Xiao Liuqiu & Kaohshiung

February 15, 2025March 16, 2025Leave a comment

Xiao Liuqiu

This mini island (off the main Taiwanese island) has a bazillion spellings of its name, but regardless of the name, going there had to be one of my favorite parts of the trip. We were there during Thanksgiving, which was just a regular week day in Taiwan. Our first stop was renting scooters. Chalida was a bit fearful of the scooter, so she ended up on an e-bike and her daughter Rory climbed on board behind me. The first day, we went snorkeling and had a delicious BBQ dinner, with Chalida’s friend Nate joining us. The day of Thanksgiving, I got up early to go scuba diving (more on that below), while the rest of the group slept in. That afternoon, Cassy had a special request that we go to karaoke and after a slow start, everybody got into it.

biker gang, Rory bbqing, Nate & Cassy with amazing karaoke skills

The whole time we were there, we ate so much food, drank so much boba, explored so many beaches, and saw so many green sea turtles.

Nate, Rory, Cassy, me, and Chalida at our last lunch; me & Cassy enjoying a Thanksgiving sunset

Taiwanese Food

Here’s a glimpse of some of the food we ate. Most of this was from Xiao Liuqiu, but some of it was from earlier and later in the trip.

turnip cake; the best green scallion pancakes; similar to the scallion pancakes, but filled with greens instead

sesame noodles, sweet and sour veggie noodles, poop shaped waffles filled with chocolate

Scuba Diving

I figured that one of the best ways to keep my fears in check is to keep doing something regularly so the fear isn’t allowed to grow. I checked iNaturalist to see what nudibranchs were around and one of my favorite species had previously been spotted near the island. I definitely wanted to try to find it. It is a beautiful sea slug that looks like its entire back is full of butterfly wings (Cyerce nigricans). I signed up for two dives on the island and had my guide to myself on the first dive. I told her I loved nudibranchs and she asked if I knew how small they are and I assured her that I did. All of these were under an inch small, so she did a great job of finding these.

Black and Gold Sapsucking Slug, Pustulose Wart Slug, Black Margined Nudibranch

I’m still in love with giant clams, and there were plenty of those to see. The colors and patterns on the inside of the shell are so beautiful.

Small Giant Clam, Noah’s Giant Clams x2

There were also a range of semi-transculent underwater gems.

Florideophycean Algae, Clark’s Anemonefish, Tunicates

We have purple sea urchins in the United States, but white ones aren’t that common. Also, as mentioned earlier, there are green sea turtles all over this island. It’s practically impossible to get in the water and not see one.

Indo-Pacific Rock Boring Sea Urchin, Porcelain Anemone Crab, Green Sea Turtle

I actually found the eel in the picture below. I got my guide’s attention to show her, but I really didn’t know the hand signal for eels, since I’m so new to diving. I gestured for her to come over and she was excited that I found it. The signal is to stick your fingers and thumb out and then bring them together so it looks like the mouth of an eel eating.

Moorish Idol, me scuba diving, Whitemouth Moray Eel

Since it was getting close to Christmas, I took some time to capture these Christmas tree polychaete worms. If they get spooked, they disappear back into their tubes, so you have to approach slowly and carefully and stay a bit of a distance away. I realize they don’t look much like worms, but the rest of their bodies are hidden inside the tubes.

Christmas Tree Worms: white, red, and blue

Kaohshiung

While the rest of the group headed back to Taipei, I stopped for a day in the city of Kaohshiung. It’s way more laid back than Taipei and had a lot of nice bike trails. The first night I wasn’t up to doing too much, so I walked along one of the rivers in town to check out the artwork and fancy buildings.

art sculptures near Pier 2, Kaohshiung Music Center lit up in Christmas colors

The next day I got up early and headed out on some bicycle explorations. As I was biking along the river, I stopped to watch a dragon boat race competition. I visited another Hakka Museum that had more information than the one we had visited in Taipei. I also went to the Art Museum and headed over to a flea market full of the most random items: sculptures, rocks, wooden bowls, mannequins, books, antiques, food, cheap souvenirs. It was a total hodgepodge of items, just like flea markets everywhere I suppose.

dragon boat racing, traditional Hakka clothing, goods for sale at the flea market

Cijin Island

Cijin Island is a cute micro-island off the big island of Taiwan. After all of my other explorations, I took a ferry across to the island and then rented a city bicycle to ride the beautiful bike path going from one end to the other (about 15 km round trip). There’s a bunch of art sculptures along the way, as well as one super windy spot where people were flying kites. I made sure to stop in at Douliu Ice Town to try one of their peanut ice cream sandwiches before I got back on the ferry. I grabbed my backpack from the hotel and lugged it to the train station and hopped on the high speed train back to Taipei.

kite flying, giant shell art, peanut ice cream sandwich

Jiufen & Keelung

February 8, 2025February 8, 20251 Comment

Jiufen

I got to Taipei a few days before the rest of the group, so I planned some mini-adventures to nearby cities that I could get to and back in a day. My first stop was Jiufen, a magical little town set in the mountains. The day I was exploring, it was cloudy and rainy all day, so a stop at teahouse seemed like a good idea. A-Mei’s Tea House is rumored to have inspired the bathhouse in the movie Spirited Away, but that’s apparently not actually true. The idea of this, however, does seem to bring in lots of tourists. Their standard tea includes a set of snacks and a giant bowl of tea leaves. A staff member walked me through how to wash the tea leaves and then prepare it. I’m not sure I got all the steps down correctly, but I did enjoy the respite from the rain.

