Our second day in Taipei, we had a lot of options for things to do. I suggested we go to the Maokong Gondola first since I'd read there can be long lines for it, if you don't go early. It is easy to get to on the MRT and also next to the Taipei zoo.
On the way to the MRT station we stopped at a local shop with a decent sized line up for breakfast. That is one of our strategies for picking places to eat, if there is a line it is probably good. I had a Chinese pastry and sweet soy milk, Yanmei had salty soy milk which had a much thicker, lumpier consistency.
One other thing I noticed about Taipei is the 7-Eleven stores. It seems like there is one on every block. We walked past three on the two block walk to the MRT station. They don't seem to sell slurpees (although with the temperature here I'm not sure why not), but they do have the hot dog rollers, as well as local style foods such as tea eggs, which are eggs hard boiled in tea. Yanmei likes their stone baked sweet potatoes.
After that we headed to the gondolas. There wasn't much of a line, but we waited for one of the crystal cars, which have clear floors. Unfortunately the gondola cars are plastered with hello kitty decals which make it harder to see the views.
The haze in the photo is mostly humidity. It was hot and humid and it was still before 11am. Anyway we went to the top which has a lot of tea houses and restaurants.
We stopped at a shop that was selling green tea soft serve ice cream cones.
We sat down to eat the cone. Another couple walked in and bought a cone, they started posing and taking selfies with it and ended up dropping the ice cream on the floor. They told the shop owner about the ice cream on the floor and left. A guy came out to clean it. He picked up the bulk of the unmelted ice cream and took it somewhere to throw, leaving a small green puddle on the floor. While he was throwing that out another couple came in with about a 2 year old son. The boy was looking up at his parents and stepped right in the puddle of ice cream. He then proceeded to wander around like boys that age, leaving a family circus style trail of green foot prints around the shop. The guy came back out with a towel to clean the puddle, and the look on his face when he saw the trail was hilarious, he went from shock to annoyance to resignation as he saw the mess, then followed the trail with his eyes to see whose fault it was, then realized he couldn't get angry at a young boy.
I burst out laughing at this, we were far enough away so it wasn't obvious what I was laughing at. Yanmei was sitting facing a different direction so didn't see it and she asked what I was laughing at. I relayed the story to her, then spilled our ice cream on my Tilley hat, which I'd set down on the table, which was also funny. She said “that's what you get for laughing at others.” 🙂
After that Yanmei found out they serve a vegetarian lunch at Zhinan (指南宮) temple in return for a donation. The temple was one stop away on the gondola.
The golden cards are wishes, more on that later. After quite a bit of searching Yanmei found the vegetarian lunch, we had to go down these small steps to a level below the main temple.
The food was quite good, and it was a unique experience. I think not many foreign tourists find this spot.
After that we made a donation and got wishing cards to hang on the tree. Luckily it was multiple choice so I didn't have to write Chinese. Here is mine:
I'm told I wished for wisdom, health, safety and peace. Yanmei doesn't want me to post hers. I think she wished for a baby.
We took the gondola back down to the Taipei zoo, which is Asia's largest. With our entrance ticket we also got a ticket for a 10 minute viewing time at the giant panda exhibit. To be honest, once you've seen a few zoos there isn't much new to see.
After the zoo I was planning on going to Taipei 101, but the heat and humidity had drained our energy, so we decided to call it a day and head back to our room.
David
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