Travelogue: Taiwan 2025, pt 2

A full day in Taipei

The next day, we met up with my aunt and cousin at the original Din Tai Fung.

Gotta say, the food was MUCH better at the original joint compared to the NYC spot we went to over the summer.

Her: You look the same, young.
Me: I’m 52!
Her: 52’s young!
Me: In what world is 52 young?
Her: When you’re 93, 52 is young!

Suppose everything’s relative.

They were the people I met up with 25 years ago with my dad.

While it was great seeing them, it was rough realizing how old we all looked.

I’ve known my aunt and cousin my whole life.

Seeing them just reminded me how quickly our time here was coming to an end.

In any case, after brunch, the Firecracker and I finally managed to get ourselves some IC Cards, essentially Taipei’s version of the Metrocard/OMNI for their mass transit.

Me: Can I use a credit card to buy the cards?
Clerk: Yes…but you need cash to put money on the card.
Me: Are you serious?
Him: …Yes?

Like I said, it’s a cash-based society and that took some getting used to.

But the stations were clean…

…and the trains were galley-style which were pretty cool.

Afterward, went to check out Taipei 101, currently, the 11th tallest building in the world.

We did this Instagram hack to get to a really high floor of Taipei 101, which is legit impressive…

…and have a cup of Joe.

Repping Scenic Fights, internationally.

The place was really nice…

…and the views were spectacular.

Taiwanese architecture’s pretty impressive, I gotta say – check out the twisted building below.

Afterward, we made our way back to our AirBnB.

While everyone else crashed, I got a little peckish so I stopped for a snack of a Vietnamese bánh mì.

Best one I’ve had in years – and it was like $3, the way the gods intended.

Now, remember when I said that Taiwan was a nighttime society?

What I meant by that was that the city really comes alive at night, mainly because it’s so damn hot during the daytime.

This also meant that Taiwan developed these cool nighttime markets where you can eat for days and buy all sorts of stuff.

So, after I had the snacky-snack, we all went off to the Raohe Night Market – which was definitely not as nice as others I’d been, but still fun.

More on that in a later entry.

The Firecracker’s been reading about Stinky Tofu and just had to try some.

Here’s her trying it for the first time…

I cut it outta the video but (a) both boys were holding their noses and (b) we literally chased two tourists outta the bar with the smell.

Should mention that we ate more than half of it.

Woulda killed the whole thing – she ended up really liking it, just like she loves kimchi now even though the first time threw her for a loop – but we wanted to save room in our bellies for more night market food.

The boys had a ball all night.

But it was getting late.

So, with that, we ended the main part of our time in Taipei.

The next day, we had to go see my family home a bit southwest of Taipei, to what used to be a little town called Hsinchu.

I’ll tell you all about it in the next entry.

Location: Chinatown, having some Taiwanese food because…withdrawal
Mood: sleepy and cold
Music: As long as you’re by my side, it’s gon’ be alright (Spotify)
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