I just want to declare how wonderful my flight was from Sydney on China Air. For just a few hundred dollars more I flew Premium Economy and it had all the comfort & service of Business, just no lie flat beds. It made a 9 hour flight very doable.

We arrived in Taipei at 4:40am local time (7:50am Sydney) to a deserted airport. I took a shower at baggage claim (how convenient is that?), waited there for a while to make sure my luggage was truly checked through to Vancouver, then found a bench to curl up on and doze for an hour, before taking the metro downtown to meet my Taipei City Tour.

Our first stop was at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial to watch the changing of the guards. This took place inside a big hall with a statue of CKS reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial. CKS helped the Allies win WWII but broke with China in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan and created his own little fiefdom for the next 38 years. He lived to 89 years and this memorial was built 1980 to celebrate his ‘glory’.

Next stop was Lungshan Temple which was built in 1738 making it one of oldest in Taipei. It celebrates two religions with the outer hall generic Chinese, and the inner Buddhism. It’s nearing the end of a month-long celebration of its 280 year anniversary so there were tons of people, flags, worshippers, and offerings.

Then we went to Taipei 101 for lunch in the basement at a famous Michelin star restaurant. Taipei 101 at 508 meters was the world’s tallest building for a short time in the 2000’s but now ranks only 11th or 12th. We didn’t have time to go up it, our focus was food!

The Din Tai Fung restaurant is so popular they have a clock at the entrance showing the wait time. Luckily we had a reservation and only had to wait 15 minutes, during weekends the line can easily be 100 minutes and more! Ours was a set menu, we sat down and the food just kept coming: the Taiwanese specialties of steamy pork dumplings and pork fried rice but we were also served shrimp dumplings, pork & veg dumplings, fish dumplings, shrimp dumplings, spicy something-I-didn’t-try dumplings, hot & sour soup, garlic spinach and dessert red bean dumplings! A culinary experience!

Back on the bus we visited the Lin An Tai historical house, circa 1752. A very successful tea merchant built this mansion with huge grounds back near the 101 but in the 1970’s the land was too valuable so the city moved the whole complex brick by brick to its new location.

Another bus ride over to the Thermal Valley to see Betou Hot Springs – hot volcanic water with a high green sulphur content bubbling to the surface to form a steaming pool. They used to cook eggs and such here but contamination and probably the radioactive radium put a stop to that!

Almost done – next we visited the National Palace Museum. This is a site worthy of a full day in itself as it’s loaded with 690,000 pieces of royal art from China dating back 5,000 years hat CKS “liberated” back in 1949. In 1965 a museum opened to showcase a small portion of the goods. Apparently Rockefeller offered to pay to build a museum if they’d let him have one little blue porcelain dish. A priceless perfect example of a 13th C. blue porcelain that the knowledge of how to make was lost after only 20 years due to civil wars decimating the craftsmen population. However, they refused JD and the piece is still here.

There’s also 2 rooster cups on display, 2 of the six in the collection and of the 28 in existence. Just one cup in private hands sold at auction in Hong Kong for $3 million USD!!!

Obviously we saw more but just really a few of the highlights as time was a-ticking and it was already 5pm.

Our last stop was a Night Market, for which Taiwan is famous. It’s basically a permanent street fair of food carts and cheap souvenirs and kitschy clothing. We were dropped off at the entrance and given a map to find the nearest Metro station and that was it, tour over! It was a good, encompassing tour and the perfect, easy way to fill the day.

I navigated the metro all the way back to the airport by 7:30pm so with plenty of time until my 23:55pm flight!!