We visited the town of Jiufen, which was supposedly the inspiration for the famous Miyazaki animated movie Spirited Away. It is a mountainous town built for mining during the Japanese occupation. We walked through the maze of old-fashioned, packed alleyways lined with small touristy shops. We ended the day at a teashop with an amazing view.
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| The bath house from the movie Spirited Away |
We went to night markets almost every evening, and I tried so much food. In the so-so category, barley tea tastes like a drop of coffee diluted in cold water. Fish balls and pig's blood I was roped into eating by an overeager Airbnb host. Favorites were pineapple cake with taro ice cream and red bean, tapioca, rice pudding.
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| Taiwan-style thick toast (coconut-flavored) |
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| Traditional Hakka food including pig's blood and bean curd |
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| Sweet mung bean soup with rice noodles |
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| Fried noodles & rice and veggies on Lanyu |
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| Hot pot |
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| Red bean, tapioca, rice pudding |
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| Fish balls |
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| Steamed buns |
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| Iced mochi with flavored fillings |
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| Fried quail eggs |
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| Glutinous rice with peanut or black sesame filling |
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| Shaved ice with pudding |
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| Pineapple cake with taro ice cream |
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| An entire shelf devoted to pink foods at the 7/11 |
There are “Sevens” or 7/11 convenience stores on every single street corner, selling Taiwanese packaged food (and the cashiers offer to warm things up in the microwave for you) and much more. I ended up getting quite familiar with the Taipei City Mall as well, which is all underground and connected to Taipei Main Station. Taipei Main Station is an underground metropolis, with multiple metro lines, train lines, and high-speed train lines.
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| Hiking the beautiful Taroko Gorge |
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| Confucious temple in Tainan |
This trip I finally got to visit hot springs! We went to the public baths in Beitou, with a bunch of Chinese old people, where there are four pools with a hint of sulfur smell. One is normal pool temperature, and the others range from scalding (45C) to really hot (38C), as the water gets further from the natural heating source.
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| Beitou |
We spent our last night in Taiwan out dancing. When we took a taxi home, the driver was watching a Red Sox game on his phone on the dashboard! It was kind of surreal to chat in Chinese about American baseball at 3am in a speeding taxi right before flying back to the US ourselves.
We visited the town of Jiufen, which was supposedly the inspiration for the famous Miyazaki animated movie Spirited Away. It is a mountainous town built for mining during the Japanese occupation. We walked through the maze of old-fashioned, packed alleyways lined with small touristy shops. We ended the day at a teashop with an amazing view.
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