From Busan in South Korea, I took a flight to Taoyuan in Taiwan and quite legendary 6 weeks started there. Taiwan has been on my list of places I want to visit for a long time already and that relatively small island is packed with interesting things to do, funny people to meet and delicious food to eat. It is one of the most densely populated places in the world and besides some places on the East Coast and central part you will be surrounded by people, civilization and especially convenience stores (the highest amount of them per km² in the entire world!) pretty much everywhere you go.
Taiwan is home to more than 24 million people, most of whom are ethnically Han Chinese. In the world, it's mostly known for two things: Bubble Tea and global companies such as Acer, MSI, Asus and TSMC, whose technologies are some of the most advanced in the world and have a huge influence on the way our planet works. I will forever connect Taiwan with these things:
- The best food night markets I have ever seen in the world with hundreds of choices
- Extraordinarily friendly locals with the perfect mix of being open, funny, warm & helpful without going over the top. I had so much fun with the people there and I think the Taiwanese sense of humor is one of the best
- Bubble tea shops; I think I had around 50 of them in my time there :D
- Convenience stores, which are a huge part of people's everyday lives and have an amazing choice of snacks, fresh meals, drinks and goodies. 7-11, Family Mart, OK and Hi-Life are the classics
- Claw machines, literally in every corner of the country and always busy with people trying to get a Pokemon, a pack of tissues, sex dolls or instant noodles out of it
- one of the very best cuisines in the world in general with delicious dishes; a Taiwanese friend of mine sent me a list with her 50 different dishes, snacks & drinks that we had to find, try and rate. I think I could create a list of 200 items now
- as always in East Asia: an extremely efficient and convenient network of busses, high-speed trains and metros that are super easy to use, on time and cheap. I tried hitchhiking a few days as well and it worked very fast too
- and last but not least natural disasters. I experienced 2 very small earthquakes and one massive typhoon in my 6 weeks there
So now about my itinerary in Taiwan:
First, I spent two entire weeks in Taipei and its surroundings. I totally enjoyed this vibrant, very modern city with dozens of interesting local neighborhoods, popular tourist destinations such as Ximending and Taipei 101, tea houses, night markets, art galleries and green spaces around the city. I got the very best travel & food tips from the world-class 3-year-old guide You Jin and his parents Guan-Cheng and Claire, met an architect in a library who invited me to his house to stay there & trusted me with a set of keys without coming home all day, went on a night hike with Wendy spotting snakes on the outer hills of Taipei at 11 pm, discussed stocks & books with Dora and got a hot pot invitation from Pei-chuan in Taoyuan. All those people were amazing, let me stay in their homes and be part of their different & interesting everyday lives in the capital of Taiwan.
Eventually, Felix my childhood friend from my hometown in Germany joined me to travel around the island with me for 20 days. We spent 2 more days in Taipei to see the center, take one of the fastest elevators in the world up to the iconic Taipei 101 tower (508m) and have meals & beers with You Jin & family. Our plan was to travel around the entire island clockwise with 6 or 7 stops on the way.
Our second stop was the earthquake-prone city of Hualien, which was a very pleasant small city with a great night market (actually every city in Taiwan has at least one). We rented bicycles and explored the northern shores of the East Coast, which were very windy with mighty waves. Our actual plan was to take a ferry to visit Green Island off the shore for a few days but the arrival of a smaller typhoon canceled all ferries for the next five days. From that point on typhoon pretty much decided all our further places :D
We went to Taitung instead, a city beautifully situated on a small plain between the mountains and the ocean. We spent a day at the beaches around, tried a lot of food explored the city. On the last day, the Taiwanese government announced the landfall of a category 4 super typhoon called Krathon. We left Taitung, canceled all our plans for the Southern tip of Taiwan and rushed to Kaohsiung. Later that day the expected arrival point of Krathon changed from the East Coast to Kaohsiung. The exact place where we escaped too :D
A typhoon hit on the highly populated West Coast of the country is very rare, if a Typhoon hits Taiwan, it mostly happens on the less developed & pretty empty East Coast. Krathon was a huge thing, it led to the evacuation of more than 11,000 people and the mobilization of nearly 40,000 soldiers. 18 people were killed, 731 were injured and it has been the biggest storm there since 1977. We spent four days in a hotel with plenty of other people who got stuck there, needed to stock up on food (most supermarkets around were totally empty already) and had quite a show from our room with 180-degree windows, which we tenderly called "die Kommandozentrale" (the command center). On the evening of day No. 4 we were finally able to leave the hotel and have a walk around the devastated city (check the photos of the devastation down below).
Krathon 2024 (why does that sound like a heavy metal festival?) was finished, the sun came out like nothing happened and our itinerary continued in the city of Tainan. We had a fantastic & super funny stay there with Micky & her family, some of the craziest & kindest people we ever met. We had to get rid of a stalker (a 15-year-old boy who just did not want to leave us & even traveled to a different city to follow us there), explored some sand dunes, played board games, had the best food of our time in Taiwan and really enjoyed the city of Tainan. If you ever want to have a crazy and unique travel experience, I have an address for you :D
2 more stops to go! Lukang with Chiayi and Taichung with Sun Moon Lake. Lukang is a pretty unspectacular and the second oldest town in Taiwan, and is famous for its traditional red houses, while Chiayi has a huge Buddha with a nice temple and even more important: Spectacular ice cream.
Taichung, is Taiwan's second-biggest and fastest-growing city. We did a day trip to the really beautiful Sun Moon Lake with crystal blue water and cycled around the lake all day. The city itself has plenty of stuff to do as well. A really interesting science museum, nearby hills and unlimited options of delicious food & drinks of course. We stayed with the British English teacher Steve and his deaf cat who were great hosts. Felix took a flight home to Germany and I spent another week just working and doing nothing in Taichung. I stayed in a really nice hostel there for 6 days, went to a jazz festival with Maeve
Oh, and I just forgot that we visited Jiufen for 1.5 days between Taipei & Hualien. A cool place with a touristy Old Street and hikes with beautiful views of the sea and hills around.
In case you ever wanna have a trip with Felix: I can totally recommend traveling with him! :D
Taiwan is an amazing country (yes, country) and while writing this travel report I already miss it! It's actually a great option for settling as well, with a high life quality, delicious food and wonderful people. I am pretty sure that this was not my last visit :)
3 Highlights:
- Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan famous for its temples, food and the funniest time I had in the country
- Taipei, super interesting capital with plenty of sights and amazing people I met there for 2 weeks
- Hualien and the windy Pacific beaches of the East Coast
