3 posts tagged “taipei”

Miss Shana terribly. Only needed two extra days in Taipei instead of the four I took. Travel belly. That is all. KTHXBAI

After a very long day of travel, I arrived in Taipei late this past Saturday.

On Sunday, we went for a 20 mile ride around Taipei with a couple guys from Dahon. So much fun. The traffic in Taipei is controlled chaos, and you ride in close proximity to cars, truck, and the gazillion scooters--but at no time did I feel threatened by traffic.

We rode south west of Taipei 101 to Bitan lake were we ate really excellent pizza and and drank Stellas. The pineapple here is like no other I've tasted.

On the way back, we climbed a nice little hill and had an exhilarating descent back into downtown Taipei. On the way, we partook of Betel nut--a working-class stimulant--for which we received some guff.

Monday was consumed largely with Intel. Afterward, however, we went to Dahon HQ to look at bikes and speak with their leadership. The bikes are bitching and the Dahon people really have fun playing with their concepts. Hopefully we will do more with them.

Then it was off to explore more of Taipei with Thomas, Matt, and Ingrid from Dahon. We went to a Buddhist temple, wandered around some night markets, and finally ended up in a Chinese medicinal restaurant.

My pineapple and bitter melon broth with black chicken is in the foreground. I can't really recommend it, but everyone else enjoyed their meals.

Tuesday was again an Intel day and afterward we had a celebratory dinner for IDF participants. We received the sign of approval of our work: an invitation next April to Shanghai. So apparently we were considered valuable to the event and we'll be pitching some new ideas to our customers.

As the party was in taipei 101--the tallest building in the world--Byron and I went to the top (in the fastest elevator in the world). Both are very impressive. I could have stood around taking pictures all night.

Yesterday I spent mostly working and moving from one hotel to a new one. The new one is in a much older, gritter part of town and at half the price of the Grand Hyatt, is has about twice the character.

Then I met with some people--Aron and Scalley--who I met on the internet through Flickr. Aron has some great Taipei food photos and after talking back-and-forth, he agreed to take me eating. We went to the Shilin night market and ate Shanghai style dumplings (Yum!)

Spicy fried chicken breast (Yum!)
Pork buns (yum!)
Stinky tofu (yum!)
Noodles with tripe (eh)

And finished off with odd ice cream prepared using a repurposed drill press contraption to spin a frozen block of the ice cream against a blade, creating paper-thin ice cream shavings.

We had some kind of citrus, sweet flavor and peanut butter. Both amazing.

Busy so far. Much more to do.

Anyone been there? I'm going on business from October 12-19 and need advice. Most of the time I'll be staying on the company dime in the Hyatt near the convention center, but I'll have about two days on my own dime. I need advice on:

• Someplace to stay that is clean, safe, convenient, comfortable, and ideally, inexpensive and interesting. Need not be fancy.
• Not-to-be-missed places to eat
• Not-to-be-missed places to shop
• Not-to-be-missed activities and sights
• Places for excellent bespoke tailoring (I have some leads but always appreciate personal insight)

Any other general advice about Taiwan and Taipei in particularly. This is going to be so much fun.

[Also posted to LiveJournal]