In late January and early February 2023, my family visited Tammy and I in Taiwan. It’s something I never really thought possible but always wanted. When I think about my family, I automatically put myself back into the “normal” mode, the kind of thinking where moving to a foreign country or going to a coding bootcamp isn’t like, a thing that people do. Yet I always argue that these sorts of things are much more accessible or even easy than people think, and behold, having my family visiting us in Taiwan supported this argument.

My family doesn’t really have the kind of travel experience I have. They’re not totally isolated typical Americans or anything, but this would be their first trip to Asia, and also one of their biggest “adventure” trips, as opposed to traveling for a relaxing vacation on a beach somewhere, so it was for many reasons going to be a very unique experience for them.

I have two reasons to put this blog post together: first, to record and reflect on the experience, and have on the web a sort of scrapbook of what we did and how much fun we had, that any of us can look at or share at any time. Second, I want to share what we did and how we did it, so as to enable other people to take similar trips, or perhaps convince others that trips like this are very much in the realm of Things That People Do.

Planning
The Trip

Planning

The Spreadsheet

Planning a trip can be an overwhelming task, but as has often been preached for overwhelming tasks, the solution is to break it down into manageable pieces. A spreadsheet helps with that. I’ve been making spreadsheets for trips for over a decade now. To some it can seem like overkill, but for even the most simple trip it’s nice to have one spot for all your airbnb links, plane ticket times, a basic schedule, etc. If you’re traveling with more than just yourself, the collaborative ability that comes with a shared doc (not necessarily a spreadsheet) is worth the energy alone if nothing else so you can answer every question with “did you check the spreadsheet?”

We set up a family planning doc months before the trip. This way, the family could see what kind of activities we were cooking up, and suggest which ones they were more excited about, which let us prioritize our planning.

In short, it has a tab for important info, such as emergency numbers (which are different than in the USA!), the address, map links, and webites of our airbnb and personal apartment, both in English and in Mandarin (with the theory being at least they could just show that to a taxi driver if anyone got lost). There was also Tammy and my phone numbers.

This came in handy in unexpected ways, such as at the border when they needed to provide contact information for locals, or write down the address of their accomodations.

Another tab was the “ambitions” tab, which looked like:

ambitions / activities	est % of day	grade of WANT	inside / out	explanation	lead time	link etc
stationary store to get notepads	5%	A	inside	big paper store, pens, fun	0
daan park walk	20%	A	outside	central park of taiwan, birds	0

We filled it out over the weeks any time we thought of something it could be cool to do with the family. As we did so, my family started adjusting “degree of WANT” scores and we got a better idea of what kind of trip my family wanted to do. It was a little hard because it would be their first trip like this, and they also had no idea of what to expect or what was possible, so we added “lead time” and length estimations and whether an activity was inside or out to help everyone have a better idea of what could happen when.

A more casual version of this tab was the “food bucket list” and “caleb and tammy’s favorite restaurants etc” where people basically just dumped cool things they knew about or had heard of. The food bucket list in particular was useful because we could refer to it when we were out and about and be like “oh wait we’re actually right next to a famous guabao place right now, let’s go.” So, while some might think a doc / spreadsheet / schedule is a really restrictive thing, actually it enabled us to be really flexible and nimble.

These tabs fed into a “Schedule” tab that I highly recommend for most trips. For this trip ours looked something like this:

	morning 6-12	afternoon 12-6	night 6p-6a
Sun 29
	6 parents land	12 songshan cultural creative eslite	our house + richard
	6-9 airbnb	13:50-15:30 glassblowing	raohe night market + riverside

It looks better on the actual spreadsheet. Point is, notice we were able to mix hard-scheduled things, such as when my parents land (and Tammy and I needed to be at the airport) or the booked glassblowing glass at 13:50, with more flexible activities, such as being at raohe night market.

We continually tweaked this as we got closer to the trip, and it let us know what was really possible to accomplish in the trip. It fed back into the ambitions tab and let the whole family adjust their expectations. For example, Kenting was desired, but we determined it would basically nuke an entire day, and thus we nixxed it in favor of doing other stuff.

We mostly planned out the first halfish of the trip, with only vague notions of the second half, so that when the family arrived and we had down time, we could plop more blocks of activities for later days. This combination of documented planning and flexibility worked better than I’ve ever seen trip planning work. It was good to know what was going to be going on the next day, so we could chill out and store our energy if needed, make sure to get to bed on time if necessary, or know that we can comfortably stay out late without issue. It prevented nasty surprises for people who decided to stay up too late just to vibe, and also prevented a typical annoyance I have with trips, where activities are lost because everyone got out the door too late.

A flexible but recorded schedule also let us create a really balanced trip, where we could put really hardcore days against more chilled out ones, to prevent burnout. Plus, by keeping a sharp eye on the weather, we prevented regret if we woke up to find a rainy day on the day we wanted to go ride bicycles or whatever.

The trip spreadsheet went so well I’m now an obnoxious evangealist for the concept.

Packing One Bag

Another new thing my family would be trying was onebag travel. I’ve been preaching about this for ages as something basically anyone can do, though I secretly wondered if that was true. Turns out yeah, for my family, it was their first onebag trip and they did really well. They all rolled in with Patagonia bags holding the majority of their stuff. Of course, in my opinion they were overpacked, especially my Dad, who was carrying around this fifty pound monstrosity, but that’s par for the course of a first onebag trip.

Anyway, those considering a trip like this should strongly encourage all participants to investigate and try out onebagging. My family got off the plane, breezed through immigration and customs, and were exiting the airport onto the train in about thirty minutes. Then, we were able to take the Taoyuan express train and transfer to the MRT and have a nice easy ride on trains all the way to our Airbnb because nobody had a massive roller luggage to deal with. It’s a game changer.

Also, throughout the trip, everyone was game theorying their packs, talking about what they didn’t need to have brought, talking about packing strategies, and planning on what they’d do differently next time. It’s just another fun thing.

