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10 Things to Do in Taipei, Taiwan

Kara Santos

Taiwan is best known for its hi-tech attractions, traditional Chinese temples, hot springs resorts and mountainous terrain. Its capital Taipei is a fusion of culture and technology, with historical attractions, landmarks and vibrant night markets, all easily accessible with highly efficient public transport systems.

Last month, I got to visit Taipei for the first time. Art was on a work assignment to cover Computex, one of the largest computer and technology trade shows in the world held annually in Taipei. He extended his work trip for a few days and I joined him by booking an AirAsia flight through Traveloka to take advantage of the Visa-free entry for Filipinos. My mother and nephew decided to join for a summer family vacation.

I usually prefer off-beat destinations instead of big cities, but I found myself really loving Taiwan. What’s great about the place is the blend of hi-tech conveniences combined with the natural beauty of the environment and preserved local culture. The Mass Rapid Train (MRT) system and public transportation system was a breeze to use and everywhere we went, there seemed to be free high-speed WiFi.

While the night markets will mostly appeal to adventurous foodies and barkadas, you can find a lot of family-friendly activities in Taipei. And despite it being a highly developed city full of malls and buildings, we were happy to find a lot of natural spots and green spaces to visit like gardens and parks. We marveled at how the streets were lined with trees and how clean and green everything was. The locals were very polite and friendly to tourists.

Originally set to expire on July 31, 2019, Taiwan is expected to extend its visa-free entry for Filipinos, so for those who want to plan a trip there, here’s a quick run-down of some of the activities we enjoyed doing and some useful travel tips to help you plan your itinerary.

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1. Visit Taipei 101

Taipei 101 is the tallest green building the world and Taiwan’s most iconic landmark. This super-tall 101-story skyscraper was once classified as the world’s tallest building (before the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was completed in 2010). You can spot the iconic bamboo-shaped building towering over the city from various vantage points all around the city. 

Visitors can ride one of the fastest elevators in the world to go up to the Observatory on the 89th and 91st floors. The elevator travels at 60.6 km/h (37.7 mph) and transports passengers from the 5th to 89th floor in just 37 seconds. The Indoor Observation deck (88th and 89th floor) and Outdoor Observation deck (91st floor) both offer 360-degree views of the cityscape. Taipei 101 also has a multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of stores, restaurants and clubs.

2. Go sightseeing around city landmarks

First-time visitors to Taipei will probably want to visit a few of the landmarks, historical sights, museums and temples around the city. There’s a lot you can visit, but if your time is limited, aside from Taipei 101, the most popular landmarks with tourists include the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, National Palace Museum, Ximending (shopping district, Harajuku of Taipei), Longshan Temple and Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall Station. 

The MRT is the quickest and cheapest way to get around to go sightseeing. You can visit all of the landmarks by making use of the MRT system. Get a map or use Googlemaps to save the landmarks you’re most interested in and visit them sequentially.

If you’re traveling with kids or want to minimize walking from station to station, the Taipei Sightseeing Hop-on Hop-Off Bus that goes around the city makes sightseeing more fun. The Double Decker bus offers a great way to enjoy the scenery and you can ride comfortably in an air-con cabin with glass roofs. The bus also comes equipped with audio guides you can listen with earphones and free WiFi . You can book 4-hour and 8-hour tours on the bus and explore 23 bus stops across two routes.

RED LINE
1. Taipei Main Station
2. MRT Ximen Station
3. C.K.S. Memorial Hall
4. Xinyi & Yong Kang Intersection
5. MRT Daan Park Station
6. Xinyi & Tonghua Intersection
7. Taipei 101
8. Songhou Rd. Entrance
9. MRT Taipei City Hall Station
10. MRT Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station
11. MRT Zhongxiao Dunhua Station
12. Dinghao Market
13. MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station
14. Huashan Cultural and Creative Industries Park

BLUE LINE
1. Taipei Main Station
2. MRT Ximen Station
3. C.K.S. Memorial Hall
4. The Ambassador Hotel
5. Tatung Company
6. Taipei Fine Arts Museum
7. MRT Jiantian Station
8. Shilin Official Residence
9. National Palace Museum

The public transportation system is highly efficient, but for those interested in biking on their own, you can also easily get around by YouBike (Ubike), a government-sponsored bicycle rental service throughout the city. Users may rent one bicycle in one docking station and return it in another, providing a convenient and environmentally-friendly way to get around Taipei.