A-Mei’s Tea House: snacks, tea, cloudy view

Jiufen is a maze of streets going up and down the side of a mountain. The stores are right next to each other and mostly protected from the weather by overhanging awnings. In the morning when I first arrived, not much was going on, but as the day went on, it got busier and busier. By evening, it felt like I was walking through a Moroccan souk: crowded, noisy, and alive.

Every Taiwanese town has its specialities to try and I’m a sucker for new foods I’ve never eaten before. The Jiufen streets are a foodie paradise. A lady was hawking drinks, so I stopped and bought a drink made from apricot kernels, which I didn’t know were even edible. Apparently, the Southern Chinese variety of apricot have less toxins than other varieties, and the drink is made by grinding up the kernels into a fine powder. I also tried the famous Jiufen peanut ice cream roll. It’s basically a very thin crepe, covered with chopped up peanuts, two scoops of peanut ice cream, and a dusting of cilantro. Then it’s rolled up like a burrito and cut in two for the customer. It’s a yummy, savory and sweet dessert all in one.

apricot kernel drink, ridiculously healthy veggie noodle soup for lunch, peanut ice cream roll

Some other food highlights were barbecued mushrooms with a spicy seasoning sprinkled on top and tiny waffle-cake desserts stuffed with different fillings. Jiufen is also famous for its taro balls, topped with a sweet sauce and a variety of beans. I had high hopes for this last one, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.

bbq mushrooms, cake stuffed with taro filling, sweet taro balls mixed with beans

Almost accidentally, I ended up climbing a mountain. I took a bus to the nearby museum about gold mining. As I was wandering around the huge park, I saw a sign pointing up to Teapot Mountain. I’d read about it, and even with the drizzling rain, decided to go for it. I don’t usually hike with umbrellas, but I did on this walk. Taiwanese hikes seems to come in only one variety: straight up with lots and lots of stairs. Fortunately, this one came with nice views. The teapot name seems to come from the shape of the rocks at the top and most of it is roped off for safety reasons. I scrambled around on the new path and made it about halfway up the rocks before I decided they were too slippery to proceed.

lots and lots of stairs, the teapot shape of the rocks, view from the top over the sea

Before it got dark, I did manage to walk through the old tunnels they used for mining gold. I also touched the world’s largest solid gold block, weighing at an impressive 220 kg. Nearby was the Cyuanji Temple with a giant golden sculpture on the roof of General Guan, a Chinese general who lived around 200 CE.

golden mining tunnel, world’s largest gold block, Cyuanji Temple

Zhengbin

This is a sleepy waterfront town that doesn’t have much going on except for its vibrantly painted buildings. There’s a variety of fishing boats parked inside the harbor and the fascinating ruins of a former shipyard, where large boats were once built.

colorful waterfront, old abandoned shipyard

piles and piles of nets, metal squid sculpture, view of the harbor

Heping Island

I stopped in Zhengbin on my way to Heping Island. There’s a large ocean filled swimming pool, but the view of the rocks was my main reason for visiting, They are made of red sandstone, but because of the wind, they have been eroded into some really fun shapes, including one that looks like a nudibranch.

view of rocks, nudibranch shaped rocks, more shoreline

Keelung

As I hopped off the very tiny bus I took from Heping, I heard music and noticed a crowd gathering at the train station. One of my travel rules is to always follow the music, so of course, I went to investigate. After a lot of sleuthing and Google translating, I figured out his name was Qiu Jun (邱軍) and he had won second place on a TV talent show called King of the Voice. After the performance, I headed towards the Keelung Night Market, which is known for its rows of yellow lanterns.

tiny bus to Keelung from Heping, Qiu Jun, second place winner of King of the Voice, view of Keelung Night Market

As with most night markets, there are only a few vegetarian options. I ate passionfruit pao pao bing, which is a shaved ice that tastes like a sorbet. I also found vegetarian spring rolls and scallion pancakes, my go-to when there aren’t too many choices. The Keelung Night Market is several blocks long and in addition to all the food for sale, there are whole sections of carnival games where people can win prizes.