Accomodation

We went with an Airbnb so we could all stay together in the same place. We also initially thought my family would want to stay mostly keto, and thus we’d need to be cooking a lot, and so would need a kitchen. The Airbnb was a good idea because it was really nice to hang out as a family like we do on most trips. I did discover it’s really hard to find a good Airbnb in Taipei, even at high pricepoints. If you look outside the city you can find some incredible places for really cheap, but in Taipei itself the newer places are too tiny for a family, and the older places are just plain ugly and often gross looking (and plagued with issues like drain smell or bad plumbing).

We stayed at this airbnb near Nanjing Sanming station. It was perfect, being right next to an MRT station, as well as in quick bicycling distance of our own apartment, so if anybody ever got overwhelmed they could always flee to the peace of the apartment.

In past trips to Taiwan, Tammy had booked some really cool hotels. Hotel choices in Taipei are in my experience more interesting and luxurious than Airbnbs, so for those that don’t need one big space for the whole family, I’d recommend looking into that. Outside Taipei though, give Airbnb (or just googling for BnBs) a shot.

Misc Needs

Train Cards

Keychain traincard — The traincard we gave Colette

We wanted to almost always take public transit on this trip, mostly to show off how awesome the public transit system is in Taiwan, but also because of all the reasons that public transit is just superior to driving anyway: more relaxing, everyone can hang out and have a conversation, not too cramped, and in Taipei at least, it’s often faster to take the train. We also wanted to be able to take U-bikes, an incredibly cheap and prolific by-the-minute bicycle rental system in Taipei.

So, before my parents came, we picked up a couple random yoyo cards from 7-11 or somewhere. Tammy added them to her account to make sure they worked with ubikes, although, we aren’t sure that was necessary.

For those coming that don’t have people here to do this prep work, you can pick up a yoyo card from vendors in the airport, and I highly recommend that as the first activity so you can use it right away on the Taoyuan express MRT to Taipei.

SIM Cards

We were planning on getting cheap prepaid sim cards for my family so they could make calls in an emergency or if they get lost or whatever, but also so they could just use their phone data as they please without worrying about huge roaming charges. Plans were foiled when we were given another reason why USA is a clown world country when my family pointed out that their phones are “locked,” which means that even though they paid full prices for the small computers, they aren’t actually allowed to use the small computers. They may use them as AT&T pleases and dictates. That is of course normal and acceptable.

So, SIM card plan out, and anyway our carriers wanted us to show a passport to get prepaid sims which was stupid and annoying. In the end we hit up one of the wifi box vendors in the airport arrivals hall and got an unlimited wifi box for like 1000ntd a week or cheaper. Can’t exactly remember, but it was cheap and got the job done, everyone connected to that wifi when they were out and about.

You could of course look into unlocking your phone, and if you for some insane reason find yourself in possesion with a locked phone that you paid money for, you should absolutely do so immediately.

Money

Taiwan is a cash heavy country. You can get away with only using a foreign credit card, but it’ll be painful and annoying, and you’ll miss out on a lot of activities, such as the night market. If you’re down to only eat at 7-11 (not Family Mart! They don’t take foreign credit cards), you can do it.

So, you need cash. You can always just withdraw at an ATM and eat a small fee of usually around 3$ USD. I set up a Charles Schwab account ages ago that refunds ATM fees and has no transfer fees, so, I just dumped a shitload of cash into that, then my family venmo’d me however much money they wanted to spend. In the leadup to the trip, I withdrew a bunch of cash, and paid for a bunch of stuff when they were here. Worked great.

Scooter Rental

We had the ambitious idea of taking the entire family on a scooter trip from Taipei east through Shifen, Huotong, finishing in Jiufen, and then back. I have a motorcycle, and our neighbor lent us his scooter, so we needed just one more scooter to finish off the ensemble.

I’ve done a whole post on renting motorcycles in Taiwan that I recommend reading for details. In short, get your IDP before you come, make a reservation at a rental spot ahead of time, and you’re good to go. It’s a bit harder now with the place I recommed because they want a local guarantor, but that’s more for heavier motorcycles. You can always look into more traditional rental agencies for just a scooter.

There’s no reason to rent a car here. Don’t bother, just take trains. You’ll absolutely ruin your trip wasting time to find parking and stressing about driving in the dense roads here. If you are somewhere remote like Hualien, just hire a cab for the day, it’ll cost probably around 2-3k TWD.

The Trip

Day One

Airport to Airbnb

My family coming out of departure hall. — The arrival!

Tammy and I rocked out to the airport at like 6am to meet the family there. I’m pretty sure they could have figured out the trains and everything, but no way was I going to miss out on their first impressions of Taiwan. They breezed through immigration and customs in minutes, something Taiwan continues to get right, and because they were one bagging they didn’t have to wait for their checked luggage to get off the plane. They arrived so quickly after their plane landed I was taken by surprise and only managed to snag a blurry first pic of their glorious arrival.

My family coming down the escalator — Loaded down with obligatory covid tests the government hands out to all arrivals.

I was a bit worried that a 14ish hour flight would have annihilated them but they were raring to go. Tammy and I had already grabbed a wifi box before they arrived so we went straight to the train platform and grabbed the next express to Taipei Main Station. Important to grab an express, not a local, even if the local is leaving sooner, because the express only takes about an hour ish or less, whereas the local takes significantly longer. Unfortunately though, no bathrooms on it, nor is there eating or drinking, so don’t rush so fast you skip the bare necessities or you’ll have to bite the bullet and get off the express a stop early anyway to take care of business.

The whole family on the train — Everyone sitting cozy, only about 30 minutes after landing.

Colette and Caleb on the Taoyuan express — Taoyuan Airport express is pretty comfortable.

Outside the window of the train, looking onto the rice fields — The weather was perfect the first half of the trip.

After arriving at Taipei Main Station, we took a Family Mart break. Tammy and I had been really excited to show off convenience stores, because we remember it being a really fun and unusual thing when coming from the USA. The sheer variety of snack packed into such a small space is kinda overwhelming.

My mom browsing familymart shelves — Lots of options

My mom eating a cracker — Keto diet abandoned within an hour of landing

A drink colette got — Always get a weird drink when you go

A tea egg colette got — Unlike the USA, convenience store food isn't a meme, it's genuinely edible and usually pretty good.