3. Take a ride on the Maokong Gondola & visit the Taipei Zoo

The Maokong Gondola is a gondola lift transportation system that operates between Taipei Zoo and Maokong, a quaint village located at the top of a mountain known for producing high quality, locally grown tea. This was a very long cable-car type ride that my nephew enjoyed very much.

The 4.3 km  line has four stations where you can get down, including the Taipei Zoo Station, Taipei Zoo South Station, Temple Station and the top, Maokong Station.  The whole ride, which takes 20-30 minutes to complete one way, offers stunning panoramic views. Make sure to request the Crystal (glass-bottom) cabins so you can get a more thrilling view of the scenery below.

Maokong means cat’s hollows, so you’ll see a lot of cat signs and memorabilia all over. At the top station, there are traditional tea shops and a quaint Cat Cafe that serves green tea ice cream decorated with cat cookies, waffles, tea cookies and other dishes.

It’s best to combine your ride on the Maokong Gondola and visit to Taipei Zoo on the same day since they’re in the same vicinity. If you’re visiting the Taipei Zoo, make sure to stop by the Giant Panda House.

4. Hike up Elephant Mountain

For active travelers who prefer nature and adventure to city sights, you can easily hike up a mountain right in the heart of the city. Elephant Mountain is a 183-meter high mountain with a 1.5 km long hiking trail that offers a view of Taipei 101 from the trail. Also known as Green Fingers or Xiangshan, the trail gets its name because one of the hills you can see from it resembles the long nose of an elephant.

Going up to the top involves a 15-30 minute trek depending on your pace through established concrete stairs. There are various rest stops and view decks along the way as well as six giant rocks at the top that offer a good photo op spot. While this would be classified as a relatively easy hike, it can be tiring for younger kids and those not really used to hiking or climbing stairs. There’s no entrance fee to visit the mountain. Tip: You might want to bring insect repellent and drinking water and wear comfortable shoes since you will be climbing a lot of stairs.

5. Rock out at Yehliu Geopark

There are a lot of sightseeing package tours you can take from Taipei on day trips, including to hot springs or to historical sights. We didn’t get to visit all of them because of our limited time, but we enjoyed our day tour to Yehliu combined with Jiufen and Shifen in Northern Taiwan.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can get around those three spots on your own with a combination of MRT trains and shuttle buses. However, if you’re traveling with kids and seniors, it’s more convenient to just charter a tour or rent a taxi for the day. It’s more expensive, but  you can save precious travel time and energy getting around.

Yehliu is famous for its Geopark, a rocky cape with landscape of honeycomb and mushroom rocks eroded by the sea with formations named for their shapes like the Queen’s Head and Dragon’s Head. The landscape here is pretty surreal! With established walkways, ramps and bridges, the park is very accessible even to those traveling in wheelchairs or pushing strollers. Visitors are not allowed to touch or climb up rocks or cross areas marked with a red warning line for safety reasons

6. Get spirited away at Jiufen

Jiufen is a historic mountain town often cited as the inspiration for the anime “Spirited Away”. While film director Miyazaki himself has denied this claim, the reputation has stuck. This decommissioned gold mining mountain town has been transformed into a maze of shops and alleyways that have become a very popular day trip destination for tourists in Taipei.

Top things to do here include sampling street-food and delicacies like pineapple cake and almond milk sold in the stalls lining the narrow alleyways, enjoy dining in retro Chinese and Japanese style cafés and teahouses and buying quirky unique finds at the souvenir shops. Vendors are pretty generous handing out free samples of food and drinks, so take advantage of it.

7. Visit Shifen 

Shifen located in the Pingxi area is an old street community by the railroad. The train station, originally built for transporting coal, was built right alongside the Shifen Old Streets, and still stands today as a reminder of Taiwan’s history and culture. Nowadays, the top tourist attraction here is to write wishes on sky lanterns and let them fly. While this activity is an immensely popular tourist attraction in the area, there are environmental concerns about how sky lanterns cause pollution and can be potential fire hazards. 

