Ilha Formosa" meaning "Beautiful Island", but they didn't stick around. It was the Dutch East India company that first set up trading posts, followed by the Spanish. In the 1660s a Chinese general named Zheng Sen (also known as Koxinga) finally kicked the Dutch out and took the island for China. China held the island until the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 when it was ceded to Japan who ruled it as a colony until the end of WWII when it was handed back to China. Whew! I'll stop there, and cover the Chiang Kai-Shek bits later. 

Our first stop on the tour was the beautiful Longshan Temple. This temple is located in one of the oldest districts in Taipei, and was built in 1738 by Chinese immigrants from the Fujian province. It's dedicated to several deities from a combination of Buddhist, Daoist, and local folk religions. Today it was packed with worshippers, on account of the first day of the Taipei Lantern Festival. 

I love the way that the Taiwanese incorporate religion and daily life decisions, big or small. Trying to decide whether to switch careers, or which person you should date? Ask the temple god, and be sure to bring a generous offering to butter him up. We saw many beautiful flower arrangements but also plenty of tasty snacks — one of the gods must have a major affinity for Pringles and Doritos because there were some Costco-sized snack packs on his altar! The photo below shows an altar for one of the more health-focused gods, since the offerings on the table are mostly fruit, nuts, and tea.

Our next stop was the Bopiliao historic area. The architecture here is very well-preserved, with many of the Victorian red brick buildings dating back 200 years. The area has been revitalized and restored in the last two decades, with some of the buildings housing art spaces, bars, cafes, and shops, with a focus on blending the old with the new.

We had a few other main sights on the tour, including the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall as well as the 228 Peace Memorial Park. Chiang Kai-Shek was the leader of the ROC (Republic of China) party that fought the communists for control of mainland China in the decades before and just after WWII. His faction lost and in 1949 he had to retreat with his government to the island of Taiwan. This is one of the gates to the very grandiose CSK Memorial Hall -- commissioned by his successors in the ROC government after his death in 1975.

Kai-Shek is a controversial figure in Taiwan nowadays, we learned why during our visit to 228 Peace Memorial Park. Prior to 1949 his party, the ROC, was in power in both China and Taiwan. Here in Taiwan, there was already a conflict between the ROC and the local Taiwanese. Only mainland Chinese could hold positions of authority in the government, and there was a language barrier as well — mainlanders spoke Mandarin while locals mainly spoke Hokkien. On February 27th 1947, an unauthorized cigarette seller was accosted by an undercover official and her goods were seized. She could not understand the official and started a scuffle to stop the confiscation. Chaos ensued as other local Taiwanese protested the action and an innocent bystander was killed by the police. The next day -- February 28th (228) -- there was widespread revolt and anti-government demonstrations by the local people. This precipitated a brutal crackdown by the government -- many thousands of Taiwanese were killed. The years from 1947 right up through 1987 were known as the "White Terror" where the island was placed under martial law, another 3000-4000 Taiwanese people were executed, and over a hundred thousand more people were imprisoned. In 1998 this memorial park was dedicated to honor those who lost their lives during those years. 

No sleeping in for us! We had nonstop tours booked for our second day in Taipei. First up was a breakfast food tour. We got to sample typical Taiwanese breakfast items like warm soy milk, egg pancake, noodles, pigs ears, and of course some world famous boba milk tea. We are reasonably adventurous eaters but even Kevin was daunted by that huge plate of sliced pig's ears! (Slightly chewy, with the texture of cartilage...luckily we were not expected to finish it...)

We also visited a high end tea seller where some of the teas were going for the equivalent of $180 USD per pound. We had a chance to watch them measure big heaps of tea and package it for sale. 

I’ve discovered that my palate for tea is just as useless as my palate for wine. I can’t tell the difference between the fancy stuff and the bargain basement kind. But I do enjoy the slow process of preparing and serving the tea (more on that in a future post). In case you are wondering, each of those enormous shiny cannisters is full of dried tea.

We had time for a couple of coffees before our afternoon walking tour that took us through the Golden Age of Taipei. Most of this tour focused on the area of the city called Dihua Old Street which is a well-preserved district featuring low-rise Hokkien style buildings side by side with Japanese colonial architecture and Victorian style buildings. It’s packed with shops selling traditional dried goods (fruits, herbs, and mushrooms seemed to be popular items). Peppered into the mix were bookshops, gentrified cafes, shops selling leather goods, and even bespoke perfumes. Dihua Old street so far has been a highlight of Taipei for us. 

Just a quick side note to compare Dihua Old Street to Ximending, the neighborhood where our hotel is located. It's described as one of Taipei's most vibrant and energetic neighborhoods and in my opinion that is an understatement. For me the crush of crowds and various sights, sounds, and smells was almost sensory overload. This pedestrian-ish area (there are still plenty of zooming motorbikes and a few taxis) really picks up in the evening when hordes of tourists and locals all mingle in the streets. 

Right now Taiwan is celebrating its Lantern Festival in just about every city. This is a way to celebrate Lunar New Year with glowing larger-than-life lantern installations. 2026 is the Year of the Horse according to the Chinese Zodiac. The Ximending area has quite a few traditional lanterns, as well as some pop culture plasticized ones. I definitely prefer the traditional style lanterns, like this one.