We hopped on the red line north to Zhongshan, then transferred to the green line and headed east to exit at Nanjing Sanmin. I was worried my family’s exhaustion would override a willingess to try public transit as a primary mode of getting around, but the transfers went smooth and everyone was looking pretty chipper.

Colette, mom, and Tammy posing in the train station — 14 hours and still fresh af

Family walking to the airbnb — Off the train to their first site of Taipei

Thanks to Tammy’s good Airbnb hunting skills the Airbnb we got was a five minute walk from the MRT exit, so the family got a brief blast of Taipei life before we could retreat to the safety of the Airbnb and get everyone situated and napped up for the next leg of the adventure.

A shot of the airbnb living room — We had a gorgeous airbnb on top of a park.

The family in the airbnb — Well rested and ready to be dragged around the city!

Glassblowing at Songshan Cultural Creative Park

We were always trying to balance maximally showing off Taiwan and adventuring against making sure nobody was burnt out, and I was really worried about that balance towards the beginning of the trip when everyone was jetlagged. Everyone kept up pretty well but it was like, the philosophical debate of the entire trip, what does it mean to maximize a trip and balance that against your restfulness? How much of your energy do you sacrifice knowing you can make up for it when you get home later? And what does that mean for how packed you can get your actual “normal” life?

Anyway after resting up we all walked over to Songshan Cultural Creative Park. I actually felt kinda annoyed during the walk cause it’s a pretty car-heavy part of the city we had to walk through, and to get to the park we had to go around that giant blob of nothing that the city calls the TRA museum (has anybody actually ever been able to go inside?), as well as walk along a major road. I kept saying, “ok but actually Taipei is way more quiet and nice to walk around in,” but the family was confused, saying nah this is already really nice to walk around in. I guess I’m spoiled.

The family walking towards Songshan Cultural Creative Park — Bright sunny day for walkin!

On the way some neighbors were setting off firecrackers, presumably as part of New Years celebrations, and let my family participate. A hilariously cinematic, almost cliche moment. We wanted to explain that they’re really lucky and it’s kinda abornmal to get to witness something so spontaneous and weird, but actually it’s a pretty normal thing to happen in Taiwan. There’s always something going on and people are generally friendly and inviting to anybody curious.

The family plugging their ears from the fireworks — Hella loud

The activity of the afternoon was glassblowing, rated with a high “degree of WANT” by my dad, but we had some time to kill beforehand, so we took them around the food court at the basement of the Eslite. For Americans I think a food court in a mall is a pretty dismal place, and I noticed when we mentioned shopping or going to malls as activities people weren’t really interested because they probably had the American experience of malls in mind, whereas in Taiwan it’s a markedly different thing. Eslite is mostly crafts shops and small businesses, and the food court is comprised of just normal Taiwanese restaurants, not like, Chipotle and McDonalds or whatever. So, my family’s first proper meal in Taiwan was pretty good.

The foodcourt meal — Pork rice, spicy noodles, boba tea, fried tofu, and etc

One thing I hadn’t counted on was people’s desire to be pretty independent when getting food and paying. There was some expectations maybe that they’d be able to fend for themselves when it comes to menus, and I had forgotten that here if there’s no English menu, you’re kinda on your own guessing what a food is from the pictures, or using Google Translate photo mode and guessing from the broken translation what something is. My strategy has thus been to just grab something priced middle to high, which means I usually get something good and filling, though who knows what’ll end up being, but I really enjoy the spontenaeity and surprise of that. There’s also the difficulty around communicating which actual item it is you want on a menu, which can be hard if it’s not in hand and you’re instead pointing at a board behind the staff. Then when it comes to payment, luckily in a mall food court a lot of places take credit card, but there’s still a lot of questions the Taiwanese staff wanna ask you, regarding receipts and company tax numbers and stuff, that can cause some confusion. Plus, there’s an instinct I guess to try and figure out how much something costs before buying it, so I was fielding a lot of questions about “around how much is 300NTD, 400NTD” etc, when in my brain a food is either “around 10$”, “under 10$”, or “expensive,” and I don’t think about it much from there.

Anyway it all got sorted and the family was sitting happy with food they were kinda obsessing over.

Family eating at the food court — Keto fully forgotten

After lunch we had just a smidge more time to burn so we shopped around. Despite lack of interest in malls initially, lo and behold the allure of all the cute little knick nacks a Taiwan Eslite has was a major draw, and I had to shepard a distracted family to the glassblowing place.

Family shopping in Eslite — Checking out the little craft shops

Glassblowing turned out to be really awesome, and I highly recommend it. It shook out to like 20 buck USD a person depending on what kind of thing you wanted to make, and they basically hold your hands as much as you need throughout the entire process, stepping back to let you screw up a bit if that’s how you wanna do it. It’s really hot in there and pretty engaging and exciting. The only downside is they have to fire your glass after so you don’t get to take it home right away, but that turned out to be fine because we symbolically picked it up over a week later on the day the family flew out, so they could see Eslite and the area again with very different eyes.

Caleb and Colette getting gloves on — They provided a bunch of safety gear.

Colette rolling glass — They carefully walked us through all the steps.

Colette holding the glass blowy tube thing

Dad hodling holding the glass blowy tube thing

Visiting Richard

After glassblowing we walked down to Tammy and my apartment to show it off, meet Richard, and rest.

Colette holding Richard — Richard did not seem to know or care what was happening.

Raohe Nightmarket

After some hardcore jetlag naps, we walked to Raohe night market. Normally the plan there is to blitz through and grab a bunch of stuff to go, and then carry it all to the river, but I realized on this run that that strategy results in a big greasy blob of rapidly cooling food, especially when it’s cold out. Not quite as good. Next time, we’ll munch and walk, and then just have a nice river walk after or something.

Eating potato balls at Raohe — Eating puffed sweet potato balls at Raoehe.

Pork buns in the oven — These pepper pork buns are Raohe's most famous food.

Tammy at the riverside — Hanging at the riverside.

Family at the riverside — Monchin at the riverside.

