Taiwan

I visited Taiwan for a week last February, it’s a country full of temples, amazing landscape and an entirely unique feel to its inner cities

Day 1: Chiayi City

I started Day 1 at 4:30AM getting picked up to drive to the airport here in Hong Kong. Flying out to Taichung at 7AM. From there I took a bus, a train, and another train to Chiayi

Chiayi turned out to be a very nice little town and although I didn’t get to go to the Alishan National Forest I did see the rather lovely trains that are stored here that go through the National Park

The other thing that Chiayi is famous for is the Hinoki Village, a little model japanese village in the centre of town

The final part of my day took me to Lantan, a Lake on the outskirts with great views over the surrounding city

Day 2: Chiayi to Taipei

A later start to the day today, as it was essentially just a day full of travel. That meant that when I arrived into Taipei and got to my hostel the sun was already setting, although I did walk around and grab a few nice pictures

I was in the centre of Taipei next to the Expo Dome and an MRT station so I managed to capture both of those and some other local landmarks such as the bridge below

But the real highlight of the late night walk was the Floral Tunnel lit up with shiny multicoloured LEDs to create a real feast for the eyes

I did also go wander through some of Taipei’s famous night markets but didn’t take any pictures of that

Day 3: A day of Temples

The first full day in Taipei I went to explore the city some and visit some of the famous temples in the centre of Taiwan (pictured is the Taipei Confucius Temple)

Nearby, less than 100 metres walkig, is the Dalongdong Baoan Temple, both are very pretty and surprisingly quiet at least when I visited them.

Then I hopped on to the MRT to make my way towards the Shilin Residence of Chiang Kai-Shek and into the crowds I had mostly been able to avoid up until this point

I wasn’t very interested in visiting the Shilin Residence itself and frankly the entrance fees also put me off wanting to go. I wandered round the gardens but those weren’t much to look at either plus the crowds made it difficult to take any pictures whatsoever

The final stop of the day was at the National Palace Museum, where although I didn’t go inside, NT$350 is a bit of a hefty price for entry, the adjacent Zhishan Garden were more reasonable and much more to my taste

I ended my day as I did most days wandering around a night market trying weird new things and then fell asleep ready for another long day ahead of me