What's better than traveling around the world whenever ya want? :) I was blessed to visit my home country, Taiwan in summer 2019 before the pandemic started. I'd like to introduce ya'll this democratic Asian country that has the nicest and the friendliest people in general and the fun places to explore there!
Taiwan's capital, Taipei is very similar to Tokyo, Japan except nearly everything in Taiwan is way less expensive than Japan. Talking about a nice and expensive dinner like at restaurant Nobu usually cost $300 USD yet in Taipei it's merely $100 or $150 the most and the food is exactly the same or better and tastier.
This place looks just like New York's Time Square correct?! Yes, I was there and I totally agree except this is called Ximending in Taipei! If you weren't there, you wouldn't feel the liveliness and fun at this district. Honestly, it's way much more exciting than Time Square and the food, can I say the food? Too good and too cheap to be true :) So many young kids, students, family and all kinda people including visitors go there to just hangout, shopping and eat. Every time when I visit Taiwan, I always go to Ximending to just walk around and feel the great vibes there and of course lots of metro stations around the area. So convenient to get around and be adventurous!
What are these? Do you see those lil pandas on the very right hand sides? Yes these are all called Buns. YUM! They have different types of ingredients inside those lil white Buns aka Asian breads. Ingredients such as sesame, red beans, meat, etc. You'll see these kinds of Buns inside the well-known shopping malls and all around different areas in Taiwan! We'll get into the famous shopping malls very soon!
Yes this is the world famous building called Taipei 101: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101. It was world's tallest building from year 2004 to 2010. I go to Taipei 101 whenever I visit Taiwan! :) Floor B1 to 5th floor is a mall and it's a very trendy and cool mall that's got anything ya want: Zara, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Rolex, etc: https://www.taipei-101.com.tw/en/shopping/brandsearch. What about the food? They got all the exquisite food that you can pick and chose from a $3 USD dinner set to a $20 USD for a high end French restaurant's filet mignon or kobe beef dinner! Really? YES, really!
And floor 6th all the way to up to floor 101 are all business offices including the company called Google. If you never heard of Taiwan before and didn't know what you are missing to travel to and always just thought about Japan, China, Thailand, etc, then now you know Taiwan is your go to country to visit!!
My beautiful friend, Ruby brought me to a beach around Taipei area when I visited last summer. So calm and relax. There're a lot of cafe restaurants surrounded by the beach. We went there late after 8 at night. Picked a cafe and ordered fresh fruit drink and iced coffee and watched the ocean breeze right in front of us. It was a great memory and of course Ruby and I will go to the beaches in Taipei again when I go back to visit. It was very lovely and a lot of fun!
Here's another popular mall called Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Taipei: https://www.skm.com.tw/. It's got a lot of locations in Taiwan and the 1 right by Taipei 101 has 4 different buildings all for Shin Kong Mitsukoshi. Very similar to Taipei 101! It's got all different types of brands inside the mall and tons of great restaurants with every kinda food you want, Taiwanese, Italian, American, Japanese, Korean, French, Indian, you name it, this mall's got it all!
I hope my introduction about Taiwan is a nice intro. You gotta be there to experience what a wonderful country it is! And the majority of Taiwanese are super friendly and very kind to visitors. I will keep going back to visit my home country and of course I do business there too so it's really cool to take this advantages to go to this grateful country! Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you will get to visit this cute yet magnificent country called Taiwan when ya'll get the chance to travel!