We’d hit the limit, but luckily everyone had it in them for one more train ride, so we caught a quick MRT ride from Songshan back to the Airbnb. Straight to bed after that, we had to get up early the next day to catch a train to Hualien.

Day Two

Train to Hualien

Day two plan was to spend all day in Hualien. Hualien is a famously beautiful city in the middle Southeast portion of Taiwan, known for its Grand Canyon-esque area called “Taroko Gorge,” as well as its beaches. To make the trip work in a single day, we had to leave pretty early, catching an express train around 7am. Unlike the west coast, there’s no HSR, however the train was still quite fast and got us there in about an hour and a half. We got to Songshan station very early and stocked up on 7-11 breakfast, which was quickly becoming the family’s favorite thing to do.

Family on the train to hualien — Jet lag probably advantageous for now.

Once arriving at Hualien station, we hired a yellow cab for the day, costing around 2k TWD for what was expected to be about 4 hours. In the end I think we had him for more like 6 hours and paid 3k.

Hiring a driver turned out to be a great idea. Despite my relative familiarity with Hualien, he still knew way more than me, and suggested a couple really interesting drop off places, including a beach I didn’t know about with really cool rocks we could collect, which my family really loves doing. We literally filled our bags with rocks, great idea before a hike.

Hiking in Taroko

From there we drove up and into Taroko Gorge. It was a day of light traffic, lucky because it can get crazy on the two tiny roads that thread the river into the canyon. The driver often stopped and had us get out to check out some recommended views I hadn’t noticed before. I realized that all the times I had done Taroko I was on a motorcycle and more interested in the ride than getting out to admire the view.

A view of taroko gorge — Lots of really cool temples and pagodas all throughout the gorge

Before lunch, we stopped off for a hike at Baiyang Trail, my favorite Taroko hike that terminates at a cave created when workers accidentally penetrated an aquifer, resulting in a cave with water streaming from the ceiling. It also starts with a pretty cool couple hundred meter hike through a massive, pitch-black tunnel. Unfortunately, parts of the trail were damaged in a landslide, resulting in a very short hike with none of the really impressive and terrifying views of rushing water that I really enjoy. The family still liked it, especially because at the start, a monkey jumped into our cab, and we got to watch a group of monkeys harass people in the parking lot.

Family hiking Baiyang trail — Short little 1km hike

Monkey in Taroko gorge — These monkeys are genuine terrors

After dodging monkeys to get to the cab, the driver took us to my preferred stop-off point in Taroko Gorge, Tianxin Recreation Area, a little bit before the Baiyang trail when coming from Hualien. There’s a bunch of restaurants there that are decent enough, as well as a sort of psuedo-market with stalls of more interesting food. One of the restaurants had some kind of arrangement with our taxi driver, so we went there. My family loved it, I thought it was passable, but apparently to a newcomer even just passable Taiwanese food is pretty good.

Lunch in Taroko — Dumplings quickly becoming an addiction for the family

After lunch we went to a really dope massive pedestrian bridge that went straight over the gorge. It was cool, highly engineered, clearly meant to hold hundreds of people, but we basically had the whole thing to ourselves.

Caleb and tammy on a pedestrian bridge in taroko — Tammy refused to go any further from here lol

Dad on a pedestrian bridge in taroko — Dad was taking tons of videos on his gimbal thing

At this point it was early afternoon and there was a chance we could catch a 4pm express train back to Taipei, which would get us there in time to have a nice sit down dinner somewhere with time to spare for me to pick up a rental scooter for the Jiufen ride the next day. The taxi driver stepped on it but we missed the train unfortunately. I was surprised that he was recommending the station just outside of Taroko, he was under the impression that all the trains were the same, whereas even though it takes an extra 20 minutes to drive to Hualien, catching an express from there would get us back to Taipei nearly an hour sooner than taking a train from the smaller station.

We killed time hanging out in the station and caught the next train back. Great thing about Taiwan, there’s always another train or bus, and it’s really easy to kill time at stations, which usually have all sorts of restaurants and shops. The Hualien station has a genuine TRA gift shop, so we got a bunch of little pins and TRA swag.

By the time we got back everyone was beat. Tammy grabbed everyone food while I biked over to the motorcycle rental shop to grab a motorcycle for Tammy for the next day.

Day Three

By some measures, our busiest day. The plan for day three was to put everyone on scooters and motorcycles and ride from Taipei through Shifen, Huotong, finish in Jiufen, and then ride all the way back. Our neighbor lent us his scooter, so I only needed to rent one motorcycle and we were able to get everyone on bikes.

I wanted this to be another day where we get up at the asscrack of dawn and maximize daylight, but that strategy seemed to be taking the wind out of everyone’s sails, so we tried to be just a smidge more chilled out, getting out of the airbnb around I think 8. First, I had to scooter dad back to our apartment, where the other two motorcycles were stashed, so he could get some solo practice time. The rest of the family ubiked there.

Dad and I on a scooter — On our way to steal your girl

We geared up, said bye to Richard, and began our scootering day trip.

Scootering to Shifen

The first leg of the trip was from Taipei to that 7-11 all the riders meet at. I shot a video of the entire ride before my family visited for those that want to understand the vibes. This leg was basically the most boring, involving a lot of straight riding through Taipei. It got fun once we got to the 109 that goes past Shanshuilu Eco Park, which is normally where Tammy and I tear it up, but we kept it nice and slow for everyone. It was really surreal to be riding with the family, and it had been the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. I had to balance that against my intense focus on making sure we were all riding safe and in the right direction.

Colette after her first leg on the scooter ride — Colette after her first motorcycle ride in Taiwan.

We stopped for breakfast at the 7-11, and just as we were getting ready to leave, we got to watch another genuinely unexpected and weird Taiwan thing happen, some sort of blessing ceremony:

People dressed up in ceremonial costumes near 7-11 — The dude with the big head was being led around by handlers.

People in ceremonial costumes bowing near 7-11 — Each restaurant and business in the little strip got a prayer and a bow.

