Taipei

December 2, 2024

Hiking Xiangshan

Departure day. But flight wasn't until just before midnight, so I had some time to explore.

I was planning to spend my morning at the National Palace Museum, but during my search for directions, I realized that it’s closed on Mondays. Time for Plan B. I decided to take the advice of yesterday’s breakfast companions and go for a hike in the Xinyi District. I wasn’t too disappointed, because I knew a hike would feel good before the long trip home.

I got there on the clean, safe, and inexpensive metro system. They have a great app that shows fares and travel times. It was standing room only when I got on the train at 9:30, but I got a seat later in the ride as I neared the end of the line.

Along with hundreds of other people, I hiked up the many steps on Xiangshan (Elephant Mountain), providing a great view of Taipei 101, which was once the world’s tallest building, but it’s now 11th.

The metro stations are clean and quiet. There’s no access to the tracks except when a train is in the station.

There’s a bike share system in Taiwan’s larger centres.

I started my walk through a nice park. There were lots of people out enjoying the beautiful morning.

And these women were dancing to a pop song.

It was pretty much straight up, all on stairs.

There was definitely an elephant theme. Once I reached the high point, I walked a bit along a good trail before turning around and retracing my steps.

Then I walked right below Taipei 101, the home of many high end retailers.

I skipped the trip to the Taipei 101 observation deck on this beautiful day, preferring have a passionfruit bubble tea, and then headed back for a nap and shower before late hotel checkout. I enjoyed one last quick bowl of noodles before beginning my long journey home.

The hotel arranged private car transport to the airport, because although public transit reaches Taoyuan Airport,I didn’t want to schlep my bike through the metro stations. I arrived at the airport quite early, and check-in, security, and passport control were a breeze. All were highly automated. EVA Air doesn’t charge for bikes - hurray for that! And I didn’t even have to deliver my bike to the oversized area. A crew of two people came to take it away after the agent had checked me in. I had a few quiet hours in a nice airport lounge before departure on my overnight flight. Also impressive was EVA starting to load the Boeing 777 only 25 minutes before departure, with no scolding or hounding of passengers. And we left on time.

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Scott AndersonSounds like a really successful tour, with in general exceptional weather. I was sorry you didn’t make it around the southern tip because I’d like to have seen your photos of it, but no doubt it was the wise decision. Thanks for taking us along!
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