A Day in Keelung

Inspired by Anthony Bourdain's episode of Layover Taipei (EXCELLENT PORTRAYAL OF THE FOOD CULTURE), Boyfriend and I decided over breakfast yesterday morning to make a day trip out to Keelung to explore. Keelung is a port city of located in Northern Taiwan, only a 50 minute train ride from Taipei Main Station but a completely different feel. As soon as we got off the train and walked a few minutes over to the waterfront, it felt exactly like Seattle. The air was fresh and salty-I could see cargo ships everywhere as we sat on by the docks to map out what we wanted to do. As almost always, the weather was beautiful.

Since we were only there for the day, we stayed around East Keelung. Downtown is small, a few main streets with lots of exciting dark alleys and the famous MiaoKou Night Market. We walked through the markets and were surprised that lots of stands were already open, and they all had English signs showing what kinds of cuisine were being served. We wandered through some back streets and up a mountain looking for the ZhongZheng Park, which was supposed to have a birds eye view of the city. It was just a random destination, and we enjoyed the journey there. Oh, what fun it is to just go somewhere new to see what you can see! (Actually, as I attached that link I realized we never made it there! I never saw that statue!!!! Oh well, we were SOMEwhere!)

After we were satisfied with our pictures, we embarked back down to the city center and took Bus 101 to Helping (Hoping) Island, less than half an hour up further north to see these cool rock formations I've been wanting to check out for years! Unfortunately, as soon as we stepped off the bus the temperature seemed to have dropped dramatically and I was freezing! If you come to Keelung, bring a jacket!! I could feel the misty/stickiness of the ocean. It's a small little park with a pathway around these rocky shores, and people can walk down to take pictures of these crazy twisted rock formations. 

Back downtown, we combed through MiaoKou Night Market, overwhelmed with the variety of food everywhere. I have been to a lot of night markets, but this one was just insane. Everything I've ever had at a night market was there, and more. Actually at one point I felt nauseous from all commotion and overload of mixed smells. I wish we had taken a picture of the crap load of food Boyfriend and I brought on the train with us to have on the way home. On that day, we had salad rolls, gua bao, fish tempura, oyster omelette, stone cooked corn, wild boar meat, fried crab, starchy stuff I don't even know, egg tart, ginger hot chocolate, etc.

Anyway, like Boyfriend said, it was an excellent way to prepare our appetites for our upcoming holiday-THAILAND!

Sun Moon Lake

There is a place in Taiwan where lovers go. It has claimed to be the most romantic, most scenic spot in Taiwan, and it's called Sun Moon Lake. Guess where my boyfriend wanted to go for his birthday! So off we went over the first weekend of 2013. You can go by either HSR or bus, and we chose the bus to avoid transferring down in Taichung. Sun Moon Lake is a lake in the middle of Taiwan, surrounded by mountains and next to Nantou, home of One Piece Theme Park and an aboriginal village!
We were excited to ditch a dreary, rainy week of Taipei weather for some warm sunshine and a brilliant blue sky when we arrived! We quickly figured out that our resort was on the other side of the lake, and our first view of the lake was from a 50NT ferry ride over it.

We checked in, and grabbed our bikes to start exploring only to discover that there wasn't much to do around the area, just a little open town square and aboriginal-styled stands and shops selling guabao and sunglasses. We decided to park the bikes and take cable cars from the lakeside over to the theme park for the day. I have been to the One Piece Theme Park/Aboriginal Village before, and it was just as I remembered it-lovely, sunny, and uncrowded. There are only really like five good rides, but since there aren't any lines you can go on them as many times as you like. Boyfriend and I jumped on to every ride, fearless, and laughed ourselves silly from the queasiness til we got soaked on the 'Caribbean Splash'. The cable cars stopped running at 4:30pm so we headed back to the lake to catch the sunset.

THE NEXT DAY was adventure day-we were determined to bike around the lake. We had heard about a famous scenic bike trail, and so we set off early in the morning to conquer it. There is only one path around the lake, so you can't get lost. If you know me at all, you know that biking is NOT my favorite outdoor activity. However, if all conditions are optimal (perfect weather, flat trail, good company and pretty views) I will go. For the first two hours or so of our bike ride, this was not the case. The view was pretty but it was all uphill on a twisty concrete road, and the end was no where in sight. However with the persistance and annoying encouragement from my fitness-crazed boyfriend we finally hit flat ground, and the legendary spectacular bike trail after all. We could NOT stop taking pictures-it was too gorgeous and so worth it.

BEFORE

AFTER

We reached the opposite side of the lake where we took the ferry from, after about four hours. This part of the lake was a bit more lively-swarming with tourists actually-and we had lunch on the sun-shiny boardwalk. Thankfully, bikes were allowed onto the ferry for extra charge and we didn't have to bike the rest of the way around the lake to get back to our stuff. We packed up, and strolled around enjoying the view a bit before heading back to Taipei.