Tammy’s guess was funeral, mine was that it was some sort of yearly blessing ceremony, bringing good luck or whatever. It was a whole thing, kicking off with a dragon dance and everything. Very cool and unique.

We got stuck behind their caravan for a moment on our way out, but managed to pass them and head on to Shifen. Originally I was going to stop us at Pingxi, predicting that we’d need frequent stops, but everyone was doing fine and just enjoying the ride.

Colette in front of some lanterns — Shifen has lots of good places to take pictures with lanterns.

At Shifen, we parked the bikes for a bit and walked along the old street, which runs along the train tracks. It was a bit too soon for lunch, but we got some snacks, including one of my favorites, which I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of: a three scoop ice cream peanut brittle taco thing.

The river at shifen, from the bridge — One of my favorite things about the rural areas around Taipei is that they build their towns around and into the rivers.

Dad in shifen — Dad got swarmed by children on a school trip.

Then, we did the Shifen classic activity of painting and launching a paper lantern. No mandarin needed, just go to any of the shops selling the big paper lanterns and ask about it in any language, they seem to speak literally all of them.

Mom painting a lantern — You get to paint whatever you want on all four sides of the lantern. They help you turn it.

Tammy painting a lantern — They have various colors of lanterns, all representing various forms of good fortune.

The family holding the lantern — Once you're done, you take it to the middle of the train tracks to launch. When a train comes, you get to watch everyone scatter.

Launching the lantern — They light the lantern for you, and you let it go. It rises quite quickly.

The lantern in the sky — Winds can sometimes blow lanterns into houses, in which case someone with a really long stick comes and pokes it down. It seems they aren't too worried about fires or anything.

Scootering to Huotong

It was just around 1pm at this point so we had to push on if we wanted to catch the rest of our itinerary before sundown. Next was Huotong cat town, a once-dying mining village converted into a cat-filled tourist destination around 2008 through the efforts of a single cat lady. This was high on the list of things Colette wanted to do.

To get to Huotong, we took the southern route that’s much less winding that the northern route, despite being a bit out of the way.

Cat resting in Huotong — Huotong is full of tens of cats, some of which deign to let you touch them.

Huotong is also a really great place to come swimming in the summer, the river is crystal clear and easily accessible, and the town can be reached by train.

The huotong mining bridge — Huotong maintains a mining town aesthetic in many ways, such as this bridge over the train tracks they made to look like a mining tunnel.

After about an hour of petting cats, it was time to move on.

Scootering to Jiufen

Jiufen is a very popular tourist destination with good reason. It’s a really unique town with winding alleys stuck into the side of a mountain. There’s some really good hikes, an old street with really good food, and tea houses with phenomenal views. Allegedly, it inspired Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away,” but that’s just a rumor, so it’s very fun to do the ritual when going of someone saying “did you know that this town inspired Spirited Away” and someone else saying “it’s called sparkling Frankenstein’s Monster.”

View from jiufen — Jiufen is famous for its ocean and mountain views, among other things.

We parked somewhat down the mountain and hiked our way straight to the old street. Our mission was to find yuyuan, a snack for which Jiufen is famous. It’s basically taro and sweet potato balls in a somewhat sweet soup, served hot or cold. Very chewy.

After, we wandered around the old street shops for a while, in the general direction of a really good viewing platform.

Colette in Jiufen old street — Jiufen old street is usually packed with people, and there are hundreds of shops.

Mom and I in Jiufen — Jiufen is also famous for its winding alleys.

We finished off Jiufen at my favorite teahouse, a weirdly frequently empty but perfect teahouse that has a private room for large groups as well as an upper floor with seating for individuals or smaller groups. I’m not sure why it’s not booked out 24/7, it has a phenomenal view of the ocean and really good tea.

Colette and dad in a teahouse in Jiufen — We were all exhausted from an entire day of scootering.

Some tea in Jiufen — We all got little tea sets that came with brewed tea and some tea snacks. Perfect way to finish the day.

We managed to relax for about an hour, perhaps a bit too long, because though it meant we got to hike back to the bikes while enjoying the sunset, it also meant that part of our ride home was in the dark.

Mom coming down the stairs in Jiufen — Hiking all the way back down the stairs.

The sunset from Jiufen — Jiufen has gorgeous sunsets every time I visit.

Tammy on her motorcycle at Jiufen — We met Tammy at the bikes and rode home.

Scootering to Taipei

On the way back we took a more “straightforward” route that happened to be the same route everyone takes to get back into Taipei during rush hour, along the “2 ding.” I regret this because while it was more straightforward and probably faster, it meant sharing the road with hundreds of other scooters and cars at night, which had me white-knuckled that something would happen to Tammy or my Dad, who are less used to the more free-flowing style of Taiwan traffic. Next time, I’d bite the bullet and ride in the dark in the mountains, the traffic would be much less busy and we could just take it slow.

Everyone gassing up their scooters and motorcycles at night. — Gassing up the bikes before returning them.

The journey wasn’t over for everyone. I had to return the motorcycle to the motorcycle shop, then drop the scooter back off at our apartment and leave it in good order for our neighbor who was nice enough to rent it out. There was some forgetfulness, in that I accidentally kept the shop’s helmet they lent us and also accidentally took our neighbor’s key with us back to the Airbnb, making it an overall very draining day! But still, when we finally kicked our feet up at the airbnb around 10:30pm, I was extremely satisfied.

Day Four

The next morning we were all exhausted and sore, and in one case slightly injured, so we left the morning open to do whatever with. First, we checked out the nearby pharmacy, picking up some medicine that’s much cheaper in Taiwan, or only available in the USA with a perscription.

Baked goods — My mom and I raided a bakery as well. Taiwanese bakeries are really fun, they have a huge variety of random stuff you can grab yourself.

Massages

After relaxing for a bit, Tammy booked everyone massages near the Airbnb. This is really easy to just walk in and do, and most massage places are comfortable communicating in a little bit of English. It’s also really cheap in Taiwan!

Daan Park

We started the main part of the day taking the train down to Daan Park. Daan is kinda like the central park of Taipei. It’s a really popular place to hang out on the weekends. We often have picnics here.

