Taipei

November 5, 2024

My flight arrived on time in Taipei at about 5:30 am. It was raining as we taxied to our gate. Immigration and money changing were a breeze.

My bike got to the luggage area before I did.

Since I had my bike, I decided to take a taxi rather than brave the metro. Unfortunately, I only showed the taxi wrangler the address, and not my driver, who didn’t speak English. And of course I have no idea what the wrangler told him. So I had an extra long cab ride with some backtracking because he first took me to a train station. Not his fault - I should’ve made sure to show him the Chinese address for my hotel when I entered the cab. Lesson learned. Not that I’ll likely take another cab anytime soon.

During the drive there were fascinating views of this city of 2.5 million despite the soggy morning - loads of high rise developments and lush green hills.

My hotel is Hu House, a nice place in the Datong District that will store my bike bag until I return in early December. I arrived around 7:30 am, glad to have booked a hotel room for last night so I could check in and have a shower. I noticed in the elevator that the hotel has no fourth floor, instead of skipping our unlucky thirteen. That got me thinking- do some Vancouver buildings also avoid having a fourth floor? A newspaper article from 2015 told me that the City of Vancouver banned skipping floor numbers because it had gotten out of hand, with developers skipping 13 and also any floor with a four. It was too confusing for firefighters.

I got my bike assembled in my hotel room in the morning, but not without frustration. I had a loop in my chain that I knew was a solvable puzzle. But even with the assistance of two separate YouTube videos, it took a while to sort out. And then it took a few tries to get my rear derailleur on correctly. I haven’t done a road test, but I think I’ve gotten it all back together. Bike maintenance and repair is not a natural talent for me. At least there were no leftover parts.

In the afternoon I walked for about 9 km exploring areas close to my hotel with no agenda, just soaking in the sights, sound, and smells. There was a bit of spitting rain, but very little. It was really humid but not terribly hot.

I chatted briefly with two young women just starting out around Taiwan on their bikes. They were at mile zero of their journey.

The waterfront has great bike and walking paths, but there wasn’t much going on today. There were almost no people out in the early afternoon, and the food stalls were closed.

I bought noodles for lunch from this small restaurant. It had a menu with some of the items translated into English.

Yum. There was broth hiding under the noodles. The chili paste on the table was super hot. All for under $2 CAD.

And then I bought some fresh cut up fruit. The dragon fruit was a spectacular scarlet colour. But didn’t taste like much. Just juicy and pleasantly sweet.

So many scooters! I’ll try to get a photo of them in motion.

I wandered around a bit more, including through the Ximending pedestrian shopping area. Taipei definitely has a ‘developed nation big city’ feel here - lots of cafes in addition to the noodle shops, and there’s a Starbucks right next to our hotel.

I started to fade, and decided I was in need of a nap. And the spitting rain was a bit more persistent, so I felt no guilt about stretching out.

I woke up in near darkness at 5:15 pm, right at sunset. No rain. I headed out to the nearby Ningxia night market, which has some Michelin-recommended stalls. I wasn’t super hungry and was torn about what to try.

The night market was crowded, but none of the lines were terribly long.

Squid. They get cut up into bite sized pieces for eating.

I wasn’t tempted by the intestine within an intestine option.

In the end, I had grilled king oyster mushrooms. Very meaty and delicious.

My mushrooms were accompanied by a ‘session IPA’ from a tap. There were no strong hop notes, so it wasn’t very IPA-like, but it hit the spot anyway. Most people were getting takeout, so I had a table to myself inside.

I look forward to returning to the night market with Rick and Sue so we can sample a few more items.

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Jitensha Kun4 is "shi', which is also death. In Vancouver you'll see a mild price drop on houses with the number 4 in the addresses. In some developments there's an odd absence of street numbering around the number 4.
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