🇹🇼 we are flying to Taiwan! ☺️ our 4th country on our world trip. The capital Taipei 🏙️

26.03.2023. Arrived in Taipei.. the anticipation for this country is huge! But first, we have to get used to the temperatures: it's 14 degrees on site and the wind is blowing- in Bangkok it was over 30 degrees! A little shock 😅 we had to dig out our long clothes. Sweater, rain jacket or long pants are not among the things we have needed much in the past weeks/months.

At the airport we headed straight to Burger King. Packed as we always are, all eyes were on us again... divine. We refreshed ourselves with a burger and headed towards the MRT. At the machine we didn't understand a thing and therefore bought the tickets at the counter, from a friendly and helpful employee. Then we took the metro to the city center, getting off at Taipei Main Station after about 45 minutes of travel. 

We didn't have to search for our accommodation for long and reached it after about 7 minutes of walking. The first impression was sobering. It was our most expensive accommodation so far on the trip. We paid over 300€ for a week. The interior was very outdated, there were no towels in the bathroom, only small cotton towels. During the day, the room didn't warm up properly either because no sun came through the high-rise buildings (we were on the 6th floor). In addition, icy air came through our door slit from the stairwell, so we always had to put a backpack in front of it. The heating or air conditioning system had also seen better days and didn't work. The room was not cleaned in 7 days. Well, that's how it was.

However, we felt comfortable in Taipei from the very first second. There is also a lot of traffic here, but it's not as hectic and crazy as it was in Bangkok. The city is tidy, clean, modern, with lots of green space and friendly people. We could reach sights on foot, such as the park around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the botanical garden and the famous 101 Tower with the luxury shopping mall inside. We visited Riverside Park several times and went jogging. A kilometer-long, paved path along the water, overlooking Neu-Taipei, designed for cyclists, runners and walkers.

We used the best weather day of the week to take the metro to Taipei Zoo and then take the cable car up to Maokong Mountain. You can get off at these three stops 🚡: 1. Taipei Zoo, 2. Zhinan Temple and 3. Maokong Station (we got off here). We not only had beautiful weather and sunshine, but also very little traffic during the week and we didn't have to wait or queue anywhere 🙂 we hiked to a waterfall and enjoyed the view of the city, always at the center the former tallest building in the world, the 101 Tower. Depending on which hike you choose on Maokong Mountain, hiking shoes are always a good choice. 

Communication was honestly not always easy. Only very few Taiwanese speak English. But those who can speak it regularly approached us and engaged us in a short, friendly conversation. We regularly used Google Translate to translate menus and other things. 

On March 5th, we left Taipei. Our next destination: Jiufen on the northeastern coast. (In the post about our 30-day tour of Taiwan).