Showing posts with label Taipei Night Markets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taipei Night Markets. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Shilin Market and National Palace Museum (Taipei Trip Day 4)

Returning from Yangmingshan National Park, we decided to go to Taiwan National Palace Museum first before our dinner at Shilin Night Market. National Palace Museum keeps a huge collection of ancient China Imperial artifacts. Some source stated that with 700k plus artifacts, it is the biggest museum of its kind. Well, we need to agree that only the Palace Museum in Beijing, China can beat it on the number of imperial artifacts. The type of the artifacts exhibited are mainly paintings and calligraphy, the metalwares, jades, ceramics. The museum contains several exhibition halls. We went through the halls following the numbers. We were excited to see different versions of the painting of "Along the River during the Qing Ming festival" (清明上河图) and amazed by the meat shaped stone. One dissapointment- the Jadeite Cabbage (翠玉白菜) was exhibited in other museum and we didn't have the chance to see it.

Taiwan National Palace Museum opens daily from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm, and opens till 9 pm on Friday and Saturday. The entrance fee is NTD 150 per adult. More information about the exhibition, opening hours, and entrance fee are avaialble at the museum official website. From Shilin MRT Station, we took a 20-minute bus trip (red line no. 30, or R30) to the museum. Reached at 6:30 pm, we roamed around for 2 hours there (yes, it was Saturday). Then, we went back to Shilin MRT Station, then to Jiantan MRT Station. Be noted that Shilin Market is nearer to Jiantan MRT Station, not Shilin MRT Station.

The main gate of Taiwan National Palace Museum. The bus stop is located at the ground floor of the main museum building. If we go by bus, we need to walk out of the main building to see the gate. "天下为公" described that everything on earth belongs to community. It brings the point that everything inside the museum belongs to entire human race, not for the emperors only.

We can see a big metalware- a "ding" （鼎）in front of the museum building. It is an ancient cooking ware.

There are other buildings with exhibition halls (upper left) near to the main museum building (upper right). A closer look at the big "ding" in front fo the museum (lower right). Our bags and camera have to be left at the locker. We took the opportunity to see the music performance at the museum's lobby before we left.

Again, if we want to go to Shilin Market (or night market), the nearest MRT station is Jiantan Station. From Jiantan MRT Station, follow the signages first, turn left and cross the road once exit from gate 1. Then the flow of crowd will lead us to the market.

Clear signage, yes, this time with English to Shilin Market in the MRT station (upper left). From gate 1, we can see a flux of people walking to and fro Shilin Market (upper right). So what we need to do is crossing the road and follow the crowd (lower right). By foot, Shilin Market is 5 minutes away from  Jiantan MRT station.
There is a big food court at the basement level of Shilin Market (upper left). There are several entrance to the food court. The food court was really crowded on Saturday, but we still managed to find a place to sit (upper right). The fried oyster was really nice (lower right), while the beef noodle was average. We tried the cracker wrap (大饼包小饼) at another stall. We didn't like the wrap.
 
Moved back to surface. The area inside the market with cover itself is not big (upper left). However., the night market extends to the area with stalls beside the covered street (upper right), uncovered street (lower right), and the street with shops like Ximending.

This is how Shilin Market looks like during day time.

We tried several types of food along the streets, including the vermicelli with soup (upper left), grilled mushroom (upper right), flame-grilled beef cube (lower right), and fried chicken steak. All of them tasted good except the chicken steak.

There are some quiet corner at Shilin Night Market as well- inside the market buidling.

Shilin Market used to be a marketplace nearby a harbour. Today, it has been transformed into a tourism night market. The evidence of its humble beginning can be still found here and there.

 The site of the old market is quiet. Nobody cares about this old place in the middle of extravagant night life.

Shilin Market is really crowded, especially at the streets outside the market building. The pedestrian streets are much smaller and not well illuminated compared to Ximending. It is not as organized as Raohe Night Market （饶河夜市）as well. Although many souces consider Shilin as night market, but in our opinion, there are only one or two streets that can be considered as real night market- streets with stalls or shacks. The rest are more towards the pedestrian streets with shops. However, Shilin Market did fulfill our expectation in providing good variety of food. It can be a good place for shopping- souvenirs, local delicacies, clothes, footwear, IT gadgets, teas and we can even buy ourselves a new goldfish.

