Taiwan

I got into Taioyuan airport and managed to meet up with my god sister and her mom at the foreign entry line which was pretty cool timing. They were supposed to land an hour before me and had the time to settle down so we were behind schedule technically. We hopped on the train to Taichung right away. We did however run out of time to grab the phone card I reserved but that cost almost nothing and much less than the train ticket we were about to miss. We ended up having to go to a phone store nearby.

Spent some time meeting up with her family, they helped out with the phone card stuff and we had lunch at Din Tai Fung. We pretty much just ordered a ton of dumplings for the table. The menu was very different than I'd seen in Los Angeles.

After that I had reservations at Minimal. It was on social media as an ice cream omakase but it's just a ice cream pre fixe menu. Months later this place got a Michelin Star. The reservation process wasn't setup AT ALL for foreigners so I had to contact them on Instagram. Like to reserve a full course there you had to provide a bank routing number and submit a deposit or something.

So that's the menu on the left and the temperatures every item reached to create it. I can't even begin to describe the flavors and textures. The third one would like melt instantly on your tongue. Most of ingredients were herbs or fruits that only have scientific English names.

After all of this I got to try a few of their ice cream flavors that are available for takeout or in a fancy taster package for delivery. Anyway it was mind blowing because each flavor consisted of a head, body and finish. So basically when it reached your mouth it tasted like pear, then it tasted like yuzu and then afterwards you'd be left with the flavor of white wine.

I heard about this homage to the Hong Kong protests in Taiwan. It's not a tourist destination or anything, in fact it's kind of hidden. It happened to be at an underpass nearby so I knew I had to check it out.

I had to figure out the buses and head down to one of the big night markets. You really need to prepare yourself for the bus because it's kind of a whirlwind if you're not familiar.

The night market here was a lot to take in. Luckily the lines aren't insane like at night markets in the US except for the most popular ones.

This is a train station under construction and the whole area was being developed. We got traditional Taiwanese breakfast and then met up with our planned tour. First stop was this Japanese ice cream shop with this European décor. I very quickly began to realize that Taiwan had SO many Japanese chains and stores that it was almost like an extension of Japan. I know that might be upsetting for some Taiwanese people to think about because the country was occupied during the war.

The tour took us to different places around the city but the grand finale was the mud flats. It was a very long walk through these boardwalks to get out to the shallows. There were so many people. Got to try this sticky rice cooked in a tube of bamboo that had to be broken open to eat.

We took the train back up to Taipei and had our next tour. We got a driver for the entire day and it came out to be about 150 dollars total. Took us to and through all the different places we wanted to go to and we got really fresh seafood.

Wild pineapples!

People lighting lanterns off into the sky.

We drove by Jioufen even though we ultimately decided not to go. I got this picture of the crowds entering the small alleys. It's probably the biggest tourist attraction in Taiwan right now but kind of a hassle and obviously a tourist trap.

We mainly walked around Shifen where people set up large burning lanterns to fly in the air and also has a train that goes right through the street where everyone has to get out of the way when it comes.

Keelung MiaoKou Night Market had so many people even before sundown but there were definitely more food stalls and small restaurants here. MiaoKou means temple entrance.

That night we walked around Ximending which is Taiwan's Times Square. The next day we hopped in a car and went out to Tamsui. There was such great and cheap food during the day even though it's more of a nightly stroll kind of district. There's even a Portuguese fort here.

My god sister and I ended exploring Ximengding even more looking in random mall basements for the foods we were craving. After that I set off for Okinawa alone.

Okinawa