Not Your Average Travel Blog, Taipei Edition

Personal Traversal

Formative travel, no matter the type, is rooted in the commonality of human experience. It takes two general forms — a “home away from home”, or an exposé on the holes in your perspective. The first form is a shock much like a needle entering your vein. After the initial awkwardness, it’s surprising how natural being dropped into a totally new environment can feel. You think to yourself, “I can make it anywhere.” Of course, this depends on the receptability of your host country, your willingness to be malleable, and your openness to new experiences. The latter form is a realization that your personal life experiences traverse a bowling alley with the bumpers on. Culture shock allows you to zoom out and take a bird’s eye view on what you have and what you lack.

In 2019, on my first arrival in Taipei, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I only ended up there due to finding a cheaper flight deal to TPE than to anywhere else in Asia. I had recently decided to forego a traditional career in trading and strike out on my own, and the markets were not co-operating. I hadn’t done any active trading for months, surviving off an AAPL long that simply churned upwards. I was bored out of my mind. What proceeded was a whirlwind of conversations and experiences that amounted to the density of a college course condensed into a fortnight. It cannot be understated how unconcerned the rest of the world is with the day-to-day cultural nonsense that plagued the US from 2016 onwards. Back then, I used to drink with a purpose. Through temporary companionship, I rediscovered how to focus on enjoying my life and diagnosed what I lacked that would further my own happiness. While the pandemic that followed felt like an existential robbery of my habit of novelty- and perspective-seeking, after pushing through the stir-craziness that early 2020 induced in all of us, I was able to channel those habits and my own restlessness to make some of the most impactful choices in my life.

Upon my return, through long bar nights filled with baijiu shots and chartreuse cocktails (including one seemingly ungodly mezcal-chartreuse concoction that, for the life of me, I won’t remember imbibing, but know was fantastic), I felt reunited with my past experiences. Though we’ve all aged more rapidly than the years would imply in a post-pandemic world, I was able to reclaim the drive to ferret out experiences worth sharing to enhance other people’s lives. While it’s obviously acknowledged that temporary residence is a stylized, artificial reality, the image you create of that ideal version of the person you can be in that ideal environment is worth preserving to fuel your own achievements when you return to real life. And, however remote the probability, with effort and focus you can drastically improve your odds of realizing a tail outcome. You can find what makes you whole again.

Of course, I love Taipei for numerous reasons beyond its ability to be a lubricant for mental masturbation, so if you do happen to take a trip out there, a) invite me and b) check this shit out.

Places to stay:

If you have the requisite dinero, fancy hotels in Asia in general are significantly superior to their Western counterparts, due to their service and fantastic breakfast buffets. I personally enjoyed staying in the Da’an and Zhongzheng districts, as they seemed the most lively. Of the hotels I stayed at, I enjoyed the Shangri-La the most.

Food:

Any night market will do, but the main foods to try are the fresh bubble tea/boba, pork buns, oyster omelets, and whatever else strikes the fancy. Snake is gimmicky, and stinky tofu is alright but nothing particularly special. Generally, I will try anything put in front of me, but I don’t eat novelty items for the sake of having tried them, for the most part.

Hotpot is the pièce de résistance of the Taipei food scene. For fancier, a la carte places (think about these in the vein of how Americans go to fancy steakhouses on their birthday) with higher quality meats, I like Orange Shabu and Top One Pot. Haidilao is a famous chain known for their soup bases, and for AYCE food and AYCD beer, check out Mala Hot Pot. I partly prefer these locations because they’re pretty accommodating of English speakers, but honestly, you can’t go wrong with any hot pot place in Taipei.

Similar circumstances exist in the search for beef noodles — it’s such an iconic dish that basically any place you find them will do them well. I liked visiting Liu Shandong, though. For the more foreigner-obtuse locations, I’ve found success in acquiring a bowl by pointing at broth and saying mian.

For upscale Taiwanese food, Mountain & Sea House is enjoyable, though it appears to have been recently added to the Michelin guide, and presumably is very crowded.

For dessert, other than copious amounts of bubble tea in night markets, I enjoyed pineapple cakes at Sunny Hill.

A cool little spot is the Addiction Aquatic Development. It contains a seafood wet market with the most gigantic crabs and mollusks you will ever see, an upscale standing sushi bar, and various other nice restaurants in its vicinity. Think Dean&DeLuca meets Chelsea Market meets an aquarium. It’s a bit gimmicky and pricy, but the vibes are great. It’s cash only, so be prepared.

The Japanese food scattered throughout the city is generally very good as well. If you don’t happen to be traveling to Japan in the near future, there are plenty of izakayas to fulfill your cravings for beer and yakitori.

For late night/hungover cravings, my favorite chain is MOS burger, which might provide you with your own Lost in Translation story, except instead of a vexing, budding relationship between you and a young Scarlett Johansson, it’s all the fun of not being able to read the menu after last call while ordering at the West Third Street McDonald’s and also not even being able to communicate what you want.

I remember craving a burrito one hungover morning, and to my surprise, found a place serving California burritos. I interrupted the burrito artist’s explanation of what it is by showing my California ID, thereby verifying myself as an authority. Needless to say, the burrito was fucking terrible. Not that it needed explaining, but avoid the Mexican food in Taipei.

Bars:

Taipei’s cocktail scene is genuinely fantastic. While the bar that started it all — R&D — has closed down, the culture it spawned proliferated greatly. There are plenty of ‘listicles’ that highlight great cocktail bars throughout the city, but I’ll leave you with a couple that probably won’t make it to any article. A key difference, as told to me by a couple of bartenders I chatted with, is that there’s no bartender “certification” program masquerading as the authority on cocktails like there is in the US, leaving creativity unhampered.

Silver Lining is a recently opened cocktail bar that I stumbled across while looking to grab a quick drink after landing that turned into an all-night bender, closing down the bar and venturing out with the staff to another. The bartenders can handle any request you make of them, and seem to specialize in gin drinks. Continuing in the tradition of unexpected exports of California culture, they have their own version of Animal fries on the menu, and this rendition was fantastic.

While the original location of Bar Genao was one of my favorite bars of all time, it’s but a bygone memory. However, the bartender from the old location remains, and while they have a menu this time around, I highly recommend going off menu by suggesting a base and a flavor and letting him run wild. If you’re looking for a twist on a recently trendy cocktail, I had a fantastic espresso martini with aged rum as its base instead of vodka. Unlike its Western counterpart, the sweetness is much more muted and the flavor of the espresso is allowed to breathe more.

Activities:

The top thing to do for me was the Beitou hot springs, which is accessible by metro, making it really convenient. It might take a little getting used to because the main attraction is public bathhouses, but it’s super rejuvenating and some of the bathhouses have a little Japanese restaurant attached and it feels fantastic eating a fresh meal after a sulfur-infused soak.

The National Palace Museum and the various memorial halls are worth a nice, slow walk, but all of it can be done in one day. The miniatures museum is an odd and fun little excursion as well.

I particularly love Eslite bookstores, as not only do they reside in fantastic department stores, they have a particularly large selection of English books. Most notably, they contain a decent collection of English-translated Asian literature that you ordinarily wouldn’t run into without somewhat meticulous internet research. Highlights of the novels I’ve discovered in these bookstores are The Mermaid’s Tale by Lee Wei-Jing and Rose, Rose, I Love You by Wang Chen-ho.

Taiwan is a country with a novel, welcoming culture derived from a unique amalgamation of Chinese and Japanese influences, and I fully expect it to become the next fetishized travel destination in the next 10 or so years after Japan fever wears off. I hope you can have as incredible an experience as I have had there!