We left Shilin Market at around 10 pm. That was out last stop on day 4. Day 5, old town Jiufen and the abandoned gold mine Jinguashi were in our list.

More about our experience in Taipei:

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Friday, June 10, 2016

Ximending, a Good Place for an Evening Stroll (Taipei Trip Day 3)

Ximending (or Xi Meng-Ding) is located in Wanhua District. It is the first pedestrian shopping zone assigned in Taipei. We continued our trip to Ximending after Taipei 101. Ximending MRT Station is located between Taipei Main Station and Longshan Temple Station. Gate 6 of Ximending MRT Station led us to the pedestrian street area on our right, while the Red House of Ximen (some refer it as Ximen Red Theater) could be seen on our left on the other side of the road. We decided to start with the Red House of Ximen.

The Red House was build in 1908 as a public market. It was the first public market of its kind in Taiwan. Interesting facts- the market was designed by a western architect, Kondo Juro, from the local government department. The building has a very strong European influence with the main structure resembling a cross, connects to an octagonal entrance that resembling "ba-gua" design with a balance of yin-yang.

The Red House is now built with a theater, a shopping area, an exhibition area, with food stalls and bars at the surrounding area. We spent around 15 minutes to walk through the exhibition area. The information was massive, but mostly in the form of photos and articles. The shopping and food areas were not interesting for us.

We went back to the pedestrian shopping zone- the main attraction of Ximending. The pedestrian zone consists of several main streets which crisscross each others, with smaller alleys branching in between. To avoid getting lost, we used KFC at the junction of Emei Street and Watson Store at the junction of Wuchang Street as reference points.  

Compared to the night markets that we had visited the nights before (Huaxi and Raohe Night Markets), Ximending is filled mostly with shops and boutiques selling clothes, bags, wallets, souvenirs, IT gadgets, and several cinemas. Restaurants are aplenty but with lesser road side stalls around the area. There were several street artists performing as well. There was only one issue there- many signage were written in Mandarin only. We were not shopping materials, but amazingly spent almost 3 hours at Ximending. We found a low price souvenir shop there and took our dinner at a western buffet restaurant.

 The Red House of Ximending.

 The shopping area in the Red House.

6:30 pm, crowd was gathering at Ximending. Photo taken from the Red House. The MRT entrance can be seen on the opposite side of the street.

A panorama view of Ximending from the Red House. The photo is a little bit blur due to the low shutter speed. Please click the photo for a larger view.

There were many people there, especially at the main entrance to the pedestrian street (upper left). The pedestrian street (upper right), smaller alley (lower right), and the junction at Ximending. We can use the shops at the junction as the references, to avoid getting lost in the area.

We took our dinner at Ba-Fei Restaurant (upper left). The food were nice with reasonable price (upper and lower right). Once we ordered the main dishes, the soup, appetizers, side dishes, and drinks were served as buffet. By the way, we couldn't find the retaurant's English name. 

We bought some souvenirs with bargained price at Pingi (upper row), and tried the bitter gourd drink at San Xiong Mei (lower row).

Queueing is inevitable for some famous eateries in Ximending, but we didn't waste our time there. We rather choose the same food from other shop with shorter queue.

We left Ximending at around 10 pm. The crowd was still huge, and shops were still opening. Yes, it was Friday night, TGIF! It was an enjoyable experience strolling around Ximending, and we could easily spend whole evening there. Combining good variety, clean environment and nice walkway, it is a must visit place in Taipei.

Coming up next in our forth day itinerary- Yangmingshan National Park, Gugong Museum and Shilin Night Market.

More about our experience in Taipei:


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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Raohe Night Market (Taipei Trip Day 2)

After visiting Taipei Zoo and Maokong Mountain, we continued our trip to Raohe Night Market. Raohe Night Market (饶河夜市) is one of the oldest night market in Taipei. It is located at Raohe Street in Songshan District, spreading 600 meters along Keelung River. How to go to Rauhe Night Market? Take MRT to Songshan Station, exit through gate 5,  and you will see the entrance of the night market at your right, on the other side of the road. It is just beside a beautiful temple- Songshan Ciyou Temple.

