day three and we jumped on the high speed rail into taipei (only thirty minutes!). we decided to start our trip in taiwan so that we could visit dan’s friends but i left hoping that we’ll be able to get back there soon to do some more exploring. we had a great time wandering around – the food was so good, the people were lovely and it was super easy to get around. the only down side was the intense heat! it was so hot that we didn’t spend push ourselves to see everything and go everywhere.
on our first afternoon we had delicious sesame and peanut noodles from a little store just downstairs from our apartment in da’an. we wandered for a while and then headed back to the apartment to get some relief from the weather. dan ended up taking an (epic!) six hour nap while I made travel plans for barcelona and copenhagen in september (if you have any recommendations, please send them our way!) and watched a movie. after dan woke up from his nap, we headed out for a late dinner, worried that we wouldn’t be able to find much open. thankfully we ended up having a really lovely evening. we found a delightful izakaya on a side street near our apartment and had fresh beer, delicious grilled zucchini and mackerel (for dnna), and beef tongue and chicken cartilage (for dan). i’ve been really surprised by how much Taiwan feels like Japan to me. the streets, the public transport (high speed trains! amazingly punctual and clean subways!) and the izakayas. we really could have been in tokyo sitting in that lovely cozy wood panelled bar. given that Dan was fresh from such a long nap, we kicked on at wa-shu, a cocktail bar not far from our apartment. a negroni for Dan and a yuzu sake cocktail for anna and we thought we’d worn ourselves out enough to sleep through the night. it worked! even dan managed to sleep through the night after his super nap.
our sightseeing in taipei was limited to a morning we spent at the national palace museum. the collection is enormous, and full of very beautiful pieces, but i was unprepared for the crowds of tourists and we got burnt out fast. we decided to head for songshan instead, a hipster pocket of taipei. the streets are cute and tree-lined but again, we were felled by the heat. we found a great spot for noodles and then stopped in for a pineapple cake at sunny hills (sooo good) before heading home to siesta. we watched a huge thunder storm roll over the city from our apartment and waited for the temperature to plummet before we headed out again.
as proof that the world is a very small place, one of dan’s friends (vince) from his jiu jitsu school back in new york is also travelling at the moment and landed in taipei the night before we left for shanghai. we met up for drinks at ounce, a very cool speakeasy with a delicious old fashioned and then had dinner at a nearby izakaya.
our last morning in taipei and we got a very local breakfast nearby our apartment. after packing up we decided to finish up our time in taipei in the most taipei way possible – at din tai fung. the wait for a table was crazy but we got a table with just enough time to inhale some xiao long bao before heading to songshan airport (surely the most conveniently located airport on earth – it was just a few subway spots (and a few dollars) from our apartment).
it was only a quick flight over to shanghai and we breezed into the city on the mrt to chris’s apartment. i was so tired i skipped dinner and headed straight to bed while dan and chris headed out. zzzzzzzz.