Taroko National Park

Of all places worth seeing in Taiwan I believe is Taroko National Park (太魯閣) on the eastern side of the island.  Unfortunately, it's not the easiest place to get to due to its narrow, winding road along the eastern coast.  It took dad 3 hours each way driving along the 蘇澳公路, which suffered significant damages during the recent rainstorm.

In order to cross this bridge you'll have to get a permit 4 days prior...

 The bridge all the way at the top was originally built by the Japanese during their occupation of Taiwan.

 'Not absolutely safe', so the point of the helmet is?

 Views along the way

 Had this patch of beach been in the US, resorts would have popped up all around it.  However, this beach is deserted.

 After getting back into Taipei, dad stopped off at this place to get us some scallion pancakes. This is where he buys the pancakes and brings them to the US for V.

Finally J & A approved.

 Dinner was at 玉麵堂.  They had one of the best beef noodle soup.

This is where my Taiwan trip ended with one more day left, as I fell ill shortly after dinner.  However, J and A did manage to get their 鼎泰豐 and shaved ice the next day.

Cute...

小龍包

 Smoothie House

Mango shaved ice

 釋加, sweet and oh so delicious.  Too bad V you won't be able to have any because it'll be out of season by the time you go.

Taipei 101

After finding out that the 貓空 Gondola was out of service, we headed out to Taipei 101 after breakfast at 永和豆漿大王.  Mom and dad had split to go get their exams at the hospital.

The political correctness of the Taiwanese people.  Imagine calling the elderly in the US 'senile', you'd get caned to death...

Taipei 101

It takes 37 seconds to travel 89 floors.

Some impressive engineering.

And a really smoggy Taipei, what a shame...

The yellow rooftop building is the Sun Yet Sen Memorial.  That was the best view I could get of it as both J & A vetoed the idea of checking out the place.  No food?  No go...

The endearingly coined 'damper baby'...

Some impressive coral carvings shown on the level below the observation deck.

For dinner we decided to try our luck at the 饒河 night market.  Dad didn't know where it was (naturally), but thanks to google map, we found it.  

The temple outside the market

No one was impressed with the famed 胡椒餅.  (A tough crowd to please).

I did finally find something I liked (no one else thought it was anything special).  Yummy grilled squid.

And J found something he liked as well.  饒河餡餅.

Two down, one more to go...search is still on for A...

At this juncture, I'm totally impressed with the progress Taiwan has made.  The city is relatively cleaner and less chaotic.  Not to mention the MRT, which rivals those in HK and Singapore, and leaves everyone else (Japan, US, and Europe) in the dust.  If only the US cities could upgrade their subway systems.  NYC's stations, Boston's trains, and SF's ticket vending machines now all seem so 'third world' in comparison.  According to dad, Taiwan is building one new MRT line a year!  That will make the whole city even more accessible, and will help relieve the congestion and smog above ground.  This is what LA absolutely needs, but the city government is too paralyzed to do anything.

Comedy Of Errors

Day 2 will always be remembered as the 鼎泰豐 debacle.  As always, mom was waiting for everyone else to pile into the car so that we could get to the restaurant before 11AM, which per 嬸嬸 was the opening time.  Long story short, mom didn't want to walk from the 中正紀念堂 MRT station to the restaurant, so we got off at a different station to transfer to a bus that would drop us off right in front of 鼎泰豐.  We ended up waiting 40 minutes for the bus, and to make matters worse the bus route had changed so that it no longer stopped in front of the restaurant.  Needless to say, we didn't get to the restaurant by 11AM.  By the time we got there the wait time was an hour.  At that point no one wanted to wait an hour, except for mom, so we ended up settling for something else.

The crowd outside the restaurant...

So a warning to those visiting in February, insist on getting off at the 中正紀念堂 MRT station and walk there.  It's really not that long of a walk as we ended up walking to the memorial after lunch anyway.

We got there just in time for the changing of the guards.

Poor mom.  Not only did she not get to have 鼎泰豐, she ended up walking more than she had bargained for, as we walked further to the Taipei train station and then took the MRT to 西門丁, and walked some more over there.  By then we had to put her out of her misery by telling them to go home.  The lady was exhausted.

Some of the sites along the way.

Mister Donut, recommended by the 'Hungry Girl's Guide', was absolutely awful!  Cute, but awful.  Tasted nothing like donuts; more like chewy fried dough.  Even dad who usually has a high threshold for bad food declared it a 'fail'.

So-so fried chicken

So-so cream pastry

Quail eggs

Sugar coated fruits

By dinner time we were all ready to finally have some awesome food.  So we headed out to 師大 night market.  This market is actually much better than the 士林 night market because of the variety of food and the younger crowd.

The crowd

Though the food still failed to impress any of us.

Green tea ice with red beans and green tea ice cream was actually quite tasty.

So the search goes on...