Raohe Night Market opens from 5 pm till midnight. Easy to reach, organized, clean, and not too big to get lost. Recommended by our friend, the pork rib herbal soup and black pepper bun are the must-try-food there. He actually mentioned another one- the stinky tofu, which we dared not try. Of course, we tried many other food and drinks along the street, including the grilled scallops, meat roll with spring onion and tofu fa. We reached the market at around 7 pm and stayed there for almost 2 hours.

Raohe Night Market is different from Huaxi Night Market- more stalls selling IT gadgets, handphone accessories, branded attires, beautifully packed local delicacies to trap tourists, souvenirs like key chains and fridge magnets, and more variety of food and drinks. Most importantly, it consists of one single street only, with the hawker stalls line up at the middle of the street, very organized in the way that we can see everything in a round trip, and it is almost impossible for visitors to get lost there. It is indeed a must visit night market in Taipei!

From Songshan MRT Station (upper left) we need to cross the road to Raohe Night Market. The entrance of the night market is located beside Ciyou Temple (upper right). The entrance was full of visitors upon our arrival around 7 pm (lower right). The entrance near the MRT station is the eastern entrance. There is another entrance on the western side.

Raohe Night Market is really crowdy. We need to squeeze through some chocking points due to the queueing people in front of the stalls.

Limited by space, there were just a few tables and chairs prepared for the customers to sit down and enjoy their food.

Food- we tried grilled scallops (upper row) and pork with onion roll (lower row). The grilled scallops tasted good. The pork with onion roll was special and the portioin was big, but tasted average.

Winter melon drink with brown sugar (upper left) and "ai-yu" jelly or can be translated as vegetarian gelatin (upper right) tasted good. Tofu fa tasted a bit different from our country style (lower right), and we didn't really like it. But there were many people waiting in front of the tofu fa stall, awaiting to be served.

The famous stall selling pork rib herbal soup was jammed with queueing visitors, and same thing happened to the most famous stall selling black pepper bun. We decided to make our life easier by visiting the stalls with shorter queueing line. Shorter queue is not an indication that they are not good. The pork rib herbal soup (upper row) and the black pepper bun (lower row) served by them tasted good as well!

Statue of owls- Mascot of Raohe Night Market, is erected at the western entrance.

We left the market at 9 pm with some fruits and black pepper buns packed back for supper. An advice from our friend- Raohe Night Market is a very very crowdy market. It will be good if we and keep our belongs safe from pick pockets. Although he couldn't recall when was the last case reported (rarely happened), but it's always better to be careful than sorry.

For our second day, the weather was good- sunny in the morning, a bit hazzy in the afternoon, and cooling at night. We would visit Yehliu Geological Park in Wanli District, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Taipei 101, and Ximen Ding on our third day in Taipei. Let us bring you to Yehliu Geopark now.

More about our experience in Taipei:

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Sunday, May 8, 2016

Taipei Huaxi Night Market- Our First Stop in Taipei (Taipei Trip Day 1)

It was our first visit to Taipei together. We arrived at 2:25 pm at Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1 (台湾桃园国际机场), with approximately 120 visitors already queuing at the immigration counters. We took around 1 hour to get the clearance. Tao Yuan International Airport is not Taipei City Airport. It is located 40 km away from Taipei Main Station at Zhongzheng District.

We decided to travel by mass transport to our hotel. First, we went to B1 level and redeemed our free tickets from Kuo-Kuang Motor Transport (国光客运) counter, then took a bus to Taipei Main Station (special thank to Taiwan Tourism Bureau MOTC, normal fee was NTD125 per person per trip). Bus no. 1819 to the main station was scheduled with 10 minutes interval. We reached Taipei Main Station at 5 pm, registered for free wifi at the tourism information counter, and roamed around for a while. We took MRT (Taipei Metro) to our hotel at Long Shan Temple (龙山寺). Our hotel- Long Shan Hotel was just 5 minutes walk from the MRT station (we will share more about the hotel in our upcoming post).

