#127: Four Nights in Taipei

After just under a week, Ivan and I traded the humidity of Singapore for … the humidity of Taipei. Consider this an addendum to my guide from January 2024: we went back to some old favourites, but also saved a few new-to-me places I’ve been excited to relay.

Some context from my original post:

I spent a few summers in Taipei as a teen. My sister and I were ostensibly there to improve our Mandarin — a convenient academic excuse to drink bubble tea like water and eat very well for very cheap three, but more often four, times a day. Having grown up rewatching The Parent Trap, those daily classes in an echoey, likely since renovated, university building were our closest analogue to a woodsy sleep-away camp.

It was there that we picked up Taiwanese accents that we held onto for years; I got my period there on my 14th birthday; torrential rains fell punctually at three to briefly ease the day’s humidity; and almost everyone competed for the title of the warmest person we’d ever met.

To start, a brief moment for Taiwanese fruit boxes in all their candy-coloured glory:

Taipei’s best-known night market, Shi Lin, is a circus of commerce with a side of fried food. Which is fun, and fine—there are worse things than gnawing on a hammered-thin chicken cutlet while perusing kitschy socks and iPhone cases. But since this was Ivan’s time in Taiwan, and crucially his first Taiwanese night market, I wanted to take him to one where food is more than an afterthought.

When our taxi driver told us Ningxia Night Market was his favourite, I knew we were in for a treat. But first, I asked him to drop us off nearby at Earthing Way, a store selling incense, neo-Chinese unisex clothing, and tableware. We admired the funky (very Snufkin-esque) hats on offer, and strolled around the area to work up an appetite.

The parts of Datong district near Dihua old street were a blind spot of mine, and I’m glad we had time to spare; the heat was no longer stifling at 5pm, so we could explore without playing The Floor Is Lava with every square inch of sun-baked pavement. The area is a hodgepodge of Chinese shophouses and Japanese colonial era Western Revival buildings; Ivan remarked that the old facades and signs reminded him of Hong Kong’s Kowloon City.

We stopped by Qinjing Old Warehouse, which sells antique bric-a-brac like old Taiwan beer glasses, and then had a glass of wine in nicely air conditioned The Velvet Aboveground, where we flicked through a Taiwanese cook book. Finally, we made our way over to Ningxia road, which houses an inner strip of street food stalls alongside an outer set of proper restaurants.