Peak Eye Health

Tuesday, September 26

In the early morning, we grabbed coffee and breakfast sandwiches next to the hotel at Kouli Cafe. Then, we took the train to Jiantan to hike Mt. Qixing at Yangmingshan. We took the small bus, which took about 1-1.5 hours.

There was a hot springs public spa nearby the trailhead at Yang Ming shan, so we went there afterward. There is a warm water foot spa outside if you don’t want to take off your clothes to go inside the segregated gender baths. Fair warning, this is a very traditional type of public spa. A lot of the native local taiwanese old ladies and men come here and they are very used to the routine of the hot water spa. If you are a women, make sure you have a shower cap before you dip into the hot water bath. You have to clean yourself up before entering the bath. There are buckets that you can use to dip water (mix with hot and cold) to rinse off your body. There is also soap to wash.

Afterward, we went back to the city and checked out Ximending. We were able to catch the bus and it takes about 1hr to get into the city and another 30 minutes to transfer the MRT to get into Xi Men Ding. We tried “guabao” and “fish ball soup” at Yi Jia Zi – a local taiwanese stall that is popular and on the Michelin guide. We walked arount WanHua district until we made it to the XiMen Ding shopping area. We got some more food stall foods like the popular taiwanese fried chicken stall. We decided to find a couple breweries nearby to check out and went to Taihu brewing in Wan Hua district.

We took the train back to our hotel and checked out the night market next to us at Linjiang. We tried some delicious fried stinky tofu and went out to a bar before heading back to the hotel.

Wednesday, September 27

In the morning, we had breakfast and went to Cravo Coffee to try some of their coffee. It was cool place because they had a deaf sign in the store, so it seems like some of the workers are hard of hearing or deaf. We walked around the city in the nearby Da’an/ xinyi district near the hotel and got some pork intestine noodle soup or “大腸麵線” and a meaty glutinous rice dumpling or “肉圓” at a local shop while walking around. We also stumbled upon a local roastery and tried another pour over. Lastly, we made one more stop for for some Dan Bing (egg crepe).

After adventuring around and had a couple small eats for our breakfast, we went to Nangang to check out the Civic Bouldering Gym. We then got a haircut at Yani hair salon and tried some beef noodle soup nearby.

We went back to the hotel and stumbled upon Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall so we made a pit stop and checked out the sight.

For dinner, we went to Taipei Marriott Hotel at the Shin-Yeah restaurant to try some clean and fancy Taiwanese food compared to the local shops. It is rated as a 1 star Michelin restaurant which was a neat experience.

We also visited Raohe Night Market and tried boiled stinky tofu, although it wasn’t as great as the fried one at Shida. We were too full to eat anything else, but there were many more food stalls and games.

Thursday, September 28

We woke up early and had a quick breakfast of “dan bing” and “fried turnip cake” from the local breakfast shop near our hotel. We got coffee at a different Louisa coffee before heading to the airport, taking the HSR this time to get a different experience on the bullet train.

Later in the day, we arrived at Incheon Airport and took the Airport Express to our hotel. The commute took about 1 hour.

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We decided to check out a jimjilbang, specifically Lotte Boseok in Gangnam. We walked around a little bit after and ended up having a meal of pork intestine with soju and beer. Not many places were open due to Chuseok. We then took a cab back to the hotel.