At one point, it was raining pretty hard, so I stopped to watch one game I’d never seen before. After all these years of traveling, I still love the puzzle of trying to understand what is happening, even when I don’t speak the language. Although I’m not entirely sure of all the rules, it seemed like a bunch of mahjong tiles were shuffled around and then the player picked a certain number of them. The player then matched them up on what looked like a bingo board and based on the pattern they made, the player won or lost. I didn’t stick around long enough to see anyone win, but this booth had a steady flow of customers.

passion fruit pao pao bing, spring roll, mahjong-inspired night market game

Taipei

February 1, 2025January 19, 20252 Comments

National Palace Museum

I arrived in Taipei early in the morning and tried to get myself on the right time zone as fast as possible. This meant staying awake all day if I could. My friend Cassy who lives in Taipei and was the impetus for this trip did a great job of feeding me, showing me around her neighborhood, and giving me the lowdown on all the important things I needed to know to navigate public transportation. However, by afternoon, I was ready to crash and knew that I had to keep moving if I was going to stay up. Cassy had work to do, so I headed off for the National Palace Museum. This place was full of beautiful works of art that were moved from Beijing when Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang retreated to the island after being defeated by the communist party. The objects in the collection were a part of the imperial family’s collection and the jadeite cabbage below is one of the museum’s most famous pieces. If you zoom in on the photo, you can see the katydid hidden in the carving.

food inspired artwork: jade bitter melon, jadeite cabbage, Buddha’s hand citron

Giant museums like this are often overwhelming. One approach I have is to just wander into a room, walk around without reading any of the text and pick out a couple objects that catch my eye. Only then do I slow down and read the text on just those few pieces. I’m a person who is very drawn to the written word, so this helps me to focus on wonder and beauty. Below are three of pieces that drew me in. The first was displayed in a room full of beautiful jewels, but it’s emergent complexity from simple iridescent feathers made me stop in my tracks. Perhaps, a bit mundane to some, but I also loved this long scrolling map showing the routes of the old postal system in Taiwan. On special exhibit were a wide variety of inkstones, a common tool where the flat surface was used to grind up ink, mix with liquid, and then it could be used to write. This one looks like the ink started decadently oozing out of control.

feathers on feathers, postal system map of old Taiwan, fancy inkstone

Around Taipei

A few days later, our friend Chalida and her daughter Rory arrived to join us on our adventures. These photos are all jumbled in terms of time, but one of our first adventures was to a Hakka Museum in a nearby town. Chalida’s family is part Hakka, a southern Chinese minority group who were pushed off their land over and over again. Because of their persecution, many ended up in Taiwan and other neighboring countries. They make up about 20% of the Taiwanese population and many large cities have Hakka centers and community gathering spaces to preserve Hakka culture.

We also made it to one of the Beitou Hot Springs spas, which had seven or eight pools of different temperatures and different amounts of bubbles. There was even a giant rock slab to lay down on, which pulled the heat off after a long soak. The nearby Beitou Library is one of the most beautiful buildings in all of Taipei. Cassy and Chalida are both school librarians so we had to get a photo to commemorate the pilgrimage.

Hakka Museum Barbies in traditional attire, Cassy & Chalida & the Beitou Library, fancy tea

me, Chalida, Rory, and Cassy after our Hot Spring dip; Chalida & Rory trying to blend into the mural

Taipei 101

Visiting Taipei 101 is on the must-do list for most tourists. It measures 508 meters (1,667 feet) off the ground and is the second tallest building in the world (after the Burj Khalifa). The inside had an Instagram feel with lots of cute backdrops for taking photos. I really enjoyed seeing the giant mass damper, which is apparently the only one on display in the world. This giant sphere weighs about 1,500,000 lbs and moves in different directions to offset the swaying of the building, which is especially important given the frequency of earthquakes in Taiwan. There are two other smaller mass dampers (not on display) that also help to keep the building stable.

view of Taipei 101, all of us waiting in line to go up, one of the mass dampers

My other favorite part of the experience was the boba shop at the top. Rory and I, being the boba addicts that we are, had to get one since this is clearly the highest altitude boba we will probably ever enjoy. Cassy, meanwhile, got some fancy Taipei 101 themed waffles for us to enjoy. I’m convinced she makes an amazing model and we definitely should submit this photo for their marketing materials.

Cassy displaying delicious Taipei 101 treats, me & Rory and our highest altitude boba, nearby clothing market

Taiwanese Food

Based on a recommendation of one of Rory’s classmates, we made a pilgrimage to Din Tai Fung, a restaurant known for serving up delicious Taiwanese food. The cucumber salad was gone almost as soon as it was put on the table. I was not very impressed with their vegetarian soup dumplings (not very soupy), but their sesame buns were positively divine.

Rory & Chalida & cucumber salad, xiao long bao (soup dumplings), sesame buns

The golden lava buns below also came from Din Tai Fung, the oozing yellow middles are salted egg yolk. Taiwan is a food eater’s paradise and we ate so much while we were there. One relatively recent Taiwanese invention is delicious mango snow, which is basically hardened mango ice cream cut up in a shaved ice machine. It’s as yummy as it sounds.

fried sweet potato balls from a night market, golden lava buns, mango snow

Taiwanese Triptychs

After some time in a new place, certain motifs and recurring images tend to catch my eye. Here’s some of the images I started to notice after a few days.