Once Upon an April evening, I hopped on a plane…

And 15 hours later arrived in Taiwan.

It was a relatively good flight, and I slept an amount that was not terrible, so I was able to stumble off the plane, and into some public transport following a very short stop in an airport convenience store.

My favourite Nadia had recently visited Taiwan, so I already knew that I had to pick up an ipass for public transport (and also for paying for small things at the 7-11s and other convenience stores), and was only delayed slightly by my inability to choose between a cat shaped pass and one that had other cute cartoon animals.

Silly to resist, obviously the cat woman in me won out.

I happened to be staying in the quite trendy Wanhua District- the oldest district in Taipei, which I think is most famous for the Ximending neighbourhood and the Huaxi Night Market.

I can pretend this was a deliberate choice because I am super cool, but it was at least 30% driven by a desire to spend very little money, and 70% driven by the fact the hotel I ultimately chose was called ‘Triple Tiger’, and promised me a hotel cat.

Lean into the cat lady Tegan, just lean in.

I arrived, threw my stuff around my room, and headed back into the night to pick up some food.

First up was a perfectly baked sweet potato, which is a very common and cheap snack to find in the convenience stores. I honestly don’t understand why this isn’t more of a thing in Europe. Are we not a potato people?

No longer favenous, I wandered a little bit, until I found a small shop, with a menu that looked like this:

Both google and apple have translation apps where you can take a photo or scan in real time, but these- while definitely a life saver- are always a bit iffy. Particularly as the translations tend to make the text shift around a lot, making it hard to match up with the original document.

In this case, it helped clarify for me which of the items was dumplings, which is all I ever really need in life. Plus I eat basically everything, so along with the precious dumps, I just added a few ticks next to some other random stuff.

Which was not a terrible life choice:

I threw a lot of the stuff into the soup, added some spice, and gorged myself silly (but did also take half of it home in a little tupperware box. Always travel with tupperware kids!).

or those of you playing at home, the exchange rate was at about 1:40, where 1 pound was equal to about 40 taiwanese dollars. I found this particularly confusing when it came to food because what do you mean I am getting 10 of the most delicious dumplings in the world for less than two pounds????

Anyway.

Despite eating a fair amount of food (I once had a conversation in Beijing which I did not at all understand but I am fairly sure involved them trying to convince me that ordering a full plate of dumplings on top of of a full bowl of delicious stew), it seemed only right that I should evening with some convenience store icecream.

Very happy to have discovered this (aka the new love of my life) already on my first night. I think I went through about 10 in the course of the trip.

Ok Bed Time!

My next morning began with greetings to Aussie Chris, and what can only be described as an aggressively leisurely amble around my neighbourhood.

I indulged in my first ever Taiwanese-Bubble-Tea-Actually-In-Taiwan, and had a little mochi and sweet potato wheel cake:

I was trying not to be toooooo much of a consumer, but I do slightly regret not buying this little soot guy luggage tag, and also the tiny little Kewpie Mayo.

The latter was found in Don Don Donki, a famous Japanesse discount store that has fresh food, snacks and household items and cosmetics. I first ‘discovered’ it with Szym in Singapore, and mostly went in this time because it reminded me of him, and I wanted to listen to ‘Our Song’ (aka the store’s insane earworm of a theme song)

In any case, it’s a fun place to check out:

I headed back onto the street and, feeling peckish, stopped for some turnip cakes- one of the recommended foods to eat in Taiwan.

This time I did successfully translate, and went for bamboo shoots and a tea egg to accompany my meal. Pretty delish.

Turnip cake is one of those things that I always thought I disliked as a kid, but I suspect that’s becuase I had some not-so-good ones, which were cold and stodgy. When they’re fresh and hot and crispy, they are actually pretty incredible.

My main plan of the day was to visit Huashan 1914 Creative Park, a heritage building that was previously a sake distillery (back from the Japanese-era times), and has now been converted into a cultural/arts venue with lots of little shops.

Obviously though, I meandered on the way there, stopping into shops to buy coriander doritos (two star, would not recommend) and durian flavoured crisps (you can REALLY taste the durian. It does not go with crisp. 1 star). I also gazed in wonder at Asparagus Juice (and obviously shared it with all the Germans I know), but didn’t try that one until a bit later (spoiler alert, it was also terrible).

I also walked through part of the absolutely massive mall under the main station, which looked suspiciously zombie-apocalypse in places. I did buy some socks (beautifully ‘coupled not identical’), because I am a woman in my late 30s without children and that is what we do now.

And I also saw some paperbarks to remind me of Australia, and a giraffe to remind me of climate change.

I also wandered past and then into Simple Kaffa, which is apparently one of the best coffee shops in the world…. and bought a ‘Smoky Southern Taiwan’, an iced drink with espresso, Taiwanese jelly, white gourd syrup and osmanthus.

Sorry to all the coffee purists out there.

It was pretty good though.

Huashan 1914 Creative Park itself reminded me a bit of Dilli Haat in Dehli, although a bit less ‘hand crafts’ and more established shops. I would probably return next time I’m in Taiwan, and did regret not buying a few more of the cute items for random gifts.

My next stop was supposed to be Dihua Street- Taipei’s oldest street and home to beautiful shops filled with dried goods and traditional Chinese medicine shops. It also has the Yong Le Fabric market, and I have recently discovered that fabrics are very good things to buy when visiting other countries.

Quick note to say that I did go through Beimen station, which I recommend if you’re into super cool Qing Dynasty ruins that happened to have been dug up when they were extending the line.

I knew I was running a little late to get to the Dihua area, so wasn’t super surprised to see that the fabric market was mostly closed, and many of the shops were shutting up for the day. I did manage to buy a couple of little iron on embroidery things (hello dragon!), but also did vow to return another day.

Luckily, Dihua street is just a couple of blocks over from Ningxia Night Market, so my journey was not at all wasted.

I treated myself to some bbq squid, some potstickers and greens, and a strange soup which has this kind of trachea-like thing in it and also lacked any flavour. Would not eat again, but I have to assume that a) it is very healthy for me and b) I was doing it wrong?

Nadia had also sent me a message a few weeks before my trip that basically could be described as ‘an ode to the heavenly sweet-potato puff’, and had insisted that I had to get as many of them into my body as possible.

So, despite being pretty stuffed, I also had some of those.

To be honest Nadia, they were mostly fine. Also I burnt my mouth. 3.5 stars.

And that’s it for Day 0.5 and Day 1 of exploration.

Eis is Life Kids:

Taiwan, April 15-16, 2026