taiwan

kaohsioung, taiwan

we have wanted to come to taiwan for a while now - everyone we know who has been has said it is amazing and for many people one of their favourite places in asia. we want to see a lot of the island, so we flew into khaosioung, the southernmost port city in the country, which has a very tropical, laid back, beachy kind of feel to it. it is super hot here (especially just coming from canada in march by way of seoul, both of which are cold), here it is like 25-30c, cactuses, beaches, palm trees.

we mainly came to khaosioung to meet up with our friend alex who lives about 30 min by train up the coast. we met him while we were on our motorcyle trip through northern vietnam and have stayed in touch since. alex took us up to cijin island, an island right off the coast which has a popular beach, some night markets, a university he went to, and a lovely view of the city from the lighthouse (above). we are also thankful to have alex around as it turns out there is a little bit of language barrier in taiwan - many people only speak mandarin (here they just call it chinese). alex orders for us in all of the restaurants and vendor stands and we get a little worried about how the rest of our trip without him is going to go. in the end it all turns out okay as apparently taiwan is trying to become officially bilingual (chinese, english) by 2030, so many of the younger people we meet speak some level of english - the older people, less so.

hi alex!

kind of like the jellybean houses of st john's newfoundland, all the houses around the port city of khaosioung are painted different vibrant colours

khaosioung is also known for its vibrant art scene, the pier is covered in massive art installations surrounded by cool boutique shops and restaurants. to be honest this is nicer infrastructure than anywhere in canada and a real symbol of how much taiwan has advanced economically in the last few decades.

vegan dumplings, potstickers, big plate of cabbage™, cold tofu, and a "century egg", a fermented black egg, which alex, even as someone who lives in taiwan, says he will not eat - to be honest it just tastes like egg

another local classic, ice cream covered in cilantro and shaved peanut, wrapped in a crepe

among the mega-building metropolis of the future funded by huge modern money, there is also a strong sense of tradition mixed in, lots of older neighbourhoods with small houses, restaurants where you eat on the street on little stools, scooters racing around everywhere, these parts of khaosioung feel a little like northern vietnam.

tiny plastic stools, scooters, eating on the street - reminds us a lot of vietnam. but the food - classic taiwanese breakfast: the american soldiers left a pretty big impact on the culinary scene here and so the taiwanese use a lot more wheat than other parts of asia, which means toast is a ubiquitous breakfast item. also the classic "pancake" that is somewhere between a crepe and an omelette, stuffed with american cheese, egg, and scallions. taiwan also invented the bubble tea, or boba. taiwanese breakfast is unmatched.

one thing i find cool is visiting the temples of each country we go to - all share fairly similar religions, some not-too-picky combination of buddhism, folk religion, taoism, but each country has a very distinct type of temple. in korea - subtle, utilitarian, wood-based, intricate artwork painted under the ceilings. in taiwan - bright, colourful, tall, ostentatious, giant ceramic dragon and tiger sculptures.

alishan, taiwan

we specifically aimed to be in taiwan in march as this is cherry blossom season in the mountains. many people don't know this, but for a tiny little island, taiwan is super mountainous - like mountains taller than the rockies in canada, about 4000m. so while it is 30 degress in khaosioung, in the mountain district of alishan, it is still early spring and the cherry blossoms are just coming out.

alishan township is known for being a major grower of tea - the higher the altitude, the better the tea. we are staying at around 2000m in a small tea farming village just outside of the national park, our hotel sits on top of a hill looking out over a whole valley of rows and rows of tea plants. everyday here the clouds roll in towards the end of the day as you are sleeping 2km in the sky.

cherry trees are not actually native to taiwan. taiwan has a long history of occupation - at one point it was home to indigenous people who may have been the original pacific islanders (maori, fijians, hawaiians, etc.), but like almost everywhere else in asia was eventually colonized by the evil dutch in the 1600s. eventually the chinese came and kicked the dutch out in the late 1600s, which lead to a massive immigration of han chinese, hence why taiwan is mostly populated by ethnically chinese people today. though after that, it was taken by the japanese in the late 1800s, who ruled with an iron fist and brought industrialization, infrastructure, japanese culture, and cherry trees. at the end of the second world war, japan was forced to surrender its colonies, leaving taiwan to chinese rule. a civil war in china shortly after between the democratic republic of china and the community people's party of china ended with the republic government retreating to taiwan while the communists took over the mainland. so technically, taiwan is china, but the "republic of china", which is what it says on a taiwanese passport. american soldiers were stationed in taiwan post-ww2, which helped to defend the island against the ccp, but also brought some american influence to the island in the form of cheese and flour, much like the denim and rockabillys of japan or spam and hotdog soup of korea. china still believes it has rightful ownership of the island, but america maintains a presence here as it is valuable both militarily and also economically, especially now with taiwanese companies like nvdia dominating the us stock market. but i digress, the japanese brought cherry trees, and they are nice in the spring.