We spent about an hour there slowly walking around and bird watching.

Tammy looking at a big poopy bird — Tammy loves these birds, we call them the big poopy bird, because they have big poops.

A big poopy bird in Daan Park — In mandarin they also have the nickname Big Dumb Bird, officially they're called the Malaysian Night Heron.

There’s a really good duck pond in the upper half of Daan Park, which is a good destination when walking south from Daan Park MRT station.

A duckling hiding under a man at Daan Park — Some guy had a baby duckling he was carrying around.

The family noticing the duckling — The family when we noticed the duckling.

A squirrel at Daan Park — They also have squirrels.

Some kind of bird at Daan Park — And whatever these things are.

Dongmen

After the pond in Daan, we made our way west to Dongmen, an area with tons of good tea shops and cafes, as well as two food destinations we wanted to hit. Dongmen is a great area for coworking, there’s lots of cafes to choose from.

The first must-eat was Mango Ice, or in this season, Strawberry Ice. Smoothie House is a famous destination for this, there’s ads for it in the MRT station.

A bowl of strawberry ice — Fresh strawberries on shaved ice, with fruit syrup and strawberry icecream.

The second must-eat is Congzhuabing (scallion pancake), which can be gotten anywhere, but Dongmen has a really good spot. I can’t find a link for it on the map but it’s somewhere around here and impossible to miss because it always has a line.

Dad eating congzhuabing — Congzhuabing is SUPER sloppy, must be eaten carefully.

Cherry blossom tree near dongment — The cherry blossom trees were already starting to bloom in Taipei.

We were tired from all the eating, so we walked down to a really pretty little cat cafe to relax for a while. The cat cafes in Taiwan are more chilled out than the ones in Japan, in my experience. No weird ticket systems or anything like that, they’re literally just cafes that have cats. Though, usually they’re more expensive and busy than other cafes.

Gongguan

After eating in Dongmen, we walked to Gongguan so as to eat more. Our goal was a really famous and Michelin noted Guabao stand, as well as the now infamous, and my favorite, black sugar boba milk shop right next door. The boba shop used to have a line snaking in front of it at all times until there was a social media post accusing them of serving a drink with a cockroach in it (which I still think was faked by a competitor), so the shop changed its name, serves the exact same best-in-the-world drink, and yet doesn’t get huge lines anymore. Oh well, more for me.

Man making guabao — The shop that makes the guabao is quite tiny, and always has a long line.

At this point is was a late 7pm and so we finally called it a night and took the MRT all the way back home. If we were less tired and had more time, it would have been nice to walk around National Taiwan University a bit, as the campus is really beautiful, but we were pretty tired. Shida night market and Gongguan night market are both also nice places to explore and get some good food.

Day Five

Day five involved an HSR ride to Tainan City, a large city in the far South of Taiwan that used to be the capital. It’s reknown for its temples, old European style forts, and like most places in Taiwan, its food.

HSR to Tainan

We went to Taipei Main Station in the late morning, around 10, to get some HSR tickets without pre-booking them, to give us some flexibility in the morning. This was an ok idea, there were plenty of tickets available for trains leaving every 20 or 30 minutes, however this meant we were no longer getting early bird tickets and so the prices were more expensive. Taipei Main Station has self-serve machines to do this, so you don’t need to wait in line at the ticket window if you don’t want, and the machines take credit card as well.

We made the mistake of thinking there’d be drink machines after the HSR gate for us to get coffee for the ride, which was incorrect. Make sure to grab your snacks and drinks before going into the HSR gate! Other than that, the HSR was really nice, only taking a little over an hour to get us all the way to Tainan. From there, we caught a local TRA train from the HSR station to Tainan proper. We got lucky and caught a train just as it was about to leave, I’m not sure how often they leave but this could add some extra time if you don’t get lucky.

Tainan

We took the train from Tainan HSR directly to Tainan Station in “downtown” Tainan. We thought we’d do a big loop south, then west to all the famous temples, but hindsight, considering the heat and distance, it would probably have been better to taxi south and then start walking, or, if we were more limited on time, taxi or walk west directly to Chikan Tower and then tour around from there.

We ended up at a crazy good dry noodle restaurant where we ordered way too much noodle.

Sesame paste noodles in Tainan — Majiangmian, sesame paste noodles. Very good.

My family eating noodles. — Everyone carbing up like their lives depended on it.

We walked west after that, stopping at any cool temples or food things we saw. We cut through some alleys and found this ridiculously good brownie fudge place and went nuts, buying a way too big box of the stuff and pigging out.

Box of brownies. — It came in a ton of different flavors so we just got the variety box, the obvious best choice.

We wandered around the alleys a bit, heading vaguely northwest.

Tammy in an alley in Tainan — Tainan alleys are winding and really cool.

We came out into the small street that feeds into an ancient gate across from the Confucius temple. There were lots of little craft shops and snack stands there, which we resisted.

Mom, Tammy, Colette in front of an ancient gate in Tainan.

We went to our first big historical site, the Tainan Confucius Temple, which was very unique and cool.

Mom and Colette in the confucius temple.

Tammy in front of a gate in the confucius temple. — The temple is in really good condition despite its age.

After that we made our way northwest, stopping at the very small but kinda cool firefighter museum.

Tainan firefighter's museum — The firefighter museum.

Lanterns inside the Tainan firefighter's museum. — The museum was covered inside and out with lanterns.

From there we stumbled onto a really busy Taoist temple where people were tossing massive stacks of ghost cash into a furnace. Just straight hucking fat stacks straight into the furnace. Upstairs a bunch of old people were playing old regional instruments. Very cool place to stop in. Everyone was really welcoming too, telling us to go anywhere we liked and explore.

Some lady praying at a Taoist temple in Tainan

People playing instruments at a Taoist temple in Tainan — Old folks playing some instruments. Taoist temples are always heavily decorated on every surface.

After the temple we needed another break, so Tammy found this really cool drink and dessert shop we could sit at for a while. Drinks with hella mixins, my favorite.

Mochi snack — They had mochi and other snacks.

