Taipei – straight to your heart

I spent few months in Taipei and completely fallen in love with this city. Here are few of my favourites places, not a word about night markets and one – “not to do”.

Where to eat in Taipei

• Kao Chi YongKang Main Restaurant – Great food, service and fair prices, always good choice. Especially if you too tired to wait for Din tai fung around the corner.?
  Save place for dessert and head down the street to the king mango or one of the other shaved ice shops, ?you can have take out, there is nice park in the middle of the street. Heavenly!
  
• Din Tai fung is a must. found one of the brunches and go. I loved the spicy sesame noodles. and Dim sums, of curse.
• Buns, buns, buns. When I die, please burry me in their black sesame bun.
• Great vegetarian restaurant Ooh Cha Cha

Art in Taipei

• Moca  -the Museum of Contemporary Art, taipei. I’ve been there few times, always great exhibitions.
• Pon ding – Cool gallery / zin shop / caffe.
• Creative park – Galleries, cafes, small designers shops etc…
• Treasure Hill – Artist Village. Located in an old Japanese water company structure, now days a vibrant complex of galleries, cafes and art shops. Try to catch at the open studios events. 

Night life Taipei

• Revolver. Just go.
• Fucking place – Probably one of the best bars in the city.

Cafes to work in Taipei

all of them are great for spending sometimes working on your laptop:

• Yaboo cafe
• Sugar man
• getmore lab
• Kaya kaya cafe
• Cafe Kuroshio
• Homey’s cafe
• I would never recommend Starbucks, unless it was such an amazing building.

Around Taipei

• Climb to Elephant mountain, not just for sunset, it’s beautiful up there, and you would want to spend sometime strolling around after all those stairs…
• The Maokong Gondola – you can spend half day exploring all the beautiful spots and the stunning view from the gondola.
• Day trip to Beitu hot springs (bring your swimming suits!). You can soak your body in boiling volcano water at private luxurious spa or at the public bath.
• Tamsui district – Head over to see the harbour, the ocean, and some greenery scene. Great escape from the city.

Shopping in Taipei

• Guanghua Digital Plaza  All you can dream of gadget and electronica.
• In an underground passage beneath Taipei main station exists Manga and toys heaven.
• Around here – in one of the buildings you get black hole that transfer you to mini Tokyo in the heart of Taipei. Manga, cloths, video games, dolls extravaganza.

Not to do in Taipei

Do not pay to go up to the Taipei eye 101.