alishan is a national park, with a whole lot of hiking in it. to be honest, one of the main reasons we came to taiwan was to hike. we did a pretty cool hike in alishan along an old rail line, which went through a few long tunnels, so long you need your headlamp because it gets pitch black, one of which had collapsed in a typhoon - you needed to climb up all the rubble and into the cave that formed on top of the tunnel to get through the other side - a little freaky.

the typhoon also caused parts of the track to collapse which involved a little scrambling to get around

alishan also has a huge number of cherry trees, and is a popular destination in the spring for taiwanese tourists, so popular you need to get into the park before 6am or they close the road.

we took this train up alishan mountain at 0430 in the morning in order to catch the sun rising over the mountains from 2600m. we had to get up very early and it was fairly cold but there were also vendors there selling a taiwanese favourite - hot soy milk tea in a can, which is delicious and warming.

sunrise from alishan mountain summit

it is still cold up here in the mornings

yushan main peak on the left in the distance

i really, really wanted to climb the highest mountain in taiwan - mount yushan (3952m), but unfortunately we met a lot of red tape. there is a very strong hiking culture in taiwan so this is a hot ticket, but there is also a very strong culture of rules and regulations, so many of the hikes have lotteried permits. we managed to score permits to hike a sub-summit of mount yushan (front peak 7.1km, 671m), which was cool but not as cool as getting to do the full thing. most people do the full peak as a two day hike as it is 27km and 1900m, but we hike much faster than the average hiker here and have done day trips that big many times, but regardless you need the permit, which they don't give out for day trips in the spring because of snow risk. oh well. when we were on the sub-summit everything was completely in a cloud anyways so at least we didn't miss a great view or anything.

front peak did involve about 400 vertical metres of delightful if not exhausting class 2 scrambling

the first of many almost exploded baked goods on summits. the highest i have ever been in my life - so far.

wow such views

this bird just hangs around the summit waiting for snacks

eating vegan has actually been really easy in taiwan, i was a little worried about it after being in japan and korea both of which have very meat-dominant food cultures, but it turns out taiwan actually has one of the highest proportions of vegans in the world, largely due to the number of buddhists here. a lot of menus here have a giant section of vegetable dishes like mountain kale, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and the ubiquitous big plate of cabbage™, and there is usually a bunch of vegetarian options like dumplings etc.

cold wasabi tofu

fresh wasabi

when the japanese came to taiwan, they brought their love of wasabi with them. wasabi is very hard to grow as it is a root that basically only grows in high altitude mountain streams and takes 2 years to produce a single root, but it turned out that taiwan was a perfect place to grow wasabi. even after the japanese left wasabi stayed a big part of taiwanese tradition, especially in the mountains. this is a real treat for us as the wasabi we get back home is just horseradish and green food colouring, as wasabi famously does not travel well. the spicy wasabi flavour is a chemical reaction between 2 different parts of the plant which have to be ground together in order to make the flavour, but this flavour also disappears in about 15 minutes after grinding it, making it impossible to package. one of my new favourite dishes is "big block of cold soft tofu covered in wasabi and soy sauce", combine that with big plate of cabbage™ and you have vegan boy dinner.

cold wasabi tofu and big plate of cabbage™

mountain kale - there is always some giant plate of leafy greens

mushrooms, chilis

coriander doritos

tea

tea grown by our bed and breakfast owners

these are plain noodles cooked in something called "tea oil" which is used in all the cooking here in alishan, it has a sort of rich umami flavour to it, i have never heard of this outside taiwan but it is super tasty. might be just an alishan thing as a byproduct of making all the tea here.

tea tasting at one of the local farms

wasabi ice cream, actually pretty good

hehuanshan, taiwan

north of alishan, more in the middle of the island is another mountain district named hehuanshan, also famous for its hiking. hehuanshan is much higher than alishan - our hotel, song syue lodge is at an elevation of 3,150 meters! there was even an oxygen machine in the lobby for anyone suffering from altitude sickness. the lodge serves as a basecamp for many hikes in the area, where you can walk right out the doors and climb any number of mountains.

this meant that we were able to climb hehuanshan east peak, a quick 2.1km and 290m to an elevation of 3421m after dinner, just in time to watch the sunset. this is the remarkable thing about hehuanshan - typically you have to be on your way down well before dark, so i never get to watch the sun set from a summit, let alone from the highest summit i have ever been on. this was probably one of the coolest sunsets i have seen, sitting above the clouds, looking out in all 360 degrees.

this used to be a chairlift - for a ski resort - in taiwan - that's how high up we are

sunrises are also very cool here. we woke up every morning in the pitch black to head up a nearby peak to watch the sunrise.

song syue lodge at the base of hehuanshan east peak

altogether we hiked hehuanshan east peak, north peak, main peak, west peak, shimenshan peak, and jianshan peak in a couple days.