Finally time for the two main events in Tainan. First, this really cool demolished parking garage / mall that they turned into a public park thing, called The Spring. We cut through snail alley, a cute little quiet street, and buzzed past Chikan Tower, the most popular tourist spot, on the way.

The Spring is weirdly quiet for being in the middle of the city.

Snail alley at night is really peaceful and pretty.

The second main event is lantern festival, in full swing the week my family was visiting. Tainan has a really cool display at one of their temples where they hang thousands of student-painted lanterns. There’s some pretty incredible artistic skill on display!

Mom and colette at Tainan lantern festival

Selection of lanterns at Tainan lantern festival

More lanterns at Tainan lantern festival — Click to zoom into some of the lanterns, there's some really good ones!

After an exhausting day we decided to just take cabs straight to the HSR station rather than trying to time TRA trains. We didn’t get a chance to eat dinner in Tainan so we raided all of Tainan HSR station for various train foods, snacked, and passed out on the way home.

Day Six

Finally, we had finished all our big trips and huge adventures, and it was time to just explore Taipei. Also, this was the day we had scheduled KTV (karaoke) to celebrate my and Colette’s birthday.

Bicycling to Zhongxiao Dunhua

We grabbed a quick traditional Taiwanese breakfast, which basically consists of children’s food: chicken nuggets, little mcdonald’s style hashbrowns, and lots of dan bing (egg pancake). Too much, probably. I highly recommend going to a traditional Taiwanese breakfast, don’t be intimidated by the Mandarin menu! With a little google translate, you can get by.

After, we started a longish walk to Zhongxiao Dunhua, hoping to pick up U-bikes for all of us on the way. Unfortunately, we passed a Cremia, which has some of the best soft serve ice cream in the world, so we had to stop within minutes of breakfast to get that.

Dad eating cremia ice cream — The cone's the best part.

We found a park that had tons of U-bikes, but even better, cherry blossom trees in full bloom!

We realized we were near my friends’ hot sauce shop, Empress Hot Sauce, so we popped in to say hi. I really recommend checking these guys out, their sauce is hella good, all Taiwan sourced ingredients, all really unique and balanced.

We dropped off the Ubikes after a somewhat fraught ride dodging blue trucks and walked to the cafe with the best espresso in Taipei, Cafe Costumice. This was great because every time I go here it’s just a normal day, so I can’t try any of their awesome desserts, but this time I finally I got to try their Tiramisu I’ve always wanted lol.

Colette next to ubikes — Successful U-bike ride.

Dad at Cafe Costumice — Finally just chillin out.

For the previous couple days we had been selecting a subset of photos to put into a scrapbook of our trip. After coffee, we went to the Fujifilm Shop to print them, and hang out a bit more while we waited for Tammy to join us. That done, we headed to the Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT and then to Taipei City Hall to get some food before KTV.

Family walking around Taipei City Hall — Vibing at Taipei City Hall area.

For dinner we hit Tammy and mine’s comfort spot, Kura sushi. It’s a revolving sushi place that’s of higher than normal quality for those kinds of places. It’s weirdly fun, just grabbing whatever strikes your fancy.

Mom and Dad at Kura Sushi — I think this is the first sushi they'd had in like 8 years or something.

KTV

After refueling, we hit the event we’d been saving our energy all day for: KTV at ONCOR (quintessential Taiwan name for a business). We invited a shitload of our friends to hang out with my family, singing karaoke and snacking in our own little private room.

Three cakes at ktv — Tammy got me the chocolate cake I'm obsessed with, and we found a low carb cake for my family, and Jay brought a fish cake.

Clubbing

Things got a little wild, so we sent the parents home and went clubbing. At some point, we got home somehow, and found a playground. Clubbing in Taipei is far better than any I’d done in the USA, if you’re into the scene, I recommend it. It’s also just so much less aggressive than in the USA, everyone’s a lot more chilled out and focused on having a good time. We ended up at Ce La Vie, a tame spot reknown for an outside table area with good views of Taipei 101. We have no pictures, lol.

Day Seven

Day Seven was planned to be a recovery day after KTV, with plenty of time to get supplies for a picnic with friends at Daan Park. I think we spent some time scrapbooking as well.

Family hanging out on the couch — Morning after vibes.

Taipei 101

We wanted to hit the fancy supermarkets in the basement of Taipei 101, so we figured we might as well go up the thing. Unfortunately, the weather had turned in the second half of the trip, so it was pretty foggy.

Colette and mom taking pictures out of Taipei 101 — Even on foggy days, it can be cool to go up Taipei 101. You can see the massive counterweight plus some other little bits and bobs they have.

View down the emergency stairs of Taipei 101 — This is my favorite part of going to the observation deck of Taipei 101: for some reason you have to change between observation floors using the emergency stairs, and if you look down you can see down the gap all the way to the ground floor.

Colette in the Taipei 101 mall — Also, Taipei 101 mall is pretty cool, and worth hanging out in. It has a huge collection of watch shops, if you're into that.

Daan Park Picnic

After grabbing some fancy cheeses and other snacks, we took the train over to Daan Park, where we found a gazebo and had a little picnic with some more friends. This is one of my favorite daytime activities in Taipei.

Big poopy bird in Daan park — Tammy immediately hunted down a big poopy bird.

Emily at the picnic. — Lots of friends came! Unfortunately it was a little cold and drizzly.

It was really cool that we were able to gather some friends and introduce my family to them. It’s been really easy to build a social circle in Taiwan, and because of the ease of getting around and the variety of activities to do, I feel like our social life has been way more rich here than it was back in the USA. Plus, most of our friends are immigrants, a subsection of people that I think self-selects for enjoying a slightly more exciting life.

Day Eight

Drizzles were keeping us a bit down, but luckily there’s plenty of inside stuff to do in Taipei.

Colette eating a 7-11 breakfast — First was the obligatory 7-11 breakfast.

Jade and Flower Market

Sunday is the perfect day to go to the Jianguo Flower Market and Jade Market right next to it, both near Daan and Daan Park MRT stations. They’re both massive outdoor markets, but covered by a highway overhead, so perfect for rainy days as well. They’re only open on the weekends though!

