A significant cultural difference between Drexel University and the University of Hong Kong is that they have a week off in the middle of the semester called ‘Reading Week’. For locals, as well as some exchange students, this reading week is considered a week where they study for upcoming midterm exams in the following week. I had my midterm exams before reading week, so it was a chance for me to go on a small adventure! My friend and I decided to take this chance to take a 5-day trip to Taiwan. This week’s blog will be some highlights of how my said trip went including visiting old friends and exploring this new city.
We landed on a Sunday afternoon, and after learning about the Taipei subway system at the airport, we started our 2-hour journey to get to our hotel located near National Taipei University. Eventually making it to our accommodation, we dropped off our things and made our way to dinner with a friend’s friend attending NTU. One of the dishes that Taiwan is especially known for are beef noodles (牛肉面), making it easily available in all areas of Taipei. Given how easy it is to get a bowl, the fight for the best noodles is a constant battle. After dinner, we decided to get dessert and were able to try red bean shaved ice.
On our official first day in Taiwan, we decided to head to Jiu Fen (九分), a small town about two hours from the central city of Taipei. During our time in Jiu Fen, we were able to try a lot of different desserts local to the area as well as some delicious treats at the food stalls. It was at Jiu Fen I was able to fall in love with red bean mochi with strawberry, the mix of flavors was something I hadn’t tried before but I really enjoyed the texture and sweetness of the strawberry. Something else I enjoyed trying was this A-Zhu Peanut Ice Cream Roll, a rice paper with strawberry sorbet and crushed peanuts inside. At the beginning it had an interesting flavor but after it began to taste like a better cold version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After Jiu Fen, given the nature of the long journey we headed back into the city where we were able to go to the Raohe St. Night Market. We headed in when it had just opened so there weren’t that many stalls open but as the night progressed, we were able to try different Michelin Guided Foods as well as desserts. We had lamb bone soup, pork toasted buns, sweet sausage, and watermelon juice. Eating at this market was definitely a great experience, as I was able to practice my Chinese while ordering food as well as greeting locals.
Being only 20 minutes away, naturally on our second day in Taipei we headed to the Zoo. Having a variety of animals from all over the world, my favorite is always the big animal enclosures. Seeing the elephants, pandas, and hippos only 20 feet away is a great experience where you can witness their beautiful features. From the zoo, there is a gondola that makes stops at surrounding towns, so naturally, we hopped on and took the gondola to a town named Maokong where we were able to try their cat ice cream. It’s named after a cat because mao (猫) in Chinese means cat. We also had a quick snack before going on a walk around the town and heading back to the gondola. After the gondola, we went to dinner with a couple of old friends in another night market in the northern part of Taipei. The market was called ShiLin, which is where we were able to try unique flavors like papaya milk, sesame sauce cold noodles, beef, and pork baos, as well as an insanely big fried chicken.
Overall, my time in Taiwan was a great experience, being able to practice my Mandarin skills as I interacted with locals and old friends alike. Traveling with a new friend was a great experience, being able to discover new places together with our limited Chinese. As great as our time was in Taiwan, it was great to get back into the rhythm of things as midterm season began.
