Taipei, Taiwan: Ximen & Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

October 2, 2014: Taipei, Taiwan

Airplane food (night before)

So the first real day in Taiwan we woke up a little before 11:00AM because there was a lot of chattering outside. First thing we did was go to the bank to exchange money because I wasn’t able to in Shanghai and the currency exchange booth at the airport when we arrived was closed. I was told to do it in Taiwan instead anyways because it would be a better rate.

Some banks couldn’t.. but the Hwaitai Bank (華泰銀行) was able to do it. It was a direct exchange and we were able to do HKD, USD, or RMB. I exchanged RMB250, which exchanged to a bit over NT1200 (1 to 4.834). 

Our room on the second day. There was some issues with the air conditioner on the first night, so we were in a different room.

Streets in Guting 古亭 area (where we stayed)

Next we took the MRT from Guting to Ximen to find the Modern Toilet restaurant. Everywhere was like shops and stuff, lots of cutesy things. I wanted to come back here later on, but didn’t get a chance to.

They also had this UFO catcher/crane machine/claw machine whatever place where I ended up spending NT270 (NT10 per try) fml. All for three plushes. I wish the states or Shanghai have more of these!! They’re tricky though because you’re not meant to grab it and have it drop into the hole. It latches on but when it hits the top, the impact causes it to fall down so you have to make it fall in the right place.

The Modern Toilet turned out to be doing renovations starting the day before…so we wandered around, wondering what to eat. In the end we settled for a local shop.

Braised Chicken Rice NT55

It was a pretty bad meal tbh loll. It had no flavor or anything… wish I had gotten something else. 

Next we went to this dessert place and got shaved ice! Shaved ice is supposed  to be a big thing here, but the only shaved ice I’ve ever been exposed to is literally shaved ice with syrup on top. But it wasn’t like that at all, it’s actually blended in, almost like a smoothie or ice cream. 

Mango Snow Mountain or something like that. NT150 The ice cream tasted a bit funny and not that much like mango. And a green tea + red bean one

Next we went to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. We walked there, but the train station (exit 5) goes straight there as well. There wasn’t too much to see or do there, because it’s literally just a memorial. You can climb up the stairs and see the giant statue.

In that "square" there's also the National Theatre and Concert Hall.

We didn't stay here for too long..because there's really not much to do haha. We had some time to kill, so we went to the Hello Kitty Cafe, which I will blog about next.

So until next time :)