Sky lanterns are traditionally made with cotton paper on a bamboo frame which are supposed to burn up completely, however because of the influx of tourists, local lantern manufacturers have replaced the bamboo with magnetic wire and painted colored paper to make lanterns more visually appealing. Some lanterns are still marketed as biodegradable or environment friendly. Read more here.

One of the top tourist draws in Shifen is the Shifen Waterfall, a 40 meter tall picturesque wide cascade in the upper reaches of the Keelung River, which is widely regarded as one of the most scenic waterfalls in Taiwan.

8. Enjoy art and nature at parks and gardens

Aside from museums, temples and historical landmarks, Taipei has a lot of artistic parks and natural gardens that are mostly free to visit. The Huashan 1914 Creative Park is a multipurpose park and creative space, which shops, boutiques and cafes. The area has lots of cafes and restaurants including Alleycats Pizza, which is recommended for kids. We also stopped by IKEA House, a 4-floor dining and shopping establishment with IKEA furniture and food (like Swedish meatballs and Daim cake), since its very near Huashan 1914 Creative Park.

On our last chill afternoon in Taiwan, we visited the Taipei Botanical Garden, a park that is home to the remaining areas of the ancient Taipei Lake. The garden contains over 1,500 species of plants including a picturesque lotus ponds. Except for a few birdwatchers and artists sketching the flowers here, the garden was very peaceful and pleasantly uncrowded.

9. Geek out on the hi-tech attractions

Taiwan is a high tech city and mecca for tech lovers. If you’re in the market for anything related to gadgets, gear or gaming, such as laptops, phones, cameras, entertainment consoles, tech accessories, cables, chips or boards, these are the best places to check out and the nearest MRT stop.

But if splurging on the latest gadgets is not in your budget, you can still get a taste of hi-tech gaming at the arcades. Gamix is a Virtual Reality Arcade where visitors can immerse themselves in sensory experiences like swimming with sharks and racing games with the aid of Virtual Reality goggles. They have a lot of games from simpler interactive movies, to first-person shooters, racing and horror/survival. My nephew tried “swimming with the sharks” and another movie-type scenario while I tried my best to channel “Ready Player One” with a VR Tron type motorcycle game. 

This was my first time to try VR and the simulation felt very real especially the parts where you get hit by lasers or lurch forward on an unfinished highway to another road below. There was just a slight disorienting delay in what you see through goggles & the sensation of falling. It looks really cool and was fun while it lasted, but I got a massive migraine and felt sick to my stomach right after trying this. My nephew felt fine though. I guess VR is not for everyone.

10. Go food-tripping on unique eats

Taipei is known for its cafes with unusual themes like jailhouses, hospitals, cats, zoos and the like. One of the most popular themed restaurants is Modern Toilet, a unique bathroom-themed restaurant chain that originated in Taiwan. Dishes are served on miniature toilet bowls and drinks like beer are served in urinals that guests can take home. Appetizing, right?

Din Tai Fung, which specializes in xiao long bao (steamed dumplings) and Huaoyang cuisine also originated in Taiwan. While we have branches of this restaurant now in the Philippines, some tourists make it a point to eat in the original Din Tai Fung, which can be found in Xinyi Road in Taipei.

The night markets are another must-try for adventurous foodies with exotic offerings like Stinky Tofu and Octopus Feet alongside more appetizing options like Angus beef cubes and Baked Lobster with cheese. There are various markets which you can head to around and near the city, all of which are accessible by MRT, including:

Craft beer lovers will be happy to know that Taiwan has a thriving craft beer scene, with around 20 local breweries like Jim & Dad’s, Redpoint Brewing Co., Three Giants Brewing Co. and Long Dong to name a few. We tried a few at Crafted Beer & Co. which has a wide selection of local and international craft beers mostly from the US and Belgium. The shop’s four taps serves local craft beers only. This is a nice quiet place to drink and get beers for takeout beers. Craft Young is another cozy craft beer bar in the Shilin Night Market area you can try out.

All in all, we found a pretty good mix of activities to do in Taipei, from visiting historical and cultural sights to more adventurous activities and food-tripping. The food was really amazing, public transportation was very efficient and easy to use, people were friendly and I found most of the activities fairly priced. I really wouldn’t mind going back to explore the other parts of Taiwan soon.

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