Okay, end of side note, back to the tours! For our third tour of the day we had booked a food tour of the Ningxia Night Market. Night Markets in Taiwan are a mainstay of local culture. Many apartments are small and have tiny kitchens, so people tend to go out to the night markets to get dinner or snacks. Our guide had us try some pretty adventurous foods (for us, anyway!) From best to least favorite, we tried:

• Taro Custard Pastry (pastry filled with a sweet egg custard)
• Fried sweet potato balls (like hush puppies)
• Aiyu honey lemon jelly drink (like drinking blended up lemon jello)
• Scallion Pancake (not like an American pancake, but a kind of green onion-flavored crispy fried rolled-up crepe that is sort of chewy inside) 
• Peanut ice cream roll (like an ice cream burrito stuffed with shaved peanut brittle and cilantro)
• Gua bao (a soft bao bun stuffed with pork belly and pickled vegetables, kind of eaten like a taco or hamburger)
• Braised pork rice (five spice pork served over rice)
• Oyster omelette (just what it says)
• Grilled squid stuffed with cucumber 
• Stinky Tofu (fermented tofu that is fried. Not gonna lie, this one was hard to keep down. We each tried a bite but I can’t decide if the smell or the taste or the texture is the worst part). 

Wow, that is a LOT of words to describe our first two days in Taiwan. Are you still with me? If you're feeling overwhelmed then imagine how we are feeling, jetlagged and almost delirious from all the stimuli in this fascinating, phrenetic city!

Lihue, Koloa, and Po'ipu

For a change of scenery, we switched hotels partway through our trip and we are now on the southern side of the island, in the Po'ipu/Koloa area. As we drove between the two towns, we made a stop in Wailua River State Park to check out the stunning 151-foot cascade of Opaeka'a Falls. The falls flow year-round and it's one of the only waterfalls on the island that is visible from the road.

Then we hopped back in the car and drove around to the other side of the river to see the equally majestic Wailua Falls. For anyone who grew up watching TV in the 1970's this waterfall will be instantly recognizable from the opening credits to the show Fantasy Island. Say it with me now: "Da plane, da plane!"

Speaking of TV shows, we have been enjoying the Apple TV series Chief of War with Jason Momoa. The show depicts the unification of the Kingdom of Hawai'i under the reign of King Kamehameha I, during the time period of 1795-1810. We enjoyed a stop at the wonderfully informative Kaua'i Museum in Lihue. There were many displays with historical artifacts, portraits of Hawaiian royalty, tools, and musical instruments. It gave us a good overview of what life was like in these islands before and after Western contact. They pack a lot into this excellent little museum!

The history of this island is so interesting! We made a point to visit the Lawai International Center, which is located in a sacred Hawaiian valley that was once the likely site of a long-gone Heiau (Hawaiian temple). In the later 1800s many Chinese and Japanese immigrants leased land in this valley to grow various crops including rice, taro, and vegetables. 

In the early 1900s, Japanese workers built 88 small Buddhist shrines into the hillside to replicate (in miniature) a 750-mile pilgrimage route in Shikoku Japan. Until the 1940s the Lawai valley shrines were a well-known pilgrimage site for islanders of all beliefs to come and pray for miracles. After WWII the shrines received fewer visitors and fell into disrepair. But one local Japanese-Hawaiian woman named Takano Nonaka continued to visit them faithfully every month for more than 60 years, hacking her way through the overgrowth to reach each shrine and pray. 

In 1991, local volunteers decided to purchase the land so they could restore the shrines and regrade the walking path. Through fundraising efforts they also built a larger-scale wooden Hall of Compassion using traditional Japanese methods. They created the Lawai International Center Foundation to preserve this site as a non-denominational and non-religious cultural center where people can "gather for quiet contemplation and personal renewal". Visitors can borrow a walking stick and hike up the hillside past each of the 88 shrines in succession.

Sure, it does sound a little woo-woo but the site is beautiful and you can walk as slowly or quickly as you like among the shrines. The path is lined with delicate orchids in all colors and varieties, and each shrine and Buddha statuette is unique. It's a lovely spot and yet another example of Hawaii's unique cultural tapestry. 

Okay, enough culture - it's time for a drink! One thing we learned during our time in the Caribbean is that wherever there is sugar cane, you can always find a rum distillery. We didn't have to look too hard to find one here in Kaua'i.

Koloa Rum Company has been making award-winning rums since 2009. Even though large-scale sugar cane farming on Kaua'i ended that year, the Koloa Rum Company was still able to source Hawaiian-grown sugar cane for their rums until 2016. Nowadays the sugar cane is brought in from Louisiana, but the other ingredients and know-how are 100% local. We booked a tasting so that we could try a few of the rums on offer, including their spiced rum, coconut rum, and their cinnamon-flavored Cane Fire rum. All were delicious. It was a fun experience, and our bartender/guide knew so much about the distilling process and had lots of great recommendations for drink recipes. We were happy to know that we could find most of these rums in our local Total Wine store so we saved on luggage space by just buying some tasting-sizes of the Coffee and Cacao-flavored rums.

Throughout the week we spent plenty of relaxing mornings and afternoons reading by the pool. We also took some nice walks, including a scenic hike along Maha'ulepu Heritage Trail. This trail starts at Shipwreck Beach, which was right next to our hotel.

This trail follows the coast through sand and beach scrub trees. There was even a preserved Heiau cultural site that you can view from the trail. Just before we turned around to go back to the hotel, we were rewarded with beautiful views from the cliffsides.

Even though it's hard to leave we know we eventually have to go home. Luckily the Hawaiian language uses the same word to say both hello and goodbye. So aloha, Kaua'i! I'm sure we will be back soon!