Dad at the flower market — The flower market can be frustrating for tourists because you'll probably see some plants you really want to buy, but there's no way to take them home :(

The jade market is a great place to get souveniers.

Mom and dad at the jade market — The jade market can be overwhelming. It has hundreds of vendors.

Mom at the jade market — The prices are pretty reasonable, and vendors allow for a bit of haggling.

After the market, we wandered vaguely towards Guanghua, hoping to find lunch. We were lucky to find a crazy good dumpling place that was soon to close for the day, but they still sat us.

Mom and Colette looking at dumplings — The dumpling obsession was real.

Pork dish — This pork was like the kind they put in guabao and was obscenely good.

Three cup chicken — Three Cup Chicken, very Taiwanese.

Guanghua Digital Plaza

After lunch, we walked to Guanghua Digital Plaza, which is both one specific building but also a term to describe the area which has several other malls as well as a neighborhood of various electronic stores. It’s like a mini Akihabara. It’s pretty cool for nerds but if you’re on a trip with mixed nerds and non nerds, you can send the non-nerds to the newly opened DON DON DONKI, a Japanese everything-market that’s absolutely insane, a “you gotta see it to believe it” kind of place. Really though the whole area is cool no matter your inclinations.

Lantern Festival at Sun Yat Sen

The big event for the day was checking out the Lantern Festival stuff at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall, which is a pretty cool spot to check out even when there isn’t a holiday. For lantern festival, though, Taipei had gone all out.

The giant robot bunny — The main exhibit was this gundam bunny thing that was like 3 stories tall and moved around a bit. Terrifying. Adorable.

The family in front of the gundam bunny.

Colette at the lantern festival. — Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall is huge, but it was still totally packed. And raining.

Another bunny exhibit at lantern festival. — They had a lot of really cool light exhibits all over the park.

At one point we were really tired and needed a break, and we stumbled into this weird cafe that’s kind of inside the Memorial Hall. Turns out, it was a carb-free cafe, with no carb ice cream and stuff. Taiwan provides!

After, we went to a Yakiniku place near Sun Yat Sen that I had booked, so we could try Wagyu steak. Also, yakiniku is the vibe for rainy nights.

Colette in the yakiniku restaurant — The restaurant was cozy and adorable.

Day Nine

Our trip was winding down, and the weather pushed us for more cozy, relaxed days. Thinking ahead on this, the day before, I had managed to book a spot at a popular cat cafe, as well as a hot spring hotel in Beitou.

Cat Cafe

The cat cafe we went to actually has pretty good food, and a fair number of cats. It’s kind of expensive, but you can hang out there for hours just chillin with cats, so it’s pretty worth it. For a place like this, it’s a good idea to make a reservation for a big group.

Cat themed mango smoothie — The drinks were all cat themed.

Toast cube thing — We had a healthy, well-rounded breakfast of giant cubes of toast, mango smoothies, and french toast.

Hot Spring

After filling up on bread and sugar, it was time to sit in hot water somewhere pretty. Out of laziness we grabbed cabs to the hotspring hotel I booked in Beitou, a bit of a journey. There’s lots of hot spring options there, but I recommend trying to get one with a nice big “public style” hot spring shared by all guests, or, a private one that’s huge so you can have your whole family in one room. Other hot spring hotel offerings will just be a little room with a big bathtub, not as nice a vibe on a rainy day.

A church in Beitou — Beitou is a really cool area to explore, you could spend at least half a day if not more wandering around the green library there, as well as other spots. Unfortunately we didn't really have time for that.

Addiction Aquatic

After the hot spring, we grabbed a cab to the supremely strange Addiction Aquatic Development. Hard to describe that place. It’s a supermarket with like four different restaurants, but also a fresh seafood market. Whatever, all of its restaurants are really good, basically you just go there and pick a spot that you vibe with. We went to the barbecue restaurant because it was outside and quiet.

The restaurant was a little confusing, basically they brought us over to coolers full of fresh fish, and we picked what we wanted to eat. There were all sorts of deals and combos that make up the backbone of the Taiwan restaurant industry that the waitress thought it was really important we understand, but in the end we sorted it and ended up ordering probably way too much food.

Colette and I at addiction aquatic — I think we were hella hungry.

Mom and Colette eating dessert at addiction aquatic. — After dinner, you can get dessert from the supermarket.

Day Ten

Sadly the last day came sooner than we thought! Maybe because we packed our days full we barely had time to think straight. Luckily, the family’s flight was quite late in the day, I think around 7pm, so we had plenty of time to do a couple last minute things on the list.

Colette and Mom with Richard — First, we dropped off everyone's luggage at our apartment, and got one more Richard hangout session.

Din Tai Fung

We grabbed U-bikes and rode down to the Din Tai Fung near Taipei City Hall. Din Tai Fung is a super famous soup dumpling restaurant. Pricy but perfect every time.

Mom eating noodles — Wrestling with the fact that this is the last noodles she'll get for the forseeable future.

Hair Wash

After Din Tai Fung, we U-biked to Tammy’s favorite hair was spot in Taipei. Hair washes are like refreshing head massages, great for in the summer when you’re all sweaty and gross.

Mom and dad near ubikes — One last U-bike ride!

Mom and colette in the hair wash salon — The perfect way to end a busy trip.

Back to the Airport

Fittingly, before heading back to the apartment to pick up luggage, we biked back over to Songshan Cultural Creative Park to finally pick up the glass things we had made on the very first day of the trip. They turned out really well!

Then, sadly, it was time to go back home, grab the bags, and head to the airport. We hit the Taoyuan Airport MRT, snagged one last picture in front of the weird big dick art, and said sad goodbyes! Though I’m betting everyone was so tired it was probably nice to have an uninterrupted 14 hours of guaranteed sleep time.

Mom, dad, and colette in front of the big dick art — Colette's thumbs downing leaving, not Taiwan!

It was really sad to say bye to everyone. The only upside is that Tammy and I had booked a one hour spa for right after we dropped off the family, so we had a really nice pure relaxing activity after all the hustle and bustle of the trip. It helped lessen the sting of saying bye!