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Tuesday, November 1, 2011 @ 2:56 AM PERMALINK

After spending 2 amazing days in Hualian, we returned to Taipei and decided to head to Danshui and Beitou.

Danshui is Taipei’s seaside boardwalk and is easy to get to by metro. Just get off the metro at Danshui station and walk towards the sea. Once you get to the sea, you can see the boardwalk



Apart from the boardwalk, there are also a number of historical buildings that we decided to take a look at first.




Steps up to the Red Castle



The Red Castle has been converted to a restaurant (sadly) and thus is honestly not much to look at. After the Red Castle, we got hopelessly lost in the narrow residential alleys of the area before chancing upon the church.





We then tried to navigate ourselves back to the boardwalk since walking in the heat was really starting to get to us but soon found ourselves at the gates of Aletheia University.

The Aletheia University grounds are beautiful and European styled like many of the buildings in this area. This style of architecture is due to the Portuguese influence on Taiwan when they invaded the country in the 1600s.









After viewing the university, we found our way to Fort San Domingo which is a bit like our own Fort Silso. You can walk through the fort and view the history of the Spanish occupation of Taiwan and view how they lived.









After San Domingo, we walked down towards the boardwalk.





We came across this building, which is an arts gallery of sorts. (I cant remember the name of this building nor can I find anything about it on google) Entrance was free and we ducked in to hide from the rain and to enjoy a little air conditioning for awhile. There was a photo exhibit going on inside that was showcasing photos that captured the spirit of Danshui.




The walls of the gallery were built with old roof tiles of other buildings that have been demolished in Danshui.

On the Danshui boardwalk there are a ton of souvenir shops selling all sorts of goodies. They run from the run of the mill Taiwan magnets to more creative items such as build it yourself postcards.



We came across this street artist who was hard at work on this masterpiece before stopping for some famous Taiwanese styled ice-cream, only 10NT (yay)




Please try and keep your minds out of the gutter


Cute little animals styled out of fruit, too cute but also too dear for my pocket to afford. There was also a banana dog and sweet potato seal that I really was tempted to buy. 



After loading up on loads of knick-nacks, Kah and I went to shoot BB guns at balloons. I’m terrible, I hit only like 8 balloons while sharpshooter Ng shot like 16 or something.


Trying to hit balloons with BB pellets. A good aim ; I am not. 


After claiming our winnings (4 bottles of bubbles) we headed back to the metro station and went toward Beitou.



The entire Xinbeitou district is very Japanese styled and there are various attractions for you to walk through. Unfortunately, we only got there in the evening at about 530pm so a lot of things such as the Plum Gardens and the hot spring Museum were already closed.


The town of XinBeitou


The Hot Springs Musuem, which was closed by the time we got there

To get to the public hot springs, take the metro to Beitou station and switch trains to get to XinBeitou, from there, follow the signs and it will take you about 10 minutes to reach the Millennium Public Hot Springs.


The entry point of Millenium Public Hot Springs



Entry to the public hot spring is 40NT. For the price you pay, don’t expect it to be a private experience, hot springs are a national past time and a lot of the people in the hot springs are elderly folk over 50.

The hot spring is also mixed gender and so bathing suits are required. If you are the shy type and don’t want to look super out of place, wear a one piece bathing suit. I was the only person in a bikini and while there are no rules against it and while I wasn’t treated poorly because of it, it may be a little disconcerting for some.

There is also a method to approaching the hot springs. There are five separate pools. Three pools (warm, warmer and hot) and two cold pools. You are supposed to slowly work your way up to the hottest spring by dipping in the hot pools one at a time with dips in the cool pool after each temperature level.
So the right sequence would be:  Warm to cold--> Warmer to cold-->Hottest to Cold
This is so your body has time to adjust to the rapid change in temperature.

My guess is that this is written amongst all the signs but I don’t know how to read Mandarin so being totally oblivious, I jumped from the warm pool to the hottest pool, much to the amazement of the old men in the pool. There aren’t a lot of people in the hottest pool so I presume that in the first place going in is something that not everyone attempts let alone not doing it the correct way.

It was there where an elderly gentleman informed me that I could have died (if I were not so young and fit. HAH, Fit) and told me the proper way to do things and that I should go get a drink of water to rehydrate. For the record, your heart really does start working overtime if you don’t do it the correct way, so please learn from my stupidity.

Many people skip the public hot springs and opt for private hot springs with hotels or spas ; these generally don't come cheap and you'd miss out on a genuine hot spring experience but if you are not thick of skin or don't like the idea of sitting in small pools of boiling water with old strangers, you may want to consider purchasing a package with a hotel/spa.

Once I was done with the hot springs, I went to the Beitou Public Library to meet Kah who was waiting for me there. The library is beautiful. It has a beautiful courtyard and the main material used in its construction is wood.




How beautiful is this? 


I read in one of the library brochures that the design of the library was to make it look like a tree house. 



After Beitou, we headed to Shilin Night Market for dinner and shopping. We had amazing beef noodles for 90NT (not exactly cheap) but still one of the better beef noodles I’ve ever eaten. After that, we embarked on mad shopping (for Kah) and more controlled shopping for me (still recovering from Bangkok).

Apart from the crazy amount of clothes there are in Shilin, there are also a ton of food stalls.
Bags and shoes in Taiwan are very worth buying however if you have tiny feet like us, you may have a problem finding shoes that fit. Bags go from anything like 250NT (for a small sling) to 500NT for a larger shopper and if you are super lucky, you can get shoes from about 200NT. I managed to score a pair of flats from WuFenPu for 100NT.

Apparel- wise Taiwan does have its own brands that make okay quality clothes but most of the clothes are about the same quality as you can get in Bangkok except slightly more outdated and expensive.

There are a few things in Shilin that are must eats, unfortunately we missed all of them because we didn’t find them or because the queues were too overwhelming. I did have some pretty good cheese fries from a shop called Deadbeat Chicken though.

No pictures though, was too busy eat/shopping (oops)

Next up: Final Day in Taiwan, Yangmingshan and our final drunken night at Brass Monkey

Labels: Taipei, Taiwan, travel

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