People queueing for immigration clearance (upper left). One hour of queue time was a bit long. The staff at the information counter at the arrival hall was helpful (upper right). She showed us the way to the airport bus station (lower left). The buses parked near to the ticketing counter. 1819 was the bus that we were waiting for. With the interval of 10 - 15 minutes to get the next bus, waiting is not an issue there.

Taipei Main Station is big, but not big enough for us to get lost (upper left). The the main station ticketing counters is the place where people purchase tickets for the trains to other cities (upper right). Visitor Information Center is located just beside the ticketing counters (lower right). We obtained our free wifi access at the information center. The application required our passports and took around 5 minutes to be completed. The wifi could be accessed in the government buildings, metro stations, and some city bus lines. The free wifi access was very useful to get us connected with our family and friends. Please visit the official website of free Taipei wifi for more information.

By far, we had no problem travelling around. All the signages at the airport, the main station, and the metro stations were clearly stated in traditional Chinese and English. Well, we could understand both. After a short rest, we decided to take our dinner at Mengxia Night Market (艋舺夜市). Later we realized that Mengxia Night Market was actually connected to Huaxi Night Market. Both night markets open from 4 pm till late night.

How to go to Huaxi Night Market (华西夜市) and Mengxia Night Market (艋舺夜市)? From Longshan Temple Station, exit through gate 1, turn right and walk through Mengxia Park until you are right in front of Longshan Temple. The entrance of Mengxia Night Market is on your left, on the other side of the road. Walk along Mengxia Night Market and you will find Huaxia Night Market on your right. Well, it should be a 2 - 3 minutes walk from the metro station. Staying at Long Shan Hotel, Mengxia Night Market was just 3 minutes away from our hotel by foot.

The entrance of Mengxia Night Market （艋舺夜市) that marks the beginning of a 400 meters night market spanning along Guangzhou Street (广州街), intersects with Wuzhou Street (梧州街) and Huaxi Street （华西街）.


When we walked down Guangzhou Street, the entrance of Huaxi Night market could be seen on our right, some 50 meters away from the entrance of Mengxia Night Market.

Mengxia Night Market is more like a traditional Asian market. Most of the food stalls are gathered at the first stretch of the street, from the entrance till Wuzhou Street intersection (upper row). Clothes, games, shoes, bags, wallets, purses, and pirated VCDs are available after the intersection till the end of Guangzhou Street (lower row).

We tried grilled squid (upper left), sausage and meat on sticks (upper right), fried oyster with egg (lower right), and juice from fresh fruits and vegetables. All of them tasted good.

Red bean pancake (upper row) and sticky rice ball (lower row) attracted our attention, but not our taste bud.

Huaxi Night Market is covered (upper left). The street is around 400 meters long. North entrance is a bit quiet (upper right), and the south entrance which connects to Mengxia Night Market at Guangzhou Street is busier. The shops along the street offer different types of food and drinks. There are shops selling exotic food such as snakes and turtles, massage and nail polishing services, and a few shops selling adult-only toys (lower left). 

We found a very crowded eatery (upper left), and tried the pork rice, spiced duck egg (upper right), and winter melon-pork soup (lower right). For us, the taste was just average. There were other dishes offered there, but we wish to spare ourselves for other food.

By the way, Guangzhou Street can be accessed through Wuzhou Street. Huaxi Street lays parallel on the right side of Wuzhou Street.

As described by a few locals, Mengxia Night Market is a traditional night market without much tourist attracting elements. Many stalls set up tables and chairs to serve their customers. We could find more old people here, strolling in a relaxing manner along the streets. These two night markets were less busy compare to Raohe or Shilin. We like the market in the way that we can enjoy our time without squeezing our way down the alley.

We stayed in the night markets for about one hour. After dinner, we rested early. We have Taipei Zoo, Maokong Mountain, and Rauhe Night Market in our 2nd day itinerary. Follow us go to Taipei Zoo and Maokong Mountain now!

More about our experience in Taipei: 


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