Taipei - Day 1

Taipei, Taiwan
Day 1, 29 March 2008

Arrival, Taoyuan International Airport

I arrived in Taoyuan using China Airlines from Frankfurt very early in the morning. Since I just do a transit, I don't want to bring all my luggage out of the immigration. For this there is a so called "bonded baggage" service, which will keep your luggage inside the airport and only can be taken when you fly away from Taoyuan again.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

After leaving my small suitcase at Billy's house, having breakfast and took a short rest, we went directly to the city. Our first destination is the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. We didn't really spend lot of time there, just saw the memorial hall and took some pictures.

Longshan Temple and Hwahsi Night Market

Next destination is the Longshan Temple. Probably there was a kind of ceremony in the temple on that day, because it was crowded and the people were chanting prayers all the time therefore I didn't dare to take pictures inside.

From there we then walked to the Hwahsi Night Market. There are so many food sellers there. You can see many fresh sea food but also few exotic food such as snake and even small crocodile.

Ximending Shopping District

We walked around in Ximending for a while. The area was very crowded, mostly with young people. From there, we walked to Billy's favourite Beef Noodle Soup shop. Also reachable on foot from Ximending is the Presidential Office Building.

Shilin Night Market

Shilin Night Market is the biggest night market in Taipei, I guess. In the main street we first went to the toilet restaurant. In the night market alley, it was amazingly crowded and you really can move slowly. There you can find many different fashion stuffs. If you want to eat something, there is another food court building nearer to the subway station.