more almost exploded baked good

a new personal record

west peak summit selfie

jianshan peak at sunset

a little bit of cloud inversion at sunset

taipei, taiwan

taipei is unlike any city i have ever been to before. it is both a super dense urban environment but also exists in a super dense rainforest, so there is greenery everywhere. it rains here constantly but it is also very warm, and so all the buildings are covered in this patina of black mould, which gives whole city this kind of grungy, lived-in, rainforest-reclaiming-the-city type feel. all the buildings are covered in tiles to help protect against the mould but it also makes the aesthetic very retro-futurism. in the 80s there was a rash of thieves scaling buildings to break into apartments, and so everybody installed these aluminum cages on their windows - the break-ins stopped and taiwan is one of the safest cities in the world now, but the aluminum cages stuck around, also adding to the very specific grungy cyberpunk aesthetic of the city.

despite the grungy aesthetic, there is a lot of money in taipei - a one bedroom apartment will run you about $1 million cad.

din tai fung is a taiwanese restaurant internationally famous for their soup dumplings, a dumpling with soup inside. technically challenging to make, delicious to eat. also, big plate of greens.

they also have chocolate dumplings for desert

it is also fairly cozy here at night.

in the ground level of all the mouldy apartment buildings are super trendy expensive boutique shops, interesting combo

taipei has all the big city comforts, like proust themed cocktail bars

custard apple - hard to describe exactly what this tastes like, but custard/apple is pretty close

more scallion pancakes

jiufen, taiwan

about an hour's train away from taipei is a small town called jiufen, which is very popular among taiwanese tourists, famous for being the town that inspired miyazaki's "spirited away". we have not seen a lot of international tourists here in taiwan, but we have seen a lot of taiwanese tourists in alishan and hehuanshan hiking, and also here in jiufen.

very spirited away

jiufen is tucked in the mountains right off the coast and has some stellar views

it is the city of lanterns, which are hung everywhere, otherwise mostly just little tourist junk shops and food vendors, but it is like shoulder to shoulder with tourists up from taipei

taipei, taiwan

as is tradition in asia, i got food poisoning, likely from a lukewarm bento box i ate from the train station on the way up to taipei, so i was bedbound for a whole day, but amy went out exploring on her own. i was back on my feet in about 24 hours which is record, so i thankfully didn't miss too much.

amy went off to see the chiang kai-shek memorial, a giant hall devoted to the brutal, militant leader who placed taiwan under martial law for 38 years, some people still like him though? his son is mayor of taipei now.

• 

• 

• 

i tried to join amy at the art gallery, and quickly realized it was a bad idea

sweet potato balls

beef noodle soup, another taiwanese classic

feeling better, we went to go check out ximen - one of taipei's go to nightlife/shopping areas

lots of stores selling obscure japanese streetwear for insane prices

xing fu tang, one of the most famous bubble tea places in taiwan, tastes something like caramelized marshmallow and brown sugar tea

more temples

more taiwanese street breakfast - light, fluffy donut you dunk in hot, sweet scallion soy milk

people kept asking us "have you tried the stinky tofu yet?!", which when you first go to a taiwanese night market, every once in a while you get a whiff and wonder "where is that open sewer smell coming from?", but it turns out that that is the stinky tofu - tofu thrown in a pot with discarded meats and vegetables, left to brine and rot for months on end before being fried or steamed at the market, much to the displeasure of the surrounding vendors - like literally disputes are started over how bad this stuff smells. it smells a lot like sewage and a little like a hot dumpster, but people always say "it tastes a lot better than it smells", so we had to try it. i consider myself to be not a picky eater at all, there is almost nothing i don't like, but it turns out this is probably the one thing i do not like. it unsurprisingly tastes exactly like how it smells, because that literally physiologically how taste works.

we took a hike up the elephant mountain, which is in the middle of the city and is supposed to have an excellent view of taipei 101- formerly the tallest building in the world, but the thing about a 101 story building in the rainforest is that a lot of it is in the clouds.

fortunately the clouds cleared for a couple minutes and we got a decent view. about a month before we were here, alex honnold free-solo climbed taipei 101 live on netflix.

we went up to the highest floor to get a view of the city, i remember watching honnold make his way around these decorations on the corners

on the second highest floor there is this massive solid steel dampening ball suspended by wires, taking up multiple stories, which helps to protect the building from taiwan's many earthquakes and typhoons.

we have to head home tomorrow, but before we go we had to go to one last night market to get some more taiwanese street food.

 taipei street corn, it was about a half hour wait for this

and that's about all! time to head home

overall, we loved taiwan. would highly recommend coming here. very under-touristed, lovely, friendly people. excellent food, both for vegans and non-vegans. mountains, hiking, adventure, insane landscapes but also big city, culture, energy. safe, excellent infrastructure, non-crazy driving. a lot of people told us it was one of their favourite places in asia